Bookworm Transcripts

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So I have an announcement to make here Joe Buellig and it is Rome research related

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There it is I was ready that time. You were no is coming I

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Have decided to add an additional perk to the bookworm

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Premium club membership. Oh, that sounds fun, which will be more work for me and no work for you. I'm in I

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Figured you might like this didn't take long

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So I have had a number of people reach out to me about some specific

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Booknotes via the club had people wondering like what does this actually look like when it's finished

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And I do have a post on my website about how I take book notes in my node

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I've since done a presentation for bigger plate

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Which talks about how I take the mind node stuff and then incorporate that into Rome research

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and I

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Realized that without a whole lot of extra effort. I could create a separate but public

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Rome research graph from the bookworm

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Books that we have read okay

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So I am committing on air here. I don't have a deadline for this yet great way to do this

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It's external pressure which causes me to take action apparently I

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Am gonna put pressure on myself to create this and make it available to the premium club members

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I'm not even quite sure how that works, but I'm gonna do it

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I'm basically gonna take everything that I have inside of Rome research for the books that we have read and

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Transfer that over to a public graph. There are a lot of holes in it currently

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That's one of my projects that I wanted to work on over the next couple weeks as I'm on sabbatical is to go back and

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Incorporate all of the mind node files that I have and build out those notes pages and at that point

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I just want to be able to share them so there's a caveat here where it's not gonna cover every book that we have covered

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For bookworm because if you remember at the beginning I was not

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Using Rome. I was using a different app to just take notes

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Not even mind note. There was an iOS app. I forget the name of it

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It's since been discontinued and I lost a bunch of the notes that I had

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So I do want to go back and add those my thought is that now that we're done with bowling alone. Maybe I'll have some

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Some margin for some gap books and it would be cool to go back and reread some of those early books

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Anyways, and so I want to start doing that building out those mind-note files and as I do attaching those to the

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The episodes will probably be a little bit different than what we talk about in the episodes, but that's okay

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eventually I just want to build out that whole library and

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the

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Vision for this is that if you're a bookworm club premium member

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You will have access to this email to you or be available in the premium club section

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You know the super secret URL for this thing and then you can kind of navigate this wiki style in a web browser

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interesting well that sounds exciting and

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If I was a huge Rome person I could see how this would be super helpful, but not being a Rome person

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I'm not really sure what you're telling me. I'm getting but that's okay

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Basically what you will have is all of the interconnected

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Notes that I take from the books that we read so in addition to the PDF file of the mind map itself

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Which you can edit that's the other thing with these public graphs is that you can set them up so that people can

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contribute to them and my hope is that if people are going to use my notes as a starting point they can just go to this graph and they can

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Start adding some of their own insights and maybe we can all learn from reading these books together

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I have no idea what this is actually going to turn into but I think it could be something pretty cool sure it sounds cool

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Well, I'm game of course, but I'm doing nothing other than promoting it sounds like so

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I'm game all right

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So now that I put myself on the hook for a bunch more work

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Let's talk about all the work. We currently did reading bowling alone

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Actually before we get there, let's do some of these follow-up action items because you've got a couple I do one of which I can

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follow up on the other one. I can't so much but

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One okay, so this is coming from the practice by Seth Godin

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If I have to summarize that very quickly, it's essentially building a daily practice of creating in some form

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I mean, it's a very loose definition behind what that means

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My intention was to discover

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when this practice is going to happen for me day to day and

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I have discovered in the process of attempting to do that that it's almost impossible for me to do this

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And it's partially because and this is also why my second one is nailing down who my audience is and trying to define

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Exactly who that is in words written on a page

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I don't have it written on a page anywhere because I haven't nailed down the exact word verbiage behind it

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So we need to postpone that one

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Primarily because when it ended up happening as I ended up hiring an IT assistant at the church

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so

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All the time it would normally take me to do my normal week-to-week day job stuff

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Got a lot bigger as far as how much time it took because I had to slow it all down to explain every single step and

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Checklist things and it's taking me a lot longer to do stuff. So

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great timing for bowling alone and

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So I'm behind on a lot of things and I've got today and tomorrow and then my Christmas vacation begins

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So I am hustling

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to the gills here, so

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Part of that has led me to not having regular time to create things

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I've been able to do some of the live stuff that I have scheduled so the streams and the analog Joe webinars

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I've been able to do

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But outside of that I haven't been able to do much like for example, I've got an article about

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the omni focus auto parser and update review scripts I've rewritten those for iOS and

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I haven't been able to publish the article explaining how to install this stuff and how it works because time

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So I haven't even done that what Joe is saying is he's behind

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So I don't have solid answers on either of these follow-up points

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But I have been paying attention to faith based productivity.com. Yeah, and I I've been

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noting

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day by day is

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Something being published. Yeah

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Not not yet. It's getting there though. I have

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published eight things I think no four things in the last eight days, which is

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Pretty close to where I would like to be

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I thought you were going daily. I want to go daily Monday to Friday. So five five posts a week

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Okay, and there's a couple things that are in the works

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Which is a result of a writing habit that has been

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Established but hasn't seen the lighted day yet. All right, so

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I think this is totally doable and I also have yet to figure out how to frame this in

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Terms of what promise I want to make to people going forward like you go to the site

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You watch the sermon sketch note videos or whatever you download the file

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The natural reaction if you like the site is oh, I'm gonna sign up for the newsletter sure

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I kind of don't even have a real

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Place to sign up for my newsletter because I don't I have a

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Epa book that I created a while back the case for purposeful productivity

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Which I like that I think it's really good

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But I have no idea what I want to promise in terms of newsletters and things when they sign up

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Which I feel is a very important piece. I need to nail down

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Yeah, yeah, I am thinking I want to

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Publish the newsletter once a week on Mondays kind of a

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You know TGI M sort of a thing sure and I

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Just haven't done it yet. So

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Hopefully beginning of the the year the newsletter piece will be there and that will kind of be the glue that holds the rest of it in place

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But sure there is a bunch of stuff that is being worked on that you don't see

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I am proud of the fact though that like one of the pieces that came out of this is the last minute gift guide for nerds like me

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I saw this this was well done. Thank you. Yeah, that was

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just a collection of links that didn't take a ton of time to put together

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but it was

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Created solely because I was approaching my blog to the lens of I need to find more regular stuff to post here

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And so this is kind of evidence of like if you have if you make that a priority

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Then you don't have to worry about like running out of ideas

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Which I guess was kind of part of my hesitation in the past is like well

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I'll throw some stuff out there. It'll be good, but then there won't be anything to follow it up

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This kind of showed me that like there's low hanging fruit there in terms of filling in the holes around the

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The post promoting the podcast episodes

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So makes sense. I hope you can continue it. I have

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Subscribed to the RSS feeder. I open net newswire daily and I check

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Face-based productivity to see if it has a post each day

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I thought you were going seven out of seven is what I thought you were trying to do because you could schedule things for the weekend

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but going five out of seven makes sense I

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If I were to post things the way I probably should it would actually be closer to six out of seven for me, but I

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Have zero expectations of actually pulling that off because that's a lot sure it's a lot to ask. Yeah

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So stay tuned fun stuff coming. Well, I'm tuned

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All right, so that's follow up

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Let's talk about this behemoth book before us

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bowling alone by

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Robert Putnam

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this is

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Maybe the biggest book we've read. I think this might be longer than paid to think

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It definitely felt like the longest book we've read

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It's about

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The the subtitle here is the collapse and revival of American community

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Which I think is a fascinating topic and I think is very appropriate for where we find ourselves right now

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however, I did not quite expect

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the amount of history lessons we got in this book and

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I also know that there was a

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Afterward where they talked about the the internet and basically what had happened in the 20 years roughly since they published this in the first place

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and

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I

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Wish that that would have been sprinkled in throughout. I do think there's some really cool

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Ideas here were thumb packing. So I kind of broke this down into the different sections

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There's how many pages is this 460 something? Yeah, I think it was for

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When I looked it up, it was like 440 something I think okay or 60 is into the appendix

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Afterward is like 440. Yeah, and I saw you had paid to think out too. So which one is longer?

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You want to guess?

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Based on the size of the paid to think book it looks like maybe that one's a little bit longer

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The so paid to think is

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659 pages. Oh geez, it's not even close. Wow

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This one bowling alone

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was based off of a ton of research and a ton of science and

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Links to all the studies and things are in the back

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I didn't really look at any of those tons and tons of charts in here. I feel like this is a

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great example of somebody who really just took meticulous care to put together an exhaustive

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collection of everything they know on a topic and I feel like the approach that they took because it's not just Robert Putnam

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He worked with other people in the different sections. They were very thorough. They were very detailed and

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I really respect the amount of work that went into it

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however

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from a bookworm perspective

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This is a long one and yes kind of boring

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very much so

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I will be completely

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upfront Frank honest here there were sections of this I skimmed and

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It's been a very long time since I've done that on a bookworm book and

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I had it finished we were supposed to record a few days ago and

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Life stuff happened and we weren't able to get that done, but the I was ready for that

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Time frame so it wasn't like we were extending this so that we had time to read it. It was just a

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long

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long book and I

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skimmed it and was ready a couple days early and things and it was just

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It's a slog as I put on Twitter

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Yeah, it's it's one of these that you just have to

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Just dedicate more time to I mean it was quite a quite an endeavor. I'll say that

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this is

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the

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Literary equivalent of eating your vegetables. I feel

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Where it's not something that you really enjoy going through I feel like it's worthwhile

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If you are curious about a specific topic like I am and I think probably you are too

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And I'm anxious to see the type of conversation that springs from having read this

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Yes, I feel like that is going to influence my rating when we get to the end quite a bit

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Because all I'm left with right now is the emotional exhaustion of having gone through it

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Yeah, but I do feel this has the potential to be one of those books that you look back on and you reference

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Quite a bit sure like I remember when we went through the innovators dilemma by Clayton Christensen and that one was a slog

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too and I think back to that book over and over and over again and the examples of

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Like the apple and blackberry. That's not the specific one he talked about but he was using a different example

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And I'm like oh, that's like apple and blackberry now

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You know I made that connection and that stuck with me

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I'm curious to see over time if that sort of thing happens from from this book or if it's just a bunch of information that you collected

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Yeah

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And then you move on from and you never think about it again

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I think it has a potential for either one of those paths

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Yeah, I think it'll be interesting as we go through this as well to see

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there are a lot of examples and stories in this but

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Something I struggled with was that there was so much and it it was so long and there was so much data heavy

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science in it that

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I think it's gonna be difficult for me to recall a lot of things sure in this

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I don't know if some of that's because of the sections I skimmed and then therefore I'm not actually a good person to review this

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I don't know I didn't skim that much but it did happen a little bit

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So I think there are some areas where it's gonna be a little weird here because again, there's so much in this

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that it and because it's the way it's formatted and stuff I think

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The memory recall side of it is gonna be difficult at least for me

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So just to put that forewarning out there sure well, let's talk about the way it's structured and we'll kind of break this down

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section by section

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The first section is the introduction the second one is trends in civic engagement and social capital

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Section three is why section four so what section five what is to be done?

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And then there is an afterword where they talk about the internet and social networks

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Which is very important since the original version of this was written in something like the year 2000

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Yeah, it's two thousand so it's 20 years old almost 21 which it's easy to forget that

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I think as you're reading it I

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wish though if they were gonna go back and

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Expand and revise the version that they would just sprinkle the new findings in instead of collecting it at the end in a

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Separate section right but they took the easy way out

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So did we by skimming certain pieces? Yeah sounds like did you skim some - is it just me?

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No, I definitely skimmed a little bit

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But I think it's okay with this book because they're basically applying like the scientific method in terms of their approach to the the topic and so

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You can if you were to take like a speed reading approach where you read like the first line of each paragraph

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And then just kind of skim the rest. I feel like you're still getting the gist of what they are saying

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You're gonna miss a lot of the details, but to be honest

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There's so many details in here after the first section when I was reading it word for word

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I was like I need I need a lifeline throw me a yes throw me the raft

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I'm thinking give me more charts, please. I can't can't keep it all straight in my head

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So that was my approach to this is

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Going back to like how to read a book

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Understanding the arguments that they're making not understanding and being able to recall all of the details of the arguments that they are

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Are making yeah, so let's break this

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Down and we're just gonna touch on a small sampling of the things that we consider to be important in the book

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Definitely not exhaustive everything that they talk about because it is an exhaustive approach to the whole idea of community really

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Section one introduction a couple important things. I think here number one is the definition of social capital

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this is a term that they use over and over and over and over and over again and

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Basically if I'm gonna put this in my own words, it is the strength of your relationships in

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a form a capital you think of

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Resources money that you have in order to buy something, you know

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So it is the sum of the viewer to quantify the quality of your

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Relationships, that's basically what social capital is and then what it gets you is a bunch of different benefits in a lot of different areas

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Which they talk about exhaustively throughout the rest of the book is that a fair definition? Yeah, I think that's good because it it's really

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What is the interconnectedness of the people that are in your?

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closest groups how often do you meet what are the effects of meeting with them and

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Because the the tagline on this is the collapse and revival of American community

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So we're talking about community and the social interconnectedness that we build

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I think it's very ironic that we're covering this book right now. Yeah, given

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pandemic and quarantine and isolation stuff and the second wave of COVID coming through and tons of lockdowns and

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A lot of people ignoring said lockdowns. So there's a lot of that going on and

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I think it's it again. It's fascinating to go through this right now partially because

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the arguments that are made is that

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Community engagement are falling quickly like that's a lot of what they set us up for

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Here, but again, he's talking about your point the social capital and what is that interconnectedness?

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How do we go about building communities? What does he mean by that? The way I've I've had this book sitting

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In a couple places where people have asked me about it

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Generally whenever I have our bookworm books

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I they always end up like sitting on my desk at work or people see me with them and

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Sometimes I'm like trying to like set things on top of them. Like I don't really want to talk about this one

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Like I do that sometimes this one. I wasn't too concerned about it

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I just let it sit out and I had folks ask me about it and I would just reference it's similar to

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Lions Club

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trainers your bowling leagues like it's that type of community that

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That it's referring to and how it's declining and what do we do about it?

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That's the way I would explain the book whenever people ask me about it, but yes social capital. Yeah, that's that's basically the idea

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and then they

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other like overarching theme throughout all of this is that there were things that happened

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near the beginning of the 19th

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No 20th century early 1900s

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Which kind of caused us to start building social capital it went up for a while and then about 50s and 60s after World War two

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It started to decline and this book is kind of trying to unpack

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Why is that and what effect is it having right the thing that kind of hooked me is that?

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the

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afterward is

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specifically written as

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COVID-19 is starting to happen like they address that in there and they talk about

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How it's social capital that causes people to wear a mask

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That's not exactly what they say, but they did all the maps and they studied all the areas and like the states that are high in social capital

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They're the ones that people wear the masks because that doesn't protect you so much and more protects other people

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They can be there. Yeah, exactly. I thought that was interesting

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But that's very specifically

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COVID related I use that as an example since you you brought it up. Yeah, but yeah

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That's the kind of that's the kind of stuff that I was looking to to get from this

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What I got was a lot more of like digging into all the history and all the tests that they were running and all the

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Hypothesis that they were trying to prove and disprove that got a little bit old to be honest

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But I do think right at the beginning here. There are some really powerful ideas understanding this whole social capital thing

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I think is really important. I talk about the two different aspects of social capital being private good and public good

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So there is a large part of social capital is

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This belief in generalized

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Reciprocity where I'll do something good for you without expecting anything specific back

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The belief there is that someone will do something nice for you down the road

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It's kind of like the golden rule sort of a thing and it doesn't take a vivid imagination to see how that's kind of deteriorated

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Right in the United States specifically because this is looking at it specifically America

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They also talk about like positive and negative versions of this social capital

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Which we'll dig into a little bit later, but the other really powerful idea here at the beginning this very first chapter is this bridging versus bonding and

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this I

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Really liked I had heard about this in a gap book

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Where is it it was the

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Get together. I think the community building book that I had read about the orange one

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They talk about this bridging versus bonding in there

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And I feel like this is really important if you're thinking about

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Community and what type of community you want to build

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This is something that's really relevant for me by the way because I've been thinking about as we're getting close to the end of 2020

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Going into 2021. What are my words for next year?

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I don't do like the whole yearly theme because it changes too quickly

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But I have these words and then I kind of develop themes around that based on like the personal retreat stuff that I do

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Yeah, and one of the words is community. I

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Want to do a better job of building communities around the things that I am involved in the things that I am passionate about

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That includes bookworm and so that's kind of why I want to try this Rome public graph experiment

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As I see this as a way to build some of that community

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The other things that I'm involved with too

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I want to consider that's where the publishing daily to faith-based productivity comes in like I want to build that

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Community and I want to do it in a way not just makes me feel good pat me on the back

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But how can I serve those people and then also as you're thinking about building community

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What type of community are you building? Are you building a bridging community or are you building a bonding community?

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And I think these aren't they makes a point that this is not exclusive you can have both of these but bridging is

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Inclusive it's bringing everybody else along and bonding is

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Exclusive this is kind of like the echo chamber

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Where you have some firmly held beliefs by a small group of people and it's like us against the world

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That's kind of the negative application of this but that's the one that comes to mind based on where we're at right now. Yeah

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So what do you think about this bridging versus bonding and do you how do you see this playing out in your life in the

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Communities that you're involved with not just bookworm, but I know like you're working at the church stuff like that

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So what did you get out of this specific? Yeah, there's there's a few different ways obviously in today's society. There's a ton of political

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Applications like I could go down that route

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The the difference between trying to bridge between the two political parties or bonding and existing

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We're very very good at the bonding of the existing

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but trying to bridge gaps we don't even really try and

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something we've been trying to do at

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at our church is

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developing I hate to say like classes and and courses and stuff, but it's communication in some form whether it's a

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Between services class or something from a sermon or materials that are shared of

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How do you build empathy?

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We've talked about empathy before I talk about it a lot with friends and such, but

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there's a lot of conversation around

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how do we try to

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in a Christian circle we talk about how do we share love and

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understanding and listen

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to people who don't agree with us and

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There's a lot of those conversations that need to happen especially in today's world

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I've got a number of folks that I've had this conversation with that

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did not know that there are a lot of

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executive orders and stuff in our state of Minnesota

00:26:34

Restricting travel and mask mandates and stuff. I'm running across people recently that didn't realize there's a mask mandate on

00:26:41

It's been on for months now

00:26:43

so

00:26:45

But they didn't know it because they got so tired of

00:26:47

the negative side of news and such that they

00:26:51

Just stopped listening to any and all news. They don't care if

00:26:55

It's positive or negative there or even you know rules based. They're not paying attention to anything. So they have no idea

00:27:02

what's going on so I'm running into that sort of thing a lot, but that's

00:27:07

You know our church is in a weird position of trying to stay open as much as they can but

00:27:12

Also trying to lock down as much as they can to stop spreading things. So it's a mess anyway, COVID

00:27:18

I don't really want to spend too much longer on COVID here, but

00:27:22

Bridging versus bonding like outside of normal. I shouldn't say outside of normal outside of COVID scenarios. I

00:27:28

Think bridging

00:27:31

Between community groups is super important. We don't do enough of that

00:27:35

I think bonding within community groups were very good at to an extent. Yep, which contradicts a little bit of what he's

00:27:42

Saying in the book, which is where that afterward comes in because in the

00:27:48

2000 the year 2000 version of this book without that afterward

00:27:53

There's a lot of things I would disagree with in respects to today

00:27:58

Because there's a lot of things like political involvement is skyrocketing right now

00:28:03

I believe the numbers I looked at whereas in his

00:28:06

Explanation of it. It's going down now. I know I'm jumping ahead here a little bit with that

00:28:10

But there's a caveat with that because he talks about the difference between

00:28:14

Being involved and actually doing something

00:28:18

Correct. Yes, they're two different things. So I get that

00:28:22

But I I do like this distinction

00:28:25

It's super helpful to understand. Okay

00:28:29

This group let's let's get non-sensitive here

00:28:33

this group around fountain pens is

00:28:36

It a bridging group or a bonding group?

00:28:39

Most cases that's a bonding group

00:28:41

It's it's not designed to connect keyboard enthusiasts with

00:28:48

Graphics card enthusiast like it's not trying to bridge that gap

00:28:51

It's trying to just I love fountain pens show me all your fountain pens

00:28:56

Which ones do you like which ones do you not like why like it's trying to build?

00:29:00

Relationships within that group. So I like the distinction of these terms for sure. Let me push back on that a little bit because I think I

00:29:08

mean, I am a member of the Panetic Slack and

00:29:12

Friends of Brad Dowdy

00:29:16

microly

00:29:17

So I have a certain perspective. I'm coming at this from

00:29:21

But my experience with the fountain pen

00:29:25

Community is that I think it tends to be a little bit more

00:29:30

Bridging than it is bonding because bonding being exclusive

00:29:34

It's kind of like you can't be here unless you meet some

00:29:38

Prequalifications

00:29:41

It talked about bonding as being good forgetting by it's like the fraternities

00:29:46

At a college or university where you got to go through hell week

00:29:50

Then you're one of us and now your brothers will do anything for you

00:29:54

But it's us against the world sort of a thing and that he says bolsters our narrow selves

00:30:00

That's your identity and it's the superglue. So you do it when it comes to relationships those relationships do tend to be

00:30:07

really really tight

00:30:09

I'm not gonna take a bullet for somebody I met on the Panetic Slack

00:30:14

Oh, come on and I feel like the so maybe there's different versions of this

00:30:19

But that is a great example. I think of a community where like I can get connected with other people who are doing different things

00:30:28

around this common interest and it doesn't matter if I am a

00:30:35

If I'm the executive editor at the suite setup which focuses on apps and computers and stuff like that

00:30:40

Like if it was a bonding group, they would be like, oh, no, you don't belong here

00:30:43

But there's room for me at the the table

00:30:47

Because really the only important thing is oh you like Penn's cool. Well, let's let's network. Let's

00:30:53

Share contacts and that's an example of bridging in my opinion

00:30:57

Which he says is good for getting ahead it helps you generate kind of a broader identity and he calls that the WD-40

00:31:03

For communities, which I think is important WD-40

00:31:07

It's the grease that makes things able to move and to change

00:31:11

easily so that in my in my own

00:31:16

Interpretation of these two terms I get bridging as like let's grow this thing and

00:31:22

Bonding as like let's keep everybody out except for people who are already here

00:31:29

And maybe that's not entirely fair, but that's kind of the picture that I I get no, I think that's totally fair

00:31:35

I mean I just depend on

00:31:37

And I wrote a note down here. I wonder if there are different levels of these I'm sure there are yeah

00:31:43

in that like the way I was interpreting it to begin with was the difference between trying to

00:31:49

Interconnect the people who were already in the group

00:31:53

Yes, you're gonna have people entering that group

00:31:56

But from a bonding stance you're trying to build up the bonds of the people who were there and help other people learn more about it

00:32:01

And it's okay if people are coming in but from a bridging stance in my mind

00:32:06

I was connecting two existing groups gotcha, okay

00:32:09

Like that's the way I interpreted it

00:32:11

But the way you explained it makes more sense too

00:32:13

So I think it maybe just depends on which way you want to define those and that's why I ask about the levels

00:32:18

because you know the way you're defining bridging is a

00:32:22

a more expanded version of bridging than what I had in my mind and

00:32:27

Bonding is a tighter version than what I had in my head well

00:32:30

They they can be organizations can have both you know

00:32:33

It's not an either or so maybe there's like a hybrid approach here because I think there are definitely examples that are

00:32:39

One or the other sure so the primary negative example that comes to mind for a bonding community is something like the KKK

00:32:48

You know you most people are like no absolutely I do not want to be associated with that

00:32:54

But for the people who are involved with it taking aside the moral judgment on what they stand for

00:33:00

They are a very strong bonding community gangs are another strong bonding community

00:33:06

You know where again it's us against the world and you'll do anything for your your brothers

00:33:12

I

00:33:14

Wish I had some better positive examples of that you mentioned the church stuff

00:33:18

Which I think like that's maybe a great jumping off point to go into the next section because he does talk about that

00:33:24

So section two trends in civic engagement and social capital

00:33:27

He mentions here political participation civic participation and religious participation is chapters two three and four

00:33:36

The religious participation one obviously is interesting to me

00:33:40

I am very involved in my church community you are too and there's a bunch of positive stuff that comes from being involved in

00:33:48

A church community. It's kind of crazy when you think about it from just a purely

00:33:54

Sociological perspective of like what is the church doing to the social capital in the community?

00:34:02

taking the the

00:34:04

Personal belief system out of the picture. I mean this is the place where people thrive when it comes to social capital

00:34:11

Yeah, it's kind of crazy. Yeah, it is it's fascinating to me that if I need something

00:34:16

I know like for example if I needed help moving

00:34:19

Or here's a better example. We had water in our basement. This has been

00:34:25

Year and a half ago now. We got water in our basement. I texted four numbers and

00:34:32

In 30 minutes. I had nine people here to help me move things

00:34:36

Yeah, like that is what happens like that's that's the social capital that he's referring to and it shows that interconnectedness

00:34:44

because I've built those bonds with in this case other men and

00:34:49

It's a big deal and I know that those particular men we've been very

00:34:56

Particular with making sure that we're able to build those relationships

00:35:00

We've talked about the process of building relationships together. I also know that

00:35:04

one of those guys

00:35:07

Was building a house here a couple years ago and it was not uncommon for him to hit the group text of you know

00:35:13

Ten or so of us that is like I'm sheet rocking my garage tonight. Anybody want to help? I got time. I'll be there like

00:35:21

And then you know things come back and forth whenever you have those bonds built

00:35:27

There like for example the same guy

00:35:29

Has a trailer I love to borrow

00:35:32

And he's horrible with destroying his lights on his trailer always dings him the wires go bad

00:35:39

He doesn't understand electrical with that stuff. I

00:35:43

Do like that for whatever reason lights and electrical makes sense to me

00:35:48

So whenever I borrow his trailer

00:35:51

I fix the lights and then I use it and then I take it back to him and he texted me here a few weeks ago

00:35:58

I was like do you need to borrow my trailer? My lights are broken

00:36:00

So that stuff happens now I say all of that and I know that there are

00:36:07

people who want something like that and

00:36:10

Don't feel like they can get that like I want to be sensitive to that because I know I've been there and

00:36:16

this this process of building up groups of friends and

00:36:21

People that you can count on this social capital

00:36:24

In my mind, it's easy to do that with something like a church

00:36:28

But I say that knowing that my wife and I have been very particular with making sure that we are connected in a small group

00:36:35

And that we are part of groups with the same people for years on end like we've been particular about that since we moved to this area

00:36:42

There are people in our church who are not like that

00:36:45

So I'm not I don't want people to think that our church is just amazing at this

00:36:49

It's not you know, we struggle with getting those groups built and I'm sure I mean every church deals with that so

00:36:57

Finding that group and finding those people is I don't think it's something that just happens

00:37:03

And I think that's Robert Putnam would agree with us that that's not something that just magically occurs

00:37:09

You have to be very intentional with it. I just know that like to our point here

00:37:14

Church is an easy way to start that I feel like because you have a common ground you're starting from yeah

00:37:21

He mentions that religious ideals are potentially powerful sources of commitment and motivation

00:37:27

And so you can leverage those and build social capital build a thriving community

00:37:33

There are a couple trends that he talks about which I don't think are really true of my church, but my church is weird

00:37:41

I

00:37:42

Use that in the best possible. Yeah framing

00:37:45

But it is and this kind of just solidified that in my mind

00:37:48

He mentions that a lot of people still believe but they don't really belong at my church

00:37:53

It is really hard to come and believe and not belong. You're going to get sucked in or you're gonna decide

00:37:59

This isn't the place for you right right you're either in or you know, you're out. Yep. Yep

00:38:04

Exactly and so the whole trend of religion being more privatized and having less parish or institutional involvement and then also

00:38:12

he mentions that

00:38:14

Americans are going to church less and the church is less engaged in wider community

00:38:18

Not true of my church my wife and I co-lead the outreach team at our church and

00:38:24

Even with covid like that's a very very important thing for our church. It's part of our church DNA

00:38:32

It's part of our church vision, you know our pastors have really focused on that which I think is a good thing

00:38:37

I think it's a healthy thing

00:38:39

Otherwise like what's the point? You know, it's not to make you feel better about the time that you're investing every week

00:38:47

Maybe for some people that is why they they go to church. I don't know. I can't really wrap my head around that

00:38:52

And I'm not trying to pass a judgment on that, but it's just not my experience

00:38:56

So I really can't comprehend

00:38:58

Having been a part of this church for the last now. I guess it's close to 15 years

00:39:04

Why you would do it a different way or for different motivations?

00:39:10

And again, I know that's based on just my personal

00:39:13

experience

00:39:15

But I thought this was obviously an encouraging chapter for me by he's talking about how regular church attenders talk to more people

00:39:23

Regular worshipers more likely to visit friends entertain at home attend club meetings belong to groups

00:39:29

And that religious activities go far beyond just conventional worship that talk about how large percentage of

00:39:36

personal philanthropy is

00:39:39

from church-based

00:39:42

volunteering

00:39:43

And so the challenge is really just to keep your focus on other people as you're involved with this stuff not make it all about you

00:39:50

Yeah, I wonder if church is reaching out

00:39:54

holistically is

00:39:57

still on the decline or if it's

00:39:59

picking up with the pandemic our churches reached out significantly more than it had

00:40:05

previously, yep

00:40:07

there's entire teams of people who will

00:40:10

deliver groceries and have been since early March I

00:40:13

Know there are a few families that I don't think to this day have left their house since early March. Yeah, which

00:40:22

is sad in a lot of ways

00:40:24

but

00:40:26

You know with health concerns and stuff it's positive in a lot of ways

00:40:29

But they're only able to do that when people from the outside are able to support them

00:40:34

Yep from the outside and need to be careful with how that comes out, but you get my point people willing to

00:40:41

Sacrifice a little bit and help other people out. There's a lot more of that going on at least in my little pocket of the world

00:40:49

Yep, so I'm with you in that we tend to reach out. I

00:40:53

know that

00:40:55

At the same time there are a lot of churches that we have some relationships with that are the opposite

00:41:02

They've turned internal and haven't reached out because they feel it's more of a risk

00:41:07

Mm-hmm. I can't argue with that, but at the same time

00:41:11

It to me it doesn't fit the mission that we've been given now again

00:41:16

I don't want to go too far down the spiritual what the Bible says route here, but

00:41:20

interpretations are widely varying in this yeah, and

00:41:25

I again this is why this is kind of an odd time to read this book and

00:41:29

It's hard to I feel like in the past we've tried to keep

00:41:33

coronavirus

00:41:36

conversations at a minimum on bookworm. It's very hard to do that with this one it is because so much of it is

00:41:43

directly against what we do

00:41:47

with quarantine stuff in in place, so

00:41:52

What do you do with it? So yes, we tend to reach out again

00:41:55

churches tend to make that a little bit easier in my opinion, but not always well

00:42:00

I will argue with the churches that are gotten inward for you

00:42:04

My own foot in my own mouth sure go for it because I think this is the thing that really bugs me about a lot of the stuff

00:42:11

that I see going on right now with with COVID is

00:42:14

There are a couple different approaches that you can take and when you think about the mission of the general church

00:42:22

Again from a Christian background

00:42:24

It is to help other people find the need meet the need you know that is our professed

00:42:32

belief and that is something that we've been true to even though

00:42:37

COVID-19 yep, I can see where if you're focused not on what sort of impact can you make?

00:42:44

But how big can you grow?

00:42:47

That this is a difficult time because people aren't coming. They're not given their offerings

00:42:53

You know and we've reviewed it is like well

00:42:55

I got to pay my bills and I got to make sure my needs are met and

00:42:59

I get that there's some very real stuff like staffs and things that need to be paid

00:43:02

but

00:43:04

That's not the way it was ever meant to be and the moment that you start making it about you you get a whole bunch of

00:43:14

negative fruit that comes from that and a lot of the stuff that you see in the news as it pertains to

00:43:19

Christians is like that the prototypical

00:43:22

Florida man, you know in the Home Depot thrown a fit because they're asking him to wear a mask

00:43:28

Yep, that guy is not a good representation of what it means to be a Christian because the church's goal is

00:43:36

how can I help other people and

00:43:39

Everything about these mask mandates, you know, I I hate wearing a mask too

00:43:44

but if it's gonna make people feel more comfortable or if it's gonna decrease the

00:43:49

Chance that I could spread it to somebody else because I don't know if I have it

00:43:54

You know if it's gonna make somebody else feel better basically. I'm gonna do it. I don't go out all that often

00:44:00

It's not that hard for me to

00:44:01

Keep a mask in my car and throw it on when I'm at the store. Yeah, and as a Christian

00:44:06

I absolutely should be doing that it has nothing to do with my personal

00:44:10

Freedoms being under attack it has everything to do with everybody else that I come in contact with yep and

00:44:17

100% so I

00:44:20

feel like that stuff that you see like that's kind of a residual effect of maybe some of these

00:44:26

some of these communities that have grown up gone a little too

00:44:30

inward and so I

00:44:34

Think a lot of this is solved with the application of the the golden rule and it kind of saddens me to see this

00:44:41

Extending into the church, but I totally get it. I mean this is part of the society at large

00:44:45

This is really the root issue. I think with a lot of the stuff that he's talking about in this whole first couple sections of this book

00:44:52

In terms of like from the 1960s the golden generation and where have we gone since then it's all about me. It's all about instant

00:45:03

clarification they'd make a comment in the beginning about how it's a University of Chicago study talks about the

00:45:10

Thing that's going to be most dangerous

00:45:13

Going forward. This is in 1958 the most dangerous threat over American society is the threat of leisure. We've gotten too comfortable

00:45:20

We've gotten too used to

00:45:23

Our own needs being met whenever we want something it's right there

00:45:28

The fact that we have to have some discipline and say no to ourselves so that other people can

00:45:33

Benefit like that's a foreign topic for a lot of us and it shouldn't be especially for the church. Yeah

00:45:40

Just as a to get off the church thing a little bit a

00:45:44

Way that other people tend to build this community that has like a ritual based

00:45:50

Foundation of sorts as otter points out in the chat gyms

00:45:57

Yeah, and working out like CrossFit is the one that's that's brought up here and I have a friend who

00:46:03

well, he's with the church too, but he has a CrossFit gym that he

00:46:08

Well pre-COVID was going to and had a group of people there that built up a lot a strong strong friendship

00:46:17

Around it so that can be built in those ways as well. But again, that's ritual based

00:46:21

Church is ritual based. It's the similar

00:46:26

Lots of arguments lots of differences here, but there are similarities between those so that's one side

00:46:32

It's like gyms and working out and athletics and such like teams

00:46:35

That's that's a big way to do this as well. This is partly why if you follow the blog art of manliness Brett McKay and team

00:46:44

They they tend to talk a lot about

00:46:47

Building strength and finding men to come around you again. This is from a male stance, but

00:46:54

They talk about that quite a bit and they talk a number of ways to do that. They've built their own little

00:47:00

strenuous life team that you can join there's ways that they encourage you and help you find people in your area to

00:47:07

Connect with like building community is a fairly big part of what they do

00:47:12

Do their shared suffering as otter says in the chat. It's a great way to say it

00:47:16

It works out great in that sense. So like that's one side of it. The leisure thing

00:47:23

I think is a fascinating

00:47:25

Point here because yes, we have a lot of leisure

00:47:29

But we love to fill it

00:47:32

Especially in today's culture. We love to fill it with especially sports activities and such which I think is why a lot of us have freaked out with

00:47:39

quarantine and stay at home orders because

00:47:41

Now we're like being forced to actually

00:47:44

Have leisure instead of trying to fill it with a lot of space the problem with that

00:47:49

I think and I've talked about this in a lot of other scenarios is that when you have time like that and you can

00:47:55

Sit and think you tend to want to fight against something like we have a tendency to want to

00:48:00

bond and

00:48:02

collect together on a unified mission and fight against something and

00:48:06

Right now we've turned that to pretty strongly in politics pretty strongly with coronavirus

00:48:13

Like we we tend to want to join together and fight against something. Yeah

00:48:18

That's what we're doing when you give us a ton of leisure. We're joining together and fighting against something

00:48:22

So you got you're you're now hunting for someone who disagrees with you

00:48:26

Because you want to join up and fight against something

00:48:30

when you don't have something like a world war or I

00:48:34

Don't even know what if you don't have something like that to join the entire country together in a unified approach

00:48:41

You're going to pick sides and fight against something. It's an inborn. I

00:48:46

Don't want to say an eight trait, but it kind of is so yeah

00:48:50

You're jumping away ahead, but I actually had that down in an action item from section four sure

00:48:57

Section four there's a chapter on the dark side of social capital and they make the point exactly that you're talking about

00:49:04

Social capital is often most easily created in opposition to something

00:49:10

Yep, but that is not the best application of social capital. It's just the easiest

00:49:15

It's the path or least resistance. Yeah, so I agree. I got excited. No, that's okay

00:49:22

I agree that that is kind of where you will naturally channel your social capital if you're not careful

00:49:28

But my action item is to take a stand for something not against something

00:49:31

I feel like that is the better approach

00:49:35

When you take a stand against something you're kind of naturally bonding with people

00:49:40

But when you take a stand for something, it's more naturally bridging. I feel

00:49:44

But anyways, that is a really

00:49:46

Really loaded topic. I want to go back here though to

00:49:51

Chapter six and talk about informal social connections that make the difference here between

00:49:57

Machers, I don't know if I'm saying that right they didn't give a pronunciation maybe and schmoozers

00:50:03

That one I've heard before so I'm pretty sure I'm saying that correctly

00:50:07

Machers are people who make things happen in the community. They are people who are formerly involved

00:50:14

Schmoozers are people who spend many hours in communion and conversation and are usually informally involved

00:50:21

What's interesting about these to me is that there are also demographic information associated with each one of these

00:50:29

Machers tend to be better educated educated and have higher incomes and they are disproportionately homeowners and long-term residents

00:50:36

Whereas schmoozers are common at all levels in the social hierarchy

00:50:39

And they are renters and frequent movers and that is not to say that one of these is better

00:50:44

than the other but what he is saying in this book is that there is a decline in the

00:50:52

Machers and the schmoozers basically are remaining steady so the average American is far more isolated

00:50:59

But they seem to be more engaged as friends than as citizens or as schmoozers instead of

00:51:04

Machers, right and I think when you trying to move on from the religion thing

00:51:09

But what it does is it strikes a perfect balance a lot of times between these two

00:51:16

Right it forces you to embrace both of them because I am a

00:51:21

Generally my approach to something if I'm gonna be committed to something. I'm gonna be committed to it

00:51:27

It's gonna be formal. I'm gonna show up every two weeks and record a podcast about it

00:51:32

You know and there's gonna be ramifications if people don't show up and it bugs me when people don't take things seriously

00:51:38

like that so I

00:51:41

Understand I am a prototypical

00:51:44

macher and

00:51:46

I know several people who are in my life who are schmoozers and

00:51:51

Again, that is not a bad thing. I think typically I've heard that word as a kind of negative

00:51:57

Negative label apply to somebody right it's not a bad thing in fact the schmoozing that I am forced to do

00:52:03

I know is good for me

00:52:05

But it creates against my personality

00:52:08

It's difficult for me to do yeah, I I lead some volunteer teams and

00:52:15

As you're explaining this it immediately came back to me. I know I've got a couple schmoozers on

00:52:21

each of those teams and

00:52:25

in this particular case that doesn't fit well, but we deal with it because volunteers and

00:52:32

It takes a lot more work for me to

00:52:36

collaborate with and engage with the schmoozers in this case

00:52:41

then the machers so

00:52:43

again different cases I feel like have benefits and

00:52:50

Detriments for being either or both of these in some cases, so I

00:52:55

To your point like it's not necessarily bad because in some cases like yeah reaching out and asking for help and such

00:53:01

That's a good thing in a lot of ways like it

00:53:05

It's one thing that like our generation has a tendency to want to be very independent

00:53:09

We want to do things on our own like that we don't want to be

00:53:14

Requiring support from somebody or something outside of us

00:53:18

we want everything to be our under our own control and

00:53:21

When I have to ask somebody for help it forces me to admit a couple things one that I need help and

00:53:29

it also forces me to give the other person the opportunity to

00:53:34

act on that and

00:53:37

It's always interesting to me. It's like I don't want to reach out for help on

00:53:41

things my tendency is to want to be very independent and yet I

00:53:47

Absolutely love it when people ask me for help

00:53:49

Like that is a thing. I absolutely let like there are some certain skills that I'm I know I'm good at

00:53:55

especially in comparison to the general population and

00:53:59

I love it when people ask me for help with those things

00:54:02

But me asking them for help in something that they're professional at and that they love to help other people with like I just don't want to do

00:54:10

Yeah, yeah, that's interesting

00:54:12

I don't think I

00:54:16

Look forward to people asking me

00:54:18

For help really yeah, cuz this isn't for everybody. Yeah, like it's not a hundred percent

00:54:23

I would prefer we all

00:54:25

Agree that we're gonna be at a certain place at a certain time and do a thing together

00:54:30

Yeah, then hey if you need help let me know

00:54:34

Right right where I am that way if someone were to say hey, can you come help me lay a floor in my kitchen?

00:54:41

I'm there. I'm all over that. I love doing that sort of thing if someone asked for help building a stream rig

00:54:48

I'm on like let's go and I will if you want me to I'll build the whole thing for you like that's the way I operate

00:54:55

but I

00:54:57

Know there are people like don't ask me for help. I know I'm good at this

00:55:01

But don't I don't I don't want to help you. I want to do my own thing. Yes, I get that but I'm not that

00:55:08

I also think that the important takeaway from this section is that

00:55:14

a community

00:55:16

needs both of these

00:55:18

so

00:55:19

Maybe you identify as one or the other or maybe you're a

00:55:24

Chameleon and you can go back and forth between them like Joe. I don't know

00:55:29

But I think the important thing from this is to recognize that whether you are more naturally a macho or a schmoozer

00:55:37

You do have a role to play in building the social capital of the communities that you choose to be

00:55:41

Involved with doesn't mean everything is gonna be the way you want it to be. That's the big takeaway for me over the last several years

00:55:50

Being an elder at the church that we belong to I have been forced outside of my comfort zone

00:55:59

I've talked before on bookworm like one of the qualifications of elders

00:56:04

The biblical definition of elder is that you have to enjoy having people over to your home. I was like

00:56:09

If I have to

00:56:16

Yeah, and you know, it's not something that my natural personality. I'm more of an introvert

00:56:22

You know introverts unite separately in your own homes. I have the t-shirt

00:56:27

But I recognize that good happens from me putting myself out there

00:56:34

So it's not just like oh, this is uncomfortable. I want this to stop

00:56:38

It's recognizing that it takes all types to really build a an effective community

00:56:43

Yeah, the the chats having a conversation which I think is important to bring up here is the if if you want to be at

00:56:51

Like if you like being asked for help some people don't want to help

00:56:55

Because they don't feel like they're an expert or something and don't necessarily feel like they know enough to be able to help other people

00:57:01

That's true and and I get that

00:57:03

I mean, that's the imposter syndrome, right that you feel like you're faking your way through things. Guess what? We all are so

00:57:11

Yep, at some point you have to come to grips with that. I don't consider myself a tech support

00:57:17

Guru and genius and an expert at it

00:57:22

I don't really think of myself that way, but I know a lot more about it than most people

00:57:26

Mm-hmm and having done it for long enough like I know more than most people about that now do other people know more than me

00:57:34

Absolutely hundred percent. I am the first one that will tell you. I don't know everything about it

00:57:39

And that's that's an important aspect of this is like you have to be okay saying hey

00:57:44

I'll do my best

00:57:46

But if I can't come up with a solution here or some other people or other ways that you can

00:57:51

Solve this. I'm not a hardware expert. I

00:57:55

Know software, but I'm not a hardware expert. I'm getting better

00:57:59

I've worked with enough hardware changes and swapping out hard drives and stuff that I know enough about it to be dangerous

00:58:06

But I also know that when it gets over my head. I know where to send people

00:58:10

That's that's a big key

00:58:14

Apparentiator there is like I don't necessarily have the answer, but I know how you can get it

00:58:17

Sure, and that that to a lot of people is just as valuable as you actually doing the work so

00:58:24

imposter syndrome it's complicated

00:58:27

I think this is where some of the nuance comes in between bridging and bonding communities too because if you're in a

00:58:33

Bonding community the fact that you don't know something and your hesitant to ask something

00:58:37

Yeah, you could add kind of the worst case scenario that goes through somebody's head in those

00:58:44

Situations is well. I don't want to look like an idiot and then someone's gonna get mad at me and kick me out of the forum

00:58:50

You know, right right and Abonding community absolutely that is a possibility

00:58:55

But a bridging community is like no, there's no

00:58:59

Titles here just ask your question like we're here to help each other out

00:59:03

And so maybe you can use that as a way to identify what type of community you're really involved with too. Yeah for sure

00:59:10

All right, let's move on to the next piece here section three is why I don't have a ton that I want to talk about in this section

00:59:18

There's several chapters talks about the pressures of time and money mobility and sprawl technology and mass media

00:59:25

Generation to generation and then there's one final chapter in here chapter 15 what killed civic engagement?

00:59:30

Summing it all up and the basic gist of this is that a big part of this is

00:59:37

generational change some of it is work specifically

00:59:42

Women who used to

00:59:44

Stay home now having careers outside of the home

00:59:47

He makes an interesting point there about the majority of the people that from the studies that they did anyways

00:59:54

Doing that out of necessity because they needed the money as opposed to this is something that I find personally fulfilling

01:00:02

which I am a hundred percent in

01:00:06

support of

01:00:08

Someone who wants to not just stay at home and go have a career if they really want to have a career

01:00:13

I do think it's sad if the primary breadwinner and again this could be male or female. I know

01:00:19

Relationships and where it's the opposite where the wife works in the the man is the only stays home with the kids

01:00:26

But the point being here that if that's what you want then that is perfectly fine

01:00:32

And that's great, but if you want to work outside the home then that's fine

01:00:36

And that's perfectly great as well

01:00:38

What is sad is when we extend our lifestyles to the point where we have to work outside the home

01:00:43

Both of us in order to make ends meet and it sounds like that is what a lot of this is coming from with the work piece

01:00:51

Yeah, it's interesting the yeah, it's the the ramifications of that real small decision, right?

01:00:56

so if you want to live in

01:00:58

the big fancy house with

01:01:02

120 acres on it

01:01:04

It's going to be expensive. It's going to require a certain income to make that happen and if that income

01:01:10

Level is high enough that it requires a dual income to accomplish

01:01:17

That's a lifestyle choice, you know, I've I've had this conversation a lot recently with

01:01:23

You know career conversations and house move conversations and stuff

01:01:28

We've been talking about this a lot and every single one of those

01:01:31

decisions is a

01:01:34

lifestyle change if I choose to

01:01:38

Work at a church and do side gigs. It's going to require a certain number of hours and commitment

01:01:45

Through my entire week on a week-to-week basis as opposed to

01:01:50

Going to work at a tech company where you're making six figures once or twice over

01:01:57

And you don't have to work the 40 50 60 hours you're working 30

01:02:01

But the expectations of that 30 hours is significantly higher

01:02:05

The stress load might be higher depending on the company you join like there's so many

01:02:10

choices that come with that those are lifestyle differences and

01:02:15

In some cases that 30 hours may sound

01:02:18

Like what I just explained if you were making 200 thousand dollars and you're working 30 hours a week and you've got every friday off

01:02:24

That sounds amazing

01:02:26

but

01:02:28

If you're someone like me my mind races and I'm busy enough that

01:02:31

That's giving me a lot of leisure time

01:02:34

That is going to drive me up a wall

01:02:37

That's not necessarily the right move for me like that's that's a difficult

01:02:42

Conversation to have so it's not as simple as oh, it's more money and less time great. Go. It's not that simple

01:02:48

Yeah, it's a lifestyle change and again if you're

01:02:52

Choice and income dictates high income like if you're lifestyle that you want dictates high income and long hours

01:02:59

It's going to force some of these decisions for you

01:03:04

You aren't necessarily going to be able

01:03:07

To join the community groups and be a part of small groups and have people over like you may not be able to do that

01:03:14

Just because of time commitment involved

01:03:17

So yes, it dictates a lot of things

01:03:20

Yeah, and that's the point I think that they're trying to make here is kind of a lifestyle creep thing

01:03:26

We have more prosperity more leisure than we have traditionally had

01:03:31

And so what do we do?

01:03:33

We buy nicer stuff and then work longer hours to pay for it

01:03:37

Right, right

01:03:39

Which is not necessarily the correct answer and everyone has to define their own correct answer for this

01:03:46

But again from a large macro economic

01:03:49

perspective

01:03:51

Looking at society at large. I think there's a pretty compelling case to be made by the data

01:03:56

They share in this book that a lot of people are making the wrong choice

01:03:59

Yeah, yeah

01:04:01

And it's kind of a warning like hey look out because there will be a day of reckoning for all these things

01:04:06

All the choices that we've made they have ramifications and if we're not careful, we're not going to like

01:04:12

some of the

01:04:13

Results that we get from

01:04:15

Some of these choices and work is just one specific piece of this he mentions

01:04:19

Urban sprawl he mentions generational change he mentions tv specifically

01:04:25

And I think there's a point to be made here as it pertains to tv and generational change because there's overlap there

01:04:33

There's a pie chart at the end which kind of explains the percentage

01:04:37

contribution that they estimate each one of these things is had

01:04:42

But the generation to generation chapter

01:04:45

On page 272 he says they watch television differently more habitually even

01:04:52

Mindlessly in those different ways in which tv are used are linked to different levels of civic engagement

01:04:57

And that sounds very much

01:05:01

Like a lot of the stuff we've heard when it comes to social media and smartphone use

01:05:06

only

01:05:08

exponentially greater

01:05:10

As you watch something like the social dilemma

01:05:12

By the way, I kind of wish that Tristan Harris had worked on this with robert putnam with phillum

01:05:20

Yeah, I feel like that would have been a really cool afterward

01:05:23

I feel like

01:05:26

They

01:05:27

Take pretty strong stances on the role of technology and stuff and robert putnam kind of wants to hedge it a little bit

01:05:33

Well, I guess you know, you could say technology is having a significant effect, but it's not all the technologies fault

01:05:39

You know and I feel it's it's safer to say it is the technology's fault where we are

01:05:45

Today for a lot of this stuff, but it's interesting even in 2000 when he's writing this he's talking about

01:05:51

The the gen xers and how greed trumps community again generalize statement I get that but they did the research

01:05:58

So get mad at them not me

01:06:02

but basically like the baby boomers were the first generation which was exposed to tv their entire lives and

01:06:09

As they were exposed to it and their kids were exposed to it. You can kind of see

01:06:14

The effect that this is having going forward and it's not necessarily great

01:06:19

yesterday I ran sound for

01:06:22

our church service and

01:06:25

I had my oldest daughter with me emma

01:06:28

and

01:06:30

We were walking to the car on our way home and emma asked me

01:06:34

She sometimes asks really random questions not connected to anything going on which

01:06:39

is

01:06:41

Not abnormal given me

01:06:43

I do the same thing. So she she asked me. He's like dad. Why is there a tv connection in the bathroom downstairs?

01:06:51

because

01:06:53

In the bathroom actually it's right here. There is a coax connection so you could plug your

01:07:00

tv in to

01:07:02

Get internet and stuff to it. So that it that exists there

01:07:06

and

01:07:09

They're in a lot of different places in our house. Whoever wired this house chose to put those ports in every single room

01:07:15

and

01:07:17

There are

01:07:18

There there's evidence that they installed tv's in a lot of rooms as well now

01:07:23

We've since removed a lot of that evidence, but

01:07:26

There's definitely evidence of a tv that used to exist in this bathroom and she was curious like why is that in there?

01:07:33

Question number

01:07:37

Some people put tv's in the bathroom like you know

01:07:40

It's not uncommon in the United States for people to have tv's in

01:07:45

Almost every room in the house. I forget what the number is is like an average of three and a half to four tv's per

01:07:53

Household or it's something ridiculous like that

01:07:55

um

01:07:56

We have one and it's kind of out of the well. It's right there behind me

01:08:00

it's

01:08:03

Out of the way it's not and it's very specific and when we'll turn it on

01:08:07

it's usually special occasions christmas being one of those because we'll watch christmas movies and

01:08:13

the

01:08:15

every sunday night we have a route a ritual in our house of doing popcorn and cheese and

01:08:20

veggies and stuff on a tray and we go watch a tv show or a movie with the girls

01:08:25

On sunday nights. That's really the only time it's on

01:08:29

So they don't really see it used ever so the concept of a tv in a bathroom

01:08:35

Is just bonkers to them like they can't even like what her comment was

01:08:41

Why would you be in the bathroom that long because in her mind?

01:08:43

You're watching a movie sure when you when you have a tv

01:08:48

There is no other way of using a tv other than watching a movie in her mind

01:08:51

So having a tv in a bathroom makes no sense

01:08:54

So i was trying to explain a few things like okay news

01:08:57

people turn the news on

01:09:00

People sometimes have a bunch of tv's showing the same thing so they can go around the house doing things and watch tv at the same time

01:09:06

Like i was trying to explain this and she's like why don't we do

01:09:09

Any of that or no

01:09:12

That was later on so at that moment. She's like, why would you want to watch tv that long?

01:09:16

It's really bad for you to do that like she's seven

01:09:18

Yep, and she gets that now granted she's our child so

01:09:22

We talk about this stuff and how being on screens that long is not

01:09:28

A good thing so when he's talking about tv's and how that stuff changes

01:09:33

What you're willing to do and it sucks up a lot of time

01:09:37

Yeah, absolutely

01:09:39

It it's going to change your lifestyle if you're going to commit 40 hours a week to watching tv

01:09:44

Which will i think that's the number lately

01:09:46

40 hours a week is what people spend on tv i can't even get my head around that like it's so hard for me to get to that point

01:09:53

Let's modernize this though. Let's make this a 2020 version

01:09:56

Why would you bring your phone into the bathroom? Oh sure yeah

01:10:01

Yet that's what everybody does yep

01:10:04

So true so true so it's only weird

01:10:09

If you don't do it

01:10:12

Really absolutely and i think the value here in terms of this technology section

01:10:17

And this is a broader topic than just bowling alone

01:10:21

He's making the case that this has impacted our social relationships

01:10:25

But you and i both know that this goes far beyond

01:10:28

Our relationships that there's negative stuff that goes along with unintentional technology use and the tv example 40 hours a week is

01:10:38

Kind of a dated example at this point a more relevant example would be the amount of time you spend on your device looking at your screen time

01:10:45

Getting those stats and saying did i really mean to be using my phone for eight hours a day because right right that's what people do

01:10:54

and

01:10:56

If you're not okay with that

01:10:58

Then figuring out what are some of the systems you're going to build what you're going to help you fight back against that because that is the default

01:11:06

And that's the thing that's worth calling out here. I think is that all the stuff that he's talking about this is the default

01:11:12

And you don't have to just live your life by default

01:11:17

You do have the ability to go against the grain

01:11:22

But it's not always easy

01:11:25

I think it requires

01:11:28

A vision of what you want your life to look like and part of that is the relationships that you have

01:11:35

And then figuring out

01:11:37

What do I have to do design wise in order to create that life that I want to live right?

01:11:42

All right section four

01:11:45

So what uh and there's a couple things that I want to talk about here

01:11:49

The first part of this in the introduction section of this or chapter in the section chapter 16

01:11:56

He shares

01:11:58

A map which shows the social capital in the different states in the us

01:12:05

Minnesota is very high in social capital. Yeah, it's towards the top. Yeah, like as far as the ranking there

01:12:11

Yep, Wisconsin is pretty high too

01:12:13

And the measures that they use for for this is like community organized life engagement public affairs

01:12:20

community of volunteerism informal social ability and social trust

01:12:24

And uh they make a connection here in the introduction of the overlay of this map now

01:12:33

being relevant as it pertains to

01:12:36

What we know historically about slavery in the south and a lack of civic engagement right now

01:12:44

Which is really really interesting

01:12:46

especially if you extrapolate that

01:12:49

forward

01:12:51

And you ask yourself

01:12:53

The question that this whole section is based off of so what like what does this mean right now?

01:12:58

What are the ramifications of low social capital in some of these southern states now?

01:13:05

and uh

01:13:07

There's some interesting conclusions that could be drawn there. I'll just mention a couple of the sections here

01:13:12

uh education and children's welfare safe and productive neighborhoods economic prosperity health and happiness

01:13:19

Democracy and then chapter 22. This is the dark side of social capital

01:13:24

We kind of talked a little bit about this right already not excited

01:13:27

Yeah, we can talk more about that if you want, but I think I just want to kind of summarize the other stuff here

01:13:32

I mean every single one of these

01:13:34

different sections that he breaks down in uh in these chapters

01:13:38

Shows that good stuff happens when you have social capital bad stuff happens

01:13:44

When you don't so the states that are high in social capital

01:13:48

They keep bad things from happening to good kids is how he puts it in chapter 17

01:13:53

They watch less tv

01:13:55

They are higher educated. They've got a good home life. Their neighborhoods are safe and productive murder rates are much lower

01:14:02

Uh, so inversely they're much higher in the areas that have low social capital

01:14:08

Uh weak ties are likely to link us to unexpected opportunities. Uh, that's from chapter 19 economic prosperity

01:14:16

So the more social capital you have the more bridging you have in your communities the more you might run into somebody at

01:14:23

A dinner party or even if you like met him online, you know a lot of the

01:14:26

The stuff that I do now. I think is kind of the result of bridging through online communities, right?

01:14:33

Right, um

01:14:34

So there's a lot there's a lot of stuff that's really relevant here health and happiness people who are socially disconnected

01:14:40

Are two to five times more likely to die from any disease?

01:14:45

I mean as we're talking about where we are right now and end of 2020 with covid

01:14:50

I think that that's that's relevant, but not just with covid. Obviously

01:14:54

uh democracy

01:14:57

Higher social capital means more people get out to vote democracy

01:15:00

Functions as it should

01:15:03

You know, uh, so lots of good stuff that happens from this and then kind of the the dark side of this, you know

01:15:09

The the negative way that this can be manifested

01:15:12

Uh like the the kkk the gangs stuff like that

01:15:16

Uh, that's chapter 22

01:15:18

There's a lot here. Uh, you're you're basically getting into

01:15:22

Who cares that it's going?

01:15:25

South as far as community engagement and social capital levels

01:15:29

and

01:15:31

I think that map is

01:15:33

interesting being from

01:15:35

A state that is like at the top

01:15:38

Of that list of having very high social capital

01:15:43

I was when I saw that I was thinking about okay

01:15:47

my community then my county my state

01:15:49

What is it that?

01:15:52

We know or what is that we do different because I also like my roots are from a state that's not very high

01:15:59

And i'm now in one that is very high. So it's it's interesting to me to try to compare those two

01:16:05

It's also interesting that

01:16:08

Coming from a state that's very high like there's a thing minnesota nice people know this like it's a common

01:16:14

phrase people all over the us know this phrase

01:16:17

And it's so true

01:16:19

Like we don't want to offend other people because we're trying to be kind

01:16:24

It's very evident like you see it on the road you see it on

01:16:28

Especially in driving in

01:16:31

So many different scenarios people are trying to be kind to each other

01:16:34

Not to say that everybody does because there are definitely people who try to take advantage of that

01:16:39

But it is a very common thing that you

01:16:43

See in here. So I don't know I don't know what to say about it other than it's fascinating just to see it in real life

01:16:50

And see what they have so like see that map in action

01:16:53

Yeah, again going back to the beginning and the reciprocity

01:16:57

So

01:16:59

It's not assuming that i'm going to be doing this thing in order to get something back from other people

01:17:04

But ultimately that is what this manifests as

01:17:08

It's like if you are

01:17:11

Focused on helping other people then you will get back exponentially whatever you put out

01:17:16

And then this is breaking it down by

01:17:19

geographic

01:17:22

area

01:17:23

the

01:17:25

The thing about the

01:17:27

The states that are high in this versus the states that are low in this

01:17:32

I kind of hesitate to

01:17:37

To really dig into this because I feel like there's some judgment he's making here about some of the the southern states

01:17:45

Yeah, but I also think it's a conversation that needs to be had right now

01:17:51

Specifically politically he talks about in the democracy section

01:17:56

How if fewer voices participate our politics will become more shrill and less balanced

01:18:03

Hmm. Does that sound familiar?

01:18:07

No, not at all

01:18:08

Yeah, and so

01:18:09

I think part of this is looking at it historically through the lens of slavery like he says in the

01:18:14

Introduction section, but also a part of this is like a warning for where things are at

01:18:19

Right now

01:18:21

I feel like you can look at this and you can say we got to write this ship before it goes

01:18:28

Too far

01:18:29

And I think

01:18:31

The real trick here kind of the phrase I say over and over again to people who will listen whenever we talk about stuff like that

01:18:39

Is let's just be decent humans

01:18:41

Why is this so hard?

01:18:45

And I think looking at this map

01:18:49

it shows that

01:18:51

the my experiences and

01:18:54

My communities which are fairly high in social capital

01:18:58

Maybe it is fairly easy to quote unquote be a decent human

01:19:02

But that I can't assume that that's easy for everybody else

01:19:06

Because according to this map there are definitely areas

01:19:09

Where maybe this is a form of privilege, you know that I have been in a position where

01:19:15

I've had those conversations with people who disagree with me and I've learned to just listen to the other side without going hysterical

01:19:22

But it makes me sad every time I see that that happening

01:19:26

So as a nation you can look at this and be like wow

01:19:30

I get why there's so much back biting and infighting with stuff and what can we do to

01:19:38

to

01:19:40

Build that social capital and and bring this back

01:19:42

I don't have any answers for that

01:19:46

other than

01:19:49

To try and be more tolerant of voices that don't agree with me

01:19:54

And that kind of gets into like the dark side of social capital one of the questions that they bring up there is the idea of social capital being at odds

01:20:01

with liberty and liberty and tolerance

01:20:03

And he says that research shows there's a positive link between community and tolerance actually

01:20:09

Which maybe you would expect that not to be the case

01:20:12

Because as we were recording this we've been talking a lot about like the religious community

01:20:17

And that's the one that a lot of people I feel kind of real against as being intolerant

01:20:23

Um, so I don't know maybe tolerance doesn't exactly mean what we think it means

01:20:29

Maybe it doesn't mean that

01:20:32

Everything is going to go your way all the time, but I feel like this dialogue. That's the real idea to be unpacked here

01:20:38

And maybe not by us on this particular

01:20:41

Podcast

01:20:43

But this is the idea that really needs to be developed

01:20:46

I think is the the conversation needs to happen

01:20:52

With people who disagree with each other. Yep

01:20:54

And that's why if i'm thinking about the different types of social capital if I were to pick one that's more important

01:20:59

It's bridging

01:21:02

Bonding is great like it says for for just getting by

01:21:05

But I don't think there's a lot of people who are in survival mode

01:21:09

At the moment who need that community to fight for them so that they can

01:21:14

Stay alive, right?

01:21:15

You know, right?

01:21:16

I think the real valuable thing here is getting our eyes off of ourselves and our own problems and trying to understand

01:21:22

The other side and their perspective on things

01:21:24

I think that that right there is the key like I was going to say like you may not say you have answers, but I do

01:21:30

like

01:21:31

This is something I've spent a lot of time with because

01:21:35

coming from the church

01:21:38

And with all the covid regulations and things that come out

01:21:42

We have to navigate that and make blanket decisions

01:21:47

I don't want to make blanket decisions

01:21:49

But it's the exact same thing that the politics have like the politicians have to do

01:21:53

They have to make blanket statements because they can't do all of the

01:21:57

Individuality that it requires in order to navigate all the individual pieces correctly

01:22:02

You have to do blanket statements for a couple reasons speed's sake

01:22:07

Like you can't just go through and detail out all this stuff and people understand it you have to do a blanket statement

01:22:13

and

01:22:14

you also

01:22:16

Are then going to have to ignore

01:22:19

Some people as a result of that. I hate saying that but you do

01:22:23

I make a lot of changes as an it director that

01:22:26

Implement change to the people that I support and guess what they kick and scream when we do that

01:22:32

Of course, it's going to happen. I jokingly tell my supervisor that

01:22:37

I'm going to make a change

01:22:39

I will ignore all complaints for 30 days and listen to everyone after that point

01:22:43

The number of complaints I have 30 days after that point is almost zero every time

01:22:48

so like that is just the way you have to

01:22:51

operate at that level now

01:22:54

With all of this like I was talking about earlier like we have a tendency to want to fight

01:22:58

Like we have a tendency to want to join and fight he talks about that here and that side of it

01:23:04

I wish we could say we would join together and fight against

01:23:09

coronavirus

01:23:12

but

01:23:13

Politics got involved and when politics got involved we were already polarized

01:23:18

As mosquito says in the chat. We were already polarized at that point

01:23:23

We were already differentiated

01:23:26

Red versus blue. That's the way we talk about it red versus blue. We're not into this together

01:23:31

It's you versus us and it doesn't matter which side of the fence you're on

01:23:35

Because we made a fence and we shouldn't have

01:23:38

That's part of the core problem

01:23:41

and

01:23:43

I

01:23:44

Have a tendency to want to have conversations with people who don't agree with me

01:23:47

Thankfully, I found a number of folks

01:23:50

Who have completely opposing views to me

01:23:53

Who are willing to engage in a debate in a conversation?

01:23:57

That's a trick

01:23:58

And be okay with not agreeing with each other. It is a trick

01:24:02

Like it's hard to find people right now. We're willing to do that

01:24:07

Yeah, sounds like it's the same in the UK too. So like it's hard to do that

01:24:11

I wish there were more

01:24:13

People willing to do it, but it it's easier to sit back and say these are my people

01:24:18

These are the people on my side and they keep telling me that

01:24:23

Mask wearing is a complete hoax and it does nothing

01:24:27

Yep, okay, but people on the other side can't understand why you wouldn't

01:24:32

like you have competing information and

01:24:37

You know, if you want to see how the echo chamber happens in social media

01:24:41

Go watch the social dilemma and it'll explain how the algorithm simply feeds you what you want to see

01:24:47

So you can't trust what social media is going to

01:24:52

Feed you you're going to have to get off the digital stuff

01:24:56

To do that social media also feeds the taking a stance against something instead of taking a stance for something I feel right

01:25:04

right and the other thing I want to respond to with what you said about the

01:25:09

politicalization of

01:25:11

wearing a mask for example because I've heard people say I wish it just wasn't so political

01:25:16

And my takeaway from reading this section is that everything is political and that should be fine

01:25:22

That shouldn't mean we can't have a conversation about it

01:25:25

But it does and that's why people make that statement is I wish this wasn't political

01:25:31

Right because they view political as an us against them

01:25:34

There is no middle ground. I'm going to get my way or die trying sort of a thing

01:25:39

Right, and I think that's really sad. Yeah when people refer to something being politicized

01:25:44

What do you initially think of when they say something is politicized? You you think about

01:25:48

Two teams. Yep fighting against each other. Yep. That's the initial thought that comes up into your mind whenever people say that it

01:25:56

It shouldn't be that at all. No, it shouldn't

01:25:59

If you are taking this through the lens that I think he's trying to through bowling alone

01:26:05

We're all on the same team here as americans

01:26:08

Yep, ultimately we want what's best for the the nation we for each other as a whole

01:26:14

And he makes argument right at the beginning of this, you know that

01:26:18

If you do that then ultimately that's going to get you further than trying to get your own way

01:26:24

Anyways because with the help of other people through the whole idea of reciprocity

01:26:29

That's going to get you a lot further than you could ever get yourself, right?

01:26:32

So anyways moving on from that what is to be done?

01:26:36

Section five, uh, this is a short section is only a couple of chapters here

01:26:40

Less or chapter 23 is lessons of history the gilded age in the progressive era

01:26:46

The basic idea if I were to distill this down into a very very short version because we are talking a lot

01:26:52

Is that there have been several technological inventions that have made american some ways less isolated in some ways more isolated the telegraph

01:27:03

Telephone electricity in the transcontinental railroad he lists specifically

01:27:07

and the big point here I think is that

01:27:10

We've changed our environment faster than we have changed

01:27:15

ourselves

01:27:18

And so he makes this parallel that where we are now as remember he wrote this in year 2000

01:27:23

So

01:27:24

Uh, take that with a green assault, I guess but he's talking about the time where we are now

01:27:28

It is very much like this gilded age in progressive era

01:27:32

Where there's a lot of technological advance and unparalleled prosperity

01:27:35

There's a new concentration of wealth and corporate power new forms of commerce restructured work place

01:27:41

And the old strands of social connections were being destroyed

01:27:45

And that is totally where we're at now you watch the social dilemma and you realize yeah, he really nailed that point

01:27:51

Um, I wish you know, he would have mentioned earlier he would have taken a stronger stronger stance about some of the internet related stuff

01:27:59

But the big question here in terms of like well, what is to be done

01:28:03

Uh, he mentions what's going to be the 21st century version of the boy scouts that draws people back into community

01:28:10

He uses that he lists a whole bunch of organizations, but that one specifically

01:28:14

He calls out as like this is an example of the type of organization

01:28:18

that sprung up

01:28:21

And built social capital and what is going to be that now it's not going to be facebook

01:28:27

Yeah, I think there are you know

01:28:29

Kind of taking some of what he says in some of what I think here what is to be done

01:28:35

what do you what do you do about

01:28:37

this

01:28:39

and

01:28:40

I think some of it is

01:28:42

Similar to what i've talked about with us in small groups at our church or the gym scenario or something along those lines

01:28:49

Something that connects you with other people. I understand that's like impossible right now

01:28:54

That it's very difficult to start building those relationships because I feel like the only way you can really do that

01:29:00

At the level we're talking about is in person

01:29:03

Sure

01:29:04

It's a problem to to say that that's what you need to do

01:29:08

As soon as possible

01:29:10

That's like start making plans to be able to do something like I do zoom friend groups of sorts

01:29:16

I don't know what it is

01:29:17

Something do something yep

01:29:19

So that is like trying to build those is one

01:29:24

side of it

01:29:25

The things that we talked about is like how did we get to this point the why side of it

01:29:29

Like how are we getting to that point the high-income lifestyle scenario changes

01:29:34

The choice of screens and technology like those are probably the two biggest culprits

01:29:39

Here

01:29:40

Yes, there are generational changes he goes through tons and tons and tons of stuff on generations

01:29:45

and

01:29:46

I get that that's definitely a piece of it

01:29:49

But I think those two aspects are ones that are easier for us to grasp and do something about

01:29:55

So

01:29:57

Being willing to maybe say no to more screens

01:30:00

You know go like us and just have a single tv in the house

01:30:03

Give your phones bedtimes like all the stuff we've heard about in the past like trying to limit screen time and stuff and focus more on in-person stuff

01:30:11

Again, I know the caveats. Sorry, but that stuff

01:30:16

Goes a long ways being empathetic trying to understand what other people are thinking and being willing to engage in cordial conversations about it

01:30:23

All of these things can reverse a lot of the detriments that we've seen here granted. Some of this is reversing on its own

01:30:30

I would argue but yes, do those things please

01:30:34

Yeah, he mentions a couple specific strategies in chapter 24

01:30:39

He mentions and it's interesting because I think covid makes some of these more difficult

01:30:45

But also maybe make some of them easier right so participate in extracurricular activities

01:30:50

That one's kind of been blown up

01:30:52

Make the workplace more family friendly. I would argue that one is a check in the

01:30:58

Positive box with a lot of people working from home that maybe isn't positive initially because you got to figure some things out

01:31:05

But I think a lot of corporations are discovering that you don't need the commutes and have everybody in the office all the time

01:31:12

You can have people work from home and they can be with their families more and that's a good thing

01:31:16

Related spend less time traveling and more time connecting if you're not driving an hour

01:31:21

Each way and to work every day. That's that's easier

01:31:26

Be more deeply engaged in faith-based communities. I mean, this is him talking not me

01:31:32

All right and be more tolerant of other communities. So those are both kind of like the same

01:31:37

Same one, right? Uh, and that is why

01:31:41

being focused on just like your

01:31:45

Community as a church being a bonding community and going inward at this time. I feel like it's such a negative thing

01:31:53

Because this is really an opportunity for people to get plugged into the support system that they really need

01:32:00

Right and then the last one use art to bring diverse groups of people together

01:32:04

The internet's actually really good for this

01:32:07

Uh, I think it's kind of cool to see people like i'm thinking of specifically matt raggland who

01:32:12

Uh used to work at convert kit used to work at

01:32:16

podium

01:32:18

And now is doing his own youtube channel doing that full-time christopher lollie is another one that i'm thinking of recently who

01:32:27

Started doing youtube full-time. I feel like technology has given us a lot of opportunities

01:32:34

for people who didn't have an in at a major production company

01:32:38

to

01:32:40

Make a name for themselves and earn a living as a as a creator

01:32:43

I feel like this is kind of like the golden age for content creators

01:32:48

Right and that word maybe is a little overused content creator

01:32:52

Maybe has some negative connotations with it depending on your perspective

01:32:55

But basic idea being if you want to make something and make a living off of selling it on the internet

01:33:02

Then this is a great time to be alive. Yeah, it is true

01:33:05

Yeah, and it's blown up in recent months for sure. Yep, there's a lot of people stepping into it

01:33:11

Just as a side thing as an outlet. They've got time. They need something to do

01:33:14

Why not make something for the internet? So thus tick-tock that leads us into the last section here the afterword

01:33:22

Which is kind of specifically talking about technology and

01:33:27

COVID-19 the specific question they ask at the beginning here has Facebook replaced

01:33:32

bowling leagues

01:33:35

Uh, no, no, it has not

01:33:37

Tries

01:33:38

It tries and this is my big issue with this whole section of the book is they kind of hedge it as like well

01:33:44

It could if you have the right kind no no it cannot it will not stay off of it

01:33:49

Right it bothers me that people try to straddle this fence so often

01:33:54

Just get off of Facebook your life will be better. Yes. I'm in the process of

01:34:00

writing

01:34:02

uh the talks for a couple of classes at

01:34:05

Our church had been asked to do a little more speaking and of course

01:34:09

it's a mess to figure out how to even do that in person and

01:34:13

as part of that

01:34:16

My expertise revolves around some of this area I guess in the computer side of it

01:34:22

Knowing that I'm speaking to people who have no clue

01:34:25

Like wait, Facebook tracks me like that's the type of person we're talking about

01:34:30

They have no concept that that is even a thing

01:34:33

So I've given one talk on that already and people want a lot more of that

01:34:37

So I'm working on a talk around the science behind

01:34:40

What happens when you're doing screen time versus things that are analog?

01:34:44

Yep, obviously there's gonna end up being a plug for analog Joe in that of course

01:34:50

uh, so that's one side of it

01:34:52

The other side of it is the second talk I'm working on is like social media and relationships

01:34:57

and how does

01:35:00

posting and

01:35:02

Communicating via social media work and not work. That's a lot of what that is about

01:35:07

This ties into that very closely

01:35:09

Just because you know that all of the technology the social networks the social media

01:35:14

It's not a good way to communicate and

01:35:17

You know the the age old question at this point is you know

01:35:20

Who's ever changed their opinion on something based on a post somebody made on Facebook?

01:35:25

I can't say I've ever had

01:35:27

even a an opinion

01:35:29

Maybe swayed a little bit, but definitely not flipped. Yep, especially politically

01:35:34

via

01:35:37

social media, you know, there are a couple folks I follow on twitter that I

01:35:40

am on the complete opposite end of the spectrum with politically and

01:35:46

The name calling and stuff. I just do not get yeah, I've never understood how name calling is a positive thing

01:35:53

Via social media like what is that supposed to do? How?

01:35:57

Is this just you venting like is venting is this for you not me?

01:36:02

Then why are you sharing it with me like I I've never understood that and yet people do it all the time

01:36:07

That's part of it. I'm sure he mentions that expressive activities abound on the internet

01:36:11

But not engaged activities the other thing that kind of blew my mind here is that

01:36:16

Few americans have separate online and offline lives. I put in parentheses in my mind node file except for us

01:36:22

Yeah, yeah, it's true because he mentions that most facebook connections are within 50 miles of each other

01:36:30

It's so for most people the real and the virtual are

01:36:33

Blended and I think that's where a lot of this issue comes from is the fact that it's an expressive activity to people that you typically

01:36:40

Know in real life, but you're not really engaging with them in a dialogue

01:36:44

It's more of a monologue and he does call out so we do have to mention this

01:36:50

That the whole idea of like the political polarization this did exist before social networks

01:36:57

Yes, so it is not completely facebook's fault facebook definitely makes this worse. No, yes

01:37:03

Because these algorithms are silent nudgers and spreaders of disinformation

01:37:10

He mentions that basically the way that most people use social networks they're high and bonding but low and bridging social capital

01:37:16

I think that's a perfect encapsulation of what's really going on there

01:37:20

Sure. So the big thing

01:37:23

From this afterwards section is that your facebook friends how many you have has nothing to do with how happy you are

01:37:30

But the number of offline friends that you have has a big impact on how happy you are

01:37:34

So that's the one that we need to be focusing on

01:37:38

More screen time equals less happiness. The internet is kind of custom built for people who are lonely

01:37:44

Which

01:37:46

I mean that's not necessarily a bad thing except when you combine it with all the other factors

01:37:51

You have people who are looking for something that they're not going to get because of the nature of the thing and the algorithm feeding you

01:37:57

Things which are going to just force you to stay connected to the the feed

01:38:01

You know, it's it's not a great scenario

01:38:05

Lots of thoughts. I feel like I should stop though

01:38:08

All right

01:38:09

So action items do you have any from reading this book?

01:38:11

No

01:38:13

All right, that was pretty definite wasn't it?

01:38:15

It was I don't

01:38:17

It's yeah, it's it's an interesting read, but I don't have anything that I would

01:38:21

Act on because I feel like a lot of the stuff I would put I'm already doing sure

01:38:27

Well, the one action item I wrote down

01:38:30

Is that I want to take a stand for something and not against something

01:38:34

I feel like there's a couple places that could be expressed as one of my words for 2021

01:38:41

is

01:38:43

Community so I found like bridging and bonding that concept specifically

01:38:48

Important as I think about how do I build different communities like the bookworm club for example, and I don't have any clear

01:38:56

path forward actions from

01:38:59

Thinking about that, but it's something that I want to continue

01:39:03

To ponder

01:39:05

Sure, so I'll write that one down as the official one

01:39:07

And I think that's easy to do between now and two weeks from now when we record the next one

01:39:13

But I also think this is

01:39:15

Going to be one of those things that just kind of shifts my perspective and it changes a lot of stuff going forward kind of a

01:39:22

Tipping point in terms of community building for me sure

01:39:26

The chat gave me an action item. All right, don't pick a long book again

01:39:33

Well, you didn't pick this one. It was me. I know I didn't

01:39:35

I'm definitely going to be looking at page count before I choose

01:39:40

All right, so that let's get into style and rating then that's a perfect segue

01:39:45

So my book I go first

01:39:49

Uh, this is a boring read. I'll just say that right away

01:39:53

It's not

01:39:56

The their approach is not wrong. Uh, I don't think they could have written it in a different way

01:40:02

I think if you want to speak authoritatively on this topic, you kind of have to write it the way that they did

01:40:08

I think unless you are interested in understanding

01:40:12

What is going on with social capital in the United States though?

01:40:15

You don't want to just pick this one up

01:40:18

I do think that there is a lot of value to be had from this one

01:40:23

I do think especially after talking through this now

01:40:26

That this is going to be one of those books that I look back on in reference

01:40:30

Quite a bit if nothing else just for the bridging versus bonding piece at the beginning

01:40:34

But there's a lot of other stuff in here or two that I I feel has the

01:40:37

Potential to really stick with me and change how I approach things going forward

01:40:43

really hard to rate this one

01:40:46

Because I have to rate it from this moment in time

01:40:50

after

01:40:51

Being exhausted trying to get through it. So from a bookworm perspective, not a great book

01:40:57

I feel like from a

01:40:59

You grow your perspective

01:41:01

Make a collection of books that are influential in terms of how you view the world

01:41:07

This is absolutely one that like Jim Rohn would say you want in your collection

01:41:14

What am I going to rate this at?

01:41:18

I think I'm going to rate it 3.5

01:41:24

And I would rate it higher. I would give it a 4 had they come out stronger against social media

01:41:31

And now I get like that even me saying that is a little bit weird because they talk about taking a stand for something not against something

01:41:37

And here you are

01:41:38

But I really do feel

01:41:40

That a combination of the social dilemma and what they wrote in the afterword is the appropriate

01:41:46

Perspective to provide given what we know now and where we are with social media and social networks

01:41:54

Specifically and just the fact that everybody has a smartphone

01:41:58

I know it's a generalized statement, but it is uh, it's pretty true

01:42:02

Um, and I feel like most people again a general statement, but I think it's true

01:42:08

Don't ever think about how they interact with those technologies

01:42:13

And the effect that that is having on their social capital the relationships that really are going to be important for them

01:42:19

when stuff hits the fan

01:42:22

And I think it's a really important topic. I think it's really worth considering right now

01:42:28

uh, they make a

01:42:30

A case in the political section about how like the real decisions that affect social capital aren't made in washington

01:42:36

It's the local stuff

01:42:38

And so I think this is something that needs more attention

01:42:40

I think it's something that people need to pay more attention to spend more time thinking about and considering

01:42:45

And just that alone. I think would have a pretty positive effect

01:42:49

Especially for some of these like you go back to that map some of the states that have very low social capital

01:42:53

I mean if anybody starts thinking about this stuff, it's going to have a ripple effect

01:42:58

There's going to be a uh, a swell from that

01:43:00

So I think it's very timely. I think it's very appropriate

01:43:03

I think it's important as we think about transitioning out of

01:43:07

COVID quarantines like how do we reengage with stuff? What's the right way to do things? What's the balance here?

01:43:12

They talk about at the very end virtual works, but not always or not for everything

01:43:18

You know, there's going to be some pressure to just oh well virtual's working. Let's just keep doing it

01:43:23

No, it's not the same thing. You got to recognize that and you got to figure out

01:43:27

What's the best application for all the this technology that we have at our disposal?

01:43:32

And ultimately the best application of it is I would argue

01:43:37

Building stronger relationships people are the reason for productivity going back to chris bailey

01:43:42

So very very important topic

01:43:45

Um, I do think that uh, it's worth

01:43:48

Pushing through and and reading this one. You don't have to read every single word

01:43:51

There's tons of charts in here tons of research that they did

01:43:55

One of the most interesting charts

01:43:57

Was the one where the states with lower social capital

01:44:01

Had a much higher rate of giving other drivers the finger

01:44:06

Not sure if you remember that one. I do remember that. That was a good one

01:44:10

So

01:44:13

It's I don't know

01:44:15

I am glad to have read this and I really enjoyed the conversation that we had about it

01:44:19

But I don't think this is something that I would just recommend to to anybody maybe the bookworm audience is more

01:44:28

Disproportionately the type of person that I would recommend this book to I could see that

01:44:35

Being the case if you listen to bookworm at all for understanding the concept of the book without having to read it yourself

01:44:41

Don't buy this one you'll regret it

01:44:45

But I'm glad that that we went went through it and I think that he makes some very compelling arguments

01:44:50

I feel like they are very

01:44:52

Logically and rationally built so it's hard to argue against them very different than the type of book

01:44:58

We typically read though

01:45:00

Uh, not something that I want to do all the time, but I'm glad to have read it once sure

01:45:05

So 3.5

01:45:07

I uh, I I will join you on the boring train. It took a long time to get through this one

01:45:13

Uh, as far as like every whenever I'd sit down to read I had to sit longer to read which my 80d was not happy about

01:45:20

Uh, so I I don't think this is one that's this is not when you're gonna sit down and just being grossed in like this is a

01:45:26

To use that term again slog

01:45:29

Gonna have to sit down and work at this one to get through

01:45:32

One of the things that just like some small things that bugged me

01:45:35

They didn't

01:45:38

Very sentence length. Did you notice this? Yep, they would do lots of long sentences repeatedly, which

01:45:44

if you are a writer and you

01:45:47

Pay attention to that sort of thing you mix up sentence length and paragraph length and such so that it stays engaging

01:45:53

Otherwise if there's just long after and long after a long

01:45:56

It it gets to where it's very difficult to

01:46:00

to read

01:46:02

They don't do any of that to help you with it. So it makes it difficult to focus on it

01:46:07

I found that

01:46:09

They're very he's very repetitive with words too

01:46:11

like the

01:46:14

Reciprocity was a word at the beginning

01:46:15

there for a little while it was like every other sentence and

01:46:18

It's okay to repeat words, but not that fast

01:46:21

And he's just over and over and over it. I know he has some accolades

01:46:26

of other books that he's written and

01:46:30

Seems to get a lot of feedback that's positive from it

01:46:36

but

01:46:37

Just from like critiquing editing and grammar, it's not great

01:46:42

Just from a how it's written stance. So I really struggled with

01:46:46

With some of that

01:46:48

I put whenever I put out the tweet saying that this was a monster and it was a slog to get through somebody replied and said

01:46:54

Oh, yeah, if you want more pseudoscience here you go. It's like oh, that's actually, you know

01:46:58

That's an interesting way to explain this book pseudoscience because there's a ton of science in it

01:47:04

But they're using that science to make a point

01:47:06

But there's not a study on the point itself

01:47:09

That civilization how do how do they the collapse of the american community?

01:47:14

There's not science. It just says the community itself is collapsing

01:47:17

Like that's that's a pseudo term

01:47:20

And they're using a lot of science around it to define it and explain it, but it's not an actual

01:47:26

Thing in itself. So you can't just say

01:47:29

Here's a study that proves what i'm saying

01:47:32

So I thought that was interesting pseudoscience kind of coming around that

01:47:35

So I don't think this is a great book honestly

01:47:38

I mean, it's it's interesting to have the conversation about it and to have the

01:47:43

feedback around

01:47:45

What is going on in our communities? What are some things that are happening to it?

01:47:48

It's something i've talked about a lot in other

01:47:50

Scenarios and have had these conversations with other folks, but

01:47:54

It's not one that i've seen like a dedicated book or a conversation about it straight up

01:48:01

So

01:48:02

It's nice to have have that. I think this is a book that's nice to have like in the bank

01:48:07

to reference

01:48:09

Is not one i will tell you to pick up

01:48:11

That's fair. I don't I don't think this is one that

01:48:16

is

01:48:18

Going to be on a recommendations list for me for quite a while

01:48:22

So I have a lot of qualms with it

01:48:24

There are some positive

01:48:27

Pieces in it obviously we've talked about some of those they he has some good points that come out of i'm going to put it at 2.5 though

01:48:33

Just because I there are a lot of things from a just a flat out book making stance

01:48:40

That's not great from that but the content and what he's getting at makes sense

01:48:45

I really wanted it to be half that size. Yeah, but he likes writing

01:48:49

They like he really wanted to expand on it and it this is one of those books that you know

01:48:54

We've talked about this before it's this isn't a book that's designed to either motivate you or

01:49:00

Give you a system. It's not a functional or motivational book. This is a

01:49:04

Meandering journey that you're going to go on that's that's what this book is like

01:49:09

So it's he wants to take you on a journey

01:49:12

And there's not necessarily a set destination he has some destinations he wants to take you on

01:49:17

But he wants to take you on this journey and that's the intent there

01:49:20

We don't tend to like those books a whole lot

01:49:24

That's true

01:49:25

Just something to be aware of with our ratings like that's just kind of what we do

01:49:29

So anyway, i'm going to put it at 2.5. All right. Yeah, this is uh

01:49:34

Regarding the style just real quickly you mentioned that uh he kind of

01:49:39

Talks a lot about all the different possible arguments against his points

01:49:44

I feel like he kind of has to take that approach

01:49:46

Yeah, so i'm not sure

01:49:48

From what he wanted to accomplish that it could have been

01:49:52

shorter correct but from what we wanted to get out of the book it could have been short yes

01:49:56

Yep, yep

01:49:58

It's like what I wanted from you. Yep and what like he has the knowledge

01:50:02

And it seems like he has the writing ability just chose not to do those

01:50:07

In the way that I feel like we would want from him. Yep. No, that's that's fair

01:50:12

All right, so let's put bowling alone

01:50:15

on the shelf

01:50:18

What is next the next one up is lead yourself first

01:50:23

inspiring leadership through solitude. This is by Raymond

01:50:27

catholic and michael erwin

01:50:30

And there's an accolade here from the wall street journal

01:50:33

Lead yourself first makes a compelling argument for the integral relationship between solitude and leadership

01:50:40

which

01:50:42

I think it'll be interesting because I know you have a thing about

01:50:45

Solitude with your retreats. Yeah, and we've talked a lot about leadership

01:50:50

I can't say i've run across a book or something that combines those two in a consolidated source

01:50:56

So I think this will be kind of a fun one to go through all right and your choice following that is

01:51:02

I am on the fence

01:51:05

Oh, so it's not picked yet so sapiens is still in the running

01:51:09

I would be okay reading that one not after bowling alone

01:51:14

Absolutely. Absolutely. There's I don't read ebooks

01:51:18

The one I really want to read is the great mental models volume one general thinking concepts, but they don't have a physical version you combine anymore

01:51:25

It's just an ebook

01:51:27

so

01:51:28

I think I'll hold off on that one see if

01:51:31

We can get a physical copy of that in the recent future

01:51:35

Looking at the bookworm club and the other ones that have received

01:51:40

votes that we haven't really looked at

01:51:44

I think I'm going to select

01:51:48

Discipline equals freedom by jocko willink

01:51:53

We read

01:51:56

We read extreme ownership and i'm curious

01:51:58

as to whether this ends up being

01:52:01

more of the awesome

01:52:04

Jocko that I loved in extreme ownership or

01:52:07

If it's kind of like the one that they wrote just to make a bunch of money off their previous success

01:52:13

Yeah, it's usually one or the other isn't it?

01:52:16

Yeah

01:52:18

It's hoping for the former and not the latter here. Yep, exactly. What is it discipline equals freedom?

01:52:23

Yep, that sounds interesting. Yes, of course the military guys will talk about discipline

01:52:29

I think this is kind of an interesting I mean

01:52:33

I'm always up to talk about habits but beginning of 2021 beginning of the new year is when everybody talks about new years resolutions

01:52:40

Which are garbage and you shouldn't suckles because they're dumb really what you want to focus on are your habits so very appropriate

01:52:47

Yep. Yep. I hope you're ready for 4 a.m. 4 a.m. 4 30 a.m. It's coming

01:52:53

Oh got any gap books after that? No

01:52:58

With with christmas and bowling alone and hiring somebody i'll be good to get this one done

01:53:09

I do have one i'm going to hope to get through i mentioned this previously the organized writer by Anthony jonston

01:53:14

Yeah, i've heard about this one i pre-ordered this one a while back and it came a couple weeks ago

01:53:20

And i make just to dive into it just didn't have the margin to do so

01:53:24

i'm on sabbaticals you record this so hopefully i can

01:53:28

Get this one in i started the lee josel first that one seems to be a

01:53:35

Fairly easy read at least compared to bowling alone. I have not started it yet. So i was hoping hoping

01:53:42

All right

01:53:44

Well, thank you everyone. We especially appreciate our bookworm club premium members

01:53:49

We mentioned this a couple times here today

01:53:51

But the people who are willing to support the show given us a couple bucks a month that really means a lot helps us keep the lights on

01:53:57

And as i mentioned at the beginning we are trying to think of

01:54:02

New ways to add more value for the people who want to support the show financially

01:54:07

Thank you to everybody else who is just listening and downloading the episode

01:54:13

Thank you to the people who attend live and make our live recordings

01:54:17

More fun if you want to do that you can go to twitch.tv/bookwormfm

01:54:23

If you want to sign up for the bookworm premium club you can go to club.bookworm.fm/membership

01:54:31

Great fun

01:54:32

I also shortened it for the twitch thing bookworm.fm/live

01:54:36

Makes it easy too. Awesome. So I like making things simple if we can

01:54:40

So anyway, there's that makes a little bit easier

01:54:44

We're grateful to everyone who has tuned in today and

01:54:47

Has been able to join us live and if you are reading along with us

01:54:52

Pick up lead yourself first by raim and catholic and we'll join you in a couple weeks