Full Transcript for It's Working: Flooding The Zone

resource. 72 00:04:20,711 --> 00:04:23,832 It doesn't scale. You can't buy more of it. 73 00:04:23,832 --> 00:04:29,194 And if I just generate the shit faster than you can process the shit, 74 00:04:29,194 --> 00:04:32,755 I win by default. Not by convincing you. 75 00:04:32,755 --> 00:04:35,796 Not by by winning the argument, 76 00:04:35,796 --> 00:04:37,016 but just by 77 00:04:37,516 --> 00:04:39,187 Exceeding you horizontally. 78 00:04:39,687 --> 00:04:43,150 like the debate kids who just keep talking and talking and talking and talking. 79 00:04:43,150 --> 00:04:46,672 You never you can't even track what they're saying much less get a word in. 80 00:04:46,672 --> 00:04:47,672 But 81 00:04:47,128 --> 00:04:48,481 Yeah, like a Jubilee post. 82 00:04:49,154 --> 00:04:52,476 yeah. But that's why the scholars who write about this describe 83 00:04:52,476 --> 00:04:56,719 it as specifically anti-democratic rather than just straight up dishonest. 84 00:04:56,719 --> 00:04:59,181 Because it's not targeting your beliefs. 85 00:04:59,181 --> 00:05:03,424 It's targeting your capacity to hold anything steady long enough to act on it. 86 00:05:03,424 --> 00:05:06,847 And the ability to sustain public attention on a thing. 87 00:05:07,507 --> 00:05:09,910 is sort of load bearing for the whole democratic arrangement. 88 00:05:09,910 --> 00:05:14,185 Oversight requires attention. Accountability requires attention. 89 00:05:14,685 --> 00:05:18,598 You can't actually hold somebody accountable for something you've already forgotten 90 00:05:19,000 --> 00:05:21,248 because four other things just happened. 91 00:05:22,155 --> 00:05:24,032 Or forty or four hundred, right. 92 00:05:24,176 --> 00:05:27,997 Right. Or renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America. 93 00:05:27,997 --> 00:05:32,649 So here's why I want to bring in an actual study because I I just I don't want 94 00:05:32,649 --> 00:05:34,600 to be just the two guys with a theory. 95 00:05:34,600 --> 00:05:40,702 There is a longitudinal piece by Julia Meetag and Gwendolyn Gurr published 96 00:05:40,702 --> 00:05:45,324 in twenty twenty three and they they tracked people over time through 97 00:05:45,324 --> 00:05:47,895 a referendum campaign. Not anything exciting, 98 00:05:47,895 --> 00:05:49,646 but it was just a referendum campaign, 99 00:05:49,646 --> 00:05:52,587 and they found a very specific causal change. 100 00:05:53,072 --> 00:05:56,076 Not a correlation, a causation. 101 00:05:56,576 --> 00:05:57,576 Walk us through it. 102 00:05:57,787 --> 00:06:00,829 So information overload comes first. 103 00:06:00,829 --> 00:06:06,983 That's the feeling of there's too much of this and it's updating faster than 104 00:06:06,983 --> 00:06:13,377 I can possibly process it. And that overload reduces what they call news 105 00:06:13,717 --> 00:06:19,521 efficacy, which is basically your sense that consuming this gish 106 00:06:19,521 --> 00:06:22,293 gab actually does anything for you. 107 00:06:22,793 --> 00:06:25,087 So it's not an issue of can I understand it? 108 00:06:25,087 --> 00:06:29,555 It's an issue of does understanding it help me or how do I apply what I understood? 109 00:06:30,504 --> 00:06:36,878 Right. And then that drop in efficacy is what predicts news 110 00:06:36,878 --> 00:06:40,341 avoidance. So the sequence is basically just overload, 111 00:06:40,341 --> 00:06:46,864 then loss of efficacy, then withdrawal entirely in that order. 112 00:06:47,364 --> 00:06:51,111 And that matters enormously because the story people tell about news avoiders 113 00:06:51,111 --> 00:06:53,495 is that they're lazy or apathetic or checked out. 114 00:06:53,995 --> 00:06:59,708 That's exactly what we're seeing at the polls right now with who is voting 115 00:06:59,948 --> 00:07:02,630 why and how often and whatever. 116 00:07:02,630 --> 00:07:06,832 But the truth is they're not lazy or apathetic or checked out. 117 00:07:06,832 --> 00:07:11,635 They're responding rationally to a system that stopped paying out. 118 00:07:11,635 --> 00:07:15,437 If you pull the lever a hundred times and nothing comes out, 119 00:07:15,437 --> 00:07:18,859 not pulling the lever is not apathy. 120 00:07:18,859 --> 00:07:21,900 It's avoiding the definition of ex insanity. 121 00:07:21,900 --> 00:07:22,900 It's it's learning 122 00:07:23,423 --> 00:07:26,098 The system where every time you pull the lever, 123 00:07:26,098 --> 00:07:27,341 nothing happens. 124 00:07:27,841 --> 00:07:30,293 I'd say this might be closer to the experiments where they shock you 125 00:07:30,293 --> 00:07:34,016 for pulling the lever. But that's where the psychology term comes in, 126 00:07:34,016 --> 00:07:37,348 which we're going to use carefully here because it gets thrown around loosely. 127 00:07:37,348 --> 00:07:40,911 The term is learned helplessness. 128 00:07:40,911 --> 00:07:45,324 The original work is about what happens when a subject is exposed repeatedly 129 00:07:45,324 --> 00:07:47,116 to a stressor they cannot control. 130 00:07:47,116 --> 00:07:51,319 And the finding is that eventually they stop attempting to change the situation, 131 00:07:51,319 --> 00:07:53,361 even when the situation changes and they could. 132 00:07:53,861 --> 00:07:58,419 Even when they could, and that's the ugly part of all of this. 133 00:07:59,348 --> 00:08:01,949 Right. The learning outlasts the conditions that taught it. 134 00:08:02,449 --> 00:08:06,831 So basically if you wanted to design a system that produced a population that 135 00:08:06,831 --> 00:08:09,552 had entirely given up and checked out, 136 00:08:09,552 --> 00:08:13,073 but then felt like it was their own decision, 137 00:08:13,073 --> 00:08:17,565 you would build exactly this. You wouldn't censor anything. 138 00:08:17,565 --> 00:08:21,857 Censorship is expensive and it creates martyrs and it's pretty obvious. 139 00:08:21,857 --> 00:08:24,698 You'd just publish everything constantly, 140 00:08:24,698 --> 00:08:28,970 forever, and

let people exhaust themselves sorting through it. 141 00:08:29,470 --> 00:08:30,801 Feeling like I'm in a cage right now. 142 00:08:30,801 --> 00:08:34,224 ~ the exhaustion feels like a personal failing because of that rather than 143 00:08:34,224 --> 00:08:37,276 a policy outcome. Right? Nobody forced them to turn off and drop out. 144 00:08:37,276 --> 00:08:38,918 They did it on their own. 145 00:08:38,365 --> 00:08:39,365 Which is 146 00:08:39,236 --> 00:08:41,356 exactly which is why it's so easy to spot. 147 00:08:41,356 --> 00:08:45,559 Like that's how you know it's working exactly as they designed it to. 148 00:08:45,559 --> 00:08:51,972 When the harm gets experienced as a character flaw by the person it's happening to. 149 00:08:52,472 --> 00:08:54,255 I wanna add the piece from my side of this, 150 00:08:54,255 --> 00:08:55,757 which is the institutional piece, 151 00:08:55,757 --> 00:08:58,993 because there's a second thing the flood of information on the flooding 152 00:08:58,993 --> 00:09:01,647 of the zone does that gets less attention. 153 00:09:01,647 --> 00:09:04,202 It's not just wearing out individuals, 154 00:09:04,202 --> 00:09:06,486 it's overwhelming the whole machinery of the system. 155 00:09:06,986 --> 00:09:07,986 Say more, King. 156 00:09:08,240 --> 00:09:11,102 Every institution that's supposed to check power runs on a queue, 157 00:09:11,102 --> 00:09:14,925 right? Courts have dockets, newsrooms have staff, 158 00:09:14,925 --> 00:09:17,527 congressional committees have hearing calendars, 159 00:09:17,527 --> 00:09:21,890 inspectors general, when they are allowed to carry out their inspections, 160 00:09:21,890 --> 00:09:27,195 ~ have caseloads. Every one of those is a system with a throughput limit, 161 00:09:27,195 --> 00:09:28,696 and none of those limits are secret. 162 00:09:28,696 --> 00:09:31,958 If you generate at four times the rate the queue can clear, 163 00:09:31,958 --> 00:09:33,299 you don't have to beat the queue, 164 00:09:33,299 --> 00:09:34,299 you just have to fill it. 165 00:09:34,670 --> 00:09:39,592 And then all of those things passed because nobody got to them. 166 00:09:40,543 --> 00:09:43,581 There just wasn't time. Not because they were argued for successfully, 167 00:09:43,581 --> 00:09:45,497 but there just wasn't a lane open. 168 00:09:45,997 --> 00:09:48,798 Right. So look, I wanna do the thing we always do, 169 00:09:48,798 --> 00:09:53,463 which is actually check whether the story we're telling survives contact with 170 00:09:53,463 --> 00:09:56,726 numbers, because we've been saying it's working, 171 00:09:56,726 --> 00:10:01,370 and I I wanna be honest about the fact that it's not working evenly. 172 00:10:01,870 --> 00:10:02,870 Sounds good. 173 00:10:02,988 --> 00:10:06,310 So the courts by the middle of May twenty twenty five, 174 00:10:06,310 --> 00:10:11,694 there have been thirty-nine injunctions issued against this administration. 175 00:10:11,694 --> 00:10:14,877 They've blocked massive federal layoffs, 176 00:10:14,877 --> 00:10:17,318 they've blocked funding freezes, 177 00:10:17,318 --> 00:10:22,132 deportations, but ultimately it comes down to thirty nine things, 178 00:10:22,132 --> 00:10:24,033 and that's just May. We're in September, 179 00:10:24,033 --> 00:10:26,305 right? May of twenty twenty five. 180 00:10:26,305 --> 00:10:28,967 So now we're in September of twenty twenty six. 181 00:10:29,467 --> 00:10:32,219 Right, that's that's a lot of losing for something that's supposed 182 00:10:32,219 --> 00:10:33,504 to be steamrolling everybody. 183 00:10:34,296 --> 00:10:36,007 No, it is. And and more recently, 184 00:10:36,007 --> 00:10:38,818 the the Congressional Research Service looked 185 00:10:38,818 --> 00:10:42,020 at thirty-four predecision injunctions. 186 00:10:42,020 --> 00:10:45,522 And as of June twenty seventh of this year, 187 00:10:45,522 --> 00:10:49,304 forty one point two percent of them were still in effect. 188 00:10:49,304 --> 00:10:54,867 So like a meaningful chunk of the early agenda 189 00:10:54,867 --> 00:11:01,441 is still right now legally blocked and mostly in the immigration space. 190 00:11:01,941 --> 00:11:02,941 And the biggest one. 191 00:11:03,325 --> 00:11:05,716 Yeah, i i it is the biggest one. 192 00:11:05,716 --> 00:11:07,957 Basically it's Trump versus Barbara. 193 00:11:07,957 --> 00:11:10,568 June thirtieth, twenty twenty six, 194 00:11:10,568 --> 00:11:13,039 just a couple of months ago, the Supreme Court struck down 195 00:11:13,379 --> 00:11:16,180 the birthright citizenship executive order, 196 00:11:16,180 --> 00:11:18,021 six to three. Like it wasn't close. 197 00:11:18,021 --> 00:11:20,922 You know, it wasn't our nail biters that we're usually having, 198 00:11:20,922 --> 00:11:22,743 like what overturned Roe versus Wade. 199 00:11:22,743 --> 00:11:25,254 So that's not a like a technicality, 200 00:11:25,254 --> 00:11:28,445 right? It's not a delay. That's like a that's like a ha a loss, 201 00:11:28,445 --> 00:11:31,256 right? A landslide, as he said about the election. 202 00:11:32,224 --> 00:11:35,618 And keep in mind six to three is this is going the other way, 203 00:11:35,618 --> 00:11:38,020 right? Six to three is the ideological breakdown, 204 00:11:38,020 --> 00:11:41,304 but the other way. There's supposed to be six conservatives 205 00:11:41,304 --> 00:11:43,146 or roughly roughly conservatives, 206 00:11:43,146 --> 00:11:44,797 you know, right of the other three, 207 00:11:44,797 --> 00:11:46,910 and then three liberals left on the court. 208 00:11:47,663 --> 00:11:53,417 Right. And it went opposite. So sit with that for a second because your entire 209 00:11:53,418 --> 00:11:56,520 information diet is the flood. 210 00:11:56,520 --> 00:12:02,144 And you've probably experienced that as like a a headline for like ninety minutes 211 00:12:02,144 --> 00:12:03,144 and then it was gone. 212 00:12:03,585 --> 00:12:04,612 Now for the other column. 213

00:12:05,112 --> 00:12:08,374 Yeah, I'm going to because I I'm not interested in doing sort 214 00:12:08,374 --> 00:12:09,925 of this like cheerleading episode. 215 00:12:09,925 --> 00:12:16,010 The the Fourth Circuit lifted the block on the anti DEI orders. 216 00:12:16,010 --> 00:12:20,653 So key provisions of those are live and enforceable. 217 00:12:20,653 --> 00:12:27,378 But the Supreme Court led the administration ~ to keep denying accurate 218 00:12:27,378 --> 00:12:31,971 gender markers on passports for trans and non binary Americans. 219 00:12:32,952 --> 00:12:37,309 And the mail voting order has been a genuine shit show. 220 00:12:37,309 --> 00:12:42,678 It was lifted partly in August and then blocked again just a couple of days ago, 221 00:12:42,678 --> 00:12:44,201 but it's still moving. 222 00:12:44,701 --> 00:12:46,509 So the honest summary is a split. 223 00:12:47,009 --> 00:12:52,354 Right. Which is not as easy of a headline to really swallow, 224 00:12:52,354 --> 00:12:54,937 right? Because some of it's dead, 225 00:12:54,937 --> 00:12:58,020 some of it is currently law, 226 00:12:58,020 --> 00:13:01,473 and a lot of it is just still kind of ethereal, 227 00:13:01,473 --> 00:13:02,724 like we haven't figured it out yet. 228 00:13:02,724 --> 00:13:03,724 We don't know. 229 00:13:03,765 --> 00:13:07,549 And I wanna name why I think that split is actually the most important fact 230 00:13:07,610 --> 00:13:10,483 in this episode. It's not the one people expect. 231 00:13:11,310 --> 00:13:12,310 Go for it. 232 00:13:12,180 --> 00:13:14,882 So both of the emotionally available positions are wrong. 233 00:13:14,882 --> 00:13:16,843 Position one is they're unstoppable, 234 00:13:16,843 --> 00:13:20,106 it's over, nothing works. That's factually false. 235 00:13:20,106 --> 00:13:24,249 Thirty-nine injunctions, a six to three loss at the Supreme Court. 236 00:13:24,249 --> 00:13:27,161 The courts are standing up to the administration to some degree, 237 00:13:27,161 --> 00:13:28,232 and those things worked. 238 00:13:28,732 --> 00:13:29,732 But 239 00:13:29,601 --> 00:13:31,694 Position two is that the system held, 240 00:13:31,694 --> 00:13:33,606 the guardrails worked, everybody relaxed. 241 00:13:33,606 --> 00:13:38,593 Also factually false. The DEI provisions are enforcing right now. 242 00:13:38,593 --> 00:13:41,877 Real people lost real passport access access. 243 00:13:42,873 --> 00:13:48,321 So both of these these comfortable stories that we've been told, 244 00:13:48,321 --> 00:13:54,020 one that the position held and one that the available positions 245 00:13:54,020 --> 00:13:56,153 are wrong are both lies. 246 00:13:56,653 --> 00:13:58,155 Right, and people want a clear cut answer, 247 00:13:58,155 --> 00:13:59,577 right? But both of the clear cut, 248 00:13:59,577 --> 00:14:03,502 comfortable stories are lies, and they're comfortable for the same reason, 249 00:14:03,502 --> 00:14:05,274 which is that they let you stop paying

attention, 250 00:14:05,274 --> 00:14:07,127 right? One says it's hopeless, 251 00:14:07,127 --> 00:14:09,089 don't even bother, don't turn on the TV. 252 00:14:09,089 --> 00:14:11,372 The other says it's handled, so why bother? 253 00:14:11,372 --> 00:14:13,755 Go watch something else. Different route, 254 00:14:13,755 --> 00:14:14,797 same destination. 255 00:14:15,297 --> 00:14:19,859 Yeah, and that that kind of lands directly on the thing you said about tabs. 256 00:14:19,859 --> 00:14:25,663 The reason it's hard is that the actual state of affairs is that some of 257 00:14:25,663 --> 00:14:28,884 it is is stoppable and some of it isn't. 258 00:14:28,884 --> 00:14:31,686 And you have to figure that out for yourself. 259 00:14:31,686 --> 00:14:35,988 And figuring that part out, that that cognitive load, 260 00:14:35,988 --> 00:14:41,111 is expensive, both calorically as well as intelligently. 261 00:14:41,111 --> 00:14:43,132 Right? That is the work. 262 00:14:43,632 --> 00:14:46,851 And they're betting that you either won't or can't do it. 263 00:14:47,351 --> 00:14:51,113 Right, which brings me to the thing I said last week and and I'll put 264 00:14:51,113 --> 00:14:57,005 it on record here. A very large share of what actually gets announced 265 00:14:57,645 --> 00:15:02,447 is not expected to survive. It's not drafted to survive. 266 00:15:02,447 --> 00:15:04,338 It's just drafted to be loud. 267 00:15:04,838 --> 00:15:05,838 And how do we tell? 268 00:15:06,151 --> 00:15:10,432 I mean I go back and forth. ~ th there are there are tells, 269 00:15:10,432 --> 00:15:14,553 right? Like I mean, you can kind of see through it a little bit, 270 00:15:14,553 --> 00:15:16,954 but it's mostly opaque. But they're boring. 271 00:15:16,954 --> 00:15:19,084 Which is exactly why they work. 272 00:15:19,084 --> 00:15:24,436 A thing a thing that's meant to actually happen has like full text written 273 00:15:24,436 --> 00:15:29,077 by attorneys and it's ironclad and it was already decided in Project 2025. 274 00:15:29,077 --> 00:15:33,878 Not some like concept announced from a podium that they have ~ 275 00:15:34,028 --> 00:15:37,960 Hastings of a thought process of a plan that's gonna take place in two weeks. 276 00:15:37,960 --> 00:15:42,333 And it it has a named agency that actually puts it into effect and 277 00:15:42,333 --> 00:15:45,985 it has an effective date and there's money and a budget attached 278 00:15:45,985 --> 00:15:50,908 and an appropriation or an existing line item that they can tap into. 279 00:15:50,908 --> 00:15:53,429 It already has people hired to do it. 280 00:15:53,429 --> 00:15:56,991 And it usually moves very quietly, 281 00:15:56,991 --> 00:16:01,144 often on a Friday and a lot of the times with no press coverage at all. 282 00:16:01,644 --> 00:16:05,538 And I'm guessing rubber stamped in a committee if if at all sent to a committee. 283 00:16:05,538 --> 00:16:07,440 But the things meant to be noise, 284 00:16:07,440 --> 00:16:08,861 what do we what do we think about those? 285 00:16:09,793 --> 00:16:12,604 Yeah, they're they're just kind of announced rather than filed, 286 00:16:12,604 --> 00:16:17,105 right? No no implementation mechanism legally weak in ways that 287 00:16:17,105 --> 00:16:20,286 are obvious to actual attorneys who drafted it. 288 00:16:20,286 --> 00:16:26,368 It gets a lot of press. But there's not a lot of paperwork or, 289 00:16:26,368 --> 00:16:31,969 you know, adjudication put into figuring out what the law actually says. 290 00:16:31,969 --> 00:16:37,431 It's just kind of a a weak argument that is loud. 291 00:16:37,431 --> 00:16:38,431 It's 292 00:16:38,689 --> 00:16:41,932 Gross. It's supposed to make you go, 293 00:16:41,932 --> 00:16:44,724 there's no way they can do that and get angry. 294 00:16:44,724 --> 00:16:49,488 But the biggest tell of all is that that's usually the thing that they carry, 295 00:16:49,488 --> 00:16:53,271 right? That's the thing you see actually see in the headlines because 296 00:16:54,012 --> 00:16:59,376 if passed would be awful. Because it's something that's actually moving, 297 00:16:59,376 --> 00:17:02,499 that doesn't need to be announced twice, 298 00:17:02,499 --> 00:17:06,182 that's happening in the left hand versus the right hand. 299 00:17:06,682 --> 00:17:11,308 Right. So I mean it's it's not even it's not propaganda. 300 00:17:11,308 --> 00:17:12,940 It's more like what is it they call that? 301 00:17:12,940 --> 00:17:15,863 I don't know, there's all these words for these things where like is it rage bait? 302 00:17:15,863 --> 00:17:16,863 Is that a thing? 303 00:17:17,100 --> 00:17:20,262 Yeah, I mean Trump Trump is been doing this for quite a while. 304 00:17:20,262 --> 00:17:24,315 Is is he puts the loud thing out there in front so you pay attention to that 305 00:17:24,315 --> 00:17:26,347 so you don't pay attention to what's happening behind the curtain. 306 00:17:27,246 --> 00:17:29,674 Right. ~ thank you, Donald Copperfield. 307 00:17:29,674 --> 00:17:34,459 ~ so we can we at least follow the staffing and the money. 308 00:17:34,959 --> 00:17:38,560 I mean sure, but not the volume. 309 00:17:38,560 --> 00:17:43,462 A quiet thing that hires and the appropriation part of it that 310 00:17:43,462 --> 00:17:45,683 the Congress is actually backing him up with, 311 00:17:45,683 --> 00:17:51,255 that's real. A loud thing with a podium and no personnel is kind of theater, 312 00:17:51,255 --> 00:17:55,917 it's designed for that. And we've actually done this on this show before, 313 00:17:55,917 --> 00:17:59,208 right? The controlling the checkbook episode was a was a docket number 314 00:17:59,208 --> 00:18:01,959 and four hundred and twelve pages that nobody was reading. 315 00:18:02,773 --> 00:18:07,734 That was the real one. It was silent and nobody had heard of it and it 316 00:18:07,734 --> 00:18:12,607 was just kind of passing underneath the radar because it was a full build 317

00:18:12,607 --> 00:18:16,689 and it was so big that nobody had even bothered to take it apart because it's also 318 00:18:16,689 --> 00:18:21,021 not gonna get CNN headlines or MS Now or Fox News or or whatever. 319 00:18:21,521 --> 00:18:23,374 And you may be circle circling back to this, 320 00:18:23,374 --> 00:18:26,999 but ~ I mean that sometimes they can be mixed in, 321 00:18:26,999 --> 00:18:28,782 right? Like the big bullshit bill. 322 00:18:28,782 --> 00:18:30,404 ~ that was like 323 00:18:29,806 --> 00:18:30,806 Right. 324 00:18:30,485 --> 00:18:32,247 some loud stuff and some quiet stuff, 325 00:18:32,247 --> 00:18:33,469 right? That actually mattered. 326 00:18:33,469 --> 00:18:34,731 ~ 327 00:18:34,083 --> 00:18:35,083 Yeah, like the Save 328 00:18:34,954 --> 00:18:40,869 Act. the I mean the the Senate just passed or was bragging about ~ the fact that 329 00:18:40,869 --> 00:18:45,002 a hundred and twenty nine Democrats didn't vote for this this thing that denounced 330 00:18:45,543 --> 00:18:49,125 what was it, d denounced socialism, 331 00:18:49,125 --> 00:18:52,668 right? Specifically denounced socialism and look at all these things. 332 00:18:52,668 --> 00:18:56,912 But it was earmarked with this very particular clause inside that would have passed 333 00:18:56,972 --> 00:19:01,836 the SAVE Act, which means that anybody who's ever changed their name or been married 334 00:19:02,200 --> 00:19:05,982 Has to bring like live birth certificates and legal documents just to vote. 335 00:19:05,982 --> 00:19:11,544 It's super gross, but they're doing it out there on purpose. 336 00:19:11,544 --> 00:19:13,565 And they know that it's gross. 337 00:19:13,565 --> 00:19:17,456 So instead of carrying the fact that they're trying to pass the Save 338 00:19:17,456 --> 00:19:19,067 Act underneath our noses, they're like, 339 00:19:19,067 --> 00:19:22,088 ~ look, Democrats won't denounce socialism. 340 00:19:22,088 --> 00:19:23,958 They're all communists. I'm like, 341 00:19:23,958 --> 00:19:25,969 well, those those aren't even the same thing. 342 00:19:26,717 --> 00:19:29,309 And don't listen to those pink o commies because they're gonna tell 343 00:19:29,309 --> 00:19:31,521 you what to think. We would never do that. 344 00:19:31,521 --> 00:19:35,524 Right? As we tell you what to think. 345 00:19:34,256 --> 00:19:36,485 Exactly. Literally. 346 00:19:35,524 --> 00:19:36,524 ~ 347 00:19:37,046 --> 00:19:38,987 okay, so I'm gonna I'm gonna take this next part, 348 00:19:38,987 --> 00:19:42,222 take a lead on this next part because I think for reasons that'll become clear 349 00:19:42,222 --> 00:19:46,494 as along the way, I'm actually qualified to talk about this a little bit. 350 00:19:46,751 --> 00:19:47,751 That's why you're here. 351 00:19:49,897 --> 00:19:51,158 Not for not just for my good looks. 352 00:19:51,506 --> 00:19:52,988 Among other things. Yeah, 353 00:19:52,988 --> 00:19:56,362 actually our our good looks actually translate rather

well over this podcast. 354 00:19:56,814 --> 00:19:58,695 Right. ~ there's 355 00:19:58,695 --> 00:20:00,185 there's a body of research on this, 356 00:20:00,185 --> 00:20:03,846 not on burnout generally, but on activist burnout specifically. 357 00:20:03,846 --> 00:20:07,878 And the person who's done the most careful work on it is a a man by the name 358 00:20:07,878 --> 00:20:13,539 of Paul Gorski. And the core study interviewed twenty-two social justice 359 00:20:13,539 --> 00:20:17,231 and human rights activists across a range of different movements. 360 00:20:17,231 --> 00:20:21,072 And what he found when he sorted out the causes was four categories. 361 00:20:21,661 --> 00:20:24,519 Ooh, I like these. They're like ~ infographics. 362 00:20:24,519 --> 00:20:25,642 Four categories. Go. 363 00:20:25,104 --> 00:20:26,104 Yeah. 364 00:20:26,205 --> 00:20:29,306 Yeah, some fun new words to learn and throw out at the dinner parties. 365 00:20:29,306 --> 00:20:32,647 emotional and dispositional causes, 366 00:20:32,647 --> 00:20:34,628 which is the stuff you bring in with you. 367 00:20:34,628 --> 00:20:38,130 Structural causes, which is the scale of the problem itself, 368 00:20:38,130 --> 00:20:42,702 backlash causes, which is what gets done to you for participating, 369 00:20:42,702 --> 00:20:43,702 and then there's a fourth one. 370 00:20:44,202 --> 00:20:45,202 Do I even want to know? 371 00:20:45,446 --> 00:20:47,237 It's kind of sad. It's it's in movement, 372 00:20:47,237 --> 00:20:48,378 which is causes 373 00:20:48,023 --> 00:20:49,023 Mm. 374 00:20:48,378 --> 00:20:50,039 that come from inside the thing you join. 375 00:20:50,039 --> 00:20:53,241 So again, these are the four categories of things that can cause you 376 00:20:53,261 --> 00:20:55,783 as an activist or cause activists specifically to burn out. 377 00:20:55,783 --> 00:20:58,155 So the emotional and dispositional stuff, 378 00:20:58,155 --> 00:21:00,366 this is what you're bringing, this is what matters to you when you start 379 00:21:00,366 --> 00:21:02,848 as an activist. Structural causes. 380 00:21:01,888 --> 00:21:02,888 Well, I 381 00:21:03,365 --> 00:21:06,941 I'm sure I can guess the the most important one 'cause you left it for last. 382 00:21:07,441 --> 00:21:11,153 Sure, it's the fourth one. and it's not close, 383 00:21:11,153 --> 00:21:13,714 even in terms of how much the interview material it accounts for. 384 00:21:13,714 --> 00:21:16,055 So people described infighting, 385 00:21:16,055 --> 00:21:18,416 backbiting, struggles over power, 386 00:21:18,416 --> 00:21:22,948 and they described movements reproducing internally the exact things that they 387 00:21:22,948 --> 00:21:27,360 existed to fight, like sexism inside anti-racist and anti ~ 388 00:21:27,740 --> 00:21:31,302 or you know organizations seeking ~ gender equality, 389 00:21:31,302 --> 00:21:33,923 racism inside progressive organizations. 390 00:21:34,423 --> 00:21:37,291 Yeah, that's ~ that's the dark

side of a lot of this stuff. 391 00:21:38,207 --> 00:21:41,301 Yeah, it's definitely bleak and it's consistent. 392 00:21:41,301 --> 00:21:44,075 And then there's the finding that I think about the most, 393 00:21:44,075 --> 00:21:46,409 which is Gorsky named the culture of martyrdom. 394 00:21:47,356 --> 00:21:48,978 Mm. That sounds interesting. Tell me more. 395 00:21:49,478 --> 00:21:52,962 It's an implicit expectation inside movement culture, 396 00:21:52,962 --> 00:21:56,297 which is an amazing thing that there's a movement culture, 397 00:21:56,297 --> 00:21:58,019 but that if you haven't been burned out, 398 00:21:58,019 --> 00:22:01,704 you weren't really committed. So this is like the for ~ for those 399 00:22:01,704 --> 00:22:06,219 not steeped in this literature or this this ~ part of culture, 400 00:22:06,219 --> 00:22:08,212 it's like the the CEOs. 401 00:22:07,082 --> 00:22:08,334 This is the no true Scotsman 402 00:22:08,334 --> 00:22:12,790 argument that a lot of the leftist organizations like to like to easily call upon, 403 00:22:12,790 --> 00:22:13,790 right? 404 00:22:13,534 --> 00:22:17,676 Right, or I'm thinking like something for more of like of our time is 405 00:22:17,676 --> 00:22:20,287 the CEOs who brag about getting up earlier and earlier, 406 00:22:20,287 --> 00:22:22,958 right? Like there's the four AM crowd and the three AM crowd, 407 00:22:22,958 --> 00:22:24,739 and then if you're not if you didn't stay up all night, 408 00:22:24,739 --> 00:22:27,600 you weren't really working. It's it's that kind of thing, 409 00:22:26,322 --> 00:22:28,550 Okay. Sure. 410 00:22:27,600 --> 00:22:28,800 right? So you feel guilty, 411 00:22:28,800 --> 00:22:32,382 they make you feel guilty for wanting to rest and wanting to restore yourself. 412 00:22:32,382 --> 00:22:34,643 And then, you know 413 00:22:33,937 --> 00:22:35,484 Because you're not you're not in the grind. 414 00:22:36,224 --> 00:22:39,985 Right, exactly. So if you if you raise an issue about being exhausted, 415 00:22:39,985 --> 00:22:41,726 then you're marked as not serious. 416 00:22:42,226 --> 00:22:46,400 Well, I I mean so essentially what you're saying is that basically 417 00:22:46,521 --> 00:22:49,904 the movement kind of generates its own attrition. 418 00:22:50,404 --> 00:22:52,625 Right. It's it's ~ eating their young, 419 00:22:52,625 --> 00:22:54,166 right, in a sense, or eating their own, 420 00:22:54,166 --> 00:22:57,407 ~ in the the race to get the problem solved. 421 00:22:57,407 --> 00:23:01,188 And I wanna be really clear about the implication here because it is uncomfortable. 422 00:23:01,188 --> 00:23:05,320 If exhaustion is the opponent's strategy and your own side treats exhaustion 423 00:23:05,320 --> 00:23:09,392 as a badge of honor, then your culture is doing their work for them for free. 424 00:23:09,892 --> 00:23:13,355 Yeah, and I think I think that's kind of the the point of all of this 425 00:23:13,355 --> 00:23:15,907 is that we have th

when they win, 426 00:23:15,907 --> 00:23:21,541 it's both by design, but also your own independent badge of honor that makes 427 00:23:21,541 --> 00:23:23,743 it feel like you've done more than you really have. 428 00:23:24,243 --> 00:23:28,076 Right. And there's a related finding I want to talk about from Christina Masleck, 429 00:23:28,076 --> 00:23:32,880 a scientist who's essentially the person who built the modern research on burnout, 430 00:23:32,880 --> 00:23:38,885 working with Gomez. and their observation about activists specifically 431 00:23:38,885 --> 00:23:42,949 is that activism cultivates awareness of enormous problems that 432 00:23:42,949 --> 00:23:45,050 the surrounding society will not acknowledge. 433 00:23:45,050 --> 00:23:48,663 And that gap between what you can see and what everyone else around 434 00:23:48,663 --> 00:23:52,947 you is willing to see produces a very particular kind of pressure and isolation. 435 00:23:53,447 --> 00:24:00,399 Which then just feeds back directly in a loop to ignite or reignite the burnout. 436 00:24:01,129 --> 00:24:05,013 Exactly, which in this case is driven by just sort of an ongoing despair, 437 00:24:05,013 --> 00:24:09,237 right? an isolation, just a l a sense of deep loneliness, 438 00:24:09,237 --> 00:24:13,241 lasting loneliness. Plus a culture that says you're not allowed to mention that it's 439 00:24:13,241 --> 00:24:16,574 breaking you, right? So you just gotta grin and bear it while you're dealing with 440 00:24:16,574 --> 00:24:17,574 all of this. 441 00:24:17,864 --> 00:24:22,808 Can I can I say kind of what this what this seems to be the most obvious part of it? 442 00:24:23,553 --> 00:24:24,553 Please, by all means. 443 00:24:25,032 --> 00:24:27,828 And look, you know more about this than than the research does, 444 00:24:27,828 --> 00:24:32,360 at least personally. ~ I just I I I think it matters for this one. 445 00:24:33,301 --> 00:24:35,842 Yeah, and I I I hate to pull this card, 446 00:24:35,842 --> 00:24:38,274 so to speak, or I don't wanna make this about me, 447 00:24:38,274 --> 00:24:42,696 but for the benefit of those who may be going through this and feeling that they're 448 00:24:42,696 --> 00:24:46,038 struggling alone. So if you haven't been with the podcast for very long, 449 00:24:46,038 --> 00:24:50,230 or if you've wondered where I am in a about eighty percent of the last 450 00:24:50,330 --> 00:24:55,613 few months episodes, I have been diagnosed with young onset Parkinson's. 451 00:24:55,613 --> 00:24:58,174 And there's a whole lot to that. 452 00:24:58,174 --> 00:24:59,465 I'm not gonna go into a lot of detail, 453 00:24:59,465 --> 00:25:01,356 but essentially took my career 454 00:25:01,724 --> 00:25:05,996 option from me practicing the law is just not an option for me anymore which i've 455 00:25:05,996 --> 00:25:10,768 talked about a little bit ~ but it also takes away a good chunk of every 456 00:25:10,768 --> 00:25:14,210 day which i haven't talked

about the everyday stuff but you know there's 457 00:25:14,210 --> 00:25:18,011 a a persistent sort of constant pain ~ 458 00:25:18,132 --> 00:25:24,555 and ~ just things that interfere with your ability to do basic things like 459 00:25:24,895 --> 00:25:27,136 sit in a chair for an hour and talk 460 00:25:28,018 --> 00:25:31,091 ~ some days and many days I just can't do that. 461 00:25:31,091 --> 00:25:36,716 And ~ so the thing you learn when your body is making the decision for 462 00:25:36,716 --> 00:25:39,838 you is that pacing is not a moral failure, 463 00:25:39,838 --> 00:25:43,702 right? Like it's not me. This is not me saying I need a break, 464 00:25:43,702 --> 00:25:46,924 I need some time off, I I need ~ you know, 465 00:25:46,924 --> 00:25:51,728 whatever mental health days. This is me saying I can't get out of bed or 466 00:25:51,729 --> 00:25:55,722 I can't sit up straight for more than five minutes without being in agony. 467 00:25:56,381 --> 00:25:57,381 Mm-hmm. 468 00:25:56,880 --> 00:26:00,873 And ~ you know, you come from a a country that's that prides itself 469 00:26:00,873 --> 00:26:03,566 on its Puritan work ethic. And you think, 470 00:26:03,566 --> 00:26:05,748 wow, you know, I'm just if I'm not working hard, 471 00:26:05,748 --> 00:26:08,820 then I'm not contributing to my society, 472 00:26:08,820 --> 00:26:10,552 I'm not taking care of my family, 473 00:26:10,552 --> 00:26:12,380 providing the way I'm supposed to. 474 00:26:12,380 --> 00:26:16,256 And when that instinct becomes associated with something like that, 475 00:26:16,256 --> 00:26:20,270 when you're feeling guilty for having a degenerative disease that 476 00:26:20,270 --> 00:26:22,622 is affecting you and it's it's an objective, 477 00:26:22,622 --> 00:26:24,023 real thing, it's not in your head. 478 00:26:24,023 --> 00:26:25,144 ~ 479 00:26:25,686 --> 00:26:28,339 That instinct is wrong. And so for me, 480 00:26:28,339 --> 00:26:31,003 I've had to learn the lesson over and over and over again. 481 00:26:31,003 --> 00:26:34,457 ~ because my body is teaching it to me every morning when I wake up in 482 00:26:34,457 --> 00:26:35,457 the middle of the night. 483 00:26:35,638 --> 00:26:39,426 So can you kind of lay out what the lesson actually is? 484 00:26:39,926 --> 00:26:43,958 So the the lesson here, one lesson here is that the goal isn't the most 485 00:26:43,958 --> 00:26:48,141 you can do today. The goal is the most you can do across the whole span. 486 00:26:48,141 --> 00:26:51,304 ~ you know, you've all heard the saying, 487 00:26:51,304 --> 00:26:54,576 you you overestimate what you can do in a year when you underestimate what 488 00:26:54,576 --> 00:26:58,769 you can do in ten years. ~ that's that's kind of the difference we're talking about 489 00:26:58,769 --> 00:27:02,302 here is just like keep in mind the big picture because there are gonna 490 00:27:02,302 --> 00:27:04,113 be days where you just can't do it. 491 00:27:04,113 --> 00:27:06,495 And

it's not an option, it's not something, 492 00:27:06,495 --> 00:27:08,256 you know, pretending is not the answer. 493 00:27:08,756 --> 00:27:11,347 So when the research says culture of martyrdom, 494 00:27:11,347 --> 00:27:13,127 I don't experience that as an abstraction. 495 00:27:13,127 --> 00:27:15,858 It's the thing that would have taken everything from me faster if 496 00:27:15,858 --> 00:27:17,208 I'd been allowed to keep obeying it, 497 00:27:17,208 --> 00:27:22,020 right? If I just said, I know that my you know toe is like curled in like 498 00:27:22,020 --> 00:27:25,020 a pretzel right now and it's agony to take a step, 499 00:27:25,020 --> 00:27:27,198 but I should keep doing it because it's the you know, 500 00:27:27,198 --> 00:27:31,272 it's the only way to do what matters and and to be a contributing member of society, 501 00:27:31,272 --> 00:27:36,584 ~ then that would have you know caused my pr disease to progress even faster. 502 00:27:37,388 --> 00:27:38,569 Yeah. And that's hard. 503 00:27:39,069 --> 00:27:42,782 Yeah, it it is. And ~ but we need to understand that rest is not 504 00:27:42,782 --> 00:27:48,487 a withdrawal from the mission ~ or the fight when the attrition is the fight, 505 00:27:48,487 --> 00:27:52,660 right? Like again, don't do the other side's work for them. 506 00:27:52,660 --> 00:27:56,964 Don't put yourself in an early grave trying to solve the problem that 507 00:27:56,964 --> 00:28:01,817 no one else can see. And that's not I'm not saying that as like a ~ you know, 508 00:28:01,817 --> 00:28:07,722 a placebo pill to just say take this little saying and and rest easy. 509 00:28:08,414 --> 00:28:11,165 It's actually a strategic claim and and I'm happy to defend it. 510 00:28:11,665 --> 00:28:15,618 Yeah, I mean that's kind of the it sometimes it can feel like a platitude, 511 00:28:15,618 --> 00:28:17,490 right? But I mean I I understand what you're saying, 512 00:28:17,490 --> 00:28:21,114 like and I I I hear from your experience, 513 00:28:21,114 --> 00:28:24,537 personally. ~ Well, 514 00:28:24,537 --> 00:28:29,171 so I guess the next part is kind of what I've been waiting for, 515 00:28:29,171 --> 00:28:32,504 and that's the the forty year old research that annoys me. 516 00:28:33,004 --> 00:28:36,265 Is it the research that annoys you or the people ignoring the research that annoys 517 00:28:36,265 --> 00:28:39,647 you? Yeah, 518 00:28:36,811 --> 00:28:38,682 ~ you know, it depends on the day. 519 00:28:38,682 --> 00:28:39,983 ~ depends 520 00:28:39,647 --> 00:28:40,647 right. 521 00:28:39,983 --> 00:28:43,346 on on my on how many spoons I've I woke up with this morning. 522 00:28:43,346 --> 00:28:47,458 So yeah. ~ Yes, 523 00:28:43,904 --> 00:28:47,952 Fair enough. So Karl Vik. Tell us about Carl Vik. 524 00:28:47,979 --> 00:28:50,811 Karl Vik is an American psychologist from 1984. 525 00:28:50,811 --> 00:28:56,745 ~ he had a paper called Small Wins Redefining the Scale of Social Problems. 526 00:28:56,745 --> 00:29:01,788 And that's the the sentence I want you to kind of hear and how well 527 00:29:01,788 --> 00:29:04,670 it describes what we've spent twenty minutes talking about, 528 00:29:04,670 --> 00:29:05,670 right? He wrote 529 00:29:05,961 --> 00:29:09,471 That the massive scale on which social problems 530 00:29:09,552 --> 00:29:14,085 are conceived often precludes innovative action. 531 00:29:14,585 --> 00:29:18,217 precludes, not just discourages and and that's important because I think 532 00:29:18,217 --> 00:29:21,019 for you and I this hits right close to home because depending on the day, 533 00:29:21,019 --> 00:29:23,181 one of us you're likely to hear one of us telling the other one, 534 00:29:23,181 --> 00:29:24,492 Yeah, but what do we do about it? 535 00:29:24,492 --> 00:29:25,682 Like there's just nothing that can be done. 536 00:29:25,682 --> 00:29:26,682 It's too big a problem. 537 00:29:27,298 --> 00:29:33,501 Right. But it it does he says precludes means makes it impossible. 538 00:29:33,501 --> 00:29:37,883 But then he also then goes on to give them a mechanism. 539 00:29:37,883 --> 00:29:41,114 And now I want you to remember this is like nineteen eighty four, 540 00:29:41,114 --> 00:29:44,305 okay? This is the year I was born. 541 00:29:43,759 --> 00:29:45,001 Not Orwell's nineteen eighty four, 542 00:29:44,305 --> 00:29:46,338 You were you were two, right. Well 543 00:29:45,001 --> 00:29:46,242 but actually nineteen eighty four. 544 00:29:46,338 --> 00:29:48,567 I mean, you know, is there any difference anymore? 545 00:29:48,567 --> 00:29:54,910 But he basically says it's because bounded rationality is exceeded. 546 00:29:55,820 --> 00:30:00,216 And dysfunctional levels of arousal are induced. 547 00:30:00,716 --> 00:30:02,017 Clear, right, Crystal? 548 00:30:02,114 --> 00:30:04,673 Sure, sure. Crystal mud. 549 00:30:05,020 --> 00:30:10,424 Right. Bounded rationality exceeded means that the problem is basically bigger than 550 00:30:10,424 --> 00:30:14,168 the amount of thinking that a single human can bring to it, 551 00:30:14,168 --> 00:30:17,310 right? So you can't reason your way to the next step. 552 00:30:17,310 --> 00:30:23,956 And then dysfunctional arousal is a very ~ three dollar college 553 00:30:24,236 --> 00:30:27,419 explanation of saying that you get so 554 00:30:28,149 --> 00:30:31,442 triggered so activated that you essentially become useless. 555 00:30:31,442 --> 00:30:36,215 Just frozen and spinning you know, 556 00:30:36,215 --> 00:30:39,839 you've got you've got forty tabs open in your browser and y you have 557 00:30:39,839 --> 00:30:41,490 to close them all because you're just done. 558 00:30:41,990 --> 00:30:45,434 Sounds like hell on earth. ~ but it also sounds like the Flood 559 00:30:45,434 --> 00:30:48,858 the Zone effect thirty four years before Bannon named the the tactic. 560 00:30:49,433 --> 00:30:51,845 Yeah, I mean he described I wish it was thirty-four. 561 00:30:51,845 -->

00:30:54,607 It's like 562 00:30:53,542 --> 00:30:54,542 'Cause well. 563 00:30:54,687 --> 00:30:56,529 it's it's getting to be a little bit more, 564 00:30:56,529 --> 00:30:59,851 but he he described that effect before Bannon named it. 565 00:30:59,851 --> 00:31:04,365 And and the reason why that matters is that he wasn't writing about propaganda 566 00:31:04,365 --> 00:31:09,139 at the time. He was writing about why well intentioned people like you 567 00:31:09,139 --> 00:31:15,964 or me or anybody listening here who care a shit ton about real problems consistently 568 00:31:15,964 --> 00:31:18,256 fail to do anything about them. 569 00:31:18,756 --> 00:31:23,993 Which means the flood has not ever been a new invention. 570 00:31:23,993 --> 00:31:27,488 It's a deliberate manufacture, 571 00:31:27,488 --> 00:31:33,366 it's a deliberate product of a failure state we already knew that people had. 572 00:31:33,866 --> 00:31:35,952 I'm gonna step out of my lane here for a second, 573 00:31:35,952 --> 00:31:37,848 but it sounds like an exploit. 574 00:31:37,848 --> 00:31:38,922 Is that the right word for that? 575 00:31:39,422 --> 00:31:43,895 yes. I mean in a way, right? In a lot of ways, 576 00:31:43,895 --> 00:31:48,908 in fact, they this is this has been the Republican tactic for for a good number 577 00:31:48,908 --> 00:31:53,230 of years now. Essentially find the loophole and then exploit it. 578 00:31:53,230 --> 00:31:55,522 I mean so exploit is I think is a perfect word for that, 579 00:31:55,522 --> 00:32:01,255 right? They basically found a vulnerability in the the machinery, 580 00:32:01,255 --> 00:32:06,288 and then they just scaled up and industrialized that specific workaround. 581 00:32:07,198 --> 00:32:08,959 And and Vike, in the same paper, 582 00:32:08,959 --> 00:32:10,230 he actually gives the counter. 583 00:32:10,230 --> 00:32:14,612 He calls it a small win. And he's specific about the definition. 584 00:32:14,612 --> 00:32:17,614 A small win, he he says, is it's a concrete, 585 00:32:17,614 --> 00:32:22,197 complete outcome of moderate importance. 586 00:32:22,197 --> 00:32:25,238 So not only was it concrete, it was complete, 587 00:32:25,238 --> 00:32:26,599 but it was moderate. 588 00:32:27,099 --> 00:32:28,585 And each of those words matters, 589 00:32:28,585 --> 00:32:29,585 right? 590 00:32:29,782 --> 00:32:33,273 Yes, and each of those words in their own fashion is kind of like 591 00:32:33,273 --> 00:32:35,634 a cornerstone of of of the wall. 592 00:32:35,634 --> 00:32:37,615 It's the it's the load bearing structure, 593 00:32:37,615 --> 00:32:39,976 it's the steel beam that runs up the brick wall. 594 00:32:39,976 --> 00:32:45,709 Concrete he he ~ goes on to mention that it's it's a real thing in the real world, 595 00:32:45,709 --> 00:32:47,720 right? It's not like a raised awareness, 596 00:32:47,720 --> 00:32:50,951 it's not something we're just noticing from from the periphery. 597 00:32:50,951 --> 00:32:52,482 And then he says 598 00:32:51,779 --> 00:32:52,779 Not vibes. 599 00:32:52,482 --> 00:32:54,622 that right. He says it's complete, 600 00:32:54,622 --> 00:32:55,823 meaning it's done. 601 00:32:56,135 --> 00:32:58,370 Right? It's not like phase one of nine, 602 00:32:58,370 --> 00:33:02,910 it's it's the whole thing. And then moderate means that you have deliberately, 603 00:33:02,910 --> 00:33:06,499 on purpose, just not tried to solve the whole thing. 604 00:33:06,999 --> 00:33:08,668 Which for some people sounds like giving up. 605 00:33:09,168 --> 00:33:11,099 I think for most people it sounds like giving up, 606 00:33:11,099 --> 00:33:13,589 right? Bec and it feels like giving up. 607 00:33:13,589 --> 00:33:16,310 But it the truth is it's kind of the opposite. 608 00:33:16,310 --> 00:33:20,712 And and Vik lists why. And this is the part that you know, 609 00:33:20,712 --> 00:33:25,392 if you need to to make a cat poster about it or or find your your platitude 610 00:33:25,392 --> 00:33:31,075 to live on, is that these properties are exactly what you need 611 00:33:31,075 --> 00:33:34,046 in the specific situation we are in right now. 612 00:33:34,546 --> 00:33:37,702 Think the right image for this motivational poster is the dumpster fire, 613 00:33:37,702 --> 00:33:39,245 right? The the dumpster fire meme. 614 00:33:39,245 --> 00:33:43,073 But nice. 615 00:33:39,871 --> 00:33:41,712 I like I like cat with machine gun, 616 00:33:41,712 --> 00:33:43,893 kitten with machine gun. Yeah, 617 00:33:43,073 --> 00:33:46,160 I I I hear ya. Yeah. 618 00:33:43,893 --> 00:33:45,055 I think I think it's a better one. 619 00:33:45,055 --> 00:33:46,396 So 620 00:33:48,297 --> 00:33:52,600 one, small wins preserve your gains, 621 00:33:52,600 --> 00:33:54,942 right? I mean they're they're they're losing, 622 00:33:54,942 --> 00:33:56,673 you know, if you lose the war, 623 00:33:56,673 --> 00:33:59,305 that's a sad thing, but if you if you're winning battles, 624 00:33:59,305 --> 00:34:01,797 you have to kind of close it, right? 625 00:34:01,797 --> 00:34:04,709 You say, I won, and then it's done, 626 00:34:04,709 --> 00:34:06,160 and it's behind you. 627 00:34:06,660 --> 00:34:07,912 Okay, what's number two? 628 00:34:08,412 --> 00:34:10,954 Basically you can't unravel them, 629 00:34:10,954 --> 00:34:14,597 right? So two, because they're finished, 630 00:34:14,597 --> 00:34:18,280 right? There's no half finished structure that collapses once you stop pushing 631 00:34:18,280 --> 00:34:19,631 on it. This isn't like, you know, 632 00:34:19,631 --> 00:34:22,284 I'm trying to keep the monster from getting through the door. 633 00:34:22,284 --> 00:34:27,108 This is I can push the monster back long enough to close the door, 634 00:34:27,108 --> 00:34:29,069 lock it, and then then we're just at the next door. 635 00:34:29,069 --> 00:34:32,092 We don't have to worry about losing ground. 636 00:34:32,092 --> 00:34:35,034 We just keep pushing forward. Right? 637

00:34:35,034 --> 00:34:36,175 So there you 638 00:34:36,777 --> 00:34:38,689 Basically when you stop pushing on it, 639 00:34:38,689 --> 00:34:44,366 it you still have the the the the small wind to fall back in and 640 00:34:44,366 --> 00:34:47,069 and relax before you push on to the next the next door. 641 00:34:47,997 --> 00:34:50,044 Right, 'cause it's done when you stop with each one. 642 00:34:50,044 --> 00:34:52,191 So ~ what's three? 643 00:34:52,691 --> 00:34:56,413 So basically each one requires less coordination to execute. 644 00:34:56,413 --> 00:34:57,824 It's this it's the ladder theory, 645 00:34:57,824 --> 00:35:02,646 right? If you tried to jump up ten feet in one go, 646 00:35:02,646 --> 00:35:06,749 every time you jumped up, you would have to fall back down to the first rung 647 00:35:07,069 --> 00:35:09,370 or the floor the floor. But with a ladder, 648 00:35:09,370 --> 00:35:14,393 you create individual steps. And each step is its own win and feels small. 649 00:35:14,393 --> 00:35:18,415 But the next thing you do is you turn around and you realize you're 650 00:35:18,415 --> 00:35:20,676 at the next floor because now you've 651 00:35:20,839 --> 00:35:22,270 Climbed each one of these things. 652 00:35:22,270 --> 00:35:27,856 So basically, once you understand what it's like to take a small first step, 653 00:35:27,856 --> 00:35:29,417 the second step is the exact same. 654 00:35:29,417 --> 00:35:30,708 It's just from a higher distance, 655 00:35:30,708 --> 00:35:37,355 right? So each of these, you don't need a a coalition of forty organizations. 656 00:35:37,355 --> 00:35:39,236 You might just need four people to get to step two. 657 00:35:40,157 --> 00:35:43,343 Okay, and ~ number four is kind of the one that gave me pause. 658 00:35:43,343 --> 00:35:44,605 Tell us about that one. 659 00:35:44,957 --> 00:35:47,269 Yeah, so four four is kind of the one. 660 00:35:47,269 --> 00:35:53,776 Small wins are are relatively unaffected by inter interruptions like changes 661 00:35:53,996 --> 00:35:56,659 in political administrations, for example. 662 00:35:57,159 --> 00:35:58,914 So that one's a little hard for me to wrap my head around. 663 00:35:58,914 --> 00:35:59,914 Can you say more? 664 00:36:00,069 --> 00:36:04,602 So relatively unaffected by changes in political administration. 665 00:36:04,602 --> 00:36:08,365 A guy wrote that in nineteen eighty-four in a psychology journal, 666 00:36:08,365 --> 00:36:11,687 and it's kind of the single most relevant sentence to this episode, 667 00:36:11,687 --> 00:36:15,740 because the flood is designed to make everything contingent on 668 00:36:15,740 --> 00:36:19,893 one enormous binary that's that's years away. 669 00:36:19,893 --> 00:36:23,205 And that basically you personally cannot move to. 670 00:36:23,705 --> 00:36:25,368 Which is the change of an administration. 671 00:36:25,368 --> 00:36:28,674 But the but the small win is not contingent on that. 672 00:36:28,674 --> 00:36:29,674 So

you're saying. 673 00:36:29,091 --> 00:36:30,091 A small 674 00:36:29,644 --> 00:36:31,773 yeah, a small win doesn't care who won, 675 00:36:31,773 --> 00:36:33,261 right? Like it's completed, it's done. 676 00:36:33,761 --> 00:36:35,126 Hm. And the fifth? 677 00:36:35,948 --> 00:36:38,190 Yeah, th basically the subparts, 678 00:36:38,190 --> 00:36:42,354 each individual step can be reassembled into different configurations, 679 00:36:42,354 --> 00:36:46,768 meaning it's a bunch of finished small things that become the 680 00:36:46,768 --> 00:36:49,180 raw materials for something bigger later, 681 00:36:49,180 --> 00:36:52,923 in a shape that you really might not have or could not have designed 682 00:36:52,923 --> 00:36:55,025 in the beginning and then just executed. 683 00:36:55,025 --> 00:36:59,679 But then you use each of those individual winds to piece together into 684 00:36:59,679 --> 00:37:01,341 a bigger picture of what you accomplished. 685 00:37:01,841 --> 00:37:05,026 So let's talk about how this fixes the psychological problems we were talking about 686 00:37:05,026 --> 00:37:06,619 because it's not just tactical. 687 00:37:07,119 --> 00:37:08,119 Sure. 688 00:37:08,571 --> 00:37:09,571 So if we go back to 689 00:37:09,402 --> 00:37:11,453 the MedTech and and Gur chain, 690 00:37:11,453 --> 00:37:14,565 right? Overload, then loss of efficiency, 691 00:37:14,565 --> 00:37:18,177 then withdrawal, right? The point of failure is efficacy. 692 00:37:18,177 --> 00:37:20,409 It's the middle link. That's where people are lost. 693 00:37:21,209 --> 00:37:27,354 Right, and a completed small win is just a direct injection of efficacy that can't 694 00:37:27,354 --> 00:37:28,354 be undone. 695 00:37:28,405 --> 00:37:29,616 And it's the only thing that is, 696 00:37:29,616 --> 00:37:32,698 right? Like you can't talk somebody out of learned helplessness. 697 00:37:32,698 --> 00:37:35,360 You can't argue a person into believing that their actions matter, 698 00:37:35,360 --> 00:37:37,702 especially when they have evidence of the contrary. 699 00:37:37,702 --> 00:37:42,055 The only thing that reliably restores it is an action that visibly produces 700 00:37:42,055 --> 00:37:46,048 a result. Progress, right? Which means finishing something small isn't 701 00:37:46,048 --> 00:37:50,211 a consolation prize ~ at all. It's it's the whole mechanism, 702 00:37:50,211 --> 00:37:51,211 right? 703 00:37:51,029 --> 00:37:55,468 Right, it is the mechanism. It's basically how you kind of stick to 704 00:37:55,468 --> 00:37:59,325 the game because ultimately it's just a small step that we've taken together. 705 00:37:59,825 --> 00:38:03,179 So there's one more piece of research that I want to handle carefully because it's 706 00:38:03,179 --> 00:38:06,683 the most quoted and most abused in this entire space. 707 00:38:07,183 --> 00:38:09,401 Yeah, is it that three and a half percent thing? 708 00:38:10,374 --> 00:38:12,475 The 3.5% thing, you called it. 709 00:38:12,475 --> 00:38:16,200 So ~ Erica Chenowith and Maria Stefan, 710 00:38:16,200 --> 00:38:22,666 they built a data set of 323 major campaigns from 1900 711 00:38:22,666 --> 00:38:26,390 to 2006 and compared violent and nonviolent ones. 712 00:38:26,390 --> 00:38:30,394 Nonviolent campaigns succeeded 53% of the time, 713 00:38:30,394 --> 00:38:32,476 violent ones 26%. 714 00:38:33,487 --> 00:38:35,096 That's just over double. 715 00:38:35,596 --> 00:38:40,242 Right, roughly double. If then that finding is robust and it's genuinely important 716 00:38:40,403 --> 00:38:45,239 because here's the the headline version is the no nonviolent cam movement they 717 00:38:45,239 --> 00:38:47,382 got there was no non nonviolent movement, 718 00:38:47,382 --> 00:38:50,175 sorry, they got three point five percent of the population to participate 719 00:38:50,676 --> 00:38:53,410 in its peak and then failed to achieve its goals. 720 00:38:53,910 --> 00:38:58,719 And that number is now I mean it's it's used within within progressive movements. 721 00:38:59,436 --> 00:39:02,380 Right, it's in every group chat and Chinnawith herself has spent years trying 722 00:39:02,380 --> 00:39:05,755 to put reins on this because she published cautionary updates. 723 00:39:05,755 --> 00:39:08,108 She wrote a whole book to add the qualifications. 724 00:39:08,972 --> 00:39:12,744 So what are w what was she trying to kind of say after the fact? 725 00:39:13,244 --> 00:39:16,466 She's saying, first of all, the number is descriptive, 726 00:39:16,466 --> 00:39:18,836 not prescriptive, right? It's not telling you what to do, 727 00:39:18,836 --> 00:39:20,039 it's telling you what they found. 728 00:39:20,039 --> 00:39:22,011 'Cause it's a historical sample, 729 00:39:22,011 --> 00:39:23,452 it's not a formula and 730 00:39:22,500 --> 00:39:23,523 So it's sort of 731 00:39:23,865 --> 00:39:25,792 like hindsight rather than foresight. 732 00:39:26,734 --> 00:39:28,646 Exactly. And she's saying, look, 733 00:39:28,646 --> 00:39:32,829 nobody can see the future. So it's not a cheat code. 734 00:39:32,829 --> 00:39:36,363 Second, she says that she's trying to hit the threshold that trying 735 00:39:36,363 --> 00:39:39,525 to hit the threshold without building a broad constituency underneath 736 00:39:39,525 --> 00:39:41,377 it doesn't guarantee anything. 737 00:39:41,377 --> 00:39:45,160 And third, and this is the one that actually changes what you do on a Tuesday, 738 00:39:45,160 --> 00:39:49,063 she says the other factors are probably just as important as the head count. 739 00:39:49,063 --> 00:39:52,196 Momentum, organization, strategic leadership, 740 00:39:52,196 --> 00:39:53,196 and sustainability. 741 00:39:53,807 --> 00:39:56,056 So s sustainability is in her list. 742 00:39:56,733 --> 00:39:59,748 Right, and it's equally as important as headcount. 743 00:39:59,748 --> 00:40:03,723 sustainability is in her own list of what determines whether a movement wins, 744

00:40:03,723 --> 00:40:06,949 which ties this section straight back to what we were saying about martyrdom. 745 00:40:06,949 --> 00:40:09,743 Not burning out is not adjacent to the strategy, 746 00:40:09,743 --> 00:40:10,775 it's in the strategy. 747 00:40:11,275 --> 00:40:15,784 So I guess what what is that number actually measuring then if it's not like 748 00:40:15,845 --> 00:40:16,845 we need to hit this? 749 00:40:17,278 --> 00:40:19,240 So this is the part that reframed it for me. 750 00:40:19,240 --> 00:40:22,603 The 3.5% isn't the cause of the win, 751 00:40:22,603 --> 00:40:26,006 it's a symptom of a condition that was already true. 752 00:40:26,006 --> 00:40:29,169 If 3.5% of a country is in the street, 753 00:40:29,169 --> 00:40:32,502 that indicates far deeper support underneath and it creates 754 00:40:32,502 --> 00:40:37,286 a sense of inevitability. And what that does mechanically is produce defections from 755 00:40:37,286 --> 00:40:40,029 the pillars that hold the thing up business, 756 00:40:40,029 --> 00:40:43,272 political, cultural, media, security services. 757 00:40:44,098 --> 00:40:47,434 Those pillars are kind of s the support system behind the mechanism. 758 00:40:48,158 --> 00:40:51,080 Right. And the the the part of the iceberg that's beneath the surface, 759 00:40:51,080 --> 00:40:55,363 but when you see the the smaller the the ten percent above the water, 760 00:40:55,363 --> 00:40:57,704 you see enough of those and you start thinking, 761 00:40:57,704 --> 00:40:59,816 wow, there's no way I'm making it through here and you turn back. 762 00:40:59,816 --> 00:41:02,818 So that's what I think what she's kind of saying is that the three 763 00:41:02,818 --> 00:41:03,899 and a half percent showing up, 764 00:41:03,899 --> 00:41:05,119 that's the tip of the iceberg, 765 00:41:05,119 --> 00:41:06,290 that once you become aware of it, 766 00:41:06,290 --> 00:41:08,191 you realize there's something actually going on here. 767 00:41:08,191 --> 00:41:09,792 So the 768 00:41:09,454 --> 00:41:10,454 Right. 769 00:41:09,792 --> 00:41:11,974 the crowd is the signal that the pillars are about to move. 770 00:41:12,474 --> 00:41:16,940 So that kind of changes what your job is in the in the grander scheme. 771 00:41:17,916 --> 00:41:21,078 Exactly. Changes it enormously because if you thought your job was to 772 00:41:21,078 --> 00:41:23,309 be number body number three point five percent, 773 00:41:23,309 --> 00:41:25,580 right? To to get over that that threshold, 774 00:41:25,580 --> 00:41:27,881 that's a job you do once a year. 775 00:41:27,881 --> 00:41:30,323 And it doesn't feel like it does anything. 776 00:41:30,323 --> 00:41:34,714 Because if your job is to make defection thinkable for one person inside 777 00:41:34,714 --> 00:41:37,056 of an institution, that's a job you can do on a Wednesday. 778 00:41:37,056 --> 00:41:39,327 And there are a lot more of those jobs than there are marches. 779 00:41:40,141 --> 00:41:42,540 Well, in effect that's kind of a small win, 780 00:41:42,540 --> 00:41:44,287 right? Like it's a small step up the ladder. 781 00:41:45,105 --> 00:41:47,081 Exactly right. Concrete, complete, 782 00:41:47,081 --> 00:41:48,081 and moderate. 783 00:41:48,153 --> 00:41:51,358 Okay, so let's see if we can we can land this plane. 784 00:41:51,358 --> 00:41:57,951 the standard move here is kind of a list of action items that everybody nods 785 00:41:57,951 --> 00:41:59,735 at and nobody actually does. 786 00:42:00,235 --> 00:42:01,480 And we have a rule about that. 787 00:42:01,992 --> 00:42:04,293 Right, so nobody's calling their senator on this show. 788 00:42:04,293 --> 00:42:09,386 ~ I checked. ~ nobody mentions the overlap on any of the FOIA requests 789 00:42:09,386 --> 00:42:11,537 I placed to any senator that I could find. 790 00:42:11,537 --> 00:42:14,958 So here's what I've actually got, 791 00:42:14,958 --> 00:42:18,620 and and none of these actually comes out to something we just cited. 792 00:42:19,120 --> 00:42:20,120 Go for it. 793 00:42:20,254 --> 00:42:25,908 So one, pick a lane and let the rest go on purpose. 794 00:42:25,908 --> 00:42:31,002 Not out of like laziness as a decision you make once out loud, 795 00:42:31,002 --> 00:42:32,894 ideally with a witness present. 796 00:42:32,894 --> 00:42:38,198 Because the flood only works if you accept the framing that everything 797 00:42:38,238 --> 00:42:41,460 is equally urgent and equally yours. 798 00:42:41,460 --> 00:42:46,504 It's not equally yours. You are the marginal difference on most of it. 799 00:42:46,504 --> 00:42:49,447 And pretending that you're not is how you end up being. 800 00:42:49,809 --> 00:42:51,481 The marginal difference on none of 801 00:42:51,981 --> 00:42:52,981 It was number two. 802 00:42:53,570 --> 00:42:57,741 Yeah, so triage by staffing and appropriation, 803 00:42:57,741 --> 00:43:01,332 not by volume. We did kind of like the tells earlier, 804 00:43:01,332 --> 00:43:03,341 what makes it look like, you know, 805 00:43:03,341 --> 00:43:05,193 i it's trying to flood the zone. 806 00:43:05,193 --> 00:43:09,754 And a a quiet thing with money and hires behind it is real. 807 00:43:09,754 --> 00:43:14,276 We already said that. A loud thing with a podium and nobody behind it 808 00:43:14,276 --> 00:43:18,977 is kind of theater. So if you only have bandwidth for one thing a week, 809 00:43:18,977 --> 00:43:21,228 spend it on something with 810 00:43:21,558 --> 00:43:23,992 a docket number and not something with a hashtag, 811 00:43:23,992 --> 00:43:27,467 right? Like don't don't repost somebody else's post. 812 00:43:27,467 --> 00:43:29,510 Like choose to do a thing. Use, 813 00:43:29,510 --> 00:43:34,237 you know, fivecalls dot org or something and and just do that this week. 814 00:43:34,237 --> 00:43:37,802 That is enough because it's a small win. 815 00:43:38,302 --> 00:43:41,504 And number three is mine, because it goes back to the martyrdom issue. 816

00:43:41,504 --> 00:43:43,866 Schedule the rest before you need it, 817 00:43:43,866 --> 00:43:46,388 and don't frame it as a reward for having earned it. 818 00:43:46,388 --> 00:43:52,212 That framing is exactly the thing that Kors Korski's participants describe being 819 00:43:52,212 --> 00:43:56,295 socialized into, and it's the one that pushed people out of movements entirely. 820 00:43:56,295 --> 00:43:59,478 Rest that you have to earn is rest you will never take. 821 00:43:59,978 --> 00:44:02,609 And I'll do four. Do it with other people. 822 00:44:02,609 --> 00:44:05,180 ~ I mean, in a lot of things, right? 823 00:44:05,180 --> 00:44:07,691 But ~ I'll be specific about why, 824 00:44:07,691 --> 00:44:10,762 because i it's not it's not a warm sentiment, 825 00:44:10,762 --> 00:44:15,594 right? Isolation shows up as a documented cause in this research. 826 00:44:15,594 --> 00:44:20,806 So Maslak and Gomez, ~ on the gap between what you see and what 827 00:44:20,806 --> 00:44:23,016 the people around you actually acknowledge, 828 00:44:23,016 --> 00:44:27,958 being the only person in your life who is tracking a thing is not just lonely. 829 00:44:27,958 --> 00:44:29,519 It is a known 830 00:44:30,271 --> 00:44:32,855 Fire starter of burnout, right? 831 00:44:32,855 --> 00:44:35,691 So fixing that is not optional wellness, 832 00:44:35,691 --> 00:44:39,237 it's maintenance on the movement that you're building. 833 00:44:39,737 --> 00:44:41,139 And take us out with number five. 834 00:44:41,742 --> 00:44:44,704 Yeah, so five is just finish something. 835 00:44:44,704 --> 00:44:47,615 Like actually finish it. Something small, 836 00:44:47,615 --> 00:44:50,497 something concrete, complete this month, 837 00:44:50,497 --> 00:44:52,808 this week, this day, whatever that is. 838 00:44:52,808 --> 00:44:57,541 Get one ordinance changed. Find one thing that you really care about 839 00:44:57,541 --> 00:45:00,812 and just push it as far as you can with reason, 840 00:45:00,812 --> 00:45:04,585 with other people. File one FOIA request, 841 00:45:04,585 --> 00:45:07,356 right? And read what actually gets back to you. 842 00:45:07,356 --> 00:45:10,538 And then write something out to your community that explains. 843 00:45:11,000 --> 00:45:13,913 Why this is messed up and it and we need to fix it. 844 00:45:13,913 --> 00:45:16,366 Get a thing fixed at your kids' school, 845 00:45:16,366 --> 00:45:21,021 right? Show up to one county commission meeting where twelve people are 846 00:45:21,021 --> 00:45:25,386 in the room and your presence is a measurable percentage of everyone there. 847 00:45:25,886 --> 00:45:27,863 And that last one is not a constellation prize, 848 00:45:27,863 --> 00:45:29,759 which is the point of the whole Vike section. 849 00:45:30,119 --> 00:45:34,654 Right. Efficacy is the link in the chain where people are lost. 850 00:45:34,654 --> 00:45:41,401 And the only thing that restores that efficacy is a completed action with a real, 851 00:45:41,401 --> 00:45:46,386 tangible result. And you cannot get there by like reading another article 852 00:45:46,386 --> 00:45:50,430 or reading another news c p cast or listening to another podcast. 853 00:45:50,430 --> 00:45:52,963 Reading more is what broke this whole thing. 854 00:45:53,463 --> 00:45:56,865 And that that brings me to one that I wanna add that's not on your list. 855 00:45:57,162 --> 00:45:58,162 Sure, go ahead. 856 00:45:58,159 --> 00:46:00,145 Write down what you think is going to happen. 857 00:46:00,145 --> 00:46:03,234 Make a prediction. Actually write it down with the date. 858 00:46:03,234 --> 00:46:04,699 And then go back and look. 859 00:46:05,199 --> 00:46:06,316 Well, okay, so what's the point in that? 860 00:46:06,816 --> 00:46:10,517 Two reasons. One, it's the only defense against the flood's memory problem. 861 00:46:10,517 --> 00:46:14,099 Right. So if everything that you think about or everything everything you're told 862 00:46:14,099 --> 00:46:18,181 is a a flaming mess right now is being replaced every 90 minutes, 863 00:46:18,181 --> 00:46:21,402 you lose the ability to notice that something that you were told 864 00:46:21,402 --> 00:46:23,283 was inevitable didn't happen, right? 865 00:46:23,283 --> 00:46:26,014 Remember all the the disasters that never occurred. 866 00:46:26,014 --> 00:46:30,246 ~ and two, it's how you find out you were sometimes right, 867 00:46:30,246 --> 00:46:33,177 which you were. You will be. ~ you know, 868 00:46:33,177 --> 00:46:35,838 you're making educated guesses or forecasts here. 869 00:46:36,618 --> 00:46:38,480 So when you're right, it's worth noticing that you're right. 870 00:46:38,480 --> 00:46:41,154 And you've been right about things and the and the pace of things 871 00:46:41,154 --> 00:46:42,836 has just stolen your ability to notice. 872 00:46:42,836 --> 00:46:47,852 Right. You can't even log those wins because you're so busy on the next thing before 873 00:46:47,852 --> 00:46:49,705 you even have time to reflect on what you did. 874 00:46:49,705 --> 00:46:52,188 And that theft is part of why you're tired. 875 00:46:52,945 --> 00:46:55,879 Yeah, it's kinda like it's kinda like the dory like goldfish thing, 876 00:46:55,879 --> 00:47:00,934 right? The goldfish memory where it just keeps being refreshed every time that 877 00:47:00,934 --> 00:47:03,038 the the water moves by, right? 878 00:47:03,038 --> 00:47:07,003 I think I think that that that's a a good example of of what we mean 879 00:47:07,244 --> 00:47:08,365 in order to write it down. Sort 880 00:47:08,010 --> 00:47:09,010 Right. 881 00:47:08,365 --> 00:47:11,249 of like journaling, right? It's so you it's so you can count your wins. 882 00:47:11,749 --> 00:47:15,678 Right. The goldfish of course comes from the same science with the the frog 883 00:47:15,678 --> 00:47:18,053 in the boiling pot, but but it it makes the point. 884 00:47:18,053 --> 00:47:21,440 And so for that reason I think we should take

our own advice on this, 885 00:47:21,440 --> 00:47:22,703 ~ this one by the way. 886 00:47:23,490 --> 00:47:26,330 Yeah, I think we should we should and and I think we're going to. 887 00:47:26,330 --> 00:47:29,151 we've talked about this and we'll get to that in just a second. 888 00:47:29,151 --> 00:47:33,282 So here here's where where I've landed, 889 00:47:33,282 --> 00:47:36,473 and I'm and I'm not gonna tie a bow on it because there isn't a bow to 890 00:47:36,473 --> 00:47:39,354 be had for this, but they are winning some of it. 891 00:47:39,354 --> 00:47:42,635 Not all of it. The birthright order is dead, 892 00:47:42,635 --> 00:47:46,436 six to three, the DI provisions are live and they're enforcing them. 893 00:47:46,436 --> 00:47:49,056 Both of those are true this month, 894 00:47:49,056 --> 00:47:51,777 and and I can't change that. Right? 895 00:47:51,777 --> 00:47:52,777 So 896 00:47:52,617 --> 00:47:56,588 Half of that alone is just selling you permission to stop paying attention, 897 00:47:56,588 --> 00:47:59,067 and that's the same thing in different rap. 898 00:47:59,567 --> 00:48:02,511 And the exhaustion is real, and it is manufactured, 899 00:48:02,511 --> 00:48:06,716 and those are not intention. It can be a genuine feeling in your body 900 00:48:06,756 --> 00:48:09,900 and an intended output of someone's strategy at the same time. 901 00:48:09,900 --> 00:48:12,363 Most of the worst things are both. 902 00:48:12,875 --> 00:48:16,176 Yeah, I I don't want to steal the former press secretary's words, 903 00:48:16,176 --> 00:48:19,478 but d she she often liked to say both can be true, 904 00:48:19,478 --> 00:48:24,610 right? ~ so I I think the thing that I want to leave people with is 905 00:48:24,610 --> 00:48:27,451 the reframe on tiredness, right? 906 00:48:27,451 --> 00:48:32,503 If if attrition getting you to leave so that you can be replaced by somebody else 907 00:48:32,503 --> 00:48:39,100 is the mechanism, then your continued existence in this fight in eighteen months, 908 00:48:39,100 --> 00:48:41,697 in in three years, is itself 909 00:48:42,293 --> 00:48:47,997 The resource, right? You lasting is not the precondition for the work. 910 00:48:47,997 --> 00:48:53,570 It is the work. There's no version of you where burnout in March the 911 00:48:53,570 --> 00:48:56,801 and and and where basically you're just done, 912 00:48:56,801 --> 00:48:59,603 right? And that was the strategically correct call. 913 00:49:00,103 --> 00:49:03,025 Right, like an early flame out is not is never optimal. 914 00:49:03,025 --> 00:49:06,767 ~ and the thing I want to leave people with is a little bit smaller, 915 00:49:06,767 --> 00:49:09,409 but you you're allowed to not know about something. 916 00:49:09,409 --> 00:49:11,300 You're allowed to have missed it. 917 00:49:11,300 --> 00:49:13,977 You know, when the when the group brings up like the did you hear about this, 918 00:49:13,977 --> 00:49:16,733 did you hear about that? It's okay if you didn't hear about that. 919 00:49:16,733 --> 00:49:19,175 You're not the answer to every problem. 920 00:49:19,175 --> 00:49:21,276 And there are a number of things happening right now, 921 00:49:21,276 --> 00:49:24,478 and the number of things happening right now exceeds what a human being, 922 00:49:24,478 --> 00:49:26,129 a single human being, can hold in their head. 923 00:49:26,995 --> 00:49:29,833 And the fact that you cannot hold all of it is not a referendum on whether you're 924 00:49:29,833 --> 00:49:33,212 a good person. It's just arithmetic and biology. 925 00:49:33,212 --> 00:49:35,399 And somebody did the arithmetic on purpose. 926 00:49:35,899 --> 00:49:39,836 So essentially we're saying just like pick a thing and then finish it. 927 00:49:39,836 --> 00:49:44,195 And then tell somebody that you finished it and take a nap. 928 00:49:44,695 --> 00:49:46,402 And come back next week if if you can. 929 00:49:47,247 --> 00:49:48,538 Right, and and come back next week. 930 00:49:48,538 --> 00:49:51,981 But before you go, we're gonna do the thing Will said on the record so 931 00:49:51,981 --> 00:49:54,482 we can be held to it. Here's ours. 932 00:49:54,482 --> 00:49:59,637 By the end of this year, we think at least one more piece of what's currently being 933 00:49:59,637 --> 00:50:02,848 described as inevitable will be dead in court, 934 00:50:02,848 --> 00:50:05,351 the way birthright was. We don't know which one. 935 00:50:05,351 --> 00:50:10,485 We think the the male voter order is the likeliest candidate given where 936 00:50:10,485 --> 00:50:15,679 it was a couple days ago. So we're gonna come back and we're gonna check on that. 937 00:50:16,011 --> 00:50:18,527 Out loud and tell you if we were wrong. 938 00:50:19,027 --> 00:50:20,027 Which we might be. 939 00:50:20,628 --> 00:50:22,431 Yeah, we we very well might be, 940 00:50:22,431 --> 00:50:24,024 but that's kind of the point, right? 941 00:50:24,024 --> 00:50:27,701 We're the overlap. Everything we cited is in the show notes and it's 942 00:50:27,701 --> 00:50:29,956 all real and you can go and read it for yourself. 943 00:50:29,956 --> 00:50:33,382 And and please do because you should not take our word for this either. 944 00:50:33,882 --> 00:50:37,850 And take care of yourselves. That's not a sign off this week. 945 00:50:37,850 --> 00:50:38,936 That's homework. 946 00:50:39,408 --> 00:50:42,219 Yes. Make sure to do all of the liking things. 947 00:50:42,219 --> 00:50:44,699 Give us five stars on your podcast app of choice, 948 00:50:44,699 --> 00:50:46,540 Apple Spotify. Leave us a review. 949 00:50:46,540 --> 00:50:50,541 Send us an email at admin at fof.foundation. 950 00:50:50,541 --> 00:50:52,501 Leave us a message on Blue Sky. 951 00:50:52,501 --> 00:50:55,382 Tag us in something you think we should cover. 952 00:50:55,382 --> 00:50:58,203 Check out the website at FOF dot foundation. 953 00:50:58,203 --> 00:51:00,134 Thank you so much for being here. 954 00:51:00,134 --> 00:51:01,204 We hope to see you next week. 955 00:51:01,704 --> 00:51:02,704 I 956 00:51:02,537 --> 00:51:03,537 Bye.