Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:14] Speaker B: Hello, welcome to the Call It Like I See it podcast. I'm James Keys, and in this episode of Call It Like I See it, we're going to discuss the regulation that just went in place in California that has truckers protesting in the streets and holding up activity at the Port of Oakland, and try to figure out why a law that was supposedly passed to help truckers has so many of them up in arms.
And later on, we're going to consider whether we are as a society or in our society, we're being exposed to too much beauty, too many pretty faces, and too much at least for our psyches to handle and discuss why, if this is the case, why it would matter.
Joining me today is a man who brings that 24 karat magic to the show every week. Tunde. Ogonlana Tunde, are you ready to share with us some of your more luxurious takes today?
[00:01:10] Speaker A: Yes, sir.
Solid as gold.
[00:01:14] Speaker B: All right. All right. Now we're recording this on July 25, 2022. And over the past week or so, we've seen reports of trucker protests in California, again, most notably in Oakland, where they are nearly shutting down cargo operations at the port.
Now, the protests in general are meant to bring attention to an issue. So clearly these protests have worked, at least to that extent, because it's being covered national news and it's showing up everywhere for people to see. But it's always important with these types of things to look beyond just the protest and the attention getting and to see what's really going on. So to get us started, Tunde, what was your reaction to the California independent contractor law that's known as AB5, that has the protesters, excuse me, has the truckers protesting and jamming up the port in Oakland?
[00:02:05] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, my reaction is that this is another example of sometimes the messiness of trying to paint a broad brush when you talk about kind of jobs and the idea of being employed or being a contractor, so to speak, but.
[00:02:27] Speaker B: Just the messiness of regulation.
[00:02:29] Speaker A: Yeah, and that too. And I know we'll get into that deeper about this specific group of truckers versus maybe other truckers that may or may not be seen as more employees or not. But in this case, it just brings to light a good conversation, I think, for us to have in general, because this is a big topic within our economy.
The way that people are taxed, number one, and then based on. I should say based on how they're classified, number two.
So that affects all of us. Anybody who earns income in the United States. And I say that because there's different types of income. Earned income is considered employment income, as opposed to things like pension and Social Security, which is considered a retirement income.
[00:03:20] Speaker B: And also distinguishing from, like, investment income.
[00:03:22] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Interest on bonds and dividends. Exactly. And there's certain ways that the different types of income are taxed, and just as important, without getting into a total tax class here, certain ways that one can take deductions against certain income. So, for example, the. There's deductions one can take against earned income, but those deductions cannot be taken against investment income or retirement income.
[00:03:50] Speaker B: Yeah. And the key with the classification here is the classification. What's happening here is a fight over the classification of whether truckers in this instance, but it applies more broadly in California, or at least it's written to apply more broadly whether they're going to be employees of the company they're doing work for or. Or independent contractors. And really, just to lay a little bit more of the groundwork, Assembly Bill 5 is what it is. Now, this was introduced all the way back in 2019, but it's been held up through litigation, through very. There was a proposition. I think it was Proposition 22 in California that the voters voted on that held it up as it relates to, like, Uber and Lyft drivers and so forth. And that's been ruled unconstitutional. So it's been held up. But basically it goes down to. It created a test for whether someone was an independent contractor or an employee, and they call it an ABC test.
And the first one deals with whether a person is. Can control or free from control. Excuse me, the direction of the hiring entity as far as how they're doing their work, and then whether they're performing work that is outside the usual course of the business of whoever's hiring them. And then also if they're customarily engaged in, like, independently and doing that kind of stuff. So there's three elements, basically, that are being looked at, not too different, generally speaking, what the way, like, the IRS will look at certain factors to determine whether someone's an independent contractor or an employee. But essentially this is more restrictive. It's harder to qualify as an independent contractor with what California is doing here. And so that's really the stage that's been set here.
[00:05:29] Speaker A: Yep. And that's a great point, because I'll segue that into actually the definition of an independent contractor as per the irs, because I think they are the ones that we should be going to for this definition. No one else, since it's part of the.
[00:05:45] Speaker B: I take issue with that. But I'll let you. There's a definition in law also in terms of dealing with liability and stuff like that. You know, whether or not we're competing.
[00:05:53] Speaker A: With our two masters. You know, my industry, the IRS is the be all and end all. But I get it that. Yeah, you're dealing with.
[00:06:01] Speaker B: I would say the law is the end.
[00:06:03] Speaker A: You're the legislative guy.
[00:06:04] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, of course. But go ahead, please.
[00:06:08] Speaker A: And you know what? Both. Both can put you in jail. Think about it.
[00:06:15] Speaker B: Well, in this instance, though, I will say my law can't put. This is. This is not the kind. This isn't criminal law in terms of independent contractors and stuff. This is more online.
[00:06:23] Speaker A: IRS can't put you in jail.
[00:06:25] Speaker B: The IRS do this one wrong, you'd have me trump there. If we're going based on who could put you in jail.
[00:06:30] Speaker A: So. And they don't need a warrant. That's the beautiful thing. Right. So. But no. So quote, by the irs, an individual is an independent contractor if the payer has the right to control or direct only the result of the work and not what will be done and how it will be done, end quote. So the way that I think I understand that and that makes sense is that you're a contractor as long as the person hiring you only controls the, like, what they want out of you. They hire you for a job, like the end result. Yeah, but they're not in the position to tell you when you got to show up, you know, how many hours you got to be doing it, da, da, da, da, da, you know, what location, so on and so forth.
[00:07:10] Speaker B: And I think to consolidate real quick in the legal framework, we also add the where and where it's done. You know, like if you're doing, if you show up at somebody's location to do work or if you're doing it wherever you want type of thing. But, but continue on, please.
[00:07:24] Speaker A: Yeah, no, and so that's where I think it got hairy with this, specifically with this California thing and the kind of blanket of the rule, because apparently, from what I read, there's 70,000 independent truck drivers in California. And that's a lot.
And most of them are, I think, what we would find under this definition of truly are independent contractors. But there are a select few out of that 70,000, I'm sure it's more than a dozen, maybe a couple hundred that are at the port.
And they fall under a different category because unlike a trucker who maybe picks up a container full of let's say fruits and almonds from Northern California. And that person's job is just to get it to the port in Los Angeles, for example, the eight hour drive from north to south California. That's a true contractor because the job is really, you just gotta get this over there. We're not gonna tell you what truck to drive, how you gotta drive it, what time you can sleep, what time you should be working. We just telling you it's got to be here by 800 hours on this date.
So that's an example of a contractor versus what they're arguing is that the ports, they're more captive. And what they're trying to say is those truckers run the risk because they're contractors and not full time employees. They run the risk of being underpaid for their work because they're captive at the port itself. They can't and they're being told when they can and can't come and when they can and can't do things and take bathroom breaks and all that. So they are no longer contractors. They are, they should be classified as employees.
[00:09:08] Speaker B: And if you're classified an employee just to add a little, again to add a little more meat, that means you should get like sick leave and like things like that vacation, paid vacation. Like there are a bunch of benefits in addition to you have to minimum wage applies and so forth. And so those types of things, again that's the intention is to say okay, well you have to treat these people as employees so therefore they're going to get more. Now not all, some of the truckers probably appreciate that, but not all of them do. The ones that are protesting obviously don't appreciate that. And you know, like it's, it's interesting from the context when you're looking at this because generally speaking kind of the, the, the if you take a step back, a lot of times people look at, okay, well businesses, big businesses look at independent contractors as a way to keep costs down, you know, because it's, there's less on in bringing them in, there's less benefits and so forth and it's just a clean, cleaner kind of to break if needs be. And one of the things that the, this AB5 did, which really is the one that's, that's almost impossible to get around is it's the b. It's if or if the, the, the business, the hiring party is engaged in the business of what they're hiring the independent contractor for. So it's one thing if you are a trucking company and you Hire an independent contractor to do some taxes. They're like, that's not what they're worried about. But what they're saying is if you're a trucking company, if you're a shipping company and you're moving stuff around everywhere and you're hiring these people to do that, you're hiring the people that you're doing that for as independent contractors and not as employees, then that's what they're trying to attack. They're saying fundamentally that doesn't make sense. It almost. Now I've read in various places that the two targets of this were the ride share, the Ubers and the Lyfts, and also the truckers.
And it's interesting because Uber bragged way back when about becoming a taxi company that doesn't own any cabs and doesn't have any, doesn't hire any drivers. And so it's almost like if you look at it in that context, it's like, oh, okay, so that's what you're going to do. You're going to be a company that does this and not hire any people to do it. Not hiring employees to do it, just, just contractors. There's almost a direct response to that, so to speak, in this. And then the truckers are caught up in this as well. So the, the kind of machinations that you see going on here from a background standpoint really do see how you can set the stage for a conflict like this where people are saying, because on the other hand, some of the people value the independent contractor where they at least believe that they have more, they have more control than they would as an employee, you know, and, and so, and that's, you know, it's difficult to evaluate in that when you get into the individuals, individual preferences, you got, a lot of times you got to look at these things from a big picture standpoint.
[00:11:46] Speaker A: Yeah, well, that's where I think that this type of blanket regulation that clearly has had a dragnet that's dragged in people that don't want to be considered classified as employees. And I think there's a, for some people, it's hard to understand why somebody would not want to be an employee. And I think, and that's what I found interesting, there's even a disagreement between the International Brotherhood of Teamsters that called this a massive victory, this AB5 ruling and all that. But the California Trucking association, sorry, has already sued the state over the law, saying they don't want it in law.
[00:12:31] Speaker B: But that makes sense though, because that's a union saying they want it, and then a employer, a lobbying party for the companies saying they don't. That shapes up on normal kind of default lines, right?
[00:12:45] Speaker A: I don't know. I mean, the trucking associate, I don't know if that's just employee employers or that's made up of interest group. And also I'm going to assume that there's members of that trucking association who are independent truckers themselves, because that's the thing I think we need to be careful on is that independent trucker example I gave of the guy who's going from California up and down California shipping stuff as an independent contractor. You know, that person might be getting $10,000 per job, and they are themselves an independent business owner. Some of these truckers are making 150, $200,000 a year, and so they themselves see themselves as independent business guys, you know, and they have their own little 401k and they pay their benefits themselves and they're okay with that. And they'd rather be able to do things like deduct certain expenses like their gas and their cell phone bill and all that because they own a business versus being an employee and either having.
[00:13:44] Speaker B: To pay that out, pay that stuff.
[00:13:46] Speaker A: Well, who's to say that they don't? They may still pay for their cell phone.
[00:13:50] Speaker B: The employee, though, that's. That would be what? They wouldn't have to pay for gas. They wouldn't have to pay for upgrades to the truck, I mean, I think.
[00:13:57] Speaker A: But they'll get paid less. But my point is, James, because we could sit here and argue that one all day, because I could say the same thing in my industry or your industry. Remember, you're an independent contractor yourself. Well, you could go to a law firm and not have to pay certain things, but you may get paid less. So you can choose right now how you want to spend those dollars. And for you, it can work. For other people, maybe it doesn't work. But all I'm saying is I agree with the truckers in that sense. To be forced to have to be an employee if you don't want to be, that's not right either. And I think that's where the politicians have made this kind of blanket kind of rule without taking into account at the ground level, a lot of people aren't upset being contractors.
[00:14:41] Speaker B: Well, I would push back on that because I think that on initial glance, that was kind of where I came in as saying, well, hold on. It seems like this is too broad of a brush to paint with, but it does seem like they are targeting. Like, this is an industry they've targeted. They have studies backing them up saying that they being the people who wrote this and who are pushing for this, that the tendency is for the people that they're targeting here, the truckers, to be. To be subjected to less than minimum wage payments, to be unable to make the upgrades that they want to make or that they're requiring by law. From an admissions standpoint, it seems like this is intentional. So I would. Now, whether it's a good idea or not, I don't know. I think a lot of what you're seeing with pushback now, though, isn't necessarily a pushback on the merits as much as a pushback against changes. Anytime there's change, people are in the streets. It's not like we have 100,000 people here in the streets or 50,000 people in the streets. There's a certain number of people that don't want any change ever. And so they're, they're. They're asking them to change. I'm not crazy about trying to force people to change, but I don't think this is. They're having some level of rights taken away here. How businesses are classified one way or the other, what regulations you're subjected to, that's a part of commerce, man. And so if you're going. If you want to work for. In a certain type of setup, then that setup has to be one that is lawful, that is consistent with the regulations. And if people can change those regulations, though, there's no inherent right that they have to say, I'm going to operate as an independent contractor for people who do this business, and they're just not going to hire me. Like, you point to me as an example. I work for people who do other things. Like, I work for somebody who might be like a wealth manager, you know, or something. Like, I don't work for people in general who are lawyers, so to speak. Now, I could as an independent contractor or as whatever, but I'm just saying, like.
[00:16:26] Speaker A: But that's what I'm saying. So. So what's your point? The trucker is also working for someone that's not a trucker, right? They're working.
[00:16:31] Speaker B: No, they are. They're working for a trucking company.
[00:16:33] Speaker A: No, but that's, that's the part of.
[00:16:35] Speaker B: This regulation that's tripping everybody up.
[00:16:37] Speaker A: Exactly. That's the problem is it's too blanket. There's 70,000 independent truckers, and because of this regulation, they fall under the same thing as the Lyft and The Uber drivers, not all those 70. But what I'm saying is that what I'm saying. But let me finish my point.
[00:16:53] Speaker B: I was the one making the point.
[00:16:54] Speaker A: The way you said. Intentional is my point. That's what I'm getting at is somebody at a legislative. This is what I'm saying. This is where the classic. This is the good old stuff we used to argue about in American politics.
[00:17:05] Speaker B: Not the new it is, this is regulation.
[00:17:08] Speaker A: This is where the Democrats got a reputation of being overplaying the regulatory hand on industry in this type of way. Meaning I'm not saying that there's no independent contractors that aren't getting screwed by some big fat cat somewhere. Of course, I'm sure there are. What I'm saying is though, to tell 70,000 independent truck drivers that they have to conform to something that maybe many of them, because like you're saying, if I went and got my own truck and I go to a farm and I deliver something from farm A to the port, I'm not working for truckers, I'm working for the system.
[00:17:39] Speaker B: And you wouldn't be caught up in this bill.
[00:17:41] Speaker A: But, but, but what this regulation is, it somehow has caught up all the.
[00:17:45] Speaker B: Independent truckers because they're working for trucking companies. That's the point. And so I get what you're saying as far as how to us or to you it may seem like this is over regulation. But what I'm saying is that you're sitting here looking at this from afar without having done research, without having done studies and so forth. They are. This was intentional in the sense that there were studies done by the people who put these regulations in, by the legislatures who said that this is a problem that we're having here. And so the fact that some percentage of the drivers have a problem with it, some, again it could be just they don't want change, which we know that's a human thing as well. And then others may genuinely have a problem with what it's going to cause them to do or whatever and how they like being independent, even if they may be underpaid and so forth.
We are not in a position to evaluate whether this would work or not in the way its intended purpose is. What we're saying now is that they're mad that they're going to put it in place. But at minimum, and you've advocated for this before, let's see how it works. Let's see what happens. Let's go for it for six months, a year or whatever. And if it is A disaster. They can, you know what, they can create an exemption because you know what they have done for this so far, this AB5? They created exemptions with it and then they added some since then, when it, since it was brought into law in 2019, they've added exemptions. Lawyers aren't included. Doctors aren't included. All these different professions aren't included in this already because it was.
[00:19:06] Speaker A: No else isn't. It was unworkable.
Contractors aren't included.
[00:19:12] Speaker B: What do you mean?
[00:19:12] Speaker A: Funny, that's just. It says all those lawyers.
[00:19:16] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a huge list of contractors.
[00:19:17] Speaker A: And then it says contractors and I'm like, well, how do you define that?
[00:19:20] Speaker B: No, that's what I'm saying. So like the, the initial reaction, I can definitely appreciate some being like, oh, that's too much, that's too much. But they did some research, they figured out that. Or they said, hey, by our numbers, this is some, this is a place where there's exploitation happening. They're trying to, I prefer government try to do something. If they think something's happening, something wrong is happening. If it doesn't work, I'm also in favor of keeping an open mind and saying, okay, well, you tried that. It didn't work. In this case, I don't see this as some fundamental unfairness that's happened. It seems like they're looking at a problem that they think they can solve. They're trying to solve it. Either it was going to work or it's not.
[00:19:56] Speaker A: Well, I look at it like this is where again to me this is like the classic stereotypical democratic move on the business end, which I think I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. They're generally trying to help what they see as people who are underserved or underprivileged and maybe getting screwed by the big bad company, but that it's a big one.
[00:20:21] Speaker B: Underserved or underprivileged, they're in a lesser bargaining position. It's labor and capital.
[00:20:27] Speaker A: No, I mean, look, we don't know that though. Cuz look, I from.
[00:20:31] Speaker B: We do. The industry reps are mad and the labor unions are happy. That's exactly what's happening.
[00:20:38] Speaker A: Yeah, but that doesn't always mean it's a good answer. Right? I mean, teachers are happy that teachers don't get fired. That's not the best thing for our kids. So.
[00:20:45] Speaker B: But that's what I'm saying. Whether it will work or not is a different issue that nobody has. And we're not in a position to say for sure, but the legislature is in a better position than us to say whether it will work.
[00:20:56] Speaker A: But what I'm saying is it. Because it also looks like trying to jam in a few things at once. I'll quote here from, from someone who is representing the state and who's supportive of this. Our goal is for the shipping industry to take responsibility for these drivers.
If the workers are converted to employees, he said it will be easier for them to be paid an amount that reflects at least minimum wage and it would push the responsibility of buying new zero emission vehicles onto the port companies rather than the drivers. My point is, number one is where is. I mean, where is.
[00:21:32] Speaker B: But does that sound like a bad intention to you?
[00:21:36] Speaker A: It doesn't sound like a bad intention. I'm just saying I want to know how many people are really getting paid in less than the equivalent of 750 an hour doing these jobs. Because like I know I have clients of mine who own this kind of business. They're in shipping, they get paid $10,000 per job just to drive for friggin 8 hours somewhere. So I'm saying. So I don't. So from the people I've been around in trucking, no one's getting minimum wage even near that. That's a trucker. I'm not talking about a janitor that's cleaning the truck, talking about the truckers themselves. The second thing is I'm not sure if the trucker or the company should be forced to buy zero emission vehicle. That's what I mean. Like they're putting in all this other ideas into why this makes sense.
[00:22:19] Speaker B: So. But what does that have to do with this though?
[00:22:21] Speaker A: That's what he says.
[00:22:22] Speaker B: Well, no, but that's not in this.
[00:22:24] Speaker A: Regulation though for buying new zero emission vehicles onto the port companies rather than the driver.
[00:22:29] Speaker B: I'm just saying that means. Is that if separately we legislate that, then the person who will be responsible for it will be the employer because the employer has to provide employees with the tools to do their job. That's all he's saying there, that's not in this bill, that there's zero emissions.
[00:22:47] Speaker A: No, I'm not saying it's in that. What I'm saying is this is what I'm saying. This looks like a typical democratic move to try and show shoving a bunch of ideas because you want green energy.
[00:22:56] Speaker B: About one thing I know, but it's.
[00:22:59] Speaker A: Using these reasons is so now they're bringing in that.
[00:23:02] Speaker B: We're not bringing that in. That's what I'm saying. They're not. He's just saying if they do that separately, the responsible party to do the trucks will be the employer. And that's not the case of an independent contract. They're not saying that's a part of the AB5 though, is what I'm saying. Like that's, that is a separate thing and I think California is working on doing that. But that's gonna be a separate vote. That's gonna be separate law altogether. You know what I'm saying?
[00:23:24] Speaker A: This is where our DNA comes out and the difference.
[00:23:28] Speaker B: And so you don't think you're California.
[00:23:29] Speaker A: Lawyer and wanting to argue and me being tired and just wanting to shut up.
[00:23:32] Speaker B: Well, but hold up, hold up. I think in this case you just decide you don't like it and you're picking at things you don't that would support that because look, you support.
You don't think government should be able to legislate emissions.
Is that your point?
[00:23:47] Speaker A: No, I didn't say that. But you did. But. So how do we get from, so this is my point. How do we get from a contractor conversation on how people are paid to. Now we're talking about should do.
[00:23:56] Speaker B: I believe that the government is regulated here. He's saying one of the benefits here is if we decide to up our emission standards to a place where people would actually need to get new trucks, then that burden won't be on all these 70,000 individuals. That will be on the companies that are doing this on a large scale. That's what he said. That's.
[00:24:16] Speaker A: But I don't understand how that's on the individuals anyway. Look, all the companies, GM and Ford have already said they're going to. Their whole fleet's going to be electric by 2035. Meaning these guys got to go buy trucks anyway if they're independent. So when there's no more gas trucks, they'll have to go buy electric trucks. Still got to spend the money is my point.
[00:24:34] Speaker B: They're going to be when they have to spend the money. One, but two, that is, that's a definition of the independent contractor is they bring their own tools to the job. So of course they have to buy it.
[00:24:42] Speaker A: But that's what I'm saying is a lot of guys want to be able to do that. Like they want to be in control of what they're buying and how they're buying it. And they'd like to get paid more and do what they want with that money than have getting paid 60% of that money because it's all going to Benefits and they're being told they're getting a pension and all that. Some people don't care about that.
[00:24:59] Speaker B: That's what I show up.
[00:25:01] Speaker A: No, but I'm just saying I've met people like that. They're like, I'd rather not get help.
[00:25:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:05] Speaker A: So that's all.
[00:25:06] Speaker B: So therefore they would go to. And they would do trucking for people who aren't in the truck, who aren't trucking. Companies like that they had. They would have options still. It's only in this particular instance here that they not have to do that. And so my point, I mean, you're putting me in a position where I'm trying to defend this. And I'm not really trying to defend it. I'm just saying it seems like. Hold on, hold on. Let me say this. It seems like it's a legitimate exercise for the government to try if they think this is a problem. They're saying he's bringing up the minimum wage. Peach, you kind of skipped over that. Apparently he believes that many independent contractors are paid the equivalent of less than minimum wage. So in California, I don't know that it's 750. I think it might be higher than that. But nonetheless, they see this as a problem. They're trying to address it. And again, I don't have a problem with them trying to address stuff as long as they are willing to evaluate it after a year or two and see if it works or see if these guys need. If they need to carve out an exemption or something. So I think this is how you can't just come up with perfect solutions right away. Every time you try to address a problem, there's going to be some feeling out process. Let's try this. If it doesn't work, if it's too broad, once we try it, let's scale it back a little bit. We can't just scale things back because people get mad about. Because people get mad about change, period.
[00:26:16] Speaker A: All right, well, clearly I'm the guy that wants to sacrifice good on the altar of perfect because I don't want to try that.
[00:26:24] Speaker B: Yeah, that's clear.
But no, I think we can move on from there, man.
The second topic that we're doing today is pretty interesting from the standpoint of it's not the kind of thing that really people you would conceive of just on your own. It's something that somebody would really have to bring up to you, like, hey, do you think this really is good for you? And really the question that's posed and you know, we'll post this in the show notes is whether or not in our society these days we see too many pretty faces all the time. Like, and now that is throwing off our brains in more ways than one. Like, psychologically it's affecting us. And so Tunde, what stood out to you most in this piece about how we just aren't meant. And I mean, you can take what you want, what we're meant to do and what we're not meant to do, but to see this many beautiful faces all the time.
[00:27:12] Speaker A: Well, clearly I could start joking about how many times you look in the mirror and all that.
[00:27:16] Speaker B: I was trying to set you up for it.
[00:27:18] Speaker A: No, I wasn't gonna say about me looking in the mirror. I'm ugly. But you're a good looking guy. So, you know, since you have a room full of mirrors, I guess you're constantly staring at pretty faces. But me, you know, now it was interesting, man.
I found this actually much more interesting than what the headline suggested because I also kind of thought first, okay, this is just going to be, you know, what happens when you start looking at too many pretty faces and you start feeling like you're ugly or something.
[00:27:49] Speaker B: Like the whole, remember the thing 20 years ago to check out aisles at the grocery store and all. Like, people talk about that kind of stuff. But yeah, it's much more than that.
[00:27:56] Speaker A: And it's. And what's interesting is in going back to, you know, conversations we've had of different times recently in the last few months, I think where we talk about your focus is your reality. And you know, a lot of times we've applied that in discussing this show about things like the kind of media and social media ecosystems. And a lot of times we've discussed this relating to things like politics or conspiracy theories as to why people have such differing views and differing realities. And we'll talk about, you know, the fact that people focus. If your focus is only On CNN and MSNBC, your view of, let's say January 6th is one thing. If you're only watching Newsmax and Oan, then your view is another thing. Right? And so that's where we get this idea of your focus is your reality. But this was the first time in reading this that I kind of my brain felt that definition for something totally outside of things we've discussed and because I guess what the article really got to was as you pointed out, that people who spend so much time on social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, OLS, Twitter, but TikTok, Snapchat, the ones that are real have a lot of images and video.
Then again, their focus is their reality. So they begin to compare their own looks with the looks of others, but then also in an artificial way. Some of these things, specifically Snapchat, TikTok, and I think Instagram, have the ability to touch up your face very quickly on the image on the screen, the photograph or the video that's taken. So someone can create an image of themselves that they wish they could be versus maybe what they are. And in reading this, you know, it stuck out to me, James, which is very interesting for me, you know, and I've talked a lot on the show in the last couple years of how I've distanced myself from social.
And I just realized, like, wow, I don't even. Like, I can't even relate to this because I'm not on social media at all. So I don't know what it's like to see all these constant different faces and looks and all that. And that's what got me thinking of the focus is the reality. Because reading it made me realize how this is absolutely not in my focus, but it made me appreciate how miserable some people must be that they walk around constantly questioning how they look.
And that's got to be terrible because you're born with how you look, you know, you can't really change that.
[00:30:27] Speaker B: Well, yeah, you can.
[00:30:29] Speaker A: Kind of felt bad, like, reading it, you know, like, wow, what else are we doing to ourselves in society?
[00:30:33] Speaker B: Well, I think the thing that really jumped off the page to me was there was a Harvard scientist that has a book in there. The book is called. Or she's quoted, but her book is called Survival of the Prettiest. And she talks about how just us as humans, we're always sizing up other people's looks. And she uses, like, the phrase beauty detectors. And like, it's always going all the time, and it happens automatically with us, just in the same way that we recognize whether people look familiar or not. Like, it's always like our brain. We're making these snap decisions all the time. And to me, that's like. Because I'm not. I'm just not in tune with that, so to speak. At least to the thing. To the extent that I think that it sounds like here, but it really is. If that's something like. That's hardwiring, basically, what you're saying there is that we're constantly evaluating looks on people hardwired in. It's not something that we try to do. So if our environment then becomes something that Makes that a focus that goes to your point, then it's something that it really is triggering for us. And so, like, to me, this was, like, the first thing I thought of after I read this. Like, well, wow, Facebook was the best invention of all time. Like, it was just like, oh, wow. Like, if that's how we're hardwired to automatically pick that stuff up and you make a. I mean, what it originally started at, where you're, like, rating faces and stuff like that, that's face match. Yeah. That's directly tapping into our hardwiring and our brain as far as how we evaluate and look at other people. And, you know, other thing that came to mind here is just looking at, like, the history of Instagram, you know, which was initially Instagram was about people pointing the camera, you know, away from them, at what they were looking at. And so you're taking pictures of what's around you, what you see. And. But what it became very quickly was turning the camera around and at your own face. And now the algorithms reflect that. I shouldn't say now, but the algorithms reflect that that is something that Instagram wants to promote. And so it became. It became something different than it was again, because this is how we're hardwired. This is what we want to see. Like, yeah, a mountain range. That's beautiful. Oh, yeah, great. The ocean. Oh, that's amazing. You know, what you had for dinner, it looks delicious. Oh, but let me see the face. Let me see the face. Like, that's what we're wired to just be all into. And so to me, like, I said that that is hardwired, that it's not really, like, it doesn't come from a place of, like, weakness or vanity. It can end up there, but it doesn't come from there. But we're always evaluating. That was just fascinating to me.
[00:32:58] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a good point. That it doesn't come from a place of vanity. But I think what I was going to say is, like, a lot of other things in our human behavior. Right. I think there are spectrums of this, because I'm sure we all know we can all pick the people in our head, both male and female, some who. We all know those people in our lives who vanity is real. They're worried about how they look constantly. They're comparing themselves constantly to others and all that. And then we have those friends that look half disheveled. They don't look like they care all that. Whether they do or not, we might never know. But we know that there's people that, that tend to take this a little more to heart than others. This whole thing about comparing themselves to others and their parents. And I think what you said is very valid in terms of we might not naturally go there, but I think some of us, because of just the way our society is, now that we're immersed in all this, it may cause them to go a little bit more into that aggressive side of the spectrum where maybe if they didn't have a phone and social media apps and all that, they wouldn't be as inclined to care and constantly compare themselves to others. And I think that.
[00:34:09] Speaker B: Well, but maybe, but maybe like the people who are just more into it though they may be the people that society did talk about before when they were talking about what the magazine covers and all that stuff. Like the people that are on the extreme of the spectrum, so to speak, probably are. They're affected, but they may be affected. In my view, they may be affected less than the person more in the media who is going to be affected more by the environment that they're exposed to because otherwise they may not pay that much attention to it. But because every time they scroll through their feed, that's all they see, it may in tune them even more. The person who's on the extreme is already in tune to that, no matter what form.
[00:34:47] Speaker A: That's what I mean. But it's interesting because just like we've talked about, that's why the focus being the reality hit me so hard because we talk about the same thing, for example, right? Like in our political discussions about how social media and these algorithms have affected people's perceptions of reality. And so you're right, there was always people out there in all of human history that were really into whatever the politics were of the day.
But what happened is the Internet and the social media brought in the average person who otherwise wasn't really into the politics.
[00:35:21] Speaker B: And also we're looking at fringy things as well. There were always fringy people talking all that stuff, but they were much, many more people were exposed to that kind of stuff and kind of got looped into more stuff like that.
[00:35:31] Speaker A: That's what I'm saying. So that's what made it kind of more dangerous is bringing in everybody into these discussions. When you're right, you're saying that there's always going to be a natural percentage of people, I'll stick with politics here that are going to be seriously into it or on the fringe of it. And that was always just how society had to kind of barbell those, those two sides out. But then you brought in this mass middle and it gets messy. And I think it's the same thing with looks now where, you know, you're right, you probably had always had a small percentage of people who were totally vain, totally, you know, always obsessed with themselves. And then you had another fringe group of something else as it relates, maybe the total opposite. There were the ones that, you know, didn't shave, you know, didn't put on deodorant, didn't shave, you know, always look disheveled. But now that everybody is, has to be not everybody, you know, the majority of the population now being immersed in something that is constantly making them have to have something else to think about now, which is how they look compared to others. And especially as young people, like I thought about, and I remember sharing this with you on a private conversation like imagine. I can't imagine now that I'm in my mid-40s, how I would have reacted at a, as a 13, 14, 15 year old kid if Snapchat and Instagram and all that existed when I was, you know, I had pimples and stuff, you know. You know, there's always a point in your life where you're a little self conscious, right? And I remember, but that's back when I was, when I was young kid and gangly and I was 6 foot 4 at 15 years old. So, you know, I was a gangly kid with pimples and I was self conscious. But that the whole world didn't have to.
[00:37:03] Speaker B: But you didn't feel the pressure to be camera ready.
[00:37:06] Speaker A: That's what I'm saying. Like the whole world didn't have to know. It was just, you know, because the other kids in my high school were gangly with pimples so I wasn't that far out of my element. But if you put me on Instagram with 100 million other people, you know.
[00:37:19] Speaker B: Even worse if you feel like you have to be on Instagram in order to engage with your age group, like you can't even just be like, nah, I'm not doing it. Like for you. It's not taking anything away from your interactions and stuff if you're just not on Facebook. But at that age range, different age ranges, people may feel the need.
[00:37:34] Speaker A: That's what I'm saying. And maybe I'd have been pressured to be on there my whole life.
[00:37:38] Speaker B: And I'll say this just for clarity, I'm not saying vanity doesn't exist. I'm saying that it seems when you read it in this way, in terms of how we have these detectors going off in our brain all the time, just more so that a lot of the things that we're seeing may not start there. They get there for some people very quickly, but they may start with just this hypersensitivity that apparently most people have or that people have. Again, it's really crazy if you think about it, how quickly we recognize whether a face is familiar, what's being said here, Nancy Etkoff, what she's saying here. And Harvard scientist Nancy Eckhoff is saying that we also make the snap decisions on what we find attractive that quickly in faces, and we do it automatically. And again, that plugs in a lot of judgment and evaluation into everybody's mind right away. And the other thing I'd say that really stood out to me in this piece was the use of filters and how using a filter actually chips away at your own self esteem and self, self value, self worth. And it makes sense if you put it in the folk. Your focus is your reality frame that you already started this with. Because by using a filter, you're targeting something to address like, okay, I need to change this, I need to change that. Well, you know what, it doesn't change in your actual face. So now every time you look at a mirror, you're going to see you, you see these things and that's what you focus on. And these things that, oh, this was a picture, I would change this, I would remove this or this and that. And so it makes you actually focus more on, on what you don't like about yourself, you know, and so that to me is like another one of those things. Like, you know, it's, it's one of those things where you can see how over time this can change. You know, like we talked about social media in the past and what was talked about with the social dilemma, imperceptible changes in behavior. This is another one of those basically where we can see how there could. What can happen is imperceptible changes in behavior. And it relates to us seeing and then the social media platforms obviously prioritizing the more engaging faces, which if they're more engaging, generally speaking, they're gonna be the ones that create the rise to the top, so to speak.
[00:39:51] Speaker A: Yeah, you make a good point. I mean, I was gonna go there with those that use those systems like the Snapchat and the Instagrams and the Tiktoks, which can do the self editing type of stuff that, I mean, the studies have shown that they suffer more from Poor mental health and poor physical health as well because they get depressed. And that's what I mean. And it goes to our greater societal conversations that we have on these various topics, which is we are, you know, we talk a lot in our show about the environment and what we put into the environment. And in recent shows we've talked about microplastics and the amount of antidepressants that's in drinking water, the trace amounts that we're all consuming and the fact that 80% of American urine tested has traces of Roundup, the weed killer that causes cancer and all that kind of stuff. Right.
[00:40:43] Speaker B: The who says is straight cancer causing.
[00:40:47] Speaker A: Yeah. And so we honestly, we, like me and you personally, is what I'm saying, focus on a lot of these physical stimulants that have. Can cause our physical body to change.
[00:40:59] Speaker B: Physical toxins.
[00:41:00] Speaker A: Yeah. And maybe, maybe our emotional state through physical toxin can change your emotional state. But what this makes me realize, I mean it's stuff we've identified when we did things like the Social Dilemma documentary. But I guess for some reason, and this made me realize in a different way that on top of all of those toxins, as you put it, which is a very well put way, we're putting in like these emotional toxins, I guess through this Internet stuff. And I think it's a lot more, it's a lot more under the radar than we realize because we're conditioned to look out for the big things. You know, like we're conditioned and things that happen quickly. No, but also like, check it out. Like you and I have elementary age kids at home, elementary school age. So we're conditioned to like, not them, not let them watch porn online, not let them watch like real violence. Like I won't let my son watch a YouTube video, someone getting hacked to death with a machete. Right. Yeah, I won't watch it. Let him watch that. But I don't think about the long term damage that these kind of platforms can cause. But like you said about just like if we were teenagers today. What a dilemma though, because it's also very difficult for any parent, especially if the kid lives in a metropolitan area and goes to school with a bunch of other kids that have phones to also keep their kid away from this because then the kid is also being ostracized in some way in school because then they're going to be that loser kid that's not online like everyone else.
[00:42:26] Speaker B: Exactly. Yeah. That's part of their social engagement.
[00:42:28] Speaker A: Yeah. So there's, there's really no good Outlet for the kid. That's the sad part in this, in this environment because if you let them go on there, I mean I guess going back to your first, the first section in this one which is you can let them go on there but as a parent you regulate the shit.
[00:42:42] Speaker B: You know, like you got to give.
[00:42:44] Speaker A: Them the exposure so they can understand how to move around in the world. Right. I mean imagine a kid, 10 year old kid today who's just not allowed on any kind of computer for the next eight years. They're going to go on your hand and they're not going to be able to assimilate at all.
[00:42:57] Speaker B: Yeah. So you can't and yeah, they'll be there. There will be things that they don't know how to deal with.
[00:43:02] Speaker A: Correct.
[00:43:03] Speaker B: Because they haven't learned. Like it's almost a requirement to learn how to deal with it in order to function in our society. Like whether you ultimately at 30 opt out is one thing, but part of coming of age is going to require learning how to deal with this. And one thing I thought that referenced that or kind of reflected that a little bit was one of the points that was made is in this piece that we're again we'll put it in the show notes was that how people, when it's peer group, you know, when it was peers groups, you know, like that people take it more to heart like oh, I'm not as pretty as this or I'm not as attractive as this versus even celebrities. And to me that may be evidence of an adaptation that our society has made over the last 20 or 30 or 40 years in the sense that it was when we were talking about what was at the checkout aisle and so forth, those were celebrities and those were considered something that was harm, it was harmful to people, certain people's self esteem and self worth and so forth. And so it may be that since it may be that that's become more kind of background and it doesn't affect people as directly celebrity pictures because the reason is given that people are able to explain that away easier in their own mind. Oh they have time, they have trainers, all that stuff. And so. But with your peers it influenced, it hits you much harder if all your peers that you see are, if you see these peers, people that are just regular people and they're so beautiful or whatever that it, it takes a shot at you more. And so hopefully if the one, if the celebrity piece is less impactful now hopefully it's not only less impactful because something else is more impactful hopefully it's less impactful just because we've become desensitized to it then conceivably. I mean, maybe we're in a transition here where people may become more desensitized to this over the next 20 years or whatever, where it won't harm us as much. But right now, I think the newness of this is why it's like, hey, you know what this is doing to it? This stuff is making people miserable.
[00:44:57] Speaker A: One thing about humans, there's never been a part in human history where we have them all chase vanity and worried.
[00:45:04] Speaker B: About looks, man, inside the pyramids, they got.
[00:45:07] Speaker A: No, exactly. That's my point.
[00:45:09] Speaker B: Like that.
[00:45:10] Speaker A: Think about it. King Tut was buried with all that gold and jewelry.
It's not like he wasn't worrying about looking good. But. But no, there's a couple things. Just one thing that stuck out to me was this. This writer named Eleanor Stern was the one that I guess coined the phrase beauty over stimulation a few years ago. And this got what got me thinking about this focus in the reality. Actually feeling bad for, I guess some people that are really immersed in this because this isn't her saying it. These were people who are commenting, responding to her article. And this one person, there's two I'll read. One says my self esteem's improved. My self esteem improves by just going to the grocery store and looking at actual people.
I mean, think about that. Yeah, this person is online so much, comparing themselves to all these random people and faces they don't even know that they're saying that I go to the grocery store just to pick myself and it's a relief and to look at other people. That's when I was reading it. I was like, man, when I go in the grocery store, I'm worrying about what aisle I'm going down. I'm not looking at people, comparing myself.
[00:46:07] Speaker B: Feeling, well, apparently you are, but you just aren't conscious of it because apparently, just in the same way you would notice if you recognize somebody, you are.
[00:46:16] Speaker A: But it actually makes me feel sad for someone because look, and this isn't about me here, talking about me like this, but what I'm saying is I'm comfortable generally with myself, right? Like, you know, do I wish I had a little more muscle on my frame and all that? Yeah, probably, you know, as a guy. But I'm okay generally where I don't feel like I'm constantly comparing myself to other people. But to know that people out there, some people out there that do, that's just Kind of sad, you know, because imagine that means every time you walk around, you're never relaxed. You're always comparing and judging yourself compared to someone else. And then the other one, the other comment was, I never take my mask off in public spaces. Honestly, I don't want any. I don't want to be seen by anyone anymore. I mean, think about. That's sad. Like, someone really, like, just to your.
[00:47:00] Speaker B: Point, as far as, like, how the comparison aspect is part of us and, you know, dealing with that, managing that now. Yeah, of course, anybody can find something about themselves and be like, oh, I wish this was a little bit more of this or a lot more of that, or, I wish I didn't have as much of this or whatever. But I think for me, what's always worked out or what I've always tried to keep in mind is that no matter what, no matter what I say, do anything, there's always gonna be somebody better and there's always gonna be somebody worse. And so that's settling to me, you know, just always keep that in mind. Like, so that doesn't matter, like, if you are trying to get to a certain point, but if you keep in mind that if you get wherever you want to get to, there's always gonna be somebody that exceeds that. And, you know, no matter what, no matter how far you fall, there's always somebody that can. That's gonna, you know, be lower than that. It can kind of help you keep balance, you know. So, I mean, I think ultimately a lot of this stuff comes with. These are the actions and what we have to do, or this is what's happening. What we have to do is for each of us individually. And some of that can come from parenting. Some of that can come from talking to friends or whatever, but we have to learn how to deal with these things because none of this stuff is going away, so to speak. Like, none of this stuff is just going to evaporate. Like, oh, you know, we went back in time and we don't have to deal with that anymore. This isn't Spider Man. You know what I'm saying? And so it's going to be about. It's not about. I mean, you complain about it or you call it out, so to speak, so that people are aware of it, but really it's about learning how to deal with it. Learning what works for you. Learning what works for, you know, your loved ones and so forth, so you can help people have less miserable misery and more comfort and wherever they are.
[00:48:26] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think it's also just a reflection of these are all new technologies. And like you said, maybe in a generation or two, we can, we can, we can, you know, we'll have figured out how to deal with some of this stresses.
[00:48:38] Speaker B: But that's, that's what we're calling out here. So I, I think we can wrap from there, man. We appreciate everybody for joining us on this episode of Call It Like I See It. Subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review us, tell us what you think, share it with your friends. And until next time, I'm James Keys.
[00:48:52] Speaker A: I'm Tund.
[00:48:54] Speaker B: And we'll talk to you next.
