Episode Transcript
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello.
Welcome to the call like I see it podcast.
I'm James Keyes, and in this episode of call it like I see it, we're going to take a look at the crime rate, which, by the numbers, seems to be falling in the US, and consider what this means in light of some other numbers that we see, which seem to indicate that the public is completely missing this. You know, the vast majority of Americans think that crime is increasing. So it's a pretty basic misalignment on what people think versus what's going on.
And later on, we're going to discuss the idea and the practice of tipping, which seems to be actually becoming more widespread with, like, the use of technology and paying your bills, using tablets and stuff like that. And we'll have a conversation that or kind of touch on a thing that's been talked about for decades, really, or centuries, and that is whether tipping has gone too far.
Joining me today is a man who knows how to find the answers when faced with the confusing or the mysterious. Tunde Ogun. Lana Tunde, are you ready to put on your true detective hat today?
[00:01:20] Speaker B: Yep. Sherlock Holmes style.
[00:01:23] Speaker A: All right. All right. Now we're recording this on January 16, 2024. And based on recent numbers from the FBI, it seems like crime rates in the country are going down in the United States are going down, which, unless you're in the crime business, would seem to be something to be happy about, or some could seem to be considered to be progress. But the only thing is that it seems like a substantial majority of Americans, and we're talking 70, 80%, are oblivious to this. They actually think it's the exact opposite, that the crime rate is going up and therefore are more concerned about crime, which kind of matters because, you know, in America, we kind of do this government of the people thing, and, you know, the people kind of having an idea of what's going on, it would be helpful if you're going to be take part in selecting leadership and determining priorities and so forth. So to get us started, Tunde, just what's your reaction to seeing this disconnect, like, just in the numbers, a straight disconnect between people's perception of what, what's happening with crime versus what's actually happening in, you know, in reality?
[00:02:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I find it on the surface, I find it very interesting and fascinating. But as I was preparing for the show today, you start looking at things, and I realize how often we, as people do this in general, where we have this, there's a kind of cognitive dissonance. There's a disconnect between, you know, kind of maybe facts and the reality of data and information versus how we perceive things. And I think, you know, in just recent conversations we've had on the show, a few months ago, we did one on the economy. I think three, four months ago, we had a similar type of conversation, that the economic data at the time appeared to be much better than the feeling that most Americans said they had, even people we talked to in our regular life. And then I started just thinking about other things. And, you know, we could talk about our history. We could talk about, you know, how religion, you know, has. Has been morphed over time. I was watching something recently that reminded me that Jesus is asian. You think about, the Middle east is actually part of the continent of Asia, and we're american. And here I'm used to seeing Jesus images looking like a european. And that hit my brain sideways. I'm like, hold on. What do you mean he's asian? And I had to think about. I was like, yeah, the guy's born in Bethlehem. He's the Middle east. It's the continent of Asia. So technically, he's asian. So, you know, I think this. This. This, again, doesn't feel like it's true. We get inundated with messages and images on our media of how bad everything is and how bad crime is. But to your point, I mean, I'm looking at here that in 2023, violent crime dropped 8%, while property crime fell 6.3%. Like, okay, well, that seems positive, but you're right. If you ask the average person on the street right now, do you think crime is good or, you know, is it better or worse? Most people probably say, oh, it's terrible, and this is the worst we were at it.
[00:04:23] Speaker A: So, yeah, or at least that it's getting worse. You know, and that I think the numbers are 80% of Americans, you know, essentially are saying that they think that crime is worse. And, yeah, I mean, it's. Yeah, we did observe the same thing economically. And one of the one thing that's been observed kind of in the phenomenon of this, this is something that happens from time to time. It really goes more to people's just how they feel about what's going on in the country in general. And so if they feel good about what's going on in the country, even if things are bad, they'll feel like things are going good. So if people just had a good feeling about the country right now, then they would think the crime rate is good, the economy is good, and they would look at things with rose colored glasses. But if they're just overall pessimistic in general, then different. If you ask them about different factors specifically, they'll be like, oh, that's bad. That's bad. Where it gets even crazier a lot of times is when you separate out and say, well, have you, how is the, how is your economic outlook? Or how have you, have you been affected by crime more, you know, lately than before? A lot of times people will say, I'm okay, but I just think the larger is in bad shape, again, without respect for whether that's actually true. And I think part of this is just living in a big country. Like if we all lived in a small area, like, you know, literally like the size of like a city of maybe a couple hundred thousand people, then we probably would have a better feel for kind of the ebbs and flows of it. But when you're talking about 330 million people and spread out over such a long, long space, our perception is driven in some respects by what's going on around us. But I think even our brain corrects for that because we recognize what we see is such a small portion of what's going on. And so we kind of just take a larger whatever. Again, however, we kind of feel the way things are going and we just impute that on everything. So we're not like people who, when they're asked these questions, I mean, and this is kind of, this kind of illustrates this point. They're not saying, oh, you're asking me do I think crime is better or worse. Well, what are the numbers? Or let me go look and see what the numbers are. They're not doing that. You know, they're just given a gut reaction to how they feel about it. And that's going to be driven by, and we've talked about this before in terms of media incentives to tell you things are bad just because media is in the attention game and news media is an attention game, and if they tell you things are good, you're going to turn it off. They tell you, yeah, no. Coming up next, you know, the, the crime wave, then you're not going to turn the tv off, you know, and so, like, there's that and then just kind of we see factors like social media where people don't post all of the times that, oh, yeah, my pac ordered from Amazon and it came today. No problems, people don't post that. But if any, if the one time it gets taken or something like that, people will post. And so you multiply that. So I think how our perceptions are formed a lot of times do focus on or are highlighted the negative things. But in general, like I said, I think that this makes a lot of sense because we just wouldn't walk around with an understanding of what's happening across, you know, this huge country all the time anyway.
[00:07:21] Speaker B: Yeah, no, and it really speaks, unfortunately. I mean, this award I'm looking for is probably not appropriate for this, but I'll say it like speaks to the importance of general propaganda and just information in general. But that's what I'm getting at, is propaganda, I know has a negative kind of connotation, but the idea of propaganda, I guess, could be positive or negative. I mean, we propagandize ourselves in this country very well, in my opinion, with the idea of the founding fathers, for example, and we revere, you know, the way they designed the founding documents, the Bill of rights, all these things. And in the end, you know, when you dig into it, they were regular guys that were having affairs on the side of their wives and having kids out of wedlock. And they kind of, you know, they were human beings, which one could find imperfection. But we propagandize what we consider as the positive part. And like I said to me, that's a positive propaganda. Negative propaganda would be what we're kind of alluding to here, which is, you know, this constant negativity. And I think, you know, you hit it on the head already. And I saw some, some of the studies that alluded to this, which is really, it's our media ecosystem, because the formula that's been figured out is, you know, to disturb people, you get clicks and people watch the channel. If people really wanted to be genuinely informed, C SPAN and PBS would be the most popular channels. But I probably daredev, most least watch channels because they're boring. And you see span is an actual just feed into the Congress. So if you really wanted to see what's going on unfettered and unfiltered, you would be tuning into that. But people would rather have their heroes and villains on the cable news networks and their social media. So the thing is, is that images are powerful. And if we go back to this crime thing, think about no matter what media ecosystem someone is involved with, there's an incentive to disturb us all. So if I'm someone who's more progressive, maybe more democrat leaning, where I'm watching MSNBC and certain channels like that, they're focused more on things like school shootings, mass shootings, things like that. Those don't happen every day, but those are scary. And whenever, if I'm seeing it on the news, maybe every other week that we have more mass shootings, more mass shootings, I feel like even though I've never seen a mass shooting and there hasn't been one in my neighborhood, blah, blah, it still feels like it's encroaching on me. And then on the flip side, if you're more conservative, Republican and you're watching Fox or similar type of things, what are they showing? They're showing the people going into Walgreens and San Francisco or smash and grab in New York a gang of thieves that are organized. And again, that's scary. That makes you feel like, oh, these barbarians are all coming and smashing down the stores and you could be sitting in Omaha, Nebraska, watching that and getting out. So, and there's nothing going on in your town like that. So that's the sad part is that, you know, we are all being driven into this negativity by watching similar things.
[00:10:19] Speaker A: And whether what you're saying, though, just real quick to build on that because this goes back to my point as far as the size of the country and that if you only got local news, like there's just, there would be less negativity to choose from. But because you're talking national news, there's just endless negativity to choose from if we want to try to find messages. And so it just increases. Like the, if you only focus on what's happening around you, there's only so much good and only so much bad, you know, but we can always find something crazy happening somewhere, no matter what kind of your proclivity are what's going to disturb you. I can find something that's going to disturb you somewhere in the country almost every day. And so. Yeah. And that's what ends up happening a lot of times. And just to your point, though, partisanship does, you know, based on, again, based on the numbers, while this in the show notes partisanship does, it does influence this. You know, Republicans think it's worse than Democrats think it is, you know, in the sense that, you know, Democrats are in power, Republicans aren't. So, you know, like that, that's kind of, that's there. But even amongst Democrats, like, it's greater than 50% of Democrats are misperceived, you know, and think that crime is worse now than it, crime is trending worse. So it's still a trend that holds, even if it might be, if partisanship may make it a little bit more extreme.
[00:11:35] Speaker B: Well, one area that we discussed in a show probably a year or maybe even longer ago, which, which came to mind in preparing for this, was immigration.
And we had discussed, I remember, oh, yeah, a Pew research study that the lowest actual border crossings in the last 50 years since, like, 1973 was in 2016.
And remember, I joked and said this country responded by hiring the next guy who said he was going to build a wall. And that's because the property became the.
[00:12:05] Speaker A: Most salient political issue, even though the absolute numbers said it was actually the best it had ever been.
[00:12:12] Speaker B: And so, and so that's why I think, again, that's because of quality negative propaganda from certain media outlets. And I think that's where, I mean, you mentioned and also people's disconnect.
[00:12:22] Speaker A: If everybody lived on the border, then they could see whether or not there was a lot of people going or they'd have a better. They were closer to it. But if people are 500, a thousand miles away, it's just like, all right, whatever I see on tv, that must be what it is.
[00:12:34] Speaker B: Well, the thing also to me is, because you said it at the beginning of this discussion pretty well, which is, you know, the kind of the negative messaging really, from the media and perspective, because, again, with my brain going there, I started looking up some immigration stats just out of curiosity. And so I found that this is the most recent stats. The number of immigrants turned away or apprehended at borders reached 2.8 million in fiscal year 2022. That's high. That's what everybody's been concerned about, right? The highest number since at least 1980. Again, perspective, that actually made me like, oh, okay, so this isn't the first time the country's seen it. Yeah, in my lifetime. I was two years old. But I guess immigration was an issue back then, too, in 1980. So. Meaning.
[00:13:23] Speaker A: And we survived.
[00:13:24] Speaker B: We. Yeah, exactly. We serve. That's really my point about the perspective. That's why I bring it up. And thank you for saying that, because, again, with perspective, we would understand this may not be a hair on fire moment. Maybe if we actually, because, again, people have to learn and relearn how the country works in the system. I had to remind one of my friends having this conversation last week that the Congress makes the laws in United States, and that's basically what I told them, is the Congress has the ability to make immigration laws or adjust them or change them, but they are not doing their job. And we keep electing people going to Congress who decide that being on tv and fundraising is more of where they should spend their time. Than actually getting in a room and figuring out their differences and legislating on behalf of the american people. And so, and right now, we have a Congress that's acknowledged that they're not going to work on the border because it's an election year and they're more concerned about partisan politics.
[00:14:23] Speaker A: They'd rather campaign on it than.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:25] Speaker A: Which is actually interesting that they've said that. They've said that out loud, you know, publicly.
[00:14:29] Speaker B: So, you know, it's no longer a secret. And so I think that's it. Like, I started looking at this and it's just a reminder, like, yeah, because we don't discuss anything with a lens of perspective.
Therefore, every time we hear something, it's like the most diabolical, oh, my God, the world's gonna end. And it's like, well, this happened before. I even had a friend I had breakfast with last week, and he was not happy with the withdrawal of Afghanistan, which I understand, and I respect that. And he was talking about how we left all of our weapons and stuff behind and the jets and all that. And I didn't want to challenge him in the breakfast, but in my head, I'm thinking, well, I remember learning that we did the same thing in 1979 after the, you know, the islamic revolution in Iran. We had f all that that we sold to the shah, and we pulled out of there in 1980 and left a bunch of weapons there. And that's life like this has happened before, but people don't want these things.
[00:15:27] Speaker A: That goes to your point, though, as far as just kind of our consumption habits. And this is, you know, this goes back to that quote, you know, the Robert Aile or Roger Ailes quote, that people want to feel informed more so than be informed. And that perspective doesn't keep eyeballs, you know, giving people's perspective by and large, I mean, on broad strokes, you know, the information ecosystems, the news media has learned that this stuff is trial and error. You know, it's diabolical to the extent you want to see it as diabolical, but it also boils down to profit motive very simply as well. And now the question of whether or not we should have profit mode of determining what information we get and how information is presented to us is a whole nother question. But you can explain the current situation based on profit motive more than anything else. And so when you look at this, and we've brought up some similar examples, like you said, we spoke about the economy as well a couple months ago on this, and the same disconnect that people think the economy is in really bad shape, whereas the numbers keep saying that it's actually doing relatively well.
So we've seen this with the economy. We also seen it with civil rights, you know, where we've heard people complaining that just, for example, with black folks, for example, just saying, hey, things are worse than they've ever been in America, which strikes some people as saying, like, whoa, you need to kind of look at slavery or Jim Crow or things like that.
But those kind of things, especially amongst younger people, perspective. Lack of perspective or whatever. And so do you see anything beyond kind of just the information ecosystems that why. Why there's this persistent with, you know, in terms of understanding, okay, whatever's happening right now, this tendency to think it's much worse than it actually is, you know, like, do you see anything out now? Like a couple things we mentioned, like I said, the information ecosystem. We also talked about just general pessimism and then looking at everything through negative color glasses versus general optimism. Looking at it through. But is there anything else that stands out to you about this?
[00:17:31] Speaker B: No. I mean, there's a lot going in there, and I think there's, like, a spectrum of it. Right. Cause I think I'm laughing because, yeah, this is, like, the most. Is that probably the worst time in 2024 in american history to be a black American? Clearly, you and I have no rights and aren't able to make a show that's on YouTube and all that stuff.
No, I mean. But that's the idea of perspective, right? If you read history, american history, like, this is the best time to be a black American in the history of America. And so does that mean. And I want to be very clear. Right. Does that mean that there's no racism, but there's no imbalances and there's no need to continue to kind of fight for justice and equality in general for many minorities in America, of course, there's always room for improvement and speaks more.
[00:18:20] Speaker A: To what was going on before.
[00:18:21] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what I mean by. Yeah, the idea of understanding that there were laws, like, actually holding people back from enjoying citizenship in this mobs.
And then, yeah, prior to that, it was actually slavery. Right. Which, again, this is where this is crazy, because, like you, we're laughing now and joking that there are some young black Americans that think that this is, like, the worst time ever in this country's history for black folks. And then we just had a presidential candidate two weeks ago, in December of 2023 or three weeks ago, who was asked, what's the cause of the civil war. And she couldn't answer it. She twisted herself into a pretzel talking about, oh, you know, the state's rights and the way the government allows people to freedom. She literally just couldn't say it's about slavery. So that both of those, to me, are interesting dynamics that here we are all these hundreds of years into this country's history, and the way people perceive who live in the same country is dialogue. You know, just perceive the way it is, and the history of it are dying, you know, are all over the place. So, you know, I think some of it could be, you know, there's some people that believe everything's negative, maybe because of the direction of their own lives. And, you know, instead of looking at stuff in the face and saying, hey, I'm maybe cause I'm the reason why I'm here and all this, they want to blame it on a lot of things, right? They want to blame it on women's liberation. They want to blame it on racism. They want to blame it on whatever persecute. They're being persecuted for some reason. And then there's others that genuinely may not fall into the negative category, but when exposed to enough in their media and social media ecosystem, they do.
[00:20:03] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, I look at it as kind of just a human thing in the sense that people do tend to just kind of center the history of the world around their own life. And so in the same way you, you hear, like, with religion, you know, like, you know, the people believe that we're living at the end of times. And if you look at throughout history, like, people have always kind of believed that, yeah, this, it's all about to go down during these next few years or these next couple of decades. Like, I'm living, I myself am living through a very important time in history. And so I think that kind of seeing our own selves as living through this is why you may not want too much perspective is because hearing that the things you're going through, people went through 20 years ago, 40 years ago, 60 years ago, kind of diminishes this feeling. But it's like a feeling of importance. You know, it's like, oh, crime is bad. I'm going to have to make a decision here, or the people that I support, you know, the people that I'm behind are going to have to get stand in and save everything and, you know, change the course of history and so forth. So I think it really just is one of those things where we just, we want to see ourselves as. As being in a pivotal time or being very important to the pivot that's going to go the way, make things go the way we want. So I think that it has a lot to do with that. Like, I think we're susceptible to messages. Like, now is the, now is the time. We got to do it now or else, you know, it's, it's going to, you know, all this, everything's gonna fall apart. Like, oh, you know, like, so obviously we're susceptible to it. And then there are gonna be people because, you know, private motive or whatever, they can, they can feed us that information. Because again, if people want to actually know this stuff right now, we live in a time where you can go find it out. It's not difficult. It's not like I'm living in a time where it's like, well, you know, like, okay, so crime rates or do they even measure this on a country this large? Is that something I can even, can I even acquire that kind of information? Yeah. Okay. Do I have to go, like, to Washington? You know, travel to Washington and go to show up at the Library of Congress and, and, you know, start looking through stuff for, you know, like, no, I can find stuff, you know, on government websites, you know, and saying, okay, well, here's what the numbers are saying here and there. So it's not like it's hard to find this information, you know, but I just don't think it's as emotionally satisfying as information that says, and again, particularly if you align that with the idea that if you're optimistic, then optimistic messages are going to resonate with you. Optimistic statistics are going to resonate with you. If you're pessimistic, then pessimistic messages are going to resonate with you. You're going to perceive things more pessimistic. So I think you overlap that with the idea that it just makes you feel more important. If the times now are just, we're at a pivotal time, which, again, we've always been in a pivotal time in people's minds, I think that really plays a huge role in it.
[00:22:56] Speaker B: Well, that's an interesting point. But as you say that, it makes me think of the statistic that pops up every decade or so, I see it is there where they kind of pull people in the moment who are christian and who, you know, deep in their faith, and they ask them, do you think the Armageddon will happen in your lifetime? And it's usually a solid 50%, you know, 48, maybe 52 sometime, but it's somewhere around half of people believe, you.
[00:23:22] Speaker A: Know, that a large number of people believe that the end of the world is going to happen while they're alive. And that's always.
[00:23:27] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. So. So that's what I'm saying. For the last 2000 years. If you ask people every year, they're, you know, so someone must be pessimistic. Well, we did this show recently about people, longevity and living forever.
[00:23:42] Speaker A: Mm hmm.
[00:23:42] Speaker B: So if somebody figures that out, then they will be right, because at some point during their existence, the earth will end. But until someone can live forever.
[00:23:50] Speaker A: I don't know about that. The earth will become inhospitable before it will end.
[00:23:54] Speaker B: But if they live forever, they will still be able to survive that and then see the earth in. But maybe we don't have to play that out.
[00:24:00] Speaker A: Yeah, I was gonna say that, but, well, forever, for whatever reason, to these disconnects, though, like, my question is this, if we can't be trusted to kind of have a feel for, a decent feel for what's going on around us, we as, you know, we as the. We the people, then what does this say? Or what is this? How does this affect the whole self governance thing? You know, like, it we, you know, or do we just need to turn around and say, look, we just need somebody else to fix it? You know, I need somebody who can just fix stuff for me because mean, like, strong man. Strong man, you know, makes me feel safe here.
[00:24:36] Speaker B: But, you know, like a slash between Santa Claus and Superman, like, where he's kind of fat and looks nice with the beard and, like, seriously, though, like, he can, like, shoot lasers out of his eyes.
[00:24:49] Speaker A: But seriously, though, the question, though, is, like, look, if you. You you are, you know, a part of a household. You make decisions on your household. Imagine if you persistently thought you were making money. You were earning more money than you were spending, and you consistently were spending more money than you were waking. Like, that kind of a disconnect would fundamentally make you unfit to. To participate in the decision making at your house, because it's like you can't even get a perception even though the numbers are there. You can always look at the bank account and see, but you just are constantly walking around saying, oh, no, no, we're doing great. We're putting away money every month. And it's like, no, you're going down each month like that. These kind of disconnects would seemingly affect your ability to make sound decisions.
[00:25:30] Speaker B: I have my phone in my hand. Cause you made me realize I'm about to facetime my wife cause I think you hit something on the head in my personal life. I'm just kidding.
Ooh, give me a second. That's why I got no money after I keep working. No, but, no, I mean, look, you're right. I think this is, like you said earlier, about kind of the messiness of humanity. I mean, this is.
I used to think this thought, this one of these stupid thoughts I had in my head, which is, it's interesting. As humans, we can pass down a lot of things through genetics. You know, hair color, eye color, skin tone, all that kind of stuff, height, you know, health stuff. One thing we can't pass down is memories and experience. And so I think that does lead us to these cycles which we've discussed on different discussions. And so thinking of just kind of getting my mind here, thinking of things like, you know, just discussions we've had about. Around books like sapiens or the righteous mind. And things like this is clearly, the human mind is irrational in a lot of ways.
And I think in a lot of.
[00:26:38] Speaker A: Ways, it doesn't recognize, too.
[00:26:40] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. It's because it's about really survival, and survival doesn't have to make sense. And, you know, the sapiens had a good line, I remember, from we discussed it, which is that, you know, there's no human rights in nature. You know, there's no, you know, there's no. There's no good and evil.
[00:26:54] Speaker A: They're all made up concepts, basically.
[00:26:56] Speaker B: Yeah. Like a lion eats a gazelle. The gazelle might have had two babies waiting for it to get back, and it's not coming back, and something's gonna eat those two babies. And that's, you know, what's. We look at that as sad but as nature.
[00:27:07] Speaker A: But just real quick, I'll kick it right back to you. But, you know, I think something in the modern world that's made this more difficult for us to understand is, like the advent and the like, how computers are spread around, because a lot of times, people do look at their brain like a computer, which isn't set up from an evolutionary standpoint, but from a computation or memory standpoint. And so the way that operates, we tend to try to think, okay, that's how our brains operate, but that's just not how our brains work at all. Like, we're not taking in information, processing it objectively, and then spitting something back out. Like, that's just not how it works. We don't. Something doesn't. We don't observe something, and it sits in memory in exactly the exact same way. And if we kick it back out, it comes back out exactly how we observed it. It all changes in there, you know, and so forth.
[00:27:52] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, no, it's interesting. And so that's kind of what I'm saying, is that, you know, it seems like the emotional side of our way of being is a much stronger pull than our intellectual side for most people and probably me and you included. And so I think the idea certainly is. I don't like to think about it.
[00:28:12] Speaker A: But, hey, you're self propagandizing yourself now.
[00:28:15] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. I am self propagandized. That's the beautiful thing, is that I'll convince myself that it's.
[00:28:20] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:28:21] Speaker B: So. But, um. But, but I mean, that's part of. I mean, as we joke, right? That's part of the. That we need to be able to be humble enough to recognize we're not perfect. And I think that's difficult for a lot of people. And I think, you know, going back to even something I said earlier about the need to blame something from the outside for what maybe you perceive as your station in life at the moment. Again, we all compare ourselves. So think about it, James. I've been around people, like professional athletes that make that kind of money, right? And they think that they're poor because they've signed a $15 million contract, and the guy down on the bench, you know, signed a $60 million contract, and then you and I would look and say, shoot, if I had 15 million just all at once, I just live out that interest. I'd be happy. You sitting here. You're gonna get that in three years, and you're unhappy. So, again, we all dilute ourselves and convince us. Convince ourselves. And I think anyone who's traveled to a third world country, for example, would come back and say, you know, even. Unless someone's really homeless and on the street. But even in, let's say, public housing in the United States, you know, many Americans still have a better off than in third world countries because at least in public housing, you have electricity, running water, and maybe some heat. A lot of countries, people are living in litter, like in Sudan and certain places in the world. They're literally living in shacks in the middle of the desert. So, you know, that's what I think is interesting about all this, is that we can delude ourselves. So the american experiment is really, can people become loyal to a system and have an emotional pull that keeps them in fealty with a system? Or to your point, will there always be a person or a set of ideas that can come in and upend, you know, take people's emotions away from looking at that system and saying, no, no, this system is so messed up that this person has to fix it. And I think, yeah, we're clearly looking at everything in our environment today. We are. We're back at that part of the.
[00:30:28] Speaker A: System that there's a constant pull there just because there's a simplicity, you know, and so, I mean, there's no, it's not a coincidence that through most human societies there have been, you know, few people in charge or single person in charge, you know, and so forth, because there's just a simplicity there and it's less to worry about, so to speak. I think for our self governance system, this is kind of built in the individual like, but you have to come make peace with the idea that individual decision making, an individual's ability to look at the facts, observe the facts, and then decide what the best course of action. But that is fundamentally compromised. You just have to, like, you have to accept that the, the way our system accounts for that is by taking a lot of people, you're supposed, we're taking millions of people and you're supposed to get to a better result. By blending or combining the perceptions of a lot of people, that's going to give us a better chance than if it was one person, you know, they were saying, okay, well, here's my perception. Here's what we're going to do. And that's the danger of, you know, the, when you go down the authoritarian route, you know, and then you have just a single person, because then their misperceptions can determine the course of the whole society, whereas at least we can balance each other out. Some people are more optimistic, some people are more pessimistic, things like that. And so I think it's built in, in that sense, you know, this is why you have twelve jurors, you know, under yard or many cases, you know, depending on the particular jurisdiction, but you have multiple jurors hearing something. It's not because we're concerned that if we only had one that they wouldn't be able to hear it or whatever. It's just we're trying to balance out the fact that we know that individuals are flawed in their ability to hear information or see information and then make a decision based on that because of their own biases or perceptions or whatever. And so, but what this has to, I think what this calls into question also, though, beyond just if humans are always kind of misperceiving things, then, you know, like, again, I think that's built in, you know, with the use of large numbers, which, by the way, makes participation very important. You know, like if you're sitting out, then you're giving a greater microphone or you're putting other people's perception as more and more and more prominent places, we need more people to participate. Even if you're like, people say, oh, well, people aren't educated on the issues. Like, well, look, most people aren't educated on the issues. I think we see this here. Now, most people aren't educated on what's going on. What we need to do is sample a lot of people's perceptions, and then that we get to the best thing. The other thing I'll bring up about this is just kind of the point of free press, which is built into the constitution, is the idea that truthful information can't be suppressed. And so you have to at least have it out there. But the point of free press isn't to say that only correct information is going to be out there. There's a kind of a belief that people will gravitate towards what's real versus what's not. That may be wrong, but as long as the information is out there, and again, you're relying on multiple perceptions and not a single perception, then that's how the system accounts for that. And it's proven to be at least on par in terms of decision making, if not better and more resilient than the having a single person or a small or no group of oligarchs making all the decisions as well, like that's led into disaster, probably much more on a rate basis than taking the large sample size of perception and then putting go deciding, either making decisions or deciding who should be in charge to make decisions, you know, in kind of that self governance way that we do.
[00:34:02] Speaker B: Well, that's because you're not the dictator.
[00:34:04] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:34:05] Speaker B: If we were, you wouldn't have said any of that. But no, I want to follow up. You said a couple interesting things here, and I know you want to jump to part two, but a couple things. One is because as we're talking, you know, they got me thinking about the basis of this conversation, which is the disconnect when we started. Why is there a disconnect with people's perception about things? We started with crime. We could talk about the economy. We could talk about our history, like the civil war and what caused that. You know, why is there this disconnect? And so I started thinking, as you're talking is right now, I would say, I mean, forget about the civil war for this conversation, but more of the economy even, like we mentioned, immigration, I totally acknowledge that the amount of people being apprehended at the border right now is much higher than it's been in recent years. But again, just reading that this is the second highest to 1980 still is the second highest. So that tells me that. Okay, like you said, since 1980.
[00:34:59] Speaker A: So conceivably, it might have been higher before that. Yeah.
[00:35:03] Speaker B: And we survived it. Right. And so. And then we talk about things like the stock market. You know, the Dow Jones has hit an all time high, 37,000. Unemployment's just continually staying below 4%. The amount of jobs created. We've created a million manufacturing jobs in the last two years in this country with bringing the chips back home and all that kind of stuff from manufacturing. So, you know, inflation's come down. Gas is around $3 a gallon. You know, where it was a year and a half ago? Around 450 a gallon. So that's the point, is that the information is not that bad at the macro level. That doesn't mean every single american is enjoying themselves right now. But again, like you said, a big society of 300 plus million people, we've never had a time when every single human being in the. In the United States was absolutely happy about everything. So, nor will we ever have a.
[00:35:51] Speaker A: Time, you know, like that.
[00:35:52] Speaker B: You know, is really that. So in order to disrupt and for certain people, I guess, to gain power and kind of thing, what do you need to do? You got to disrupt this narrative, because the information coming out right now is not that bad about the system. It's not terrible. Like we said, crime's lower, economy's good, all that. So the point is, is that what we're discussing is basically, there's a certain group of people that want to ascend to power at all times, but in order to do so, in this case, they actually just have to create such an air of negativity. Whereas if we look back at maybe the last kind of cultural revolution in the United States, which was the 1960s, that's actually when there were true legal imbalances like we talked about earlier. You know, it took the 1965 Civil Rights act to make everybody in this country an equal citizen legally. You still had issues with, relates to things like feminism and all that. So at that point, people were marching in the street and all that because certain citizens in this country were being treated much different today. The difference in the storming of the Capitol in January 6 and all that, to me, is more of a perception thing.
Americans are being treated equally in general, but some Americans are, I guess, feel that because they got a share that somehow is taken away from them, they see it as a zero sum. So they keep being told that there's all this, everything's terrible. To your point about partisanship, whenever my side is not in control, the economy absolutely sucks. You know, everything's terrible. Crime sucks. And that's where I think we're getting this dissonance because.
Because that's what I've told somebody. I go, look, at the end of the day, the party's changed three years ago. A country this big doesn't change that much in three years.
[00:37:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:42] Speaker B: Like things generally are. The system is generally.
[00:37:44] Speaker A: But people's minds and emotions do change that.
[00:37:47] Speaker B: Correct. That's what I mean. And it's because of this ecosystems and this negativity. And then the last I'll say is you made a great point here about participation and how that makes the system actually work smoother and better. And that got me thinking about how so many people are threatened by more participation. And I can't help but think, I mean, we're in mid late January of 2024 here that now there's certain people in politics that started, you know, that have been attacking a performer like Taylor Swift because she's trying to get young ladies registered to vote. Like people are actually intimidated by the idea that more people will participate. And that, again, makes me think, well, why would you be intimidated by that unless you're trying to control, in order to control people, you got to have a smaller group to control than a larger control.
[00:38:40] Speaker A: Smaller.
[00:38:40] Speaker B: That would be my conspiracy theory. If I haven't.
[00:38:42] Speaker A: Well, that's interesting. But I mean, again, that because a lot of times the justification you'll hear is all you've got all these people that are uninformed or whatever. But I think my point and the point here that we see is that everybody, according to who.
[00:38:54] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:38:54] Speaker A: Everybody to a certain degree is either uninformed or misinformed. And so the larger the sample size, this is, I mean, again, maybe this is my background, like my legal background, but I also have an engineering background. And so to me, it's obvious when you start talking terms like sample size that you want a larger sample size than a smaller. And that's what we're talking about here. How do you correct for noise in the system? This is noise is the fact that people don't know by and large, what's going on. For countrywide, that's noise. How do you account for that. And that's with a larger sample. And so, yeah, I mean, you, I.
[00:39:26] Speaker B: Just want to say that I have my backgrounds in cooking s'mores and fires, but somehow I agree with you. Yes.
[00:39:33] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. So, but no, it does tend to get to a place where if you, if you do take, come to it with a level of humility like that. And that's what I think you see lacking in a lot of places, is that people just think that they have all the solutions and whoever they're not, whoever's not, doesn't agree with them is just either doesn't know what they're doing or, you know, is, is evil or whatever. And so, and that happened. Like, you'll see that. You'll see that those elements, our country set up, that those elements can't just dominate by decree. So, but that's where you get back to the participation part, is that if you don't want those elements, because those elements are always going to be trying to dominate by decree or by just saying, hey, it's ours. And so you have to participate if you want to still have a government of the people, by the people, for the people, you know? And that's what this comes down to, you know? And so I do want to move to the second topic, though. The second topic, which is much lighter but just interesting. It's also something that we've been able to see the behavior of people over centuries and that deals with tipping and just kind of the, we've grown up in a culture in the United States. We've grown up in a culture where tipping is a part of it, food service or certain other types of personal service, your tip. And so some people have pointed out the fact that you're starting to see it in more and more places with the way technology is being used to collect bills with tablet screens and so forth. And so just now, your tipping is kind of either expected or suggested in more places. But what's your kind of, you know, your view on this particular question is being raised as far as more people or more, more tipping, being, tipping, being expected more often or also just, you know, and the use of tipping in general, because a lot of people talk about how really what you're doing with tipping is subsidizing the employer to pay the employee less a lot of times. So there's, that's fraught with that as well. Yeah.
[00:41:20] Speaker B: It's funny because I just remember having breakfast with a friend like a week ago and leaving a big tip as we were leaving. And I was saying to him, I was laughing. That's like, yeah, this is the only industry that we subsidize the employees, the restaurant industry. And I was laughing because, you know.
[00:41:39] Speaker A: We subsidize the employer in that sense.
[00:41:41] Speaker B: Sorry. Yeah, subsidize the employer that we're paying their employees, and they get away with. With highway robbery, not having to pay really the minimum wage or anything. But then I was joking and saying, well, how is it that statistically, don't they say that restaurants are like, the highest failure rates? I was thinking if I could start a business right enough to pay my employees and relied on my customers. I was thinking about that James Rick today, to joke about it, like, you're an attorney, I run a financial planning firm, and we have staff and stuff like that. I'm like, imagine if I had my clients telling them, hey, by the way, you know, you gotta pay for my assistant. Yeah, yeah. Like, I expect not only you gotta pay me fees to cover my cost, but you gotta also pay them. It's like, yeah, I gotta pay for my meal at the restaurant. I know, you know, it wasn't free for you to, you know, get all this produce in and they get to get the meat in and all that. So I gotta pay for that and I gotta pay for your staff. That's interesting. So it's.
And I would say this. I lived overseas for almost five years when I was younger, and it was an interesting experience. I think this is very cultural here in the United States, this idea of tipping. There's a lot of places around the world where it's just not something you do. It's not customary. And we're not used to that, because what I wasn't used to was being told that the waiters and waitresses at the time, and bartenders were getting paid, like, $20 an hour. And that's why you don't tip in those cultures. So, you know, but I do agree that, you know, it's. There was, and I thought this was nice, that during the pandemic, for example, here, you know, they developed a culture of people trying to go out of their way to, you know, support their local business. You know, really tip people that are working small businesses. And I think that was cool. But, yeah, at this point, sometimes when I'm just ordering a cup of coffee and the person didn't do anything, and you're right, they turn the screen and it says, do I want to tip 20%? Sometimes I kind of feel like now, like, damn, everyone's encroaching. Yeah.
[00:43:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:43:42] Speaker B: This cup of coffee cost $6 as it is now. I got a tip for that, too.
[00:43:47] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, like, it's not like my table got cleaned or, you know, brought water and then, you know, you just handed something over the counter. Yeah. You know, and, no, I mean, I think it first just to understand, because I don't have an issue with tipping in general, but I think you gotta, anytime you think about tipping, you have to understand it is a matter of culture. And so, and I will have a piece in the show notes about tipping, which had a lot of interesting background as far as going back to, you know, hundreds of years ago in Europe, where they believe it originated. One of the things I was there was, it was interesting to me is the word tip, you know, where it came from. And I think what they cited was that there was in one in a restaurant or, you know, to ensure with an eye. Ensure with an eye to ensure promptitude was, you know, what the. This money was for, which was shortened to tip, you know, to ensure promptitudes. I had a lot of fun in my mind with that. But, like, the, the, this cultural phenomenon basically is something that is really taken us over, you know? And like, that, to me, is what really stands out the most about it in the sense that, and again, in the piece we will have, we have in the show notes, you'll see what, what, one of the things they talk about is how, like, there's been a lot of hand wringing over tipping since tipping began. Like, the whole time. Like, people, some people pointed out, like, this is crazy. Why are we doing this? You know? And then in many cultures, like, where they did it before, they don't do it now. Like, they raise the wages or whatever. And, but in this, in the United States, it's very persistent, even to the extent that when people have tried to take it out and either pay their workers more, they find that people would still, in certain settings, still tip. And so it's like this losing battle. So to me, I think it says something about our culture that you can't get rid of it, that it's so persistent in that this is something that for whatever reason, you know, and I would myself, we have a very kind of entrepreneurial and kind of just go get em spirit in our culture. And I think that tipping just aligns with that in a way that it's something that it just fits into the american kind of way. And so we are, it's just, it's like that, to me, is just fascinating about it. That, again, like, the efforts that have been made, like, there was something called the no tipping society. There were things called, like, there's all these different things over time. It's like people trying to get rid of it and they can't, you know, and then the spread of it, though, which I'll get into, I'll kick it back to you, but I want to talk about the spread of it, too, into more and more things. But, yeah, just the persistence of it and how it seems to really align with our culture is very interesting.
[00:46:17] Speaker B: Yeah, I was going to say, I mean, as you say, it makes you realize, you know, tipping is a very american thing for the, you know, the way you say it. Because if you think about it, I mean, Americans, you know, a lot of people complain about Americans, you know, around the world, and we just, like we talked in part one, we complain a lot about ourselves. But, you know, I say this in a positive way. Americans have a very generous streak that can come out in certain ways. And I think tipping is one way. Like you said, culturally, I could see a lot of Americans is not being comfortable not tipping certain professions because of understanding that they don't get paid well. And I think that that's what I mean by that. That shows the kind of generosity of part of the american spirit.
[00:47:00] Speaker A: But that's a horse. That's a horse and a carriage type of thing, chicken and egg type of thing, because it's like, well, if you are, excuse me, that putting a cart before the horse type of thing or chicken and the egg kind of thing, because they don't get paid well, because they are tipped well, you know, like, it's not like they don't get paid well inherently.
[00:47:17] Speaker B: You know, at least that it's very american. That's what I mean. Because in one way, you've got the generosity in response to understanding that these people in general aren't being paid the same as the rest of us. And number two, the american part of it, too, is the strength of the restaurant lobby. Right? Like the ability for an industry to lobby the government to say, this whole class of citizens that works in this type of industry, we need you to look the other way and not allow them to meet the minimum wage standards and all that that you would require.
[00:47:47] Speaker A: For the rest, they put a new Congress, passed a law that gave them a different minimum wage for those.
[00:47:53] Speaker B: That's what I mean. This is very american because in one way, you've got the generosity side of Americans kind of looking at this group and saying, okay, let's pile together and help them. And on the other side, you've got the very industry exploitative favorite size. And that's what I mean by, like. So that joke about, like, when I went to Europe and ate the food and realized, man, the European Union actually doesn't allow McDonald's to put the same thing that our government allows us. I got to go overseas to another continent to eat food from an american corporation that's way better than here in America. And it's because the way our government allows companies to lobby it. And so that's what I mean by that's why the rest of the world said, interesting american dynamic is the rest of the world does not allow american restaurants to go in there. Not and open up restaurants and not pay properly. Right? Like, they force american restaurants like Morton's and these others to pay. You know, if you go to Australia or Canada, Ruth Chris got paying people.
[00:48:51] Speaker A: You know, their minimum wage servers don't just get less money and have to write more tips.
[00:48:55] Speaker B: Yeah. So, so for some reason, there are, you know, our restaurant and entertainment type of businesses are allowed to, you know, pay under, you know, lower than other industries. And that. That's what I mean by just in a positive way. I say that's what makes America America, you know?
[00:49:11] Speaker A: Well, but here's the thing, though. Even in states, for example, where they've taken that away and they've made, like, I think California and Nevada are two states where they've made it so that you can't pay the servers or, you know, tipped employees less. They found the tip. It's not like that makes the tipping go away, you know, like, it's so ingrained in the culture. And I think some of that is just kind of what I was saying as far as, like, the enterprising spirit, you know, in that, like, kind of we want to reward in America, like, the person who grinds extra hard, or we want to see that person, at least by and large. And so, but that's where the expansion of it has, you know, like, it's really, I think now, again, understanding that people have complained about tipping. Certain people have complained about tipping the whole time, but I think that there's more people that have kind of given it the, I don't know, you want to call it the side eye or whatever where you're seeing in industries where it's just becoming integrated into the payment systems, and all industries has become integrated into the payment systems, and therefore it's starting to expand. Like, okay, yeah, I go get my dry cleaning, and it's like, okay, do I want to tip? And it's like, well, hold on.
All you did was hand me the stuff. Like, I'm paying for the actual dry cleaning and the hanging and all that stuff. But the person who's operating the cash register, am I, am I supposed to tip them as well or just any types of things, you know, like you're seeing this expand out more just because the way it's built into the payment systems. And so, like that to me is, I wonder if that pushes to a tipping point where Americans eventually just go the ray the rest of the world.
[00:50:41] Speaker B: Most of the wonder pun was intended.
[00:50:43] Speaker A: What's that?
[00:50:45] Speaker B: You missed yourself. You said it's being pushed into the tipping point.
[00:50:50] Speaker A: It definitely wasn't intended. I'm glad you caught it.
But at a certain point, I mean, like, again, people have tried before to go take the approach that we've seen in other countries or people taking other countries as far as to try to get rid of tipping and just make the rush, make the employers pay the employees the need, the customer can pay for it and then they can leave. It hasn't worked here, it's worked in other places. So I wonder if, as it expands out to more and more things that are less associated with, I'm seeing you do a bunch of hard work for me, you know, if it'll get to a point to where they're like, ah, you know what? You know, like, yes, we'll just, our culture will go a different way, or if it won't, or if it's just so ingrained in certain parts of the american culture that it just, it won't happen. I wonder about that.
[00:51:36] Speaker B: We'll see if there's a revolt against tipping non restaurant workers, but there been that.
[00:51:42] Speaker A: There's been that, you know, where there's been, it's always failed, you know, so it, you would think. But the way kind of we think of the world is that when something gets pushed too far, then eventually there's a reaction. And so that's kind of what I wonder is if it's going to get pushed too far or if this is something that is just kind of just the way it is. Last question before we get out of here is how just, just personally, how do you decide what to tip? Like, you know, whether it be delivery or whether it be like, you know, in restaurant service, do you do it solely based on the size of the meal or as a percentage, or do you, if it's a harder kind of thing, if it's raining outside and it's a delivery, or if it's. If you. If it's three course meal at a restaurant versus a buffet style or, you know, something like that. Dude, what do you do as far as the scale?
[00:52:28] Speaker B: I think I default to, you know, around that 15% to 20% range, depending on, you know, from. If I wasn't that impressed and all that, it'll be on the lower end of that, and if I'm more impressed, it'll be on the higher end. It's funny. I was at a friend's birthday brunch, a Sunday, and it was at a nice, nicer restaurant, so it was one of these. We had a big party of 20. So, you know, the waiter broke it up with the couple. So me and my wife, you know, our bill was. Was shared, and so it had an auto. He told us that the waiter, that it would have an automatic 18% gratuity. But I actually like this guy. He did a great job, I thought, and, you know, very proactive, always checking on us. So I actually rounded it up and gave him, like, an extra two, 3%.
But that's not what I do every time. So, yeah, there is. There is.
I'll tip out of respect at all times. I can probably count on one hand, and definitely, probably only once or twice, really, where I either didn't tip someone or gave them on purpose. A very low one. I maybe wrote, I can remember one time, right.
[00:53:32] Speaker A: Oh, you're a receipt writer.
[00:53:33] Speaker B: Yeah. No, it's only happened twice, but it was, like, terrible service. And I just wrote, like, you know, I can't even tip you for this. But normally, even if I'm not that impressed, like I said, I will give some sort of tip on the lower end just out of respect for the fact this is how they earn their living. But, yeah, if I'm very happy or I feel like somewhere, and sometimes, to your point, a delivery driver coming in the middle of a Florida friggin tropical storm, you know, I might up that tip a bit. Say, hey, you know, I see that you hustle, and you're right. That's different from when I'm buying something that is already, let's say, prepaid. Like, I'm joking in my head thinking about, like, if I went to best buy, to your point about going to a cash register, and I bought, you know, let's say I bought a terabyte external hard drive, and I'm just sitting there, and the guy's got a tip jar, I'd probably be like, what are you doing?
[00:54:19] Speaker A: Yeah, like, you can go to best buy and get a windshield, get a flat screen tv, and they're like, 10% tip.
[00:54:24] Speaker B: Like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
[00:54:27] Speaker A: But not for me.
[00:54:28] Speaker B: I'm actually.
[00:54:30] Speaker A: I'm in the group of people that just kind of almost do it. I like reflexively in the traditional circumstances, like, it has to be something different. If it's a carry out or something, it'll be a dollar or two. You know, just kind of like, okay, yeah, but if it's a delivery, if it's a, you know, like, restaurant type of thing, I would like my. If it's bad service, I'm at 15, and then if it's good service, I'm at 20. Like, it's something I just don't think about that much I made personally. I'll just tip it all the time. I don't write anything. You know, it's just kind of like, just what it is. Like, from a cultural standpoint, it's just what you do in my mind, you know, like, so it's in the range. It's a very tight range. I see it's pushing now. Sometimes people are like, oh, no, it's 22% to 18%. Like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And, you know, we'll see how the culture evolves. But, yeah, I mean, it's. I definitely look at it as something that, because I understand the economics, particularly in places where either it's a delivery driver who's paid very little and doing a lot, or a server who's paid very little. Like, I just trying to keep that system flowing, but I do feel it's messed up that the businesses, you know, are kind of making us subsidize that. But I don't want to make the workers pay for that. You know, like, it's just like, all right, all right.
[00:55:38] Speaker B: If a guy, if a delivery driver shows up at your house later, who's my height, somewhat, my complexion, with similar voice with a disguise on, it's not me, but you should tip him very well.
The Humpty dance? No, that nose with the glasses.
[00:55:59] Speaker A: Yeah, well, no, and the only thing, I'll just tip him real well.
[00:56:02] Speaker B: He's a nice guy.
[00:56:04] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. He can regale me with a few anecdotes, and I'll give him a bigger tip.
[00:56:10] Speaker B: So I get the feeling he won't hang around long. He'll just take his money and leave it.
You might figure out who he is.
[00:56:16] Speaker A: We appreciate everybody, for joining us on this episode of Call. Like I said, subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it. Tell us what you think. Send it to a friend. Until next time, I'm James Keys.
[00:56:24] Speaker B: Antunday Okamada.
[00:56:25] Speaker A: All right, we'll talk to you next.
