Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: In this episode, we consider whether the American political system or even the post World War II order in the world is subject to forces like entropy in a physics sense. And whether we're seeing the signs of that now.
And later on, we react to a recent article that argues that a rise in self imposed perfectionism that may be tied to societal trends as making kids more anxious as opposed to just screen time, as many currently believe.
Hello, welcome to the Call Like I See it podcast. I'm James Keys and joining me today is a man whose smooth vocals have been known to turn a podcast into a motion part.
Tunde. Ogunlana Tunde, are you ready to show us why you're the boss man in this game?
[00:01:00] Speaker B: Yeah, man, that's a lot of. You put a lot on me on that one.
[00:01:03] Speaker A: Hey man, you thrive under pressure, man. I'm trying to turn the pressure up on you every day.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: I'm getting nervous, man. I'm about to fold like a. Fold like a cheap suit over here. You got all this pressure you're putting on me. Jesus.
[00:01:15] Speaker A: But before we get started, if you enjoy the show, I ask that you subscribe like the show on YouTube or your podcast. Appreciate doing so really helps the show out. We're recording on August 4, 2026. And Tunde, you recently sent me a piece entitled the Entropy of Power in which the author, Mike Harper, makes a pretty interesting case that human systems, including the kinds of systems that we organize our societies with, are subject to the same force of entropy that systems are in the physical world. You know, systems in physics, entropy is understood to affect physical systems which, whether it be a life form or a storm cloud, to cause them to naturally progress from order to disorder.
So in the piece you sent me though, the case is made that applies this to political systems as well. And then saying that our political systems will naturally drift from order to disorder unless new energy is consistently applied to maintain also asserts that we're seeing this happen right now in the US today. So it's one day to get us started.
I know you on many occasions in our shows have suggested that entropy affects our political systems. So do you think like, this direct case that was made here is something that was compelling to you, or does that make you reconsider? Or what was your reaction overall in the idea of political systems? Entropy in this direct way that the author makes it?
[00:02:38] Speaker B: I will say yes, it intrigued me. And I do think that, you know, entropy conceptually is something very important in the world of matter, right? The physical world, the universe, things like that. And there's even been speculation and studies that entropy is how we as humans actually experience time.
And so the idea that entropy, if it's that important as a concept in the. With matter and physics in the universe that. And we're made up of matter in the physical universe that, you know, that entropy would manifest itself on human consciousness as well. And the ideas of things, like you said, order slowly at some point forms into some sort of disorder, and then a new order is formed again. And I do think that the author's onto something, that we are experiencing a cultural and political entropy, just globally. I think it's the post World War II order, if I could say it that way, in maybe a shorter time span and maybe in a longer time span of maybe a few hundred years. The continuing decline of the European empires dominating the world with the rise of China and India and other parts of the world that used to be colonies of the Western powers and empires, I think that is all part of reality right now. And so, yeah, and I think in the discussion in the article, he breaks down two forms, bureaucratic and incentive entropy, which I found very interesting.
[00:04:14] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, put some meat on, like I said, because you made this connection several times, like when you sent me this. I'm like, all right, so he's just sending me something that he thinks already.
But the author did put some more meat on the bones, like clearly put in. We'll have it. Yeah. Notes.
To me, it was really interesting. And I think that the leap. I've never challenged you on it. I always thought it was a good point when you've made it. And I think the idea, though, is a very. It's an astute observation because what we're really talking about are the interactions between multiple different components. That's the system, so to speak. And each of these components has what they're trying to do, but then they operate together to create a bigger system. You know, the sun is made up of individual components, you know, that, you know, are. That are operating together, all these atoms, molecules, you know, that are operating, and then together they form a sun that's shooting off photons and all this other stuff at all times, you know, and turning hydrogen to helium, you know, and so that applying that to our human systems, where again, the same kind of analogy can be drawn, where it's like, okay, yeah, we have individual components working in concert to create some bigger thing.
It would make sense that, that, that. That would result in the. The concept of entropy applying as well, because.
And the. The arc being that the disorder creates the urge for order. So people arise out of the disorder to create an order. The people that create that order then are hyper aware of all the risks and they're paying attention. They're constantly putting energy in you constantly putting energy in to keep the order in place. But the longer you get away from people who had to put it together or who had to reform it. The interesting thing about the United States is that you can argue that we've been through this several times as a nation, and the nation itself survived, but it changed forms several times in terms of what the nation was. But each time, the further you get away from the change in form, the disorder to order, people appreciate what's the effort and energy that's needed to maintain it less and less and less. And so it will fall into disorder where. Which will take you down the cycle altogether. So it makes a lot of sense.
And as you said, I want to ask you what stood out to you in that sense, because the meat on the bones I thought were compelling cases. So did you want to touch on either one of those, the incentive or.
[00:06:37] Speaker B: Well, as you're talking, I'll say this because we did this show just recently in the last few weeks about post literacy. And in that discussion we discussed, there was a quote from Benjamin Franklin where he was praising the new Constitution at the time, you know, in the 1780s and all that. And he was saying how this was great because you have such a literate population that they can read and they're all this and that. And it made me think, as you're talking, I'm like, yeah, Ben Franklin, he couldn't foresee that the screen, the invention of the screen over time would be poor. Part of the seeds of the entropy, the disorder from the literate part of American history.
[00:07:21] Speaker A: See, man, he shouldn't have been messing around with lightning then, man.
No, I'm sorry.
[00:07:27] Speaker B: Hey, man, don't get on my boy.
But no.
So, no, but there was some interesting stuff. So there's a quote from the article here. Rules written to restrain power become tools for exercising it. Procedures designed to ensure fairness hardened into rituals that protect insiders. And I was like, wow, that's such an interesting telling. Like you're saying the founding of the United States, the idea of the electoral college and representation of congressional districts, was a genuine way to say, hey, everybody needs to have some sort of equal representation and we gotta be fair. These states without a lot of population, we'll give them a little bit more juice on this stuff, the electoral college, things like that. And then I was thinking about how the thing starting last year about the gerrymandering and how going outside of the constitutional norm of waiting for the census to be done at the beginning or end of each decade and the need for people, it says procedures designed to ensure fairness harden into rituals that protect insiders. That's what I thought about this gerrymandering stuff. I was like, man, until this recent redistricting that we'll see what happens this year. My congressperson had been my congressperson for like 30 years and her district has been rejected. If you look at it, it does look like a freaking salamander. It doesn't look natural in the geographical space that I live in. And so yeah, it's interesting that yeah, this beautiful system, this constitutional republic and this order of 3 CO/2 of government now has been hijacked. And think about it, we have right now a prominent politician who people don't know if he's been dead or alive. The guy, the senator from Kentucky.
[00:09:15] Speaker A: Well, think about what you're saying though, just like what you're saying as far as the. So the idea of a political district is supposed to provide representation to a smaller group of people, not just the whole state, you know, which your senator does, the whole state. But the House is supposed to be more personal than that. So they have the arrangement, the setup is to have a district that obviously it doesn't, it's not this anymore, you know, but it was a neighborhood or it was a community, it was something like that. But now that has been hijacked, that concept has been hijacked to create this crazy looking thing just to serve an insider, just to serve like. So it's literally what you're, you're talking about and how the machinery of the system that was designed to help has been turned into a tool to concentrate power.
[00:10:07] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's why man, it's, it's, it's a tough thing for me sometimes to talk to people about because they think I'm too doom and gloom. But I'm like, that's why I don't think we're going back to a 2015America or pre, that we're just going to go in. This entropy is going to lead us into a new order that's something different.
And we're seeing the seeds of the new order being formed as we're going through the disorder of the last phase. Which for example, I was having this conversation with my wife. She thinks I'm crazy.
I said in 2024, the Supreme Court gave the executive Branch immunity from the law.
And I said, and yeah, there'll be cases going to the Supreme Court and all that. That'll work it out over the next decade or two. But in the end of the day, that's different. I said, the country is now different than from the 1780s when it was founded because that we had three co. Equal branches. Now one of the branches is elevated, which means is going to change the incentives of people that are in there. And that's naturally just going to change the way that our system works in certain ways. And so, and James, we've had this conversation just privately, separately. I mean, the ability for the executive branch to be above others means that they're doing things like buying government. The government buying interest into publicly traded companies.
[00:11:26] Speaker A: Yeah, which is another.
[00:11:27] Speaker B: You don't have to departure. Yeah, that's what I mean. Like that's a small example of that's a butterfly effect step that now the U.S. government owns publicly traded companies. That never happened before. So that's going to morph into something else. And that's one example in one direction. And there's 100 different directions.
[00:11:42] Speaker A: You know, the irony of that.
Well, the irony of that to me is that that same government is out here taking stakes and means of production and the companies while also telling everybody to watch out. Socialists.
Yeah, the socialists are coming. It's like, well, hold up. I think what you're doing is exactly what you're telling everybody to watch out for. They're like, no, no, no, we're telling you to watch out for the socialists that want to give you health care. Watch out for those guys, not the socialists who want to take over, you know, private companies.
But no, like, I think the way you described that was very interesting to me.
And I think this is how, like there are two types of creep. One the author talks about, which I think is very important to remember that it's not always necessarily the bad actor, so to speak, it's people acting in line with the incentives that they have at that moment. You know, so. And he gives examples of that.
The other art is the bad actors, so to speak. And the idea that it's almost like a virus and this goes into your redistricting thing, like the actors who want to concentrate power, who want to concentrate wealth, all those types of things. How they use the system's machinery in order to do it. That's how a virus comes into your body and then it uses your own cells to create copies of itself which then go and infect other cells. And so that's the process of that. And to me, the piece on without constant energy to maintain the system was very important, along with the idea of remembering what those things are for. And so if you do get too caught up in the procedure of everything and how everything has to be, you lose the idea of why it's there in the first place. Like, we get so caught up a lot of times when people talking about the electoral college and this and that, we get so caught up and it's like, well, what is the point of us voting? You know, can we, can we start there and then figure out, okay, what's the point of us voting? Is the point of us voting to have these little tricks and all these things here or, or even the districts, the congressional district is the point to have all these little tricks and so that we can cordon off power for ourselves or certain people can cordon off power for themselves and never be challenged and so forth. And it's like everything that our whole discussions on these things never get to the idea of what are we doing this stuff for? Is the point still to have representative government? Is the point to settle scores? Is the point to stick it to somebody else who's your countryman actually, you know, because if you kind of stick it to your countrymen, you're kind of sticking it to yourself because you guys are in the same boat ultimately, you know. So I think losing touch with why you're doing these things is really the, in a human system standpoint. Obviously that's not your body, your body being subject to entropy. It's not like your, your heart cell forgets what it's there for. You know, it just, it just eventually that's a more physical process. But with these human systems, it is like that. The actors become further and further removed from what they're supposed to be doing. And then they can't, even if they're mustering energy to try to save it, they don't even know where that energy should be placed.
Where should the energy go? If people have decided, if certain people have decided they are unwilling to lose elections, and if they win, then it's cool, and if they don't win, then they're going to create a big stink about it and try to get it all returned.
The system has mechanisms in place to slow that down or to stop that to some degree. But it also takes a lot of will and energy from the people in the system to execute their roles and then make people pay from a legal standpoint. And if that doesn't happen, that's not a failure of the system, that's a failure of the people.
Yeah.
[00:15:15] Speaker B: Well, this article spoke to. This was part of the political entropy piece. And as I wanna follow on what you said, it's very good. A quote from the article says no one benefits from slowing the process.
The system rewards one thing, compliance with procedure.
[00:15:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:30] Speaker B: And then the next quote, procedure has replaced purpose. And that's really. To your point.
[00:15:33] Speaker A: That's the.
[00:15:34] Speaker B: And I think, I think it's. It's a great point you make, James. Because if you think about how we're talking. We're talking about a country that was founded with the idea of a representative government that was. That basically was formed itself after leaving a king.
[00:15:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:49] Speaker B: So that was the original entropy. Right. Like, the thing was, the colonies were the king. George was the one ruling over it and taxing everybody and had governors here that was basically feudalism. Right.
And the American colonists said, no, we want a different system. Right. We want a system where everyone can be represented. And da da, da.
[00:16:07] Speaker A: I mean, and to be fair, that system was subject to entropy and failed around the 1850s and 60s.
And then there was disorder and then it reformed again.
And then you had, you know, like. So you can look at this as the disorder going to. Disorder doesn't necessarily mean the end of everything.
It means the. A new organizing structure is going to be. Is going to have to arise because the existing one is no longer capable of meeting the needs of whatever the society.
[00:16:37] Speaker B: Actually, I thank you for that because that's kind of what I was trying to explain to my wife. Like, you know, seriously, she's like, you're too negative. And I was like, well, actually, I not saying everything has to be terrible in the future. I'm just saying that I'm very sober in the idea that the post World War II order that saw the United States as the only one standing after this huge war and the two nuclear bombs on Japan and the Marshall Plan, where we are exporting goods and services around the world and the whole world's our customer and the only big player against us was this USSR thing, which couldn't figure it out. And by 1991, we're the ones that are dominating all. And I go, yeah, I realize that's over.
That is over. We're back to a Pre World War II world or pre World War I really, where United States, the British Empire peaked in 1914 and the United States was 150 years old at that point. So the idea that the United States has never been in a world where it didn't have other dominant empires and players that it was competing with is not true. We just haven't been alive for that. And now we're going to be alive to see it play out. And so I think, I think that's, that's the way I wanted to stop on that, James, because when we talk like this, I think a lot of people think that we're saying that everything's going to go like to the Stone Ages or something. And it's not that. It's just that we have to recognize that the era that we grew up in, in a sense and that type of that, that normalcy is over. Yeah. And if we want to have some sort of remnants of what we feel this country was founded about, like the three branches and not having an authoritarian type of system, then I think this idea of procedure has replaced purpose. That's what we got to start reminding ourselves of. What's the purpose of this thing? You know, like you said about districts and representing, like what's, that's the purpose of it, representing people.
[00:18:27] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:18:27] Speaker B: And you know, and that to me
[00:18:29] Speaker A: is the key piece. What it is, is when you see the signs of entropy, the key piece is that's a wake up call for the people of good faith because a new system is going to be formed. And if you sit back and just hope that the old thing is going to magically reappear, you won't have a role in forming the new system.
You won't be able to take a look and say, okay, well why is blank here? We don't necessarily have to go back to that. We don't necessarily even have to for just the congressional district thing, for example. We don't necessarily have to go back to what it was before. Gerrymandering has been a problem a long time. We could go back, we could go to a new thing where the state has certain number of representatives and it's vote, it's voted by proportional representation, or you use instant runoff voting. Like there are a lot of different things that we can move to that may be better.
So it's not that it's the wake up call that has to be recognized. The people who want to tear things apart already see it. They're already jumping on all the machinery and saying, hey, let's turn this to, to use it for a selfish reason, for our personal benefit. The people of good faith have to recognize what's happening and not say, okay, we'll kick back and wait until things, till these actors, you know, age out or whatever. Go away. And then things will revert back to where they were before. That's not the way it works. You have to then apply energy from. People of good faith, have to apply energy to try to now guide the system into the next. Whatever the next phase is going to be, not leave it totally to the bad actors and just counting on them to go away. That was another key piece that stood out in this piece to me was how he talked about how people tend to focus on the bad actors and not how the system either needs to be addressed or what's happening in the system that allowed these bad actors to come up in the first place. And it's not always that the bad actors, yes, are the shiny object and we have to work to counteract them. But in many respects it's how the system has fallen off that we need to address. You know, when, when you get a virus, most viruses, you don't take an antiviral. You strengthen your own immune system and then you have to work your body then puts everything back together, you know. So last thoughts before we close it up?
[00:20:46] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, Just to follow on that. I mean, there's a part of the article at the end that I highlighted that I want to go over because it speaks to what you said. I'll quote, entropy doesn't produce chaos alone, it produces centralization. And that's key because as what you were saying, I want to read this. A decaying republic doesn't simply fall apart, it reorganizes around whatever is best positioned to exploit the disorder. That speaks exactly to what you said. The vacuum left by hollowed out institutions doesn't stay empty, it fills. And I think that's the message I want to leave to everybody who says they don't like what they're seeing in America today and this whole turn of authoritarianism and all that. And that's what I was trying to tell my wife or anyone who cares
[00:21:28] Speaker A: about the idea of the US Constitution or the principles of three co equal branches of government, or the idea of rule of law, all these things that we are watching decay.
[00:21:39] Speaker B: But go ahead, I'm sorry, yeah, no, but that's the point, is that someone is gonna fill the void.
And if it's not you or someone who you wanna support that thinks like you about representative government and the importance of that and maintaining equal branches or getting corporate money out of campaign spending so that people can have a chance to compete financially with oligarchs, all these things that people seem to be waking up to, then if you don't get out and support politicians. If you don't run for office yourself and start locally, city council, all that stuff, then someone else is going to do it. And that's how we got here. That's why, James, I keep thinking about and bringing up that group Moms for Liberty, because for me, it was an example of a group that was funded by shadow money and that did go to school boards and that did get books banned from states like ours and did get the educational system changed in a lot of places. And is because they just showed up and made an effort. And a lot of people who didn't like that didn't show up.
And we could multiply that by dozens of examples in our culture. And here we are 10 years later. So, yeah, that's it. It's gonna happen. It's entropy.
[00:22:56] Speaker A: And so, yeah, people who would like to, again, people of good faith will have to it's time to stand up, basically. It's time to get up, starting to start paying attention, and it's time to participate in the system. The disorder that is coming will then form into a new order. And if you're just waiting for things to revert to something else, then you will have no say in, in whatever that new order is. And like you said, it's going to there are people who offer solutions, and those solutions you'll probably not be comfortable with, but they're going to offer solutions. And in that moment of disorder, whoever's offering solution is ahead of everybody else because a lot of other people haven't even haven't gotten off. They're waiting for some reversion. So but I think we can wrap from there. We appreciate you for joining us on this part. We'll have a second part of this episode, so please join us for that as well. So till then, I'm James Keys.
[00:23:48] Speaker B: I'm Tunde Walana.
[00:23:49] Speaker A: All right, we'll talk soon.
All right. Coming back with the boss man, Tunde Now, Tunde, looking at this piece from Fast Company about why kids may be more anxious than these days than in the past. And you know, you and I have had a lot of conversations that touched on how social media and spending a lot of time in front of screens, less time with people, all that kind of stuff plays a role. What did you think of this idea that perfectionism may be a response to, or excuse me, that the anxiousness may be a response to perfectionism and how that may be tied into societal stuff?
[00:24:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's a very interesting concept, man. I think it's And I think you're right. Like, I think a lot of times we tend to focus on certain things and then that becomes the, you know, kind of the biggest thing we look at and we kind of don't look at other things. And I think your idea of the screens being the culprit for every ill with youth in the last generation, let's call it the last 20 years, I think there's a lot of truth that screens have caused a lot of anxiety and a lot of depression and a lot of kind of negative outcomes for young people.
[00:25:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:02] Speaker B: But I don't think it's the only thing. So I do appreciate the spirit to try and find kind of those of us who are older than young people, you know, older than kids, we feel that there's something going on with the youth. And to try and find something greater than just one excuse is important.
Now, I don't know how we quantify all these other societal things, so I know the article gets into that a bit, but I do agree with the idea that we should, we should be more open minded than to just blame technology.
[00:25:34] Speaker A: Well, yeah, I mean, especially because the screen thing, it doesn't seem like the screens are gonna be going anywhere. So this is something that may be a little more constructive in terms of things that we may be able to impact change a little bit better either on a personal and family level or even on a societal level. You know, like there may be things that can be done because, yeah, the screen thing, like, I don't know that by and large that's going to be going away. Like that's a societal trend that affects a lot of different things.
So to me, I agree with you. Actually. I think that a lot of times, and again, a lot of times when you see stuff like this, the impulse someone may have is to say, oh, well, no, that's ridiculous. It can't be that it's like an either or mentality, like it's either one thing or something else. But most things in life aren't like that. Most things in life do have multiple things that are going on. And if you can understand kind of the different ways things are going on, then maybe you can again find ways that you can impact the kind of change that you want as opposed to. If you're only looking at Everest and it's like, all right, well I'm trying to go from point A to point B and Everest is in between and all you can't take your eyes off of Everest, then the only way you can go is right over the top. Whereas you might have just been able to go around, if you look around and get the lay of the land a little bit better. So one of the things that they talked about in here was he actually drilled down further. And this is from Fast Company, like I mentioned, and we'll have this in the show notes. He. He drilled down further in the concept of perfectionism, and there were three pieces of it that he touched on. One being the high standard, someone who has high standards for themselves.
Another being someone who has high standards for those immediately around them. And then the third one being people who feel as if the standard is perfection from them, that's being imposed from other people, whether that's actually the case or not. But that's what they feel.
[00:27:21] Speaker B: And.
[00:27:22] Speaker A: And what they found is that. And this dates to before screens becoming ubiquitous in our society is that there's been a rise. All three forms of perfectionism have been on the rise and measured in these surveys and so forth. But the third one is the one that's jumping the most, that people are putting a lot of pressure on themselves and expecting high marks from themselves. People are doing that to their immediate. Their family, immediately around them. But. But what's really jumped is that people have been.
Young people have been more and more seeing society as demanding perfection from them. And then he hit me for a loop, and, you know, in a way that, you know, was preaching to the choir when it comes to me. He was like, that income inequality and the inequality that we see in society may be a driver of this. And that kids are rationally seeing that, oh, okay, yeah, you gotta be. In order to make it ahead. You can't just be an average dude and be able to buy a house when you come out of college and you'll get a job, buy a house, all these things. You got to be perfect. He's called. The quote from the article that stood out to me is, this is a reasonable response to an unreasonable world. Everything is getting 10 times harder for regular people. Then, of course, they may start feeling like, oh, man, I got to be perfect in everything just to live an average life.
[00:28:40] Speaker B: Yeah, it's interesting because I saw that too, in the article. I.
I can appreciate it, and I'm not gonna discount it as a potential factor. I just don't think.
Because the one thing I was thinking, which is not part of the article, I was thinking, all right, well, how about the other times we've had big economic imbalances like the 1930s and Great Depression? Can we go back and see? Was perfectionism an issue with young people, I don't know. So I think it deserves a little more.
[00:29:06] Speaker A: That's a great point. Let me throw something back at you in light of that though, what we're coming like, and this is why, for example, you and I can't relate to this as much, because buying a home when we're in our teens and twenties does not seem insurmountable. So most things in life are a matter of perspective. The perspective here that's very particular is that everyone else that you see who's a little, who's 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years ahead of you, weren't subjected to these same pressures.
This is all stuff that's hitting your generation or your group of people. And if you go back a few 20 years, it was a entry level or, you know, buying your first house wasn't something that you had to hit Every single mark 100% in order to do. You could kind of work your way through and do that. But property values now and the job market now, you know, doesn't allow for that. Or even getting a job after graduation, that wasn't something that people worried about, you know, in the 90s, like, oh, am I going to be able to get a job after I graduate from college? It's like, nah. Like that said, I think that's where I go ahead
[00:30:07] Speaker B: and that's where I'll focus my attention back on the screens. Because in order for young people to have this level of anxiety, more so than in other times in history when you had these imbalances, because you know me, I'm not going to deny that the imbalance is out of whack for me personally now between the haves and have not in terms of my opinion of what's healthy for society. And we can also acknowledge this isn't the first time in history we've had this kind of imbalances.
So that's all I'm saying is that I think the difference now is that young people have a lot of screens and their phones and social media and they're also seeing everyone else. Right? Because before, when we were young, we only kind of knew of our family, the older people in our family, and maybe just the people at, you know, the professors at our university or the people that when we got into entry level positions, you as a lawyer, me as a financial guy, maybe the older people in the office, but we weren't looking at constantly social media, like everywhere, YouTube, everywhere, where everyone else is doing great. And we feel like we're not like you're saying this relativity to other people is now magnified so much. And I think that does create these other feelings in people that are consuming this information.
[00:31:17] Speaker A: It's an interesting mashup that you're given there in that you're saying that people are more aware of them, so to speak, falling behind, or the feeling like they're falling behind, they're more aware of it, whereas they are actually relative to previous generations falling behind. But they're hyper aware of it because it's in their face all the time. That and then even in the people that are quote, unquote winning in their generation, that's in their face all the time. Whereas whether society at large was on the rise or on the fall, if you weren't hyper aware of it, you kind of just go about your day without worrying about all this big picture stuff.
[00:31:53] Speaker B: Well, here's another example. Maybe for the audience to appreciate. We as Americans have been indoctrinated for a very long time, that we're the greatest, right?
But think about it. In the last five, six years we've been looking on the Internet and we've been seeing what's going on around the world. I mean, I've been seeing these videos of what's going on in China. Like it looks pretty advanced over there, you know, Japan looks pretty good. I've seen, you know, just saw an aerial view of cities in Africa and it's like, wow, you know, we still act like Africans live in huts and are chasing frigging lions all day. And these are big advanced societies what I'm looking at. So I think it's like anything else. Once you have exposure, your brain sees something different.
You're going to, then it's going to manifest different in your head. And I think it's the same thing with younger people who are now seeing how everyone else is living. And let me add to this, it's a lot of times fake, right? What do people show on social media and the Internet? Usually the best sides of what they got going on. So they're going to show a nice car in a driveway for a 35 year old or 40 year old is going to make other people who are 32 or 28 feel envious or feel like they're not good enough. But what that person's not going to show you that they might be up to here in debt, right? Like, so we don't know.
[00:33:04] Speaker A: Or the person who doesn't have the nice car just isn't going to post, you know, so you're only the Only people that are going to post are the ones that feel like they have something to show off.
[00:33:13] Speaker B: Yeah. And so I think, and that's where I kind of put, I put a joke here in my notes. I put Madison Avenue plus Internet equals misery.
And the joke was for the consumerism. Like this is also a reflection of our consumerism culture and this constant marketing and this constant, everything's gotta be new.
[00:33:33] Speaker A: Well, yeah, but I don't know if you can tie that unhappy and anxiety together, you know, like automatically at least. Now I take it from what you're saying that you're very skeptical of what the arguments that are made in this piece. Am I correct in that?
[00:33:46] Speaker B: Well, I would say this. It's skeptical in the sense of not skeptical that I don't want to believe them.
Once I think about it, I'm skeptical in the fact that like I said at the beginning, we can't blame screens for everything. But I think as I think about it deeper, it brings the screen back into play.
[00:34:06] Speaker A: Well, no, you're saying that the case that they made, you don't think that amounts to something that you would say is more impactful than what you already think about the screen.
[00:34:16] Speaker B: Yeah, because I would say this, James, I feel like the change from what we are understand between the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression of the 1930s was stark. Like that was serious and a lot of people were hurting in the 30s that weren't hurting in the 20s. And I just feel like, so if we were 18 year old guys in 1932 or 33, we would have known that we were poor. Like, you know how you hear older people talk about that? Like, yeah, we grew up poor but we didn't know it. You know what I mean? And I think there was some truth to that. Like if everyone around you in a certain condition, you're going to be less thinking about, oh well, I got it so so much worse than everyone else versus yeah, maybe when Ebenezer Scrooge or someone like that or the guy with the monopoly with the monocle comes through town on his Rolls Royce, you understand that you don't have as much as him, but generally you had as much as most people that you were around were here.
[00:35:07] Speaker A: So I mean, that's what I'm saying. So you're basically skeptical of this being a big impact now. I think part of that though is that you're reframing this because the two pieces that really stand out to me is the idea of perfectionism, not depression and things like that. You're like, oh, yeah, people will be sad. People will feel like they're falling behind. But I'm talking about the anxiety to feel like you need to be perfect in order to swim in this world. And that feeling, I don't think you can compare it to the 1930s, because we don't have comparable studies here on how people were feeling at that time. For all we know, they could have been feeling like, the harder I swim, the further I fall behind. That's making me feel like I got to be perfect all the time. That's driving my anxiety. There's something very specific that's being talked about here, and that's the anxiety piece they did. Why are young people, who oftentimes we look at as young people, feeling like they're. They're invincible, you know, so to speak, like they can do whatever. Like, why. Why do we have all these anxious young people, as opposed to young people that are, you know, drinking all night and feeling like nothing can stop them, you know, so to speak? And so I think that there is something to this, you know, the idea that if in society, if I go to school, you know, one of the examples it was given, one of the people talked about a guy who has a doctorate who in school was getting D's, you know, several, I think, three D's in school. And it's like, well, now there is no room for error in that. If you want to get a doctorate, if you want to move up in school, things like that.
How competitive it is to get into schools, you know, that's something that is not something that we can relate to, and that's not how competitive it is to get into a school, which is the kind of thing that would make somebody anxious about every single test they take.
That's not something that's driven by social media and saying, oh, well, you know, like, I'm. I'm not. I'm not on screens feeling like I got to get an A on everything so I can get into whatever school it is, and, you know, and so forth. So I think that there is something going on. And if you look at where screens are more impactful than you can say, oh, well, I don't see this here, but it's like, well, but you're looking away from what particularly that we're talking about here in terms of the anxiousness, the feeling that you have to be perfect on everything. And again, the college entrance is a good example of this. I got to be. I got to do all that. I'm looking at my daughter's going into high school now, and we're looking at all these things that we have to do just to graduate. And it's, it's way more going, I went to a really good high school, and it's like, this is way more involved in terms of. All the colleges are looking at this, the colleges are looking at that. I'm like, you know, just go and get good grades and then, you know, do good on the tests. And the world is, we'll lay down at your feet. And it's like, well, no, that's not really the case right now. So, I mean.
[00:37:40] Speaker B: Well, that's. I want to say, though, that, that to me, is why it's. It's deeper than just this income inequality. Because I'm thinking, as you're talking, I'm thinking Ivy League's been competitive for a long time, for over 100 years. So in the 1920s, 19 teens.
[00:37:53] Speaker A: But it's worth competing to get into Harvard.
But the scale, like, no, but that's my point is that what if it's harder now?
[00:38:00] Speaker B: But what I'm saying is your experience with your daughter is a good example. You were in High School 30, 35 years ago. But you're saying, as you see, it's a huge change into the type of pressure we put on young people now. And all I'm saying is that's not necessarily a function of just the screens. It's not just a function of the income inequality. I think there's something else going on in our culture which is probably, maybe got touching on both of those and maybe some other things, but for some reason, we've become hyper competitive and it's. And I think part of it is consumerism. I think it's the way that the schools sell themselves. I think we've been indoctrinated into thinking we, our kids got to go into all these schools and all that. Like, remember that, that story from a few years ago where the parents were paying. I remember one parent paid up to 1.2 million on that SAT scam to get their kids into Ivy League school. And it was like, well, the school only costs $40,000 a year, but you're spending a million dollars. And that was more about the parents. I'm not blaming the kids on that one. That was the parents probably wanting to keep up with the Joneses at the dinner party at the elite country club. Like, oh, yeah, my kid goes to Yale. Oh, my kid goes to Stanford. And then the kid not being pushed to actually study. Right? The kid just being taught, hey, nepotism you know, we got the money, so we'll figure out how you get into school. Don't worry about it.
[00:39:13] Speaker A: But to your point before, nepotism isn't new. You know, that. That's been.
[00:39:18] Speaker B: But one of the things that the author pointed out is that. And that's what I wanted to get to too, is that perfectionism. They said it, it. It leads to the feelings of anxiety and depression over time. Like, that ends up being the result because you can never actually.
[00:39:33] Speaker A: Because you can. You can never be perfection.
[00:39:35] Speaker B: So, so, so it. To me, they all kind of swim together. Someone who is a perfectionist in an extreme way is going to end up having more anxiety and more risk of depression than other people.
[00:39:44] Speaker A: Correct. They're never.
[00:39:45] Speaker B: At some point, they're going to fail.
[00:39:47] Speaker A: What's happening now is, you know, the question is, is that in these certain settings, what's this? Why is the drive for perfectionism, especially where you expect other people to expect perfection of you? I mean, you said something just there that may be a part of this as well. And that's parental pressure. You know, like, maybe the expectation in the household is one that, oh, you got to be, you know, you got to go to this school, you got to do this and that. And it's not about, oh, okay, well, work hard and. Because I say for me personally, one of the things that when I'm with, you know, as far as how I try to raise my kids, you know, like, I'm very much not results focused. I'm very much results on. Or I'm very much focused on effort and on their, you know, like, are we showing up and are we putting in work and. And that's with academics, that's with sports, that's with everything. I want them to get used to showing up and putting in work, and then the results not being where you get your validation from or anything like that, but if results are where you're getting validation from, this is another piece of that psychology. That's the one there. Then perfectionism is kind of a natural response for that. So there are ways that from the household, this can be driven as well. And whether that's to say, again, I really am careful with this because the idea that, hey, I'm gonna go to college, I'll go to a good college, I'll get good grades, and then I'll come out and I'll work at a place that I could have worked at without going to college. That's a world I'm not. And that's where that Just to be clear, that's where the idea of wealth disparity comes in. It's like the opportunities for people who are of reasonable success seem to not be there anymore. And so that's the question of is that being driven. That could be the parents saying, hey, you gotta get all A's. You gotta go to the best school, because that's the only way you'll get a job. And that could be driving it. Or the kids could just see that stuff. So I feel like there's stuff going on here that maybe instead of just throwing the screen stone, maybe we can see that the world that they. The way they're perceiving the world may be playing a big role in driving this kind of idea of perfectionism. There may be more like. And that's why I'm glad to see something like this is just trying to take a more holistic look and saying, are there other things going on? Yes. The screenshot we know they have in the screens and the social media and the algorithms and all that, we know that's doing a number on people's psyche. But it's very convenient for us a lot of times to just say, that's all it is, and just kick our feet up and say, hey, so just get off the screen, and then your life will be okay. And it's like, well, maybe there's more stuff going on. I do want to wrap us up. Any last thoughts before we close it up, man?
[00:42:18] Speaker B: Nah, we're good. That's why we'll keep observing the world here and reporting back to you guys. Yep. Yeah, we'll be. Exactly. Keep liking us if you're still with us. Thank you. First of all.
[00:42:28] Speaker A: And then.
[00:42:28] Speaker B: And then give us a like and subscribe, please. That's all.
[00:42:31] Speaker A: There you go. Hey, man, if Tune Day. That's boss man T Day. If you said, tune Day says you got to give it to us, so
[00:42:37] Speaker B: I'm ass and come on.
[00:42:38] Speaker A: But if 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. Till next time, I'm James Keys Tunde.
[00:42:48] Speaker B: Lana.
[00:42:49] Speaker A: All right, we'll talk soon.
[00:42:59] Speaker B: I.
