The Dailey Edge Podcast
Join hosts Trent, TJ, and Todd Dailey as they explore the intersections of technology, culture, fitness, and personal growth. Through engaging discussions and personal anecdotes, the trio dives into topics ranging from childhood gaming nostalgia and cutting-edge fitness tech to the pursuit of happiness and lifestyle choices. Whether reminiscing about epic gaming marathons, sharing tips for staying on the forefront of fitness trends, or unraveling the complexities of modern life, The Dailey Edge delivers thoughtful insights, lively debates, and relatable stories for listeners of all walks of life.
The Dailey Edge Podcast
Episode 37: Australia Bans Social Media For Kids!
We tackle Australia’s ban on social media for under-16s, weighing enforcement, ethics, and whether policy can curb the dopamine economy. We challenge what tech is for, where regulation should stop, and how families can build healthier habits without losing connection.
• AI-driven age checks and ID verification on platforms
• Dynamic app lists, exemptions for messaging, migration risks
• Teenage brain development and dopamine hijacking
• Short-form content design and attention erosion
• Parenting strategies, time limits, and real-world rewards
• Rights vs public health and the role of government
• Creativity, discovery, and community benefits at small doses
• Predatory gamification like gambling against utility bills
• Purpose, identity, and spiritual frameworks amid AI change
• Metrics to watch: depression, anxiety, self-harm over time
Welcome to the Daily Edge, where we bring you the latest insights, opinions, and thought-provoking conversations to give you that competitive edge in life, business, and beyond. Let's go. All right. Welcome back to the Daily Edge. As always, I'm here with my brothers, TJ and Todd. And actually, this topic um just came up and just happened here recently. Australia bans social media for kids under 16. Seems crazy. The first thing I think of is how in the world can you enforce that? But uh let's go ahead. I haven't done a lot of research on this one, but I think it just we've talked a lot about social media, parenting, the effects of it all. So let's dive right in. What do you guys think?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I've done I've done a little bit of research on it. It seems like from a general population perspective, about 70%, it's actually as high as 77% of people are for this in the country of Australia. Obviously, kids under 16, it's about two-thirds are against it because they feel it's an overreach. But it's very interesting how they are policing this. And we can get into a deeper conversation. I had some actual, just coincidentally, this went into effect on Monday, or not Monday, Wednesday, December 10th. Um, so super relevant right now. Uh or maybe maybe a day or two prior, but anyways. Um, and I know we've all had we've had plenty of discussions around social media, but the way they are enforcing this is really interesting. So we'll use TikTok, for example. So there's two ways to enforce this. But what they're doing is they're using AI algorithms as well as uh whatever uh access they've gained to your device through their end-user license agreement. So I believe TikTok's end-user license agreement allows them to read certain information about device type and some really high-level usage parameters. But what they're doing is if you're a user that uploads content, they're using AI to examine your content. And if it seems like you're somebody under the age of 16, they are requiring verification.
SPEAKER_01:Now upload driver's license.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, type things like that. The diff the the country is relying heavily on the platforms right now to enforce it whatever way they're best able to. So, like in the United States, if we're talking about like porner adult content, in the states where that's not allowed, it's pretty uniform. You have to upload an ID and you have to follow these face verification processes and things like that. It's not quite there yet in Australia. The other thing they're doing, because a lot of kids, um, I have one in particular, my oldest is on Instagram, she doesn't post. They will also look at your algorithm and what is feeding your for you page or whatever to determine whether or not they believe that you are an individual that's under 16. Um, so they're doing, they're they're looking at both sides of it on these different social media platforms to determine if said user is, in their words, accessing social media before the brain is fully formed.
SPEAKER_01:So I think we should spend a lot of time on the policing, but I just can't get back um fathom like why are they doing this? Like, is it because when I think about it, I'm like, well, okay, so I love it. I mean, yeah, there's something about it's intriguing because if they don't have social media, then they're almost forced into social situations, which is something to where like people can sit at their house and on their phone, but like we go way, way back. ICQ. Sure. The first messaging app we used, ICQ. This would have been in the mid-90s, maybe. What's that sound?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, something like that, like mid to late 90s.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so we were on ICQ, and there was like this thing where you could go down and you dial up phone with, you know, it would connect, and then you could like chat with people and you'd sit there and wait for people to get on, but it did, it would kind of lock you in versus so sorry, I kind of went down a rabbit hole, but getting people out and mingling um seems to me would be a primary reason. But what what's the why behind it, in your guys' opinion? Before we jump to the why, I'd love to speak to that for a second. Do we know exactly what the definition of social media is? Is that TikTok? Is it in obviously Instagram, Facebook? There's some that fall right in there, and then Snapchat, WhatsApp, Snapchat, TikTok.
SPEAKER_00:I don't know specifically. I would assume though that that you can look this up, but I'm gonna make the assumption that apps whose primary purpose is like communication, like a WhatsApp, I don't think that would be considered social media or WeChat or something to that effect.
SPEAKER_01:Um Facebook Messenger would fall into a weird background just regular texting, and then we know the kids that do this like viral video thing where they all call each other and sit on videos for hours.
SPEAKER_00:Like, I mean I would say that would not fall underneath it because those are native apps.
SPEAKER_01:So TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, X, YouTube, Reddit, Twitch, and Kick. YouTube, uh, and the list is dynamic. The government is monitoring user migration to apps like Yope, Lemonate, um platforms such as Roblox and Discord are currently exempt, but that could change. So the why behind it, I think there's two reasons. One is you mentioned brains not fully formed, and I don't think someone has the ability to understand that the what they're seeing on there is not necessarily reality. So I think people's ability to process the collective set of content that they see, the impact that that has on self-esteem and self-confidence and self-worth and those sorts of things. You know, everyone talks about people only posting some of the great stuff of their lives on social media. I don't think they have the brain development to fully process that that is not the case. And um, this is gonna be a wonderful experiment. I'm I'm big on experiments just in general, and you never know until you do this sort of thing. It could be it could be a dumpster fire. I mean, it could be a complete miserable failure, but at an absolute minimum, the value of the experiment is going to be fantastic. What do suicide rates do? What do depression rates do? What does medication do? And there's obviously so many variables, and it's going to be hard to isolate, but this is very interesting.
SPEAKER_00:I had a really long the age we're in. I had about a 45-minute conversation with Grok uh earlier today about this whole situation, and we were talking about different things because I was saying, so last night, um, we we we do limit screen time as well, and I was sitting and my kids try any way they can to get around it, and my oldest was watching YouTube shorts on the TV. And I've seen this a lot with with Miles in specific, but I I and I thought it was actually him who's my youngest watching this. But if you ever watch over your child's shoulder, especially with YouTube Shorts, you're starting to see content creators creating content that serves no other purpose than to hijack dopamine. Um, meaning, like you'll see an ASMR video on one half of the screen, and the other half of the screen, I think the one I saw was somebody was repairing a sandal with glue. There's no actual real purpose behind it. There's no correlation between the content. It is like these are these two images or these two videos I know based on A-B testing or whatever, are maximally triggering the the brain, and they're continuing to keep this person engaged so that they're scrolling more and more and more and more. And we so, in this conversation I'm having with AI, uh, we're talking about this playing out and what does that look like as as we continue to go from there.
SPEAKER_01:I was just gonna say, for those of you from an AI perspective, TJ said he had a discussion with Grok. So Grok is known for of all the AIs out there, ChatGPT and Gemini, Grok is known for having the best uh like more real-time information. I mean, Google obviously has a components of Gemini built into their search, and so articles and things are gonna be there. But I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, Grok is one of the better at more real-time uh information. So I just wanted to throw that in there. Um, this is I don't know what what are your thoughts on this at this point? Well, I I I'm starting to think about AI and like where does AI fit in this and where and does that because I mean, is it about attention? Um, trying to get people's attention, the formation. Is it, you know, people you can't have this, you can't have you can't, and then all of a sudden, like now alcohol is 21 and people haven't been able to drink or have it, they turn 21, they go crazy, right? So there's introducing stuff into kids over time to teach them how to manage it, versus like you turn 16 and here you go, like you get your driver's license, and then all the social media comes back, and you're like, you know, you go really deep. So it will be interesting. You talk about experiments. Um, I don't know, like all my kids have phones. Um my my uh 16-year-old son is 16, and he doesn't do a total uh a lot on social media. Uh, my 13-year-old daughter, she was on Pinterest. That's the only thing we let her have, like Pinterest. You get on and look at things. Well, Pinterest has transformed into like an Instagram, like you can just like they post things kind of like that. So we decided she's 13, she can have Instagram, and she really just kind of you know, she she gets an hour on it a day or what whatever. Is that better or worse? You know, we start to I start to go through like is this a better idea or worse than her getting an hour a day and getting exposed to it, having that relatability with her friends. But if no one's on it, then no one's on it. Um, it'll be interesting to see what type of habits are created and formed because of it, because kids are gonna want to spend energy and do something. And um, yeah, it's gonna be fascinating. Let's start with this. If if WhatsApp exists and some of these other messaging apps still exist, what's the value proposition for social media these days? So if you look at that list of apps that I just ran off, if those go away and no one's on them, because I think a lot of times you mention the dynamic, is the issue is well, this person's left out because the other six people are on the social media site, so we need to get, you know, we got to get our kid a phone so they can participate and not get left behind with their friends. If nobody's on that, if there's nobody's on, and I'll I'm just gonna place a nugget here for a second, we'll come back to we talk about people just posting stuff that doesn't give a full view into the reality of their lives with AI now. People are gonna be able to post completely fabricated stuff, let alone just hand selected. So that's a that's a whole nother uh animal to get into. But what is the value proposition for let's call it 10 to 16 year olds? Most single-aid digitage kids aren't in there. If those apps don't exist, what are they missing out on in life?
SPEAKER_00:Outside of YouTube, probably nothing necessary. I mean, and I would say that there are definite there's there's now they could get it other places, but um, I think it's unique that when we grew up, we didn't have other perspectives outside of what our teachers told us in school. Maybe what your parents said, but yeah, you didn't ever get to see the other side of the coin. Um, I can think back to certain English teachers wanting you to structure sentences a particular way and then finding out in your 25 that actually they were wrong or whatever. Um, so I I like that element of it, you know, not necessarily to override what the authority figure is telling you, but to give you a different perspective. Um but outside of that, I think most of the other things out, most of those other platforms out there don't really provide much until you're an adult. And then even then, you know, we're talking about Reddit, X, you know, I can see benefits to those from a news perspective, you know, kind of getting updates on things. I think there's a positive element from a human connection, but at that's the super double-sided coin, right? When you talk about the human connection, you're getting, you know, and able to get updates uh from friends and family across some of these platforms. But there's definitely, you know, if Facebook and Instagram for me went away tomorrow, okay.
SPEAKER_01:Like And you're an adult, let alone someone who's between 10 and 16 who has so I I was I'll I'll say heavily addicted to Facebook for a while. Um, I I gave Facebook up probably two, three months ago. I mean, it was so bad to where the day I gave it up and uninstalled it from my phone, you know, I went into the restroom and I just first thing I did was pull my phone out and I'm like, oh, it's not there. Like I like did the like ghost flip. Like, where's Facebook? It was not on my screen, I couldn't flip, and I was like, okay, this is bad. It's like, you know, having the shakes. So I've given up Facebook, and I gotta tell you, it's created a lot of space for just other stuff. I believe back to your question is like there's a learning component, it's like YouTube to be able to learn, but it's just entertainment. So would entertainment, like my wife and kids at night, one of their traditions is she's got a hysterical feed. Cats fall in, like they get in bed and they all get around and they scroll for 10 or 15 minutes, and it's funny, and they giggle and they laugh and they have a blast with it. So there's a positive thing. But if social media didn't exist and you couldn't get your hands on that content, like we used to watch funny videos, I think it just played on Sunday nights when you couldn't pick whenever it played. So, would it turn people back to other entertainment sources, radio, television? So here's my take on this. I just had this conversation recently. The problem becomes when technology goes from a tool to solve a problem to the actual master itself. And in the the world we're living in right now, technology is the master. We don't even know necessarily why. To your point, if the problem we're trying to solve is laughter, and like that can be good for the soul, that can be good for the mind, like that can be good for overall wellness and health, then what is the best way to experience that on a daily basis? And then using technology as a tool to solve that, whether that's asking Chat GPT to tell you jokes, or whether it's scrolling on a social media feed or whatever. I think we're in this world now where we're not even sure why we're engaging with technology or what the value proposition is. Now we can kind of there are secondary benefits. Even we talk about information and learning things, most of it's anecdotal. We don't actually use it. It's just like, well, that was cool to know. But it's it's not worth anything. We're not actually solving any sort of problem with it, other than, and TJ, you're really good about this. You know, you listen to so much content that you can relate to just about anyone in any conversation because you have at least some nugget of information to be able to connect with someone. But I would argue that if your problem you were trying to solve was uh I want to be able to have context to connect with anyone I run into, you and you had a blank canvas, you might solve that problem a little differently. Is easy access to anything a good thing? Because you could argue like music Spotify, any music, any song, any podcast I want instantly. And that are we just trying to fill voids with course we are.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I you know, so one of the things the conversation I had earlier, I had I said, Well, let's play this out. Let's see where this goes. There's some other things that I'll bring up later in the conversation that are fascinating to me that are happening as it relates to this quick hit economy that we've we've uh curated. But great points. You know, one of the things that we had talked about was that creativity dies. Why write a novel when memes are what sells? Right? Memes are what keeps people scrolling, memes are what people get people clicking, memes are what build these giant followings on Instagram. Why would you ever spend the time writing something deep? You know, every you've noticed a shift in a lot of uh employment towards gig employment, right? Ubering and things like that versus these careers because everybody wants it now, now, now. And I think part of this thing, the part of this experiment we will see is are we getting away, you know, does removing social media from that sub-16 age group help rewire these brains to look for more meaningful stimulation? One of the one of the other things that that we were talking about was, okay, I think we are all to a point and and I've had another conversation recently about more often than not, the people we know their kids have a modicum of screen time, something, right? Whether it's five minutes a day, 30 minutes a week, an hour a day, whatever. And one of the one of the things that I wanted to just wanted to understand better was what do we do to counterbalance? Right? So instead of completely removing social media or screen time from our kids, what do we do to counterbalance that? How do we introduce these other elements that help them understand that there's another type of stimulation out there? Because when you look at the brain, the stimulation you get from achieving something in the real world, winning a soccer game, winning a race, something that's taken effort to get to, not just the execution itself, but the journey to get there. And from what I understand, there are a lot more areas of the brain that are stimulated, and that stimulation lasts longer when you experience something like winning a race after training for months, or performing well in the race after training for months, versus the lizard brain stimulation you get from that dual-sided shorts video we were just talking about. And so, you know, I think um there may be other ways around this versus what Australia is doing by making sure that you're balancing this with this other thing, letting people helping people understand that there is something else out there. But boy, uh like you said earlier, it's difficult to realize that that other stimulation is out there as an adult. And we know plenty of people, and we've all been there ourselves, where you know, I'm stuck in that scroll.
SPEAKER_01:Has it gotten so bad that the entire goal is brain stimulation as opposed to like some sort of deeper purpose? Even you because you're talking about more wholesome brain stimulation versus cheap kind of shortcut brain stimulation. Are we at a point where like now the the basic purpose to our existence or like what we're seeking is just brain stimulation? Has it gotten to that point? I mean, that was my point with that single-sided video. Like, what like I mean, even if you back out from that and say, hey, the problem we're solving for here is brain stimulation, and this is a better way to stimulate your brain versus this, right? But like I'm even saying kind of a step back from that. Is that really the problem we're trying to solve? Or is brain Brain stimulation s designed to be more of a a bonus or a side benefit of that you get to kind of keep you going in your pursuit of a deeper purpose or uh passion. I think we're trying to serve the brain like a drug, like give it what's gonna trigger it, and we're not thinking about those longer term. I mean, that's a travesty. But but this has been around for a long time. I mean, you can go into video games, right? Like, let's call it. Let's call let's call it Bellatro again. Like there is there is something about completing something, and I've been I played too much recently, I've had to give it up too, but I did get 19 of the 20 challenges now.
SPEAKER_00:Let's get there.
SPEAKER_01:Um video games. We've been, I think, over time, we've continued to find ways to stimulate the brain to get the emotions that we want to achieve. And it's be it's easier and easier over time, but I think video games kind of that sense of accomplishment, and now I believe there's a good part of the population that lives in the just how can I distract myself through absolutely through the day, through the week, through the months, through through the years with no other real purpose than that.
SPEAKER_00:Well, let's talk about. I mean, you know, what that opens up this huge can of worms. I was listening to the one and only Joe Rogan earlier, and he made a comment that kind of caught me off guard. Um, he's like, I've been addicted to plenty of things, but it's all good things. I'm like, well, who are you to determine what's good and what's bad? But you know, I think that's an element of humanity, uh, a core element of humanity that drives us towards those deeper purposes and passions that help us build these things that move humanity forward, at least our perception, and our perception moves humanity forward. So, you know, like that's another thing to look at. Um you know, you talk about what are these good and bad addictions that we're feeding um, you know, when there wasn't. And and and so like certain people are using social media to to get through that day to just tamp down that feeling. Other people are using drugs, other people are using alcohol, they're using food, they're using whatever. Um it's like interesting drawing a line somewhere and saying, okay, well, it's okay to use video games to keep that at bay. Or or or maybe it's you should never use anything to keep these feelings at bay, you should deal with them in some capacity and move forward. It's it's interesting gambling or whatever it is.
SPEAKER_01:Um I was listening to something the other day when you're talking about that like who decides what's bad. Guy was on there making a ploy for like telling younger kids to get out, have a drink, and socialize and get into some trouble. And he was like, What's killed more people, heroin or sugar? What's killed more people, fentanyl or sugar? And he's going back to like these morbid, and he he was to your point, like what's worse and what choices we make and what things are illegal and unleashed, because this is about being legal and not legal, right? There's there's a conversation about this for alcohol, for marijuana. Now it's a big thing, and now social media. Somebody is deciding, and this is probably another fascinate fascinating thing to talk about. Somebody somewhere is deciding what is good and what is bad for the brain or for people in general, and they're unfortunately doing it in a microcosm of a situation because you can argue in some situations that drinking is bad in certain families, in certain locations, that that's a bad thing. And there's other families and locations where you could argue there's control, it's in you know, it's in an environment that it's okay, and that's probably the same for just about everything, but the environment's so important. You can overall say that drinking probably impairs decision making, right? Like, that's a pretty normal thing. You're gonna make you may have some more fun, you may build some more memories, but it could impair decisions. So, like there's somebody that's making and deciding this, and they're trying to blanket it across society, and I don't know if it's that simple. I don't know if that's the answer for every person in every single environment. If we're gonna circle back to the ban on social media for kids under 16, that's an absolute yes for me. Now, I'm coming from a family just for context. None of my kids have phones yet. My oldest son's about to turn 12. Um, I'm getting him on when he's 13. I hope he listens to this because if you do it. But what what I I don't think I've heard yet a good reason why, other than well, let's like introduce them to a little bit so they don't go off the deep end when they get it fully, which they're gonna have some exposure to it. But give me someone give me a good reason why social media for under 16-year-olds, now again, I'm gonna give you the guys that they feel left out. Let's take that off the table because this is an environment where it's gone for everybody, right? I think that's the only reason. So, in this environment, you uh what I'm hearing from you is you're all in on this, as long as it's society-wise.
SPEAKER_00:I think the only two reasons are one community, and you know, and and we've we've done this. I mean, a large portion of Kay's friends have TikTok. She does not and never has. Um, it hasn't changed much. Now she does have some of these other ones like Locket and Cover Star Cover Star and some of these other ones that they have um that are a little bit toned down. But it's really that. It's really this, it's really the community side of it. I think the other thing that's interesting here, though, is the exposure to fake content. And we've talked about this, I think, on prior podcasts. If you went from 2021 to now with no exposure to what AI has been able to do, everything you see you'd think was real. So I think that's potentially the other piece of this. Um those are the two things for me.
SPEAKER_02:Why 16? Why 16?
SPEAKER_01:I don't know. I'll I can look that up. My assumption is there's something that has to do with a portion of the brain that maybe develops around that time that allows for a little more processing of it, but I wouldn't have a problem if it was 18, frankly. I mean, like your argument is no one's missing anything, anyways, and it's probably not good for anybody. Why do we even have social media? We're filling so much space with it. If no one's on it, we're doing it's just there's so much more good that's happening if we're not all collectively wasting time on these platforms. They've become the means has become the end. Like we they used to be a means to connect with people, and now we're just on them to be on them to stimulate our brains. What if it's a disaster? I agree with you, but you take all that away. What do kids go to? Because again, it's an entertainment factor. We've talked about this. Some people for entertainment like to go to the casino, some like to watch a movie, some like to scroll. Some are more addictive than others, but for entertainment, if my screens, if the telephones go off, let's say my kids they don't have social for the most part, but let's say, guess then the television screen goes on. And right now, the way you can get content, you can now you're you're digesting generally slower content, right? Because you're watching movies, or I mean, but even if net Netflix and you got these 20-minute anime videos or 40-minute series, and then you binge watch the new Stranger Things, or you know, so like they're finding ways to fill it. What are you filling it with?
SPEAKER_00:You almost have to unwind it and in entirely. You know what I mean? Like, yes, like like you said, new stranger things, new landman, whatever it is. Like that, that's where the that's where it all started when you could binge watch whenever you wanted.
SPEAKER_01:When you can, you know what I used to do before bed almost every night. This is super embarrassing, but I'm gonna say used to listen to Delilah on the radio, you know, instead of being up scrolling on my phone, Delilah after dawn, Delilah, love someone tonight. I mean, it was that like every night, whatever Delilah played, and people would call in, and like that was like my last 30 minutes before bed versus scrolling, and scrolling may have turned into three hours versus 30 minutes, but I still filled the time with something. You could argue that that isn't any better or worse. It's not as addicting, but I still filled the time.
SPEAKER_00:I think that the scary thing is the more we engage with these, this, this quick hit, the more that becomes commonplace in society across everything that we do, and the more things erode. Because you have a bunch of people that that's all they're they're they're targeting and that all they're looking for is the fastest way to consume everything to keep. Again, because the more you do it right, the worse you feel about yourself, the more you take that path, the worse you feel. It's like I guys shouldn't do this. Um I feel that all the time. You know, even though I'm listening to 18-hour-long books, it's like, do you really need to have the book on about the founders of AI? Like you said earlier, it's anecdotal information. Yes, I just listened to 20 hours on the 10 guys that are responsible for founding AI. It's a really interesting story, it's very intriguing. It's given me a little bit of a different perspective on the world, but I'm not gonna use it in a meaningful way for the betterment of myself. Um, so yeah, I mean, I think I think the the slope started to slip when we started when content started to become available whenever you wanted it. So, in terms of what they they fall back on, here's for me, it would be whatever fosters behavior that is beneficial to their forward improvement as a human.
SPEAKER_01:Here's what I don't like about it to go back to your question of like what don't you like? I don't like people putting in rules that I do not believe should be made at the government level. Or and I feel that way about a lot of things. Like I know, for example, um there's a church that the church itself is against drinking, right? It's a it's a church policy, churches all across the country, and and some and trying to push that down to the church level than then making it a global policy across all churches of that denomination. Like there are certain things that I think should be done at the household level, and there's certain things that should be done at the government level. And so I'm always a proponent of like if the government wants to continue to control what you're inputting, then at what point in time does that lead to them controlling everything that you're that you're in? Let me ask you this if your house is burning down or society is burning itself down, do you want the government to jump in? If they have the capability to put the fire out, do you want them to jump in and put the fire out, or you just want to let it burn because you have the right to burn your house down? Well, if I choose to burn my house down, there's probably a good reason. Well, are you assuming that I know that I don't know that I'm burning it?
SPEAKER_00:Well, they're telling me this is this is actually hilarious because I just raked myself over the coals for this whole AI thing. Um, and going down the rabbit hole. But one of the things for the first time in my life that became extremely apparent learning about these individuals, you know, we all we talk a lot about athletics on our podcast. And we talk about these outliers, these the Michael Jordans of the world, the Tiger Woods, the LeBron James, and just how far above and beyond they are as it as it relates to physiological capabilities out of the womb. Like they're just here. And we we do talk about hard work and being able to get places, but that a lot of times the gap is just too much to close. And I've always naively looked at people that are very intelligent and thought, well, yeah, there's some of these outlier savants, these kids that are just naturally really gifted, but most of academia is achieved, academic success is achieved through hard work. And then I go and learn about these guys, and there's just a whole nother planet. This will probably get our podcast canceled and people will never want to listen to it again. But in that same breath, that means they're dumb people, right? Like just as there are mediocre athletes, there are people out there, and I may be one of them. Hell, I don't know, who, from an IQ perspective, don't process things or are not as self-aware, and that goes back to the burning your house down, that just you know, they they're not aware that something is happening. And, you know, it's the guy who goes to, and again, I'm not talking down to anybody, but it's the guy who goes to and makes minimum wage and then walks into the convenience store to buy scratch offs every day, thinking that like that's the way out. Like eventually I'm gonna win the Powerball.
SPEAKER_01:I don't even think it has to do with intelligence, I think it has to do with people's situational capacity to process and even the, and I'm not talking capability capacity. I'm talking about just the time and the disposition to like think about what's happening. Like, for example, we are all exactly what you're talking about in the political system. We are all pawns. You have Democrats and you have Republicans, and you've got these algorithms, and they are puppeteering, they are each up here puppeteering half the country, and we all fall into that. I don't think it has anything to do with intelligence. I think it is just that we as a society have numbed ourselves and have lost the art and the capability uh and the interest in even first order thinking, thinking through things and drawing conclusions on our own, it's much more convenient to jump on whatever's being put in front of us and more so outside of you know, there are certain times we experience things that may contradict that, and that those will develop our own perceptions. But to me, that's what's happening here, and whether it has to do with politics or any other form, if you put, I mean, they do this with mice, like I think the the they were injecting dopamine. There was a study they did on mice that with dopamine and essentially the mouse ended up choosing dopamine over food and like starved itself to death. And I'm not like comparing humans to mice, but in a sense, for sure, like if something feels good, you gotta remember how we're wired, right? You look at our evolutionary wiring and like how we were built to survive, and that's what these companies are capitalizing on, right? They're capitalizing on these deep ingrained uh behaviors that were again have evolved over many thousands of years or tens of thousands of years, and we I feel like society in a sense is burning itself to the ground, and somebody's got to jump in there and stop it.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I mean, yes and no. I mean, I think all three of us sit here, we're self-aware. I mean, yes, yes, I know that, you know, yes, I know that this is being produced for this reason and what, but it I'm self-aware about it. Like, you know, there are there are plenty of people that, I mean, look at some of the documentaries that have come out over the last decade that have examined social media and that give us some of the perspectives that we have that examine the negatives of it. And so there are people out there that are like, yeah, I know this is bad. Um, it is getting more and more difficult to fight it. But I also think there are people out there that have no, they're just like they don't have that self-awareness. And that was kind of what I'm and maybe it's because they don't have the time to sit around and think about it because life is too much, you know, and that that I think is what it is.
SPEAKER_01:And even for those of us that have this awareness, the actual knowledge of it and then actually doing something with it is a whole different thing, right? Tony Robbins, knowledge is not power, action is power. So a lot of this stuff we know, but we still find ourselves kind of falling into some of these traps on a daily basis, whether it's over consuming content, whether it's scrolling, whether it's finding ourselves on one extreme of the political spectrum. I mean, I think we're all susceptible to it. And to your point, with all that's going on in life today, just having the time to sit down and think about that and have the realization, I think that is where we probably have a benefit of just what we were born into and what we've where we are now. We have the we're we're out of survival mode, right? You've got this Maslow's hierarchy of needs where you have people at the bottom of the pyramid are trying to survive, and people just above that, it's financial security and things like that, and then you know, a rung above that. And so certainly as you get higher on the pyramid and you're not in that survival mode, you even have more cognitive space to even think about these things. But absent that, I again, I don't think it has to do with any intelligence or anything. I I think a lot of this is just again, I I feel like as a society, uh, we are we don't have the space anymore. I think the challenge is what is bad and how do you control it?
SPEAKER_02:I mean, I think of two movies.
SPEAKER_01:I don't know why the sixth sense was one of them, but the other one was iRobot. Like, where does it end? Because you could arguably say we make poor decisions every day. I mean, look at society as a whole. I think there's still, I mean, God made us to make choices. We have to make choices, we have to change environments. There's some people that may be dispositioned better for that, but I really struggle with the fact of like, okay, well, social media is not good until you're over 16, so that goes. Well, so then what's the next thing? And then what's the next rule? And next thing we're all living in a box with direct rules that we report to. We're all robots because everything else we're doing is bad. Our food gets regulated, you know, there's no more coke or Pepsi. Drinks get regulated and get banned, and this gets banned and everything, and then we're in this little box of very little decisions, but it's good for us. That's a doomsday. Well, but like, why is that not like I mean, again, like government controlling social media, it doesn't, it's not life-threatening. Yes, it is. 100% for kids between 10 and 16. The suicide rates are like of like it absolutely in the low, in the low percent. It's not one of the top, the top killers of kids these days. I would I can't answer that, but I want to ask you. I bet it's higher than you think. It probably is. I bet it's higher than you think. So it is life-threatening. Well, but when you look at the rules and laws that have been in place, the only other things that we've are like substances that alter your physics, I mean, alcohol, marijuana for states that actually have it legal, um, and then there's drugs that are obviously off the market that you can't get, but like there are things, the things that we've banned and the things that we've gone after are been clearly detrimental to people and their ability to even function. And now we're talking about controlling what people consume. People never, I mean, there were some regulations on television about what you could post about, right? They had to put warnings on there, and there's certain things that they couldn't advertise. You know, we're the only country that allows advertisement for um pharmacy. No other country does that. Here's where I think the hole in your logic is. You're saying if it doesn't physically harm us, it shouldn't be banned. And I and you're talking because you're talking about it. I'm using those as examples. I'm using those as examples. But I think the mint uh I've I I'm I've probably gone on the record here many times as saying I think mental overall well being is more of a factor of our over uh what we get out of life than physical. And so I think anything that's doing mental damage should be consider at least considered in the same context of something that's doing physical damage.
SPEAKER_00:Well, we don't know yet, though, right? Like this will be an experiment because if you look back historically. There were bans on books. There were bans on radio content. Things you couldn't show on television. When we were growing up, uh you were still advisory.
SPEAKER_01:You couldn't buy CDs with cuss words on it.
SPEAKER_00:And you would never hear any type of uh vulgar language on television. Now any word you want to hear is on cable. Like it's it's readily available. So over time, I don't know if we've thrown caution to the wind or we feel like we've evolved to figure out or we've done enough experimentation from a scientific perspective to think that we understand what the effects are of these things. It's gonna be a really interesting experiment.
SPEAKER_01:I just don't love government coming in this space. I think that's my thing. Mental, physical, I do not love a regulation that I think can be managed better elsewhere at a lower level. Like a state, a uh a countrywide ban is the biggest. I mean, there's hardly anything that's a countrywide ban in the the United States. So, like to me, that is like countrywide band is like it is so clear. And again, I haven't done a lot of research, so maybe it is so clear, but it's like country level ban, state level banned, city level banned. I mean, there's like there's all these different family level, like there's these different I mean, I get what you're saying. You're looking at it in a sense from economists' perspective. If if they could ban anything they wanted, like certainly there's uh there's bad there, but but in this particular case, they're pulling you know the people to that and clearly what'd you say what percentage of people 77% of people in parents in Australia believe this a good thing. Well, do you want your kids? I'll tell you the parents, the people over 60 or their kids around the house are worse than the kids. I mean, I I'm not I'm like they're just like you can't have a conversation anymore. They're just all day. They're I mean, arguably they're not having anything to do a lot of times, but they're on their phones more than the kids are. Well, you said earlier, let's ban that. I think I again you said earlier that it's not it's not okay until it's sick until you're 16 and then it's fine. I think it sucks, period.
SPEAKER_00:I think that's you're you're looking at the two sides of the same coin. You know, we and I say we 25 to 50 have grown up around most of this. So if anybody has the tools, and again, relatively speaking, to at least be self-aware and understand at the at some level how to engage with them in a responsible way, we do. I think when you get into the 60s and older or the youngers, they don't. You know, they're either the brain's not fully formed or they they caught this so late in life that it's like I I was explaining that to Kay the other night when we were talking again about that YouTube Shorts video. I said, if you'd have shown this to our grandmother, her head would have exploded. It would not have known like what is all this stimulation. Um, and I think that's kind of what you see when you talk about the each end of the spectrum is you know, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So I'm still waiting for an answer on what is good about because your answer was actually, well, what I don't like is that the government's banning things, but I still didn't actually hear a fundamental like this is what 10 to 16 year olds are going to be missing out by not having social media. At some point, we have to be willing to think, as a society, a country, a city, a town, a state, whatever, and say, inherently we see very little good in this, and if it was no longer here, we would all be better people, be willing to draw that conclusion, and then put a policy in place to save us from ourselves, right? Like, that is what I think Australian government is trying to do is save people from themselves. The only way to I I I don't I'm not gonna argue with you, I think you're right, but I'm trying to think of just a couple examples that um having a 16-year-old. So, like, there's this kid that goes to Marion that is an incredible artist, and he draws um using like the dry erase markers in class on boards, and it's like I'll show you some of them. It is fantastic. He's got a platform to do that. He's just a kid from Marion, and he's got several thousand followers, and he could be an artist. So there could there's been a lot of people that have found careers or probably done some really cool things. I also imagine, you know, when people are sharing social content, it's a way for them to build a memory together, like we would have done when we lit the driveway on fire, you know, to play basketball in the winter. So I think they use social media to connect on. Hey, did you see that? Did you it wasn't that funny? It's kind of a building. So I'm trying to think through how it's being used now, the scrolling and just laughing, and then you know, like there's obviously plenty wrong with it. And and I'm I'm more on your side, but I'm trying to play devil's advocate of like, man, why 16? You know, why there's just a lot of questions I have.
SPEAKER_00:You make a good point, you know, from a scrolling perspective at that age. It is difficult to connect with somebody. And if you guys have seen the same meme, like there's a point of of commonality there that you can utilize, and maybe that would happen organically in another way if it wasn't there. But you know, I I definitely I see that side of things as it relates to my son sends me funny stuff, and it's a way for us to connect. I think what's happened is it's kind of jumped the shark in a sense. I was listening to a buddy of mine who's a DJ and who has been for the last 25 years, and he was ranting the other day, talking about he's experiencing the other side of what this kid is experiencing, and the fact that he's been creating music and producing music for 20 years, and social media has got to the point from a monetization perspective that he can't get his music out anymore. He can't, you know, because if you start, if you scroll these platforms, you're seeing more and more, not just ads, but are you interested in this post? Like you don't even follow the person, but they're trying to understand your algorithm. And and I think there's, you know, I'm sure there's a monetary piece behind it where it's like, okay, this particular piece of content from this person, they're plugged in this way and there's this revenue stream being generated. So instead of showing them somebody that they follow, I'm gonna show them this person because it makes more fiscal sense for the platform or for the individuals connected to that person. So I there's definitely two sides of it, but but I do think they're, you know, I think unfortunately what we're trying to do is something that we're not capable of as humans, and we're trying to force the issue. Um, maybe we've talked about it prior, but I know there's research out there that there is a certain size of community that humans have never really expanded um above physically. Like once it hits 120 people, it's like communities start to fracture pretty significantly. And I think what we're trying to do is hold together these communities of thousands with duct tape and glue and what it what would you say in the past there's been like you said, there's bands, there's been book bands.
SPEAKER_01:Has what have we done in the past when we saw something terrible, we've put stuff in place, and it's actually improved society. Can you think of a time? I'm trying to think back, like, what's a time where something came out and it was like, oh my gosh, we need to rein this in, and it was a good thing. Well, I think first of all, you have to when something comes out, it takes some time to figure out whether or not it's good. Smoking is one. When it came out, doctors were advertising smoking, everyone was saying smoking was cool, it was great, made you feel good, took took the edge off, and then we decided to ban it. And I think you would get 80% of the population to say that's been a good thing. We didn't well, we banned it for kids, but it's not banned. Well, I mean, basically, you hear the comedians talk about you gotta go to Mars or or the moon to smoke uh cigarette, like yeah, you can't do it anywhere. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Well, it's crazy. I mean, you you think you think about it, it really boils down to what's the ultimate goal and what supports that from a human perspective. I mean, that's that's what it all boils down to, and how do these things detract from these ultimate goals? How does alcohol, how does social media, how does smoking, how does whatever detract from what it is that we believe collectively we're supposed to do?
SPEAKER_01:Which that assumes the goal is to live as long as possible, and that might not be the goal for most people. We don't know. So, like if someone's goal is to have as much fun as possible and don't care if it's 50 years versus 70, why do we care? That's that's why I would argue to say that social media and some of these other technologically things that seemingly are doing some sort of damage. I mean, we see the symptoms, like we see the symptoms of short temperaments and anger and inability to focus and lack of attention span and all those things. We see it. We know it's doing damage. We're not sure how permanent or we're not sure exactly what the outcome is. But to me, yeah, I would say if somebody smokes and they live to be 70 versus they're uh uh, you know, a social media addict that lives till 80, smoke all day. Like as opposed to if you had to pick one or the other. What let me ask you guys this. If you had to, if they said they're gonna ban social media in the United States, what age would you say? Yeah, the apps that I just read off. What would be the age that you would draw the line at? 13.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. Why?
SPEAKER_01:Well, I I think it can be used and start being introduced at that age responsibly. And I think again, it depends on the environment and depends on the parents. I'm seeing my daughter use it one hour a day. She gets on and she gets ideas for different things, and she's using it in a manner that I think she's capable at that point to be exposed. I think it does spawn a little creativity. Um and it does still provide connection. But assumingly that we're only either everyone has it or doesn't have it, that's that's kind of a butt.
SPEAKER_00:I'm so indifferent to it. I mean, I don't know, for me it's one of those things that I don't I mean this is just personal preference. I wouldn't miss it if it wasn't here. I don't think it is.
SPEAKER_01:Personally, I wouldn't either. I'd ban it for everyone.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I mean, it there I'm I'm just saying I want to go back to like I think you I think you gotta mix it up. Well what what part of society you know I want to go back to that comment I made earlier that you you kind of shot down about the guy buying the lottery tickets. You've all seen we've all seen it. Sure.
SPEAKER_01:We've all seen that guy that walks in and like is there a portion of society that we believe is in it is is that it you know what I think uh just to speak to that, the reason I didn't dismiss that, I think it's a reality, but I think that individual is in survival mode, like just from a desire to keep going perspective, like from a mental health like depression, like that that is one of the small ways that he gets some level of enjoyment, may not have a family, may not have like and that is the even though it's fleeting, that's his opportunity. I I don't know that it's necessarily all I was saying, I just don't know there was this.
SPEAKER_00:We're gonna have to figure out a way to evolve around this stuff. I have to bring this up on this because it's somewhat relevant and it's gonna blow your minds because I doubt either of you will be able to do that. Let's go. So, in that same vein, people that are just getting through, like you talked about. I want to get your thoughts on this. There's a new app that is out that came out in November. It's called Covered, and it's got some pretty big money behind it. They raised a couple million dollars in the first round. Here's what this happened.
SPEAKER_02:Covered.
SPEAKER_00:You connect and upload your utility bills. Water, electric, and you gamble. So you upload your utility bill and it's a$70 water bill, right? And then they give you some covered cash to pull the slot machine, and you can win with it. Yeah, it's cover, and then like and then if you if you lose your free ten dollars, you can buy more coins in the covered store and more covered cash and pull the lever again to try to win and get money off of your electric bill. Like, but this is so it sounds so fun, but it's it's so predatory. Like, that's my point. Is like it's like, okay, we've preconditioned everybody to want this, these flashing lights and all of this stuff, and and we've gone so far down the rabbit hole that these are the only things that hold anybody's attention or give them any enjoyment anymore. All right, people, you're already scraping by in life. Gamble on your rent.
SPEAKER_01:That's why I think we need to pull the plug. I think we need to pull the plug because I I think everything has runs its course. And I think it's really hard for society as a whole, given our natural instincts and some of our innate behaviors. I think we've lost control and I think we got to reset. I think we need to pull the plug and reset to your point, TJ. That's unbelievable. Like that's what it's coming to. I mean, whether it's that or it's gambling, buying lottery tickets, those should be things done for entertainment and not for your survival and your entertainment. And I think some of these phones and some of the scrolling has given people a way to do that without spending a lot of money, right? Because you're if you're searching for the dopamine hit, if you're gambling, it's like you're pulling the slot machine and you're like, you're hoping, and then if it hits, you get excited, and they've programmed those to like get the dopamine so high. With the bill thing, if I knew I could pay my bills kind of regardless, and I could go on and spend ten dollars and see if this is gonna be my lucky.
SPEAKER_00:You know damn well there's not a person on that platform that is in that situation.
SPEAKER_01:That's probably true, but like that would be a great video. Like, maybe we do a podcast, I'll put some bills on there and just go for it. It's kind of like when we did the football thing in Vegas and it was like it's almost there. I mean, it was like eight hours, and you guys had another one that went into like 6 a.m. where it was like you weren't gambling with money to feed your family, which I think happens, but at the end of the day, like it's a form of entertainment and it's a dopamine hit. I think what's interesting about this, and I want to make sure people understand, is I think there is a time in the day and in the week and in the month and in people's lives for entertainment. Like at some point, people just need to unwind, like you need to get the dopamine hits or however you want to do that. Back in the day, it was like storytelling. That was I think it sucks that our attention span's so short and it's gotta be this very like neurologically designed material that really feels like manipulation. But in a sense, I think it's okay for people to go gamble or for people to like whether it's playing Candy Crush or video games or whatever, like there's a part of that that I think is healthy mentally. I think there's a balance there. But I think what is happening is this is kind of started to consume people and be I mean, obviously, if people are prof they have a profession and they're working for the bulk of their day, they're they're um you know, that's consuming, you know, from a hours perspective, the bulk of their time. But when you look at discretionary time, when that is consuming the bulk of it, I just think that's where it gets super concerning. I the idea of purpose and intentionality and leaving this world better off than you found it, and like that, those sort of ideas I think have started to have have continued to get less and less relevant in society as a whole. Would you guys agree or disagree with us? But those are your those are your that's your purpose and value. That's not everybody's and that's no, I'm just saying, just in general.
SPEAKER_00:I think that goes back to the question that we just talked about. It's like, you know, what if the person who developed covered is like, hey, I've provided entertainment for all of these people that are scraping by, you know, or I've provided a I doubt that's the reasoning, but like I'm leaving this a better place because now these people who could never pay their water bill at least have a one in 20 chance with our covered cash. Like, I don't, I don't, I don't know. But I mean, like, you're right, it it really depends on what that looks like. And and I guess it would it would take uh probably another two hours of a podcast to historically examine what the foundational things what foundational things have been in place to drive us to where we are today, and are we in a better spot than we were 200 years ago?
SPEAKER_01:Well, yeah, I think that's the thing is like the time's gonna get filled to your point, Todd. Everyone's gonna take time to fill it with something. And I just individualized like dad upstairs, if he's sitting in his chair like he used to, and he'd be watching TV, eight, nine, ten at night, and he would watch what was ever on and he had a bag of chips or grapes in his hand. That was kind of his go-to, right? And now if he's sitting in his chair scrolling on his phone, I mean it's kind of like it kind of feels to me like it's kind of that's why we always struggle with the phones versus the television. As soon as they got off the phones, they turn on their TV. Yeah, so it's like screen time in general versus no screen time. So it depends how how how far you're willing to take it. And if you're gonna say, but I can say, like, how many times do I call my dad and just to talk? Well, when I get free time, which isn't very often, I'm more likely to pick up my phone and do something. But if that wasn't an option, would we connect more? Like, would we like well? I'm bored. Okay, you're bored. Why don't you call your grandpa and see and see what he's doing? Or why don't you like does it force you into more connection-based things? And I think the answer is yes. The television probably went away from that. It probably took away from that, and now probably social media just is I don't know a more addicting point of that.
SPEAKER_00:The reason I say I don't know is because I think about growing up, as we got older, we went to grandpa, he I think he went to grandpa's house every now and then, but grandpa also lived a mile away. Um, but think about you know, I was thinking about this because we had uh, you know, the end of November we had our Thanksgiving with our extended family. Yeah. If you think about that version of the extended family for the level up, I bet we engaged with that extended family like three times in 18 years. Remember going to the old UAW hall and like dad's cousins? That happened like twice. Um, so like, does that speak to the fact that because they didn't have the digital connection that we have, where at least with like a Facebook, Clista can see you know what we're doing and maybe alleviate some fear as it relates to reaching out to people because she feels like she has a kind of a beat on what we're doing, and it feels like it's somewhat of a live relationship versus oh, I haven't talked to this person in eight months. I have no clue where they are, what they're doing, if they're busy, you know. So it's interesting. Um maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, but but I don't, yeah, I don't know what.
SPEAKER_01:No, I'm just laughing, thinking about you can keep up with people online, even if you don't want to sometimes. But I can say I never got on social media and left feeling better than when I got started. It's true. It's kind of like checking email. It's like I like to say it's a Russian roulette because I'm never gonna pull my email up and be happy I pulled my email up because there's even if there's four or five good emails, there's always the one, and the one just blows up that that situation. So um, not having social media around the last several months has left me in a much more stable mindset. So there is something about what's on there. It also depends. Like, I'm either going on there looking for a fight, or like I can't believe they would post that, or I'm going on there to you. You know, you feel like I'm not doing enough, or this person's life is better, or I mean they're just like the the thoughts that get planted from it are are endless. And um I I agree with this in so many ways. I hope it does because I mean I'm gonna go deep into which you're gonna be like, oh, it's a doomsday scenario, but like North Korea, right? That's the ultimate control. Do we know how happy the people are? I mean I don't think they're very happy based on this the content I don't even have pictures, but like you think about that, they can't consume content, right? Like they're content restrictions are I mean, everything is restriction, restricted, but maybe they are happier. I don't know. You know what? I think we ought to be careful with that because I don't think we know.
SPEAKER_00:And the reason I say that is like there's quite a bit of document documentation based on in the reason that the un is there's a lot of economic stress there. So they have most of if you if you back to my lovely content habit, but if you look at a lot of the documentaries that have been done where people have kind of either got in there and snuck in, the the fact that the country curates the experience in a in a way that's very thinly veiled um speaks to what reality probably is. Like you wouldn't curate a thinly veiled experience if you felt like that the true experience was richer and more fulfilling and there was more happiness. And of the the little recordings that happen in scenarios where they are sneaking it, because you're not allowed to obviously record where the government doesn't want you to, there's a lot of famine, there's a lot of um scenarios where there's just not a lot of economic uh stability there and people are hungry and people are starving, and and it's more third world in in some of those instances. So I'm sure from a government perspective, there's people that are happy there that are involved close to the the center of the the leader, Kim Jong uh, but um I think collectively for the majority of that society, uh it's pretty bad.
SPEAKER_01:I'm gonna affirm that um just from a quick Gemini uh does say food insecurity, yeah, oppression, those sorts of things. The the reason I was pausing was I think a lot of us have a perception of what it's like to live in China. That China similarly, the government, yeah, yeah, the government is like massive controlled, and people are basically just like in their dorms, they go to and from work, they don't say anything, they don't, you know, if they say something out of whack, they get you know pulled into a dark corner oft, yeah, pulled down a dark alley, put in a body bag, and that couldn't be further from the truth. Yeah, you've been there enough to know that you've been there uh to Hong Kong, to Shenzhen, Dongguan, and the people are certainly there are in areas just like here of poverty or things like that, that they're going through that, but it the perceptions are are very different, and um, you know, I guess I say that to suggest, not to suggest we need to go back to some sort of dictatorship or whatever government. I think there's a lot of beauty in the in the democratic system. Um, but I I think I've I have lost some faith in our collective ability as a human race to know what's good for us long term and keep us on a trajectory to thrive as a society, unless we're defining thrive by convenience and comfort. If we're defining that, we're living the best we have ever lived in the history of the world. You can't argue that. From a convenience and a comfort perspective, just the things that are available to us, the quickness to which we can get it, we're doing that. Beyond that, I think it's gonna be interesting.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I mean, that's what's strange is this whole juxtaposition, right? Like evolutionarily, I think the way our brain is developed, we're we are wired to seek that out because it feels better. But what we've talked about since day one on this podcast is the most important piece, is the other side of that. Right? It's like the hard things are what really drive us forward, yet we're wired to want to seek this relaxed comfort, and and it it's continually won over over the last thousands and thousands and thousands of years of evolution. We've continued to progress. You always use the Rockefeller statement, right? Um, about living better than the richest man in the world did, you know, a hundred years ago or whatever. So it's it's very strange that that continues to be the driving force because that's what you sell. And that's what makes this economy money, is you're selling more and more and more and more convenience to people.
SPEAKER_01:Um what what piece of this? So I would say um as a society we've also lost we've lost a little bit of a foundation spiritually, I will say. I would say, and maybe it's maybe religion is a better word that people there's a part of me that feels like a lot of this, like feeding the dopamine and kind of just being on a mission to satisfy the human brain is even more dangerous in an environment where there is a lack of a spiritual or religious foundation that gives us very little purpose or context for why we're here and what we're supposed to be doing. I think there's a combination effect there. Like, that's my hypothesis that that there's a cut those two combinations of things makes this even more dangerous. React to that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, no, I I would agree. I I think anyone that has spent time there, you gotta have you gotta leave space, right?
SPEAKER_01:And that's to connect spiritually, to take time.
SPEAKER_02:Um, whether you are meditating, praying, I don't care to which I mean I do care, but I don't, um, but you gotta create space for that.
SPEAKER_01:And these things are masters and not letting you create. I mean, go going back to the comment when I went into the restroom, the first thing I did was pull my phone up because I couldn't, you know, how dare I try to pee for five seconds and not have my phone in in front of my face, right? You're so full all the time and you stay so full. And I think there's a direct correlation with how full you keep your mind and your ability to kind of step back or to find space in order to focus on different things. And those things are not high stimulating short term, right? Like, okay, if I pray today, it's going to make me feel better and everything's gonna be good. Now, the direct impact of that later on may come around, but I think the busyness that we're creating and these dopamine hits is there is a direct correlation.
SPEAKER_00:I think actually, I think that you're seeing more growth in spiritual um belief now. I think the the dip was early in the 2000s, because you know, technology technology tends to be associated with being more secular. And so when when we first saw the advent of technology, um the people that were on that forefront are consuming things that would be probably more aligned with atheism or agnosticism or whatever. Um, but I think as people have gone further down the hole and uh looked for answers at a deeper and deeper level, um, they're all finding that Alex O'Connor is a great example. He's probably one of the leading uh explorers of this question. And he recently put out a video, he still, I believe, is on the atheist. He got taken out of context a couple of weeks ago because he made a comment about he now believes God is more likely than he did when he started his journey, and they basically posed it in a way that it made it look like he said he believes in God. Um, but I do think like somebody like him, who's had every conversation with every person you can imagine on both sides, is finding out maybe this is more likely than I thought it is. And you're seeing a lot of that happen because of the advances in technology. People are finding out that all of these things that were in the past so uh thought of as airtight, thought of as rock solid aren't. And um, you know, so it's interesting.
SPEAKER_01:I hope that continues. In my mind, that's still a little bit of a micro trend. I would agree. I mean, you know, with everything we saw with Charlie Kirk and some of those things. I don't know how big that trend is and how big that cycle is back to more of a spiritual foundation. Um, but I was just looking for the the other day, and may maybe this is I'm assuming this is a crossed Christianity in the US, which is obviously the primary, you know, the biggest of the religions. But I think I saw in 20, gosh, I wish I knew the years, but I think it's over like the last maybe 20 years, the marriages in the Catholic Church have gone from like 450,000 or half a million down to barely over a hundred thousand. So just like the depth of people's per year. Marriages per year.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I think that speaks to something different. I had that conversation on that was part of the AI conversation. It's the depth of relationship that that they're they're attributing that to because everything is.
SPEAKER_01:You think that's marriage across the board, not just marriage in a spiritual 100%.
SPEAKER_00:They they're saying that that you know, because everything is so fleeting, that most of our relationships are very nowadays are very surface, and they are just connecting on that meme or connecting on this or connecting on that, because nobody has time for the rigor and the effort and the work that it takes to build a meaningful relationship with another person. And you're seeing that. I mean, I think if you look and you can look statistically, but um I mean you can probably speak to a better than anybody having a son at 16. Uh, you know, like I think that it's and maybe it's the uh the older generation, the Gen Zers, that that, but but one of these recent generations, maybe it's them, like the relationship um and the marriages are way, way, way, way, way, way down. Uh like for the city.
SPEAKER_01:Is that Todd? Is that marriages in the church or is that marriages just in general or in the church? So total marriages in the US diocese, which is in the Catholic Church, in I'm sorry, this is a much bigger span. It wasn't 20 years, it's 50 years, 1974, 406,000, 1995, 305,000, uh, 2019, 137,000, and 2024, 107,000 marriages. Is any of that like is the Catholicism shrinking in the United States over is any of that related to just the shrinking of that particular church, or is that yeah. Yeah, I would say like you're I think that's that was part of kind of what I was pointing out and saying that on the whole, I felt like now if if it shows the mar I don't think the marriage decline overall is to that extent. That's why I feel like faith is less of the foundational like element of the family that it once was. Well, people are getting married all over the place by the guy that just went online and got his thing, right? So like marriage has become, I think back in the day, like it was a super formal process. It was. And now it's like, hey, buddy, will you marry me? Right. But I think it speaks to someone who is obviously uh a staunch Catholic is going to get married in the Catholic Church or whatever religion, they're definitely going to get married in that church. And I think people said, Well, would the people who are getting married outside of it is because they don't have that strong of an affiliation with that. And so that's why I'm wondering if the that affiliation, um, that loosening of you know consistent mask or all that, I do think have tanked. Um, and that that's where I'm just I I get nervous about people because we were talking the other day about education and academics and what people are teaching in school and what schools to go to. And one of the things that I said that why I think it's gonna be important is people are gonna struggle to find their identity and work when they're not working. I think we may have even talked about on this podcast a couple episodes ago that a lot of people find their identity and work. And if AI starts doing a lot of this stuff, people are gonna struggle with like where to find their identity. And if they don't have anything religiously or spiritually to find that identity, that's where I think to your point, like where do they go? Where where is that identity? And and how I just think it's a dangerous formula, not that you should just jump into some religion for the sake of having an identity in something. Um, but I I I just get nervous overall about like the trends of depression and that sort of thing in this environment where people are, TJ, to your point, where a lot of people do get the natural achievement type dopamine, the more wholesome dopamine is in their work because they're kind of forced to experience delayed gratification, put in eight hours a day, accomplish things over time, over months or years. There are certain milestones. And when that, if and when that goes away, or to the extent that goes away, I think people are going to be more and more unstable. And so, like I was talking, like for us, you know, we have an opportunity academically, we're in a high academic institution. We can continue that trend and go for the high school that's maximum academic performance and trying to allow them to achieve at the highest possible levels, or send them to a Catholic high school for them to have more of a depth in their faith. And we're probably gonna go the latter route because I think that's gonna be really relevant in 20 years. Um, I I don't know. It's gonna be really interesting to see.
SPEAKER_00:Don't disagree.
SPEAKER_01:Well, that was uh it's a fascinating topic. Um, a lot of fun with that, a lot of opinions, no social media at all. Period. I I can't really disagree with that. I think there's a lot of benefits of that. Um, it's gonna be fascinating to see how um they police this and uh how this transforms the kids. The problem is we probably won't know for a decade or more.
SPEAKER_00:We'll see. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So thank you guys for tuning in. We'll see you next time.