The Failure of the Rich

(Upbeat music)

So this is a convergence of several
different things that have all happened.

I heard a story, it
was on the Internet and

it was about a meeting
at the white house.

So this is basically, we’re
gonna talk about millionaires

and billionaires and how to
attach the air from reality.

I think everyone knows
their detached from reality

because they live in a different
world than a normal person.

So they think about things a different way.

And the story was that Jeff
bezos was at the white house

with Obama and John Stewart was there.

John Stewart is a comedian
that I fell in love with

on the, he was former host of
the daily show fort trevinoa.

And I think I watched every
episode of the daily show that he did.

And he was socially
conscious and he was incisive

and politically aware and then all
those were all very appealing traits to me.

So he was telling this story.

Jeff bezos is at this meeting.

So of course Jeff bezos is
there because he’s super rich.

I think of that probably the
richest man in the world at that time.

And the story goes that he
was talking about the future

and the way he saw the
future that there would be

like a cabal of billionaires
and industries and services

would all be catering towards
the needs of these few people.

They would essentially
be running the planet

and everything would be geared
towards making them happy.

Now, John Stewart pointed
out that this is horrendous.

This is,

Jesus drops in more Dave.

Yeah, content irrelevant, more
Dave, but more Dave is good.

I’m thinking I’m hoping he’s
gonna take a nap while I do this.

It actually ruins my posture.

If you look at my shoulders,
man, this is ridiculous.

So Jeff bezos has made the statements that

the future of the economy is
not going to be about people.

It’s going to be about
multi-millionaires and billionaires.

And John Stewart then speaks up and says,

“this is one step away
from the French revolution.

This is one step away from
people taking away all their wealth.

This is one step away from
basically a new form of monarchy

where several big companies,
it’s all the dystopian books.

They always have three major
corporations are at war with each other

with private militaries
and stuff like that.

And Jeff bezos is talking
about that like it’s a good thing.

And Obama agrees with John
Stewart that this is a bad thing.

And so that got me
interested in Jeff bezos.

So I listened to two episodes
of behind the bastards.

Where they talked about Jeff
bezos’s youth and his history and stuff.

I’m not gonna go into that
because if you want to listen to that,

you should absolutely
subscribe to behind the bastards.

I shouldn’t be
encouraging people to

subscribe to non-chompe
beef chess podcasts.

But let’s do both.

Subscribe to behind the bastards.

It’s a very good podcast.

I got into it because of Steven seagull.

I wanted to see if
there was anything that

they brought up that
I didn’t already know.

I knew everything.

I was obsessed about it, man.

I’ve listened to like a
cadaphy and a bunch of people.

Basically I picked out all the
people I were interested in.

I was interested in and I listened to
those ones and I was very happy about it.

It’s very thorough, very smart.

It’s really good stuff.

This is Chuck mcbeath chess, c. Mcbeath.

Not to be confused with the, I
believe it’s Brazilian military operations

that also has the same name.

I’m actually gonna try to start beef
with them, which seems a really bad idea.

But there’s a c, c-m-c-b, which is like,

I think it’s Colombian
military, something base.

And so I believe it’s a training
program and they have their own podcast.

So there’s two c-m-c-bs in the world.

One is this where I talk about
just the most random stuff

and one is some very
serious people who

probably want to be
like professional police

or in the military.

I also produce news news Japan.

News news Japan is about news from
Japan, but you’re not there for the news.

You’re there for the color
commentary that I give about it,

which is how I, you know,
I’m a very thoughtful person.

I feel so fucking stupid saying that.

There’s also, it’s like a one-off
thing called daily affirmations weekly.

So basically it’s an affirmation you
can listen to every day for the week.

The longest ones may be a minute.

So they’re usually about 10, 20,
30 seconds long, which is great.

There’s Montana ldablo, which
is a choose your own adventure,

which you’re not allowed to
say ’cause I can get sued for that.

So it’s a user-driven narrative experience.

That’s four projects that are
all relatively active in some way.

And then there’s the old velocity
podcast, which has been retired,

seemick b replaced that.

But also behind the bastards, which I have
nothing to do with, but it’s very good.

And since I’m talking about
podcasts, three being salad,

it’s the most British thing ever.

So it might not be for everyone,
but it is my favorite podcast.

And it’s what I would like to do
’cause it’s just three people sit down

and talk about something, but
they just basically shoot the shit,

but they’re all really funny.

So those are my recommendations for now.

Anyways, write all that
down, go into your podcast.

Oh, you listening to your
podcast right now, kind of.

So you should probably just open your
podcast app and subscribe to all those.

So anyways, Jeff bezos is a
psycho, but he’s lived most of his life

in a world very different from this world.

So I kinda get it.

Discord just went off,
so I’m gonna silence that.

Just give me a second.

But it got me then thinking
about millionaires and billionaires.

And again, they’re so
different from regular people.

How did they live that way?

Or how did they get that way?

So I went on to, not on purpose though.

Like this all sort of,
again, this was a astrology.

This was a conflation of planets
coming together and aligning.

So I had all this information
hit me at the same time.

This was written by someone
on the anti-work subreddit.

I do enjoy the anti-work subreddit a lot.

The title is, “I’ve written several books

with multi-millionaires
and it made me understand

something critical about the
world of work and business.”

And so that was where,
it’s like, oh, this is interesting.

This is relates to the
Jeff bezos question of like,

how does he live and
what’s going on in his head?

I believe that they’re surrounded by
people who wanna make them happy.

It’s the same thing that happens to stars.

I think about Justin bieber.

Justin bieber was a kid, he got famous,

and then he’s surrounded by people
who tell him he’s great all the time.

And that actually isn’t good for you.

But these businessmen
probably are at the same point

where they’re surrounded by people
who are so desperate to make them happy.

So they can make money that they spend

mostly their life thinking, everything I
say is smart, everything I say is good.

I’ve seen and met the president
of the company that I work for.

Now, he is not a tuned
in guy, and he’s not

like one of these
multi-millionaire dudes.

He is rich though.

He runs a fairly large company in Japan.

I wouldn’t trust him with anything.

If I’m being really honest, I wouldn’t
trust him to do the most basic tasks

that need to be done properly.

And I think that seems
to be like a universal idea.

But then how are these people
so important and so fond upon?

But this was interesting.

I wanna go through sort of the
main points of this anti-work thing.

‘Cause this is quite long.

And I don’t wanna read the whole thing.

I just wanna get the main points because
it sort of illustrates the next points

that I wanna get to.

I’ve been working as it
goes right or for some years,

and over this period I’ve written several
books with entrepreneurs and businessmen.

Several of these clients were extremely
wealthy, not in the Elon Musk league,

but easily rich enough to invest their
money, have a very comfortable income,

own at least one property
and never work again.

But of course, none
of them were doing this.

Now I will never hit that level of wealth
because the instant I came close to it,

I would start minimizing
how much work I do.

And I think that might be a
very normal instinct people have.

A normal person doesn’t wanna work.

I weirdly do though.

So if, like you think about what I
do, today is Tuesday, it is my day off.

I wake up in the morning, I drink
water, ’cause I like to hydrate.

I take day for a walk, I come back, I go
over my notes for an engineer’s Japan,

I record an engineer’s
Japan in the morning.

Normally in the afternoon, I
would then make and eat lunch,

and then I would record
c-micb in the afternoon.

I’m actually recording this in the morning

because this afternoon, i’m
talking to a guy on another podcast.

I then later in the afternoon,
edit an engineer’s Japan,

and if I feel like I have time, I’ll edit
the c-micb, so I’m ready for this week.

And then I’ll play video games,
which I will stream on twitch.

And then I will make dinner for my family,

and then probably after
that, just play video games,

and then go pick
up my kids from their

various things that
they’d do in the evening.

All of that is unpaid.

I don’t make any money off the streaming,

I don’t really make any
money off the podcast.

I’ve sold a couple t-shirts,
I mean, that’s great.

But I mean, when you think about,
I’ve been making podcasts for years,

the $30 I’ve made off t-shirts,
isn’t really compensating my time.

So I do have the work
ethic for creating stuff.

So given the opportunity to quit my day job

and do something like
creating content, writing,

stuff like that, I would
absolutely jump at it.

So I might do that work forever,

but it’s because I would find
that work personally satisfying,

whereas most people, these
millionaires that are running companies,

do they find running those
companies personally satisfying?

Now they are surrounded again, I
said by like, yes men, and those yes men,

probably it feels good
to have people tell you

your genius, your genius,
you’re really smart all the time.

But at the same time, work isn’t fun.

But it seems like I think what they wanna
do is make money and that money is status.

And so this isn’t, I’m not
actually creating podcasts

to create status, I create
podcasts because I like making stuff.

And I like putting it out there,
and I like interacting with people.

These billionaires want wealth and status.

So that’s the first, I haven’t even got it

this second paragraph yet,
this is gonna take forever.

Over time I’ve become more
and more fascinated by the factors

that drive people who are wealthy
to attempt to accumulate more

and endure experiences that
aren’t in any way enjoyable.

So that’s my point.

They’re doing work that they don’t enjoy,

that is painful or takes huge
amounts of time or is very stressful,

whereas I’m doing stuff
because I enjoy writing,

recording, I enjoy editing,
I enjoy putting it out there

and moving on and making the next thing.

There are many characteristics that in
my view underpin this, including narcissism

and the love of attention.

Now I can’t actually say
I’m different from that.

I want my podcast to be successful.

So I must have a desire for attention

and that includes a certain
amount of narcissism.

But I think it’s on a more
normal level where it’s like,

I want people to like the stuff I’ve made.

I want to interact with those
people, but I’m not seeking fame.

If I was seeking fame, I would
have given up on this year’s ago

’cause I’ve been doing
this literally four years.

Insecurity, obsession with
status, attempting to compensate

for some perceived weakness or
inadequacy, upbringing and social example,

and just simple lust for money and power.

So those other ones, I, people do
not accuse me of being insecure.

I have been accused of anything.

It’s gonna be overconfident.

Obsession with status, I,
to a degree, is choose status.

I am sort of the leader
of a team at my work.

I don’t really like being the leader.

I like helping other people.

So when my team needs something
done and I do it, I feel good about that.

But I don’t really like
being the boss, per se.

I am not particularly worried about having
a perceived weakness or inadequacy again,

’cause that comes with being overconfident.

My upbringing and social
alization is pretty normal.

I do not have a lust for money and power.

Other than I would like to have enough
money that I don’t need to work anymore.

So that I could do
creative stuff and have fun.

I also believe that making money simply
becomes a form of compulsive addiction.

And if heightened attention or being placed

in some form of pedestal is added to
the mix, it can become highly potent.

But through interviewing
successful entrepreneurs,

I realize something critical will
have a business people generally.

If you want to be successful in business,
it’s a disadvantage to be intelligent.

Probably most people
have realized that

there is no correlation,
let alone causality,

between intelligence and business success.

But I would argue that intelligence
is actively disadvantaged.

Now that was where
this got really interesting.

‘Cause what they’re saying
is that to be a successful

business leader, being
smart doesn’t help you.

By virtue of not being
intelligent, number one,

they don’t question whether or not
they’re what they’re doing is worthwhile.

So I do question that.

Now, worth whileness comes
from in my view satisfaction.

So I make podcasts that, I mean, my most,

in interviews with Japan is the
most successful podcast I make.

It makes about, it has a core
audience of about 800 people,

maybe a really big one will get 1,000.

I put a cmeb on YouTube
that got 11,000 views.

It was on the movie triple r.

But I made no money off it.

So is it worthwhile?

It was worthwhile because
I had a good time doing it.

But they don’t question that
because that’s not relevant to them.

So if I considered it not
worthwhile, I would not do it.

Number two, they’re
less likely to feel empathy

for people that they exploit trample on.

This is more debatable,
but there is some evidence

that intelligence correlates with empathy.

I would love to get a Dave cam.

That might be the next project is some,

a camera pointed at the
bed he usually sleeps in,

and a second camera
that somehow points down

at my lap right now
because he’s unconscious.

Because he’s lying on his back
and I’m just scratching his belly.

This is very bond villain old school stuff.

I think I can say I have
average intelligence.

Maybe I’m a little smart.

I managed to do a bunch of stuff.

But I would never say I was really smart.

I think I have a shallow
knowledge of many things.

Am I empathetic?

It’s weird.

I think I can turn it on and off.

But I could say that overall, I don’t want
to abuse other people to be successful.

I think that’s very important to me.

So I don’t know if that’s empathy.

But I think there is a moral implication

to putting down other people or
abusing other people to get ahead.

I don’t think I could really
do that consciously or well

because that’s not in my nature.

I love to do stuff by myself.

So that’s, again, this
whole podcasting project,

making it, producing it,
editing it, putting it out there.

I do that all by myself.

And then adding
people in, I would never

want to do that to
someone else’s detriment.

So number three, critically,
crucially, they don’t get bored.

They can talk about business for hours and
hours and hours, and they never get bored.

Trust me.

They never get bored.

And that, again, business– I mean,
there are interesting aspects to it,

but sort of like the day-to-day
stuff– I couldn’t talk about it for hours.

And so that is interesting because it
means they can focus on something.

I think that’s basically the
premise of the rest of it.

It was only through having meetings with
several rich people that I realized this.

If I’m not doing something
creative or actively enjoyable,

so I think I relate to the author in this.

I get bored extremely quickly.

The Internet has probably
contributed to this.

But I think its a tendency
is inherent within me.

I remember that when I had a
conventional job, all I ever used to do–

all I ever used to think about at
work was when I could go home.

I am not that bad.

But what I do want to do is go home and
make stuff or stream or do other things.

Conversely, the capacity to hold meetings

and talk for hours about
stuff that doesn’t even

need to be discussed can
only be described as heroic.

Meetings are the literal
bane of my existence.

It is insane how many meetings people
have and how pointless they could be.

I usually go to meetings,
and then I write up notes

and distribute those to
my team, demonstrating

there is no need to have
a meeting in the first place.

Because if I can just type
it up and send it to my team,

all that stuff could just be typed up as
a report and sent to me in the first place.

And then I would actually
have something to reference.

So that’s terrifying.

That’s why it’s a major disadvantage
to be intelligent if you want to succeed

in the capitalist rat race.

Because not only will you
question whether or not

it’s worthwhile, clearly
it isn’t worthwhile.

But what you have to do to succeed will
become utterly tedious, extremely quickly.

Whereas less intelligent
people are able to concentrate

on these boring
things, these activities

that are a benefit of
any form of creativity,

that are bereft of any form
of creativity or engagement

for inordinate amounts of time.

While I’m skeptical
about some of the claims

about the extended working
hours, it’s also partially

explained by business people are able
to invest such punishing hours in work.

While this is physically
tiring, tiring, the main reason

is that it’s hard to do is that
it becomes mentally draining.

Your eye could never do this
because our brains would tell US,

you’ve been doing the same
thing all day, this is boring,

it’s all pointless, stop doing it.

But that never happens to them.

This is also why they can’t
understand why everyone isn’t like them.

And I think that’s another important point.

The author of this talks
about the lack of empathy,

but lack of empathy also means
a lack of ability to relate to others.

So it’s the idea, I don’t understand
why you don’t think like me.

And this is something you see
a lot is that the ceo is confused

as to why workers don’t have the
same investment in the company

that they have, despite the fact
that they don’t take a moment

to realize they’re not getting the same
reward for being successful as the ceo.

So we hear about CEOs make like,
i– man, I wish I had the number now.

It was like the top CEOs
of a certain set of companies

made the entire year’s
salary of their employees

by 9/30 the first day of the new year.

Something like that.

Because they make so much
money within the first hour,

they had already outpaced
every worker that works for them.

Here’s a quote.

They want obedient workers,
obedient workers, people

who are just smart
enough to run the machines

into the paperwork
and just dumb enough

to passively accept all of
these increasingly shittier jobs

with the lower pay, the longer hours,
the reduced benefits, the end of over time

and the vanishing pension that
disappears the minute you go to collect it.

Because they want to be able to abuse you.

And so that’s the conclusion
here is that these are the two

main characteristics that separate
the owner class and the working class.

The owner class usually born into it.

Secondly, they’ve worked out that it’s
better to be the owner than the worker.

That’s not like we didn’t work this out.

But you just can’t just be
born into something anyways.

A vast majority of these
people who love to work

at any level succeed
in the corporate system,

they are just smart enough
to fill in the paperwork

and just dumb enough to never get bored by
doing it or question why they’re doing it.

That’s the perfect
person to work in business.

So that gives US like a framework
of what the successful rich person is.

And then I got to this
other article, which I found

very interesting, which shows the
failure to really understand their value.

So the super rich preppers planning to
save themselves from the apocalypse.

This is a very long article.

And I think it’s from a book.

So let’s get down to the bottom
and give some credit to the author.

Let’s do that for the other one as well.

The author of this was
on Reddit user wub1234.

So maybe– oh, that’s got to be like–

like a second account because
they don’t want to get in trouble

for ripping on rich people.

It’s actually very smart.

Don’t do that.

The author of this article
is, this is an edited extract

from survival of the
richest by Douglas rushgolf.

So I want to make sure people
get credit for the stuff they do.

But I found this interesting
because my first thought was,

they don’t see how this is
going to work out for them.

Now, I was thinking about
the movie don’t look up

with Leonardo DiCaprio, where
they’re predicting an asteroid

is going to hit the
earth and kill everybody.

And then all these super, super rich
people– I’m going to give a spoiler.

So if you haven’t seen
it, it’s post-credit scene.

So that’s not the end of the movie.

But the post-credit
scene has super rich people

have actually managed
to get to another planet.

And they land on the other planet.

So it’s going to be politicians, rich
people, famous people, was all like that.

The people have enough money to get
on their ship and get to the other planet.

And it shows them getting off the planet.

And they’re looking around
and it’s all new and beautiful

and wonderful and they walk out.

And then it shows like
dinosaur-like creatures

coming in to kill
and attack them all.

That actually, to me, was
not what would happen.

Because in that situation, they didn’t
bring anyone who had any survival skills.

A rich– you take Elon Musk or Jeff bezos,

and you plop them in
the middle of a forest.

They would die in a day or two because they
don’t know how to take care of themselves

because their life has revolved around.

I order something.

I say something and it comes
and appears and it happens.

Which is actually how
they run their companies.

I say I want this to happen and
then the engineers make it happen.

Elon Musk is the ceo of
six, seven companies now.

The interesting part to me of
that– someone commented,

I believe it was on Twitter or something,

said like, if you can be
the ceo of six companies,

it actually makes it very clear
that the ceo doesn’t do much.

You go around and get
saying like, it was bill burr,

had a comedy thing and it was
like everyone idolizes Steve jobs.

But all he did was say, take my
cds and put it in this little box.

And then like 50 engineers
went and made that happen.

But he got credit for it.

Just like Elon Musk gets
credit for a bunch of stuff

that he didn’t do any of that stuff.

Someone he ordered to do did it.

But that’s the world they live in.

That’s what they understand.

I say it and that it happens.

And that leads me to the failure
of these super rich preppers.

And what they’re doing
is they’re saying like, we’ve

seen that the climate crisis is coming.

We’re going to build bunkers.

We’re going to staff those bunkers.

And we’re going to live in them and live
out through the apocalypse essentially.

So they’re talking about
mad Max being real.

We want to get ahead of
that so that we don’t suffer

the consequences of a lot of
the things we’ve actually created.

We’re going to skip the intro.

It was quite good, though.

They sat around the table
and introduced themselves.

Five super wealthy guys.

Yes, all men.

Not a surprise.

From the upper Echelon
of the tech investing

and hedge fund world, at least
two of them were billionaires.

After a bit of a small talk, I realized
they had no interest in the speech.

I’d prepared about the
future of technology.

They had come to ask questions because
they don’t care what you have to say.

They care to have
their thoughts reaffirmed.

That’s the yes men
mentality of the billionaire.

They started out innocuously
and predictable enough

bitcoin or ethereum, virtual reality

or augmented reality, who will get to
quantum computing first, China, or Google.

Eventually, they edged to
their real topic of concern,

new Zealand or Alaska, which
region would be less affected

by the coming climate crisis.

It only got worse from there.

Which was the greater threat,
global warming or biological warfare?

How long should one plan to be
able to survive with no outside help?

Should a shelter have its own air supply?

What was the likelihood of
groundwater contamination?

Finally, the ceo of
a brokerage house

explained that he had
nearly completed building

his own underground
bunker system and asked,

how do I maintain authority over
my security force after the event?

The event?

That was their euphemism
for the environmental collapse,

social unrest, nuclear explosion,
solar storm, unstoppable

virus, or malicious computer
hack that takes everything down.

And so they talked about
that for the rest of the time.

And I think that is, again,
where they fail to see

that their authority only comes
from their economic wealth.

They have no value in themselves,
and therefore the instant–

so one of them, down later,
says like he has a group of Navy

seals that if he gives a command,

they’re all going to go to the
bunker and then ride it out.

But once the event
happens and the Navy seals

and this tech billionaire,
technology, again, is gone.

Technology does not exist anymore
in this post-apocalyptic world.

What value does that person have?

So the maintaining authority
is actually the question.

Because you’re paying these
guys, but there is no economy.

So paying the money doesn’t mean anything.

Crypto doesn’t mean anything.

What would stop the guards from
eventually choosing their own leader?

And that’s the bit they’re missing.

They can’t stop them.

Once the world falls apart, they’re
not going to be valuable anymore.

They’re going to say,
I want this and people

are going to go, who
fucking cares what you want?

I actually know how to survive.

I actually know how to do things.

I actually have real world skills.

All you have are a few ideas
that are part of the old world

and they don’t mean anything anymore.

This single question occupied
US for the rest of the hour.

They knew armed guards would be required
to protect their compounds from raiders,

as well as angry mobs.

One had already secured a
dozen Navy– oh, there it is.

Doesn’t Navy seals to make their way to
his compound if he gave him the right cue.

But how would he pay the guards
once even in his crypto was worthless?

What would stop the guards from
eventually choosing their own leader?

The billionaires considered
using special combination locks

on food supply that only they knew were
making guards where disciplinary collars,

one of the most stupid
Sci-Fi ideas they’ve ever had.

Because again, basing this on technology
when technology’s failing means they’re

going to figure out how to get it off.

In some kind of return for their survival,

or maybe building robots to
serve as guards and workers,

if that technology could
be developed in time.

I tried to reason with them.

But if we look back at the previous article
from anti-work subreddit, they’re not

going to accept any other idea.

They have an idea they want it to happen.

They want to push it through.

They’re not going to think about you.

They’re not going to think about empathy.

They’re not going to think about
anything to make the world a better place.

I made pro-social
arguments for partnership.

In solidarity is the best approach to
our collective long-term challenges.

They’re not going to understand
that because it doesn’t benefit them.

They don’t understand that
because it doesn’t have empathy.

The way you get your guards
to exhibit loyalty in the future

was to treat them like
friends right now I explained.

Don’t just invest in
ammo and electric fences

or collars, invest in
people in relationships.

They rolled their eyes at what must have
sounded to them like a hippie philosophy.

This was probably
the wealthiest, most

powerful group I had
ever encountered yet here.

They were asking a marxist
media theorist for advice

on where and how to configure
their doomsday bunkers.

That’s when it hit me.

At least as far as these
gentlemen were concerned,

this was a talk about
the future of technology.

So that’s really, again, you can see
where all the failures are going to happen.

By not caring about
other people, by not

caring about the future,
other than your own,

by not caring about the environment, by
not being divested or invested in society

or social systems, these billionaires have
actually set themselves up for failure,

but because they’ve never failed,

because they’ve surrounded themselves with
people who, complete every idea for them,

they can’t understand or see
how that failure is going to exist.

They can’t understand or see
where the future is actually going,

where the first instance,
because these guys are dicks,

these military dudes who want
to just protect their families

or whatever, going to string
them up and get them out

of the way so that they can take over,

and probably actually create
maybe a militaristic system,

but one that’s actually designed
to care about other people.

But it shows, again, I
have actually had episodes

in the past and stuff where
I’ve talked about economists

and economists talk about
growth, endless growth,

and that endless growth is not realistic,

but they won’t accept it
because it means there is a limit

to how much power or how
much money they can make.

These guys, these billionaire preppers
are actually suffering from the same thing.

They’ve fallen apart from realite thinking.

They think they are separate from society

when they’re actually
just a part of society,

and when society falls down,
they’re going to fall down with it

and they can’t accept it.

(Upbeat music)

(Upbeat music).