Dispatched from Mars

Remotely working in today's digital economy without seeing anyone all day. What does it take to succeed?

We read and discussed an interesting article titled ”Why Books Don’t Work” (https://andymatuschak.org/books/) by Andy Matuschak. We felt the problem isn't so much the medium or how to write the book. It’s something else...

We discussed the realities of retirement, how different people think about it and deal with it, how we think about it, what it means philosophically as well as scientifically.

What do we mean by the word "love" in English? It means so many different things that it seems meaningless. In Japanese and Spanish, love means something much more specific.

What is the optimal number of people to have a conversation with? What happens when we keep adding more people? Why do some people, particularly autistic people, have a hard time engaging in a group conversation? What do we mean by "social skills"? We theorize on these issues.

To get along with others, we often have to tell people what they want to hear, not what you are actually thinking. We talked about the implications of doing this, and what happens if you never told the truth. The conversation then shifted to talking about our education system.

We discuss René Girard's theory of scapegoating.

Discussed René Girard’s theory of mimetic desire.

Evan is not sure if he is an artist or photographer—he knows only that he can’t stop seeing the world through his cameras. That is how he seems to process what happens in life—a camera as a phenomenological mediator. As long as I have known him (almost two decades), he has always been recording his life on his cameras. It’s as if his impetus is to give himself more time to understand what is happening. It wasn’t a coincidence that he captured the moment the second plane hit the World Trade Center. Amid the mob of people trying to get away from the building, Evan aimed his video camera up at the towers and kept it rolling.

What does it mean to follow your passion in today’s "gig economy"?

When any idea or act is normalized within a group of people, it's easy and safe to criticize anything outside of that group that contradicts it. Normalization works so hypnotically that those under the influence begin to assume these ideas and actions to be universal. This makes people arrogant and even fascistic. What is more important than criticizing others who contradict your normalized values is to ask yourself what sort of hypnosis you yourself are under.

Although every school teacher and parent touts the value of "critical thinking," there is no critical thinking about critical thinking. Everyone seems to accept it as a virtue but when their own fundamental assumptions are questioned by critical thinking, they are appalled by that act of critical thinking.

We have our own narratives to explain why we did what we did. Not having any narratives makes us uncomfortable. Ultimately we have our narratives for why we exist and who we are.

What does authenticity mean today? Everyone from artists, musicians to marketers talk about "authenticity" but what exactly are we looking for? How do we define it?

We talk about the ethnic food in the US, particularly in New York City, and the cross-cultural functions food plays.

Being rich or poor is a state of mind. Some people feel poor even if they have money, and others feel rich even if they don't have money. Likewise, some people are time-poor even if they have time, while others are time-rich even if they don't have time.

On racial segregation and integration. We talked about Anthony Bourdain’s criticism of “Northeastern Liberals,” exploitation of immigrants, slavery, Hasidic Jewish community, public vs. private schools.

In the West, we tend to assume that who we are is an unchanging essence of ourselves but when our lives change dramatically, we realize that it's impossible to define our identity without the context in which we live.

We tend to use the words "wise" and "smart" in different ways. We postulate that smartness can be taught, shared, and passed on, but wisdom cannot be. We all have to become wiser on our own from scratch.

We discuss how the perception of being street smart and book smart impact politicians' careers.

In the West, specializing is how we gain authority, but it is a form of ignorance and has adverse consequences.

If you think about it, it's rather strange that people would want suicide to be illegal. Why would you want your right taken away?

We discuss the life and music of Cecil Taylor. We planned this podcast before Cecil Taylor died.

We discuss the life and work of Leonard Cohen.

Recently there have been many articles about loneliness. Everyone is feeling lonely these days. Why?