Episode Transcription

00:00 Hey, let's perform. Let's perform. Let's perform. Let's perform. Let's do a podcast. Let's do a podcast. Let's do a podcast. Let's do a podcast. Podcast. Podcast. Let's do a podcast. Let's do a podcast. Let's do a podcast. Podcast. Who's the kid that keeps doing pushups and wants a shout out on YouTube? Do know who that is? 00:29 Yeah, what's his name Ethan or something? Yeah shout out to your push. Yeah quit He's like I'm push-ups until I get told hello or whatever. You should keep doing those Because look what happens if you don't 00:44 Things I learned last night. 00:52 Yeah. All right, let's get into the episode then. Have you ever heard of Ingrid Robins Robins, probably Robins, I think it's road. I would guess it's about R O B E Y N S, not Robins Y N S yeah. Okay, Robains Robains, maybe Robains. This is her. Let's play a game of. uh She is a editor at a newspaper. Interesting. She seems to me 01:20 and if I were to see just this picture and I was going to judge the book by the cover, I would say she's like like a I think she's British right. I would say she's a founder of like a weird kind of creepy biomet company. Sure, so to me company. Okay, so for audio listener, she is wearing like a trench coat. Well, we only see like shoulder up, but she's got like the flap of the coat up over her chin a little bit, yeah, and she's looking back over her shoulder. She's got glasses. She's probably middle age woman, you know, 01:50 Yeah, and uh and she's got graying hair, but not gray. Yeah. And she looks a little bit like the current prime minister. Oh, I can. Yeah, I can see that. Do you see her on time? Well, yeah, I can see that. Here's another photo. I don't know if this gives you any more of an idea. Same vibes. To be honest, it's just her doing her, you know, her her face on her editor hand. I think an editor, I think an author of some some sort opinion at all. 02:19 Okay, she's just is she a speaker? No, I think this could be this. This all could be the same to what about this one? You're just doing the thing. Well, she is British, though. She is European. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, that's I thought. Tim, just don't show me four more. Okay, sorry. oh I was showing you pictures of her. Yeah, so she she you're close. She's an academic. Okay, he's a PhD. She works at the University of Cambridge. 02:45 Another Cambridge, guess I didn't connect the dots. Those did look like professional like, yeah, professional would be on the back of an of a yeah. So she's probably written. Yeah, she's got a PhD. She's definitely written. Yeah. Yeah. And she what's interesting is like she originally got her like her career route and academics was economics for a long time. ah she kind of got disillusioned with economics and then shifted to philosophy and specifically ethics. 03:13 and so she went through like what are you looking at me like that for? I just feel like you're choosing topics that set us up for some crash outs and I'm not excited about that. She was studying economics and then just felt like maybe she should look at ethics. I don't know if that's a good set up for this, but okay and you know I could tell you more about her history, but honestly the whole reason to talk about her is a couple years ago. She wrote a book that has become a pretty significant book. Okay, 03:43 a slightly controversial book and it is called Limitarianism the case against extreme wealth. She was a girl. You go. I just I just feel like you're really setting us up here man. Okay. All right. 04:07 for those listening. It's a piggy bank, but the piggy bank is freaking huge, a small little tiny pig face on it. Yeah, they're just a limit. I ran ism. Oh, you know what? I think I've heard of this concept. Okay, but I'm like, okay, let's get into that. Yeah, yeah, the case against extreme wealth and it should be noted should be very clear when people talk about like wealthy people. Everyone's always like yeah, but my my friend's dad is wealthy. No, if you know that person, they're not well. 04:37 I'll tell you that right now. If you know that you're listening to this and you know them, we're not talking about. They're not. Well, they're not the same brand of wealthy. Yeah. So this book is exactly what it sounds like. It started as a research paper. She wrote this research paper, very heady, very like dense philosophy and economics because she has both of those experiences. um And that got a lot of uh interest in like academic circles. And so she got approached by publishers to be like, hey, 05:05 do you want to make this for a general audience? And so that's when she put out this book. And the book is interesting because you kind of expect reading it that it's going to like propose like a whole new like economic model. But what's interesting about it is it's not really, uh, Hey, this is a better economic model, like communism or capitalism. This is like a moral philosophy of like, it right? 05:32 for there to be people who are extremely wealthy. Like, is that morally okay? And towards the end of the book, she proposes some political measures and some actual economic theory to it. But the majority of the book is just an ethics book, really, which is very interesting. It's an interesting angle to take. I think it makes it, if you read the book, I think it makes it a little bit harder to write it off wholesale. 06:00 I think there's a lot of people who did you read it? Yeah, I think there's a lot of people we've talked about this before. We have. I read it like two years ago, I think. Oh, really? Yeah, I read it a long time ago, like close to when it came out. I didn't read it. But the the the people who discount it or like are vocal about how much they disagree with it, are they often compared to communism, which shows that they 06:28 didn't read the book. They don't understand what it's about or communism also true. They just like big scary word yeah yeah yeah communism has kind of become like the big bad wolf for capitalism and again we're not saying pro communism. We're not saying that but I'm saying that like what you think is communism is most likely not. I don't know what you think communism is but I could almost guarantee your definition of it is wrong. I'm pretty sure what you think it is is not what it is 06:57 Yeah, so, Limitarianism, like a brief, I guess, top of the, top line overview of it, is basically this idea that there is a moral limit to how much wealth someone should acquire. um And that limit is, it's interesting because she says, she defines, and we'll get to this number later, she defines like- Does she give a number? Yeah, she thinks, she defines what she thinks is political moral limit, but she also defines, 07:26 what she thinks is like the, or well, she defines what she think is the moral limit, like the ethical limit where people should choose to not go over this line. Okay. But then she defines a political limit where she thinks like government should move to legislate to this number. And she, gives a few reasons on a few ways you could do this, but the concept is not, it gets compared to communism because commune, but it's not communism because it is not the government taking over the means of production and controlling industry and then distributing the, uh, uh, 07:56 money and resource to the people. It's still capitalism. It's just there is a upper limit. The comparison that is often made is where communism would be you're driving down the highway and the government owns the road and all the vehicles on the road and then it just kind of gives you the right to drive a vehicle. Limitarianism is the government owns the road but everybody owns their own vehicles but there is a speed limit. 08:25 And you can't go over that speed limit because it's dangerous to everybody else on the road. That's the libertarianism is essentially a wealth limit. Okay. And so, uh, she gives like six moral reasons that she thinks that we should have a limit on this. Um, what are you doing? You F. 08:47 I move around. I like I move my body. Let's get you a head set then when I move my body. I got to move the mic to be near my body moving bodies dude. Okay, so my car special that I just filmed this weekend. They I am I was not a little annoyed, but just like they gave me a small stage yeah and like the lighting guy was like hey. If you step too far forward or too far back, you'll mess up the lighting on you, so you can really only move side to side. Oh and I was like 09:15 Oh and then I literally have a lot for foot yeah like it was a very small platform and so I was a little thrown off by that. I think that's really interesting. So I used to move a lot whenever I like spoke on stage. Yeah, I was talking about you give me a second. We could get back to you, but let me talk about me for a second. I used to move a lot when I would talk on stage and I actually got a mark like I got. I didn't get a word of merit and 09:44 The reason I like the amount of like doc I got whatever on the score, the reason I didn't get a word of merit is because they said I moved too much um and like they're like, like try to sit still more and it kind of broke me. Like I feel like for years after that, like I was kind of like trapped behind the podium. Why that's weird. Yeah, it was a weird thing to nitpick on. um And then, and then yeah. And then I like finally broke that at some point in the middle of college, got back into being like able to be like comfortable and mobile. 10:13 And then I got my job at some park and they were like, hey, we do IMAG. You're moving too much. They can't keep up with you. And then I had to like get back to being still. Sure. It was weird. And I don't move a whole lot. mean, I don't do, you know, I'm not like back and forth the whole time, but I do kind of, you know, pace back and forth. And I like, I like the freedom and ability to move around. Yeah. And some of my bits, I'll like lean out and do the whole thing. And it's just, I really did feel like I was just kind of like, okay, I've got 10:41 four steps that I can stay in those little things like you can kind of get in your head like, especially if they're like I joked, I joked during the sound check. I was like, I'm filming my special on the top of a ladder right now. Like you're a little yellow part that you're not supposed to stand on. That's what it felt like where I was just like, okay, I guess I'm here. Yeah. How'd everything go? I mean, that's what I'm saying. There was, there were parts of it that were, you know, the shows themselves went well. Yeah, I'm not saying that they were great crowds. We sold out both shows. That was awesome. Yeah. Right. I think I thought 11:11 that the next day I would be like that was awesome yeah, and I didn't feel that way. Have you felt that before because this is like the fourth, fifth, especially you film? No, this is my third. I mean, I mean, I guess you don't call blind date. I guess if you don't count the blind date or dry bar, yeah, I mean yeah, because the blind date was a different project entirely yeah, that's true and that's kind of what I mean too is that there was a lot of production issues of the blind date, but the blind date 11:40 went so well and was also just like I had never done it before and it was like it wasn't like a it wasn't a traditional special. So like you're kind of taking a big swing, no matter what right. This is like I'm spending more on this than I did on my wedding and this has to go well and also with the crowd is laughing, but I know that these jokes have hit harder somewhere else before like 12:05 and I guess I'm and I know that I'm over analyzing it for sure, but it's just the thing where you step off and you go. Was that the best like was it the best show I've done? Yeah, I don't know how it could be whenever like because all the other shows I'm not up there thinking this is a comedy special that could change your life. Yeah, and I don't know how to I didn't know how to perform the shows that off without thinking that for real and so I what I keep describing it as is the feeling of like 12:34 I just filmed the comedy special. The next day, what I feel like is that I just took this massive risk. My team is down by two. Yeah, I've just kicked the game winning field goal. Yeah, the ball has left my foot. Yeah. And you're just and now I just have to sit in that for two months because I haven't. I don't get to see the footage. I haven't even seen any pictures yet. Yeah, and it's like I've just it's just there and I don't know if I shank it or not. Yes. Yeah. And so that I didn't expect to feel that 13:04 I don't think. Did you feel that after the Galois? I know because you know what though? The Galois, was only four years into comedy at that point. Yeah. And I knew it wasn't going to get picked up by anybody. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I knew it was like the dream that maybe it would, but it's like, I didn't know what I know now about the industry. I didn't have actual connections to make that happen. I didn't have a manager then I didn't have no, I did that all by myself. I mean, yeah, I guess I 13:33 I hadn't signed with the manager yet. I hadn't signed with I guess I didn't realize. I mean, I'm I would have known that then, but I didn't realize, yeah, and we just kind of did that ourselves. It was after always the production team was there. I paid for that out of pocket myself as well. I had to uber drive to pay that off, but but that was also like what six years ago, seven years ago. So that was eight years ago. Yeah, that product was different than paying for a pocket now. Oh, for sure, for sure. 14:02 um and that's where it's like yeah, this thing's paid off like we're good, but also like I don't know if I'll make that money back. I definitely didn't make the money back on the first special. Yeah, you know, and this is like where it's like, but this has more at stake where it's like there's more people involved who want to see the money back, you know, uh and um there's stakeholders kind of yeah, and that's where it's like man. There's I don't I I 14:31 I would love to talk to other comics and figure out how they felt the day after they film the comedy special because uh I didn't feel this way. The dry bark I didn't pay for it. Yeah, you know, I didn't feel this way with the blind date because it was like that was an experimental idea that was it was just fun that it got. pulled it off. Yeah, you know, yeah, I think I was hoping to feel the way I felt after the blind date. Yeah, where it's like after where we had a wrap party and we all hung out and it was all fun and all stuff literally after the special like we went back to the hotel. 14:59 And like my parents were there and a couple of friends and I just I felt like I was just sitting there where I was just I was just going through like Did I tell this joke correct? Did we do this? Like is that the best? Yeah, like I was and I don't know how to turn that off right now So anyway sure like you probably like during the show like you hit a punch line and you're like well I didn't hit as well as last week and then right you have to go on to the next one. Yep. Well, that's still in there. Yeah, yeah in the audience was 15:25 more lit than usual so that we can see them on camera. Yeah, so I'm like seeing people's full reactions, which is a little which is also kind of drawing the whole time. Yeah, and and also the freaking the makeup lady had to come dab sweat off me so many times during the filming. Yeah, because like I was getting it was hot in Nashville and so she would just have to come up and I would have to stand there. Yeah, dabbing sweat off while the audience is sitting right there and then I would just be like 15:53 All right, let's get back into the jokes. it's just, was different. didn't know, I think for the next one now I know what more to expect. But I think I'm sitting here going like, man, I hope my nerves weren't reading on the camera more than, I wish that I had more confidence in it. And I'm sure that when I get the special back, oh, it's great. You know? But I have that little bit of like, I don't know how that went. I don't like that feeling. 16:22 And it's true too, like you've done this set so many times. So you know what it's like when it is like, when it's like hitting. Yeah. Nobody else knows that. So somebody else, I see it be like, was incredible. You're like, it wasn't. Yeah. Oh, and the first show there was two people in the front row who just weren't laughing. And I was like, we switch them out. What's going on here? Why are you get here out? That is for real. Yeah. It is. It is so weird to me. Like people, I mean, I guess sometimes you might not get the 16:52 the joke, but like go into a comedy show and not laughing at all is crazy, but also like you're a special taping. Yeah, pretend pretend you're a you're a participant. You're an actor in this. Yeah, participate, but also part of it is and I don't know like 17:10 We have a bit that we've done recently of like, thank you for your genuine laughter. But like I do think like there is something about like having a sense of humor where it's like you just got to like sometimes just laugh and then like you and like learn to enjoy things more, you know? Like even if like you don't actually, you know what saying? I don't think why you're trying to make this like a weird youth pastor moment. I know sometimes you just got to enjoy things more. You got to smile yourself in the mirror and trick yourself into having a better day. 17:39 It tricks your brain. It's for real. It you know, that's not what I'm trying to say. I think I think I'm saying is sometimes people come into things with bad attitudes. It's like that's why you don't enjoy that because you're for sure. For sure. Yes. But if like you just loosen up a little bit, like you're going to like it more. Yeah. Which is the message of the show, which is like, lower the bar for everything in your life. You'll have a much better time. Yeah. So maybe you should lower the bar for your expectations of the spec. Maybe I should. I don't know. 18:09 Maybe yeah, interesting. Well, it was just different and I'm excited to see how like by the time this comes out, hopefully I'll have an edit back, but I don't know. Hey yeah, maybe I should have an edit back by now. I don't know when their release was. You guys will be the you guys will find out obviously. Yeah. So you can join my email list is the easiest way to find out just so you know, why do they do that? Paul, ride the actor com um wherever just join my email list and then now send an email blast when the special gets a home. 18:38 You know man, could you imagine had there not been that snow storm flying to uh Alaska at four AM the next day after that like the way like yeah, I was originally supposed to do the special and then fly to Alaska the next day and also the Alaska show was just fine, but it's like no, that would have been terrible. That would have been awful. Yeah, that would yeah, but I do think I do now say here go like we did two shows in one day. I do think having two days would have made it better. 19:08 Oh interesting why um because I would have been able to sleep between the shows and had more time to make the second show a little better. This one was like like adjustments all just like all adjustments we had to make were made in the the forty five minutes between shows. That is true. You know that is true, so that's another thing. I think that you know hopefully next time when I film a special I'm able to do like four sold out shows. So can do two shows one night, two shows the next night and we have four shows to choose from. Yeah, you know yeah, but 19:37 Yeah, that was interesting. I'm excited to see it anyway. Who's the kid that keeps doing push ups and once once a shout out on YouTube? Do know who that is? As yeah, what's his name? Ethan or something? Yeah, shout out to your push. Yeah, quit. He's like I'm doing push ups until I get told hello or whatever. You should keep doing those. You should keep doing push ups because look what happens if you don't also 20:05 Also, there is somebody else. Look what happens if you do. There is someone as well. We're shouting people out. There is someone on Spotify who keeps commenting that you made fun of their dad for being bald and there's they said they're just going to keep commenting that until you acknowledge it. And I don't know if you remember making fun of someone's dad for being bald. I think they said it was like a youth conference. So keep doing those push ups to be clear. It did not acknowledge whatever that was. I don't know dude. Here's the thing about me making fun of people at my shows. I don't remember any of you. 20:37 That's not true. I remember that one. I remember that. Yeah, he was bald and out of youth conference. I remember that real clear. I mean, he was at a youth conference and he was bald. I do remember that. But I think I made fun of him. I made fun of him a little bit. I think he had a kid. 20:59 Okay. oh 21:05 I did a blind joke at this comedy club looking through like I'll send Robert the footage. We can throw it in person. The front row was like my wife is blind front row yeah, and I was like and you sat up front. Your date is blind. Is that what you said and you saw a front 21:29 I was the same back there. I love how you guys don't want to laugh about all right. That's really funny and you guys like and no one in the crowd laugh. 21:49 that that I was really mad at that. I was like I was like okay guys, the show's the same for you. You know, I just I don't know we're joking around. We're having fun. Yeah, yeah, this is also the joke I did where someone said they were a homesteader and I was a gas. What rich people do they buy a bunch of land? Yeah, rich people are always trying to figure out how to get away from society. They buy a bunch of land. They build a home out in the middle of nowhere, so she gives six reasons why she thinks 22:18 being super wealthy is back into the next after 24 minutes. It wasn't 24 minutes. 22:28 Thanks for watching our show if you like it. A great way to help out is by being a Patreon supporter. Doing that helps make this show possible, but it also gets a lot of perks for you. You can get every episode a week early ad free. You get access to a Discord where you can meet a lot of other people who love the show and actually hang out with Jaren and I every month on a hangout. And we're also in that Discord chat all the time, hanging, talking with people, talking about episodes and just random stuff in life. It's super fun. 22:51 We do, there's a way to get birthday messages, a free gift, merch discounts in there. So there's a lot of really great reasons to be a Patreon supporter. You get a lot of benefits out of it. And it also makes the show keep happening. So if that sounds great to you, you can go to support.tilling.com or tilling.com slash support, uh or just tilling.com and search around until you find the links uh and become a Patreon supporter. really appreciate you doing that. But if not, right back to the episode, right? 23:19 She gives six reasons why being uh super wealthy is morally not okay. The first is for the protection of democracy and political equality. And under that there's kind of three things. And so basically she says that extreme wealth concentration undermines any democracy. And it does it in three ways. First, the super rich can buy influence. And so they can pay for... 23:48 uh political power by funding candidates, you like campaign donations and things like that making large donations to pot. I feel like this is just crash out bait. I feel like this whole episode is you just being like campaign funds and I'm just supposed to be over here in my head. I'm like citizens United, so wait, I don't like I think and then like I was over here like I'm not going to crash out. I'm not going to do it out. I believe, but we're also only on point one a uh 24:18 of six and I was over here being like, uh it's not just campaign domination donations. It's uh like actual donations to party right or lobbying to create legislation that works in their interests. The other way that they did I hear a thing that this this in twenty five forty percent of lobbyists were on behalf of AI. I have not seen that, but I would believe it. 24:48 Well, we should probably verify that before we just included, but I'm pretty sure I heard that stat, which is a terrifying also uh most Americans almost like by I forget the number. I don't want to quote a number on this, but it is exponentially more Americans are more worried about AI than they are excited about it. Yeah, this is from a citizen dot org, one and four federal lobbyists now work on AI. Yeah. Okay, so twenty five percent 25:16 Yeah, you said I said forty. Yes, maybe that's where I was getting the four front for my bad, but so it is lower, but still that's a significant amount yeah, twenty five percent. Yeah, that's crazy. So yeah, so they can pay for influence in the democracy. That's the first. The second is they can control information. A lot of the a lot of the ultra wealthy they control by ownership. Yeah, the social media platform is where we get our information. The news outlets where we get our information and even like like 25:43 publishing houses where we get our information. Right. They have like actual control over what sort of information is inseminated in our society. But also they ah they can fund um advertising campaigns to influence opinion, influence thoughts, and they can fund research to influence the opinions that they want. And so they these can be kind of what you call like subversive methods to controlling what the public 26:13 believes and you do that by paying a lot of money to do that. And the third is kind of interesting. It's actually the threat of autocracy because there is this documented risk that billionaires historically and nations across the world have aligned themselves with autocrats and they use their wealth to help secure power for the autocrat and then the autocrat takes over control of the government. 26:43 We see this with Putin. We see this with figures like Xi Jinping and then they give handouts to their billionaire allies who helped rise to yeah. No buddy. I know. Yeah, that sounds terrible. This is the first I'm hearing of this. So I hate it. I don't know why you did this dude. No, I think it's, I think it's a good. This is torture because I've said, I think I said in the last couple episodes, 27:11 we're trying not to do this. We're trying not to be like a man like I want our show to be an escape from how terrible stuff is and you're like actually here are the six reasons. This is pretty bad. I did think about that while preparing for this episode, but I have since reading this book. I have for a long time been like in academic circles. It's become pretty big yeah, but I don't think it's big enough like I think more people should know about this idea. Yeah, I feel I feel like when I tell people 27:41 about limitarianism people are like libertarian libertarianism and I'm like no no no no not not that it's not that thing not that thing when you do that do you think that's funny or what what do you do? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That was real. I know, I I know. was trying to joke with you about it, but I had to it was too mean. It was way too mean. I'm sorry. 28:11 It's kind of funny you say that because that's to you. That's so I'm so sorry. It's really funny you say that because on the way back from lunch you got a phone call. Yeah. And I was sitting in the back seat of the car listening to you on this phone call. He's dropping to your private conversation. Yeah. And I was like, dang, this guy's big. I said this guy, was like, dang, Jaren's being way nicer to this guy than he ever is to me on the phone. And I was like, well, that's a pretty good sign that like 28:38 we actually are friends. Maybe, maybe it's not. Maybe it's a sign that we're not actually good. Why not me to you on the phone? No, I just think like I do think it's interesting hearing people engage with people that like you never had a fight with your wife and then you guys go to the grocery store and she's nice to the person I check out and she's like thank you so much. You have a good night and I'm like where was that attitude? 29:02 when we were that twenty minutes ever happen to you. No, it's like we I'm just saying it's interesting seeing people engage with people who are like because, like I know I know the person you were talking to someone like you're well, it's a newer and friendship with yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah, so it's like we have a deeper friendship, which means you're router so okay. Did you listen to the the? I think that I think that if 29:31 If your and I's text messages got leaked, oh career is over. So done. Like, done. mean, like neither of us would have jobs. But that's the whole thing is that in the proper context of our relationship, like we can say whatever and we know that this is not a serious thought and this is not a harmful thought. We don't have to like clarify it with each other. Exactly. But it also exists in that context. If you and I were to post some of those things on social, that would be like, 30:00 hey, what do you, why you doing that? Yeah, yeah, you for sure. And that's the improper context for those kinds of jokes or those kinds of things to say to or about a person, right? We would never do that because that's inappropriate. Yeah, right. And so the problem is, I think a lot of people don't have the friend group chat or don't have a friend to share that space with. And then it does leak into discord and reddit and 30:27 different corners of Twitter location where it's like you see a horrific thing happen in the news, a horrible accident or a horrible thing and you're processing that with your friends and in this context that might mean a joke about that thing. That's not appropriate. Yeah, yeah, you know, yeah, but if you were to put that on Twitter, that's like hey, that's not the place or time for that. Yeah, yeah, and so yeah, the way that I talk to you, that's it's knowing the audience right, but also I hate 30:56 so much about you that I'm trying to shame you into being more like me. I figure if I treat you your mom called me when you got accepted into a Vangel, your mom called me. She said hey, I was looking up other kids that got accepted into a Vangel. I found you on the portal. She says hey, we're looking we're looking for a mentor for our son. 31:21 because he plays in the park with his friends that they're being followed by the government and we're really hoping he grows out. He is a senior yet. You you guys are the same age here a couple months over the ground, but it's really weird. We want you to mentor him. I was like change him. I was like I guess this amount of podcast with him. 31:41 so she supports. She's our sole patreon supporter, so jaren's been making thirty two thousand dollars a month to make me different and it's not working. Your parents, my parents, so much debt to jerry. 31:59 all right. So anyway, so her second reason that she gives is we've made it through point one no crash outs. I is ecological sustainability and climate justice, so what she says is that extreme walk is oh they care about the trees. She says that extreme wealth is incompatible with a planet that is currently facing 32:29 a climate crisis and she says that because ah the super rich, they have disproportionate uh ecological footprints uh compared to the rest of the society. What is interesting is like uh if you look at the CO2 is the easiest thing to measure. There's more of impact that they have, but CO2. What's interesting is if you look at the worldwide average, the global average in terms of like our impact every year in terms of like our CO2 emissions is 32:58 Most people in a single year are roughly four tons of CO2 that they emit in terms of just like our consumption, electricity, vehicles, our transport. That's a global average. Individuals, individuals. When we look at the wealthiest people, the averages are crazy. The top 10 % is about 21 tons a year where 33:28 the richest one percent is uh seventy tons or is approaching seventy tons. This is the trend line that we're on because these are twenty thirty predictions, though yeah so in nineteen ninety it was fifty six, but what we what we do know is the wealthiest uh the one percent they are traveling on private jets constantly. They're traveling on yachts and multiple large estates uh and they have 33:55 large corporations that they operate to that have a large impact and that is the other corporations were attributing to the individual right that owns it is interesting because that could skew the numbers. She isn't so in these indeed like these type. I'm trying to be fair. I'm trying to 34:12 I think what I what I get frustrated by is the number of people who will discount like if that's the way they're measuring it. I don't think that's fair to attribute to the individual and these type of stats. They are. They are saying just the individual. Okay, that's what I'm Their personal actions and people will try to be like yeah, but that includes all their companies and stuff that like that doesn't they know that's not the same. This is just their personal action and I guess I guess potentially you could probably because private jet flights are in there and a lot of those flights. They are doing business for that flight, but they're also 34:42 doing other stuff. Yeah, you know, like so it's it's kind of hard. There's probably a great when people get mad about Taylor Swift flying her private jet. like what she's supposed to fly delta yeah and let's be honest like you would do like if you had a pilot jet. Oh, I'm not talking about that. I yes obviously, but I'm like could you like is she supposed to a moment in the airport? Yeah, that's true. Yeah, that's not that's not possible for right like that's not a realistic world. Yeah, that's true. 35:12 The other thing, she does separate, so she separates it. So the second level of this is investment impact. And so she says that the global emissions from the investments of the top 1 % is 41, takes up 41 % of total global emissions. And so that comes from all that. But she also talks about resource reallocation, because she says that the surplus money held by the wealthy does not go into the well-being of 35:41 the collective of humanity. And so right now there is a global uh urgent climate crisis that is and there's all this wealth that's being hoarded by the wealthy that could be used to fix these problems. And so because this is just kind of sitting in their bank accounts, this is not that like where we have capital that could be used that is not being used to solve a major problem. And she also talks about just the use of natural resources, the ultra wealthy through their companies. 36:10 are burning through a lot of natural resources, both like trees with deforestation and then like mining and all sorts of resources like that way and natural gases and things like that. So they're burning through a lot of natural resources significantly more than the average population through their investments. But that is kind of through their businesses. So to your point, that's different. Her third reason, and this one's really interesting, is the argument from moral dessert. uh 36:39 And so what she means by that is no one truly deserves to be wealthy because the arguments that you make for someone earning their wealth can all be attributed back to, well, all of these things were not of your own accord. Even if you went and you're an entrepreneur and you started a business and you were really successful and all of that truly could be assessed. 37:05 back to like your own skill and your own capability as an entrepreneur and as a business owner, those skills and abilities that you have were a lottery. There is uh a social lottery that you were born to the parents you were born in, in the uh area you were born in, kind of like you mentioned that comic in a recent episode of like, is easier for you because of who your dad is. So there's that, but there's also, 37:32 like the natural lottery where it's like certain people are born with different talents, different levels of intelligence, different energy levels, uh different health like capabilities um that you can't take credit for. Like you were just born as the person you were born and with the skills and abilities you were born with. Sure. And there's also this, there's this concept. What is this, this concept called? Privilege. There's this concept. don't know if there's a name for this, but there's this concept that the first thousand days of life. 38:02 are the most important days of a person's life. So it's about through your first two years, roughly like a low pressure, dude, you're about halfway through your son's most important time of his life because what's still interesting is 80 % of your brain development happens until you're three up until you're three years old. Okay, and so the a person's and that's why your wife goes, that's okay, that's okay. We went and hung out with with Tim's family. Finally, I had to stay outside in the car. 38:31 but my wife went inside like face time to me and no every time that their son does something like he like rolls over or like bumps his head on something. Yeah, three swoops and he goes that's okay, that's okay, but she so been she from across the room says that's okay because that's a thing like they respond to unless they're like seriously hurt. The way they respond to that kind of stimulus is your reaction like you are right. 38:57 Yeah, and so it's like and she go that's okay, that's okay, so me and my wife pick that up as a vocal stem and it has slowly morphed because it started with us being like that's okay, that's okay, and then it went to that's okay, that's okay. So now if we bump our like I hit my shit on the coffee table last week and Reagan went that okay and we pretend that that's how Brie was saying. You know, I'm saying it's more in so 39:26 broke, broke, saying it. I think it's broke Brenda, but her wife named Brenda, but in those first three years, okay, so just so know, that's what she sounds like does those first three years are vital. I love that Tim always wants to move on. Here's the thing Tim is willing to make fun of his own son on this podcast, but Tim is so scared of his wife who doesn't listen to this by the way. 39:54 who will never know unless I clip this on social media who will never know so you're so afraid. I want you to know I want you to know I can feel your pain right now and I just need you to know say it with me. 40:18 Thanks for listening to this episode of things I learned last night. If you like the show, you want to support us, we've got merchandise that you can get and it's good stylish stuff that I made. put a lot of work into this stuff, so it's great to find other tilling fans in the wild and be like, wait a minute. I know that shirt. And so yeah, we would love for you to do that. You can pop over to shop.tillin.com or the QR code or there's a link in the description. There's plenty of ways to find it. We promise we made it super easy. So thanks for supporting the show and thanks for listening. 40:48 So 80 % of a child's brain development happens in the first three years. And so much of that development hinges on the behaviors of the parent. And so the type of toys that the child has access to, the environments that they're put in, do the parents talk to the child a lot, do the parents read to the child, the type of diet that the child receives, is the mother breastfeeding, on the environment, the care, the emotional environment that they're in, so much of that. 41:16 happens in the first thousand years or first thousand days of a person's life and take it's. It's hard to say someone can take credit for sure they are because of that. We're gonna say that and then there's this uh there's what she calls social debt. Is this part? This is still part of this third point. The moral desert. She calls it social debt and she says no one becomes super rich alone and so she says that they do this, but they rely on public infrastructure. 41:43 Yeah, they get to use to create. That is the most annoying thing. I live in California and people have, you know, even just saying that some people go or have reactions to, but what's frustrating is that all these tech companies and even Elon specifically, yeah, start in Silicon Valley, you know, and they take advantage of the tax incentives and the infrastructure that's been created by all of those companies in Silicon Valley, the networking, the 42:10 connections made through government, all the different subsidies, all those things. They take advantage of those things early in their startup. And then once it's time to start withdrawing money, they move it to a tax haven like Texas so they don't have to pay taxes into the system that helped them create what they are doing. And I think that that's wrong. I think just objectively, if you moved into my small town and you used our resources to help build your business, then you... 42:38 But you also used our resources with the promise of investing some of the return into our city. And I don't think that that's unreasonable for the state to... But they painted us that way. Oh, it's crazy the state's trying to tax me at this level. It's like, it's not though. You... And maybe we should have explicitly signed the contract on that earlier, I guess. Because it was implied that we invested in this for the future tax revenue of your larger company. 43:08 Later in the book, she talks about some of the ways you could create this system and enforce it. And one of the things she actually talks about is what you're talking about right there. And she says it's kind of interesting when you look at most societies, especially capitalist societies in the world today, they have really strong borders in terms of keeping poor people from coming in. But they just let anybody take capital out. she says that the problem is, like you said, 43:33 that capital was built off the resources that this country created. And it's the same thing. the people don't get to benefit off that. It's the same thing I talked about. I was just talking to a guy about like free buses. How Kansas City made the bus system free and the streetcar free. And how whenever Mom Donnie in New York says that he wants to make the bus system free, everyone's like, it's just a socialist handout. But what you're not understanding is that from a city planning perspective, Like if we're working on this as a collective to try to make Kansas City great, one of the things that we want to do is we want to increase the workflow in... 44:02 these city limits. We need more people who can work inside Kansas City limits. um Part of what we need to do is lower some housing costs so that more people can live here and then by living here they can contribute to the businesses and we can get tax revenue from that business action. Another way to help increase our revenue is to pay for the transportation for people to come here from the suburb to then work here and increase our revenue. So for every dollar 44:30 example that we put into the bus system, we get $3 back. So it'd be like if I was like, I got to pay $700 for a flight and hotel to get to the show and at the show I'll make a couple thousand dollars or whatever. Then you would go, that's a waste of $700. And it's not though. It's a business expense. It's an investment to get to a place where I can then recoup that investment. And that's what I'm getting frustrated by is the number of people who treat... And of course I'm not saying like, oh, 44:59 government's great and there's no fraud, there's no abuse, or there's no misuse of funds, or there's no waste, right? But I am saying like to imply that any dollar spent is waste is just ignorant. yeah. It's looking at a lot of these things that... And that's not a That's not a class! It's looking at a lot of these things that they're like face Man, I'm looking at the state of the world and all I can do is be like, that's okay! So anyways, she says... 45:27 that the public infrastructure, the legal systems that were in place, the property protections that exist are all centuries of human innovation and government-funded research. She gives the example of GPS. says a major part of Google's success is Google Maps. And Google Maps exists only because the government invested in GPS, the government invested in the internet, and those were massive expenditures that the government spent on that Google was able to get rich off of. And so the owners 45:56 of Google got to become really rich off of. The government is laying fiber cables because they're starting to treat internet as a utility. Yeah. And that benefits internet companies. Yeah. And so that level of extreme wealth, even if you could say. I just don't understand how anybody looks at it. this, yeah, anyway, conversations are impossible. Keep going. That success is built off the back. 46:23 of a lot of other things that cannot solely be attributed to that one person's capabilities or talents. So to say that they have a moral right to what they earned or because they put the effort forth, you can say maybe, they did some things that do deserve something, but do they deserve as much as they gained? And she would argue no. ah And then her fourth point ah is economic efficiency and declining marginal utility. 46:52 This is really interesting. So these are two sides of this. uh And so basically she says that it's wasteful uh for the ultra rich to become ultra rich because there is this certain point where accumulating more wealth doesn't do anything for changing the quality of the life of the wealthy person. Right. So ah she gives the example of if you have a person say like they're like a single mother living on one income that is a minimum wage income. 47:21 if you gave that person $100, that helps a lot. Like that can go fast food, that can go towards builds, that makes a big difference. But if you give that $100 to an Elon Musk, he'll turn it into a billion. That is not noticeable. That's also what I hate all the way. Crash out incoming. Oh no. Oh my gosh. When people are like, if you give a poor person $100, they'll waste it. But if you give it to a rich person, they'll turn it into $1,000. 47:51 And that's because you're a dumb dumb. If you give a poor person $100, they will spend it on things they need. They will spend it on survival because that's what they have to do. And it's the same thing where it's like, man, I make a good living. I'm not complaining at all. My wife and I, like we're working hard. We're paying off our debt. We're doing our things. I like we're at the point where it's like there's not a whole lot left over at the end of the month. I mean, we're putting money in savings. Of course, I would love to be able to put more into savings. 48:19 And by the same time you get shamed for not doing that. Yeah. Yeah. You know, yep. 48:24 and it's like a go earn more. Oh, I was just I I was just stupid. I thought it was wrong with me, but that's what I'm saying is that oh, that's not a crash out. We're good. We're good. So she said I'm really holding it over here. Dude, she says there's a point you for this. This is is this payback for the April Fool's episode? This is crazy. You chose to do this. He says that there's a point for two weeks in a row. You were like here's some graphs and some science that neither of us understand, but I'm going to pretend to understand it. And this week you're like you're like 48:53 kind of yeah. So do rich people deserve it and I was over here like yeah, uh huh, uh huh, do rich people and you're like and you're like actually one of the arguments is that they're taking more than they're giving back and I'm like so never so the argument is that there comes a certain point right where it doesn't change your life at all sure. What does another vacation mode? 49:20 a home do, what does another jet, a bigger yacht, like none of these things actually improve your life that much, where that same amount of wealth, if you distribute amongst people who are in the bottom half of the population, it makes a massive impact in their life. um so... If you're talking about wealth distribution, people are going to shut you off though. Hold on, so keep talking. So she's saying that those living in extreme poverty, uh these sort of, uh is hoarding wealth that could actually make a big impact in society. And the argument here, 49:50 is that a society where the majority of people have all of their basic needs met is a more productive society and a better society to live in. Not just for the people at the bottom that you've increased their lifestyle. It's better for everyone because everyone gets to live in a society where... I think there's so many things that when we talk about like why is the education system kind of going downhill and it's part of it's like, it's the parents. Yeah. And it's like, yeah, well, if you look at the poorest neighborhoods, like those parents are not able to be present. Yeah. 50:20 Yeah, they're just not able to be yeah because they're working two jobs and even like the older kids in the household have to start getting jobs. Yeah, I would like in that is a way that decreases. There's a book called Dream Hoarders, which kind of talks about this as well, but it talks about like your kid having the free time to play on a sports team, which then opens them up to more scholarships is a whole different level of privilege. Yeah, there are kids who are athletically gifted who would love and could take those scholarship spots to increase their 50:49 uh their earning potential and maybe change their lot in life, but they don't have the after school time to play on a sports team because they do have, they have to go to work. I watched a video recently on YouTube about the winter Olympics, how they're increasingly becoming a rich kids talent show because all of those sports specifically uh are very expensive sports to get into. And so the people who manage to become successful in that, they usually come from money, which is a shame. 51:19 I mean I'm not trying. don't want to. I don't want to be like I hate rich people. Yeah, I'm not trying to be like that. It like you are but uh no, so the next reason she gave me we're not. What if I told you that I'm rich? We're not talking about you. What if what if or not that right? What if I told you I've just been playing humble this whole time and that my dad is the CEO of Delta Airlines? uh 51:48 So the fifth reason she gives is social stability and reduced crime. And she actually makes the argument, which I think is a valid argument through a lot of research, is that inequality has been linked to increases in crime, uh bullying in schools, actually mental health issues, corruption, uh and then just like general discontent in a society because of that gap uh with the rest of society. 52:14 And she actually, what's interesting is she ties us back to the last point. And she says, this is why you see so many wealthy people uh building bunkers in New Zealand. Because they know that the society that they're building is a society. Is so unequal. Yeah. And historically, this gap widens, it ends with the people going for the heads of the wealthy. And so the wealthy are finding places to hide for when that situation unfolds, instead of actually solving the problem. 52:43 And that's so odd. And she says that this is crazy because if they could just change their mindset a little bit where they aren't accumulating on hoarding so much and allow some of that to spread out some more, they wouldn't need to build a bunker because what life is that where the world collapses and you have to hide in a bunker in New Zealand for the right life? Like why do you want that to be the reality you live in? But that's what they're choosing, which is crazy. uh And well, dream orders also talks about how in the current 53:13 system we live in that it is possible, or at least the idealism is that it's possible to move up a rung into a different class. But for lower income, we have really removed the safety net. So what they're trying to do is they're trying to reinforce the safety net so that they never become poor. It's like really like what it is. Is they're trying to make sure that like, because the whole idea is that when, if you fall out of the 5%, someone else is in your 5 % slot now, right? 53:42 but they're just trying to make sure that the top ten percent no one moves out of which also, by the way, the top ten percent is people who earn over a hundred thousand dollars a year, which is crazy because people think the top ten percent is way more than that. It's not but yeah, so anyway, yeah and the last reason she gives is tainted wealth and character harms and so tainted wealth. You can kind of figure out what that is. It is tainted. Well, it is not like a 54:11 rule that everybody who accumulates massive amounts of wealth comes from data means. But it is pretty common that somewhere along the line there is something that happened that was harmful to others that they used to acquire massive wealth. We were talking about lunch. Meta just lost a massive uh lawsuit that said that they were intentionally addicting people. they were, well, I should say they were negligent in the fact that their algorithm. 54:36 algorithms are addictive to people? No, they were intentionally making it like, I mean, sure, you want to use all the legalese you want, but they were intentionally making their product addictive. They knew it was addictive and they were doing that. And also the thing like in 2009 when they fudged the numbers on video views to get all these people to put their videos on Facebook, turns out they were 10xing those views. So a video that showed 2 million views was really only getting 200,000 views and that's criminal. Yeah. But here's what happens. Here's what happens. I actually made a great analogy at lunch. I'm going to make it again here. 55:05 Is that they just pay the fine and they start to build the fine into their operating expenses It'd be like if I have a bus company and I want to make sure that my buses run the fastest in the city So my buses run 20 miles an hour over the speed limit and I just factor in the $200 speeding tickets. Yep. I go. Yep. It's every once in a while I'm gonna get caught with a speeding ticket But for the most part I'm not and I'm gonna keep moving and we're gonna make we're gonna make that up in Revenue because I can move so much faster than the other buses 55:34 And so all this factor in speeding tickets so that I can keep moving faster than the bus. And all the buses that follow the laws go out of business because of you. And then we just end up with a wildly unsafe bus system. And we go, why are the buses so fast and they keep hitting people and there's no way to slow them down? And that, oh, that was a crash out and I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I said I wasn't going to do it. Here, let me cash you back out. I'll cash and release you real quick. 56:03 uh And so she says that this is done by legitimately immoral or sometimes unintentionally immoral means to gain wealth. course. uh And then, or built on the back of other historical injustices, the success that they found was only possible because of the success of another person who was immoral. uh Or aggressive tax avoidance or actual evasion. Yeah. She makes an interesting statement that so much of tax avoidance right now that is legal tax avoidance was illegal 50 years ago. Yeah. And so just because 56:33 the laws have changed, which remember, they paid to change the laws, uh doesn't mean that it's okay for them to evade paying these taxes, it just means that they found a way to make it okay legally, found a way to make it so they can get away with it. So she says that uh typically someone who acquires this much wealth probably tax avoided at some point along the line, if not actively is tax avoiding right now. And that is tainted wealth. The other side of this that's really interesting, she says that this is actually very harmful to the wealthy people themselves. And she says that what happens, 57:01 is that it negatively affects their character and the well-being of themselves because having that much wealth inflates their egos, makes them think that they are more valuable than other people, and leads to irrational anxieties that somehow they're going to lose all of this or someone's going to try to take it from them. Also, it leads to social isolation because they cannot relate to anybody else because so few people are at the level, have the type of problems that they have. You also start to be like, of my relationships are fake. 57:27 because everyone's trying to just our money. Yeah. Even your kids are trying to figure out which one of them is going to get the money. Like, yeah, of course. Yeah. It's there's a reason that they're all addicted to to substances and stuff. Well, she was going to say it becomes an addiction in and of itself acquiring more wealth. Yeah. And they become addicted to seeing that number go up in their net worth. And so this thing has a negative impact on their own well-being to right the well-being of everyone else. And so this is her whole argument of like morally why this shouldn't 57:57 be a thing. She says that this is bad for society and is bad for the people who acquire it. And what's interesting is at the end of the book, she kind of starts to outline how she thinks this should work. And she makes a very interesting statement where she's like, look, I'm not anti-capitalist. I think capitalism is a good thing. And I think capitalism is like one of the And I hope that's clear in our rants and our crash outs too. Like, I'm not advocating that we do like, I mean, like the unregulated state of capitalism we currently exist in. 58:25 is that sucks. That's kind what we're talking about with the whole bus analogy, right? That's where we're at. But that doesn't mean I'm like, let's just get rid of buses. Let's just get rid of society. If that's your takeaway, I'm not trying to be mean, that's dumb. You know? Yeah, yeah. And so she also illustrates, she says, and also like, I recognize that the world I am painting, the alternate world I'm painting, is far away and hard to achieve. 58:52 And we should not say because this is so difficult to achieve, we shouldn't try in some way to get towards there. She said that ah the people who, when the United States overturned slavery, there was still a lot of big problems. There still are a lot of big problems that tie back to that today. But she says that that wasn't a reason to not undo slavery. Like these are things that we need to take the steps towards the moral right, even if it's a long road and even if we're not able to move as far as we to move. And so she says we should take some steps. And so 59:21 What she argues is she argues that there should be a moral top line where we say ethically morally this is the top line of wealth that anyone should acquire. And then there should be a political top line where this is something that government should actually enforce. And so the moral top line, which is kind of crazy, she says the moral top line is a million euros ah is the total net worth, total net worth, which is crazy. And she sets that number for a lot of reasons. But the biggest reason she did a lot of research, uh she 59:51 did this big study by pulling. That's a lot lower than I thought it was going to be, be honest. Yeah. She did this big study by pulling a lot of people that showed these lifestyles, a lot of people. she basically said, who has too much? And she basically took the mean of what everybody said. And that was at a million euro net worth. She also looked at the impact of that hoarding of wealth and what that takes away from the rest of society in terms of how many resources are available. So that's where she set that number. uh 01:00:18 That's pretty crazy. That's interesting to me because I think that that's highly subjective because a million dollar net worth in Kansas City is a pretty decent life. A million dollar net worth in Los Angeles is very different. Right. ah And so I do think like there's a little bit of you got to be able to have some variance there. The political number she says though is 10 million euros. And she says that by basically saying like I I took that up by an exponent. 01:00:45 and by exponential exponentially and said, okay, this is the number where like society should not. actually am a little bummed because I do think that the rest of these points were super valid, but I do think that this ending here is a little elementary is a little bit like, mean, for the exact same thing you just said of like a million here is different than a million there. Oh, I do. And if she came to it just by pulling people, will. Well, it wasn't just that it wasn't just I understand. But I'm saying like 01:01:12 and I will say she did for how well thought out the other points were. I'm disappointed by how not well thought out that is. did mention that these numbers are numbers that probably need to be reevaluated regularly because the economy changes and because of like what is considered a good life changes right and so these numbers need to be consistent like they need to be mobile, ah but the way she says a government could enforce these things and this is crazy. She says that once someone enters a ten million net worth, they should just have a hundred percent tax. 01:01:42 which is crazy. And so she's like, she's like, obviously no one would go for that. Like we'd have it'd be nearly impossible to get somebody to do that. But she said, this is what I think the ethical ideal is, is that scenario. We figure out how we can get closer to that. ah And so there have been some critiques of it. The biggest critique is like the good life. Like how do you define what the good life, right? You find that number and that's how different people are. was like, well, how are they motivated? You also don't understand. You also don't understand that they're 01:02:10 there stops being a moment where the money is what motivates you and it becomes the power and influence. And if we create a system where the power and influence aren't connected to the money, then it's different. Somebody actually made the argument that that is one of the flaws of this system. Because you take the money out and like, yeah, that helps, but like people will still find a way to socially, social hierarchy. That is interesting. And so they're like, this doesn't actually solve the root problem here. This is a symptom of a bigger problem is what this argument was, which is interesting. 01:02:39 but yet to your point uh whenever I hear that my first thought is the Green Bay Packers because you know this. Oh, I know why I go. Yeah, don't even worry about it. Do know this? My first thought is the Green Bay Packers. No, listen, listen, listen, listen. I, I hate the Green Bay Packers a lot, but I will say their structure like their corporate structure is really interesting because they are a nonprofit corporation. Nobody owns the Packers. There's not an individual that owns the Packers. When they were founded, they sold shares 01:03:08 to the city of Green Bay and now it's sold worldwide. But they are a collective of shareholders. And what's really interesting about that is the shares don't pay a dividend. They can't accrue, like they can't go up. They're non-transferable. And so they're kind of show shares. And so what the team does whenever they need to raise money, they sell more shares. And so in 2022 is the last time they did this. They raised $93 million by selling shares of the company for $300 a piece. 01:03:38 and they raised ninety three million dollars doing that and there's when out the end of every season, nobody takes a profit. It goes into the team's fund and they use that to grow the team and to manage the fund. So there's a there's a board, there's a corporate structure, there's so there's right who lead that, but nobody is profiting hugely off of the the people have salaries, but nobody is taking profits out of the Green Bay Packers. Sounds like communism. The Green Bay Packers are communist is what I'm learning. 01:04:08 And so what I'm saying there is nobody there has that financial motivation of like, this needs to be successful so I can make three billion at the end of this year. They just want the team to do well. And that's all that they need. 01:04:24 which is crazy. Well, you can buy a share of our podcast by joining us on patreon as your way of buying a share and then you can also listen to next week's episode right now by joining us there, you know, and then if you like this episode, go listen to Ida would. It was a rich person and she speaking of hoarding. They, you know, she whore, she physically hoarded her wealth and like hid it around her house, which is crazy. So fiddle off and we'll see you next week. 01:04:53 and no crash out. No, we kind of did it. Yeah, we did good. I'm proud of you. He's gonna crash out after this. We're gonna turn the cameras off. He's gonna lose it.