Is Society Making Us Less Human?

Added: 2026-05-26

[00:00:00]Birds do not sing in caves.

[00:00:02]>> Years ago, one winter, I was living on the south side of Chicago and working in the city's downtown area. As I walked into the underground train station one night, I saw a man sitting on the floor.

[00:00:15]He was homeless, a fact which is so tragically unremarkable that I may not even need to mention it at all.

[00:00:24]In front of him on the ground, there was a long round dark object. It was all black, as black as the asphalt above us.

[00:00:35]Hovering over the man was another individual dressed in a doctor's uniform carrying a bag. My best guess was that he was on the way home from his job at some medical facility. The doctor was imploring the man on the ground, who was unresponsive, to go to the emergency room. That if he didn't get to the hospital, he would die. This elicited no verbal response from the man on the ground. In fact, he didn't even move.

[00:01:01]The doctor gave up pretty quickly. He had a train to catch.

[00:01:07]And as I got closer, it became more clear what the object on the ground was, or rather that it was not an object at all. Was it his blood?

[00:01:16]>> It was the man's bare leg, rotting and matte black from his ankle to his knee.

[00:01:22]>> Wow.

[00:01:23]>> The leg was so swollen, so ballooned that it lacked the contours human anatomy should have given it. It looked dry and brittle. I couldn't help but imagine pushing my finger through his limb and feeling it crumble. If I did this, I further imagined I would find some purple gray liquid that was not at all what a human leg should contain.

[00:01:47]Of course, I didn't do this. I walked by the man, hypnotized by this rotten limb, not understanding how something so dead could be attached to a living [music] person. The city of Chicago, in all of its intelligence, had deemed this issue to be undeserving of attention. Dozens of passers by just passed him by. I did the same. American humanity had assembled all of its mental, spiritual, and economic power to create the shining city of Chicago. The city was a metropolis, a beacon of human technological achievement. Progress crystallized by concrete and rebar. And yet, it all seemed to add up to this. A human rotting on the ground passed by because we all just had trains [music] to catch.

[00:02:39]>> God, it's not just like I I've always thought about that like the most recent time that I was seeing, you know, troves of homeless people was when I was in San Francisco. There's a lot of homeless people in San Francisco. There's a lot of homeless people in California. It's warmer. Uh there's also a, you know, a large drug problem, high cost of living.

[00:03:00]A lot of people get homeless, get addicted to, you know, whatever drug, fentanyl, heroin, whatever it is. I see them on the side of the road.

[00:03:09]And I mean, I don't know if it's a social boundary, but it's more so like what are you going to do? You know, not that they're unsavable because that's like horrible to say, but it's like if I walk up to an addict on the ground and I what say they're not high at that moment. I'm able to actually like coherently speak to them and I go like you need to get help.

[00:03:40]You tell me to go [ __ ] myself, you know?

[00:03:42]I give them money. How do I know they're not going to, you know, spend it on drugs? Like I've given homeless people money multiple times. I've given homeless people food more, right?

[00:03:51]because that's what I think is better because it's like, hey, I'm going to help you out in this way because I'm assuring myself that this is good for you, but it's also not going to potentially put you in a bad situation.

[00:04:00]Or you give them food, little bit of money instead of like, hey, here's [ __ ] $500. Uh, go wild with it cuz like the odds are they're not going to just use that for just getting out of the situation they're in. There are some people that are just homeless and not drug addicts. I'm more so saying, you know, it's case to case person, but it's like, yeah, there's so many instances where you've probably been in a position in your life that like you could try and help somebody but didn't. And it is [ __ ] up. But it's like, what would you do? What would you do?

[00:04:32]What would I do? I'm not going to invite them into my, you know, abode. I'm not going to be like, hey, you could crash with me for a month. I don't know you.

[00:04:42]you know, you might kill me in my [ __ ] sleep for all I know. It's like there's so lit. It's not that there's so little you could do. It's more it's like, holy [ __ ] we as a system could help this person, right? But we don't.

[00:04:56]And it's like other countries do it much better than the United States does and much countries do. So many countries do it much worse. But it's like it's I think it's less on the individual and more on the society. It's like we've put this person in a situation where they're actually just not getting help in this instance for their rotting [ __ ] leg because they feel like they can't, you know, do anything about it.

[00:05:17]>> Understand how this could be. I know that this incident in itself, >> why are serial killers an American thing? Serial killers aren't just an American thing. There are serial killers in other countries.

[00:05:30]The and there's less serial killers today than there were. There's a lot of mass shootings in the US now, but that's a whole another topic.

[00:05:38]>> Is just that, an incident, a specific problem with its own mechanical solutions. But >> it's a million things. It's gun issues.

[00:05:47]It's people constantly bullying those that end up becoming mass shooters.

[00:05:50]Those people feeling alone like they can't get help and they want to have revenge rather than actually seek help or, you know, feel sad. It's like they're getting back at society. Um, so many things. so many things.

[00:06:02]>> Perhaps I am just not a mechanical person. So it began within me a long slow disillusionment with metropolitan life and by association even with the modern notion of progress.

[00:06:17]I'd like to talk about that. Now I also got to say I know we're only 3 minutes into this video. I am loving this right now. I mean, the way this guy's speaking, the visuals he's using, I can tell he's building a masterpiece for me to witness right here.

[00:06:37]>> Henry David Theo was a [music] 19th century writer and leader of the transcendentalist.

[00:06:43]>> Holy neck beard.

[00:06:45]>> David Theo was a 19th century writer and leader of the transcendentalist movement. Aside from its being as a religious movement, this school of thought believed in the inherent goodness of nature and humanity.

[00:06:58]Transcendentalist though noted that modern systems and technologies had spoiled this goodness. To be more immediate, Thorough is famous for his work Walden. In 1845, Thorough moved to a small isolated cabin in the forest around Walden Pond, Massachusetts.

[00:07:15]Thorough lived there for 2 years, eventually producing the book Walden based on his experiences. For the author, this was an experiment in simple living. He observed that rather than deliberate living, most people simply accepted that life was a series of waking up, working, going to bed, and repeating. He noted that this was not really by any fault of the individual.

[00:07:39]Thorough writes, "When we consider what are the true necessities and means of life, it appear."

[00:07:44]>> Yeah. It's almost like society has given some sort of lack of freedom to people like before obviously technology and all these things that we've been able to create with technological advancements through societal you know communal work.

[00:08:00]We've been able to access more info than we ever have ever had prior. But like when you know if you were a person 20,000 years ago you could do whatever the [ __ ] you wanted to do in a given day. Obviously, you needed to fill the things that kept you alive, but you were a much more free individual than in the confinements of, I guess, the social like city life of having to wake up, go to work at 9:00, get off at 5, go do your groceries, pay your bills, pay your taxes, do all this other [ __ ] It's like there's there's a lot. It feels at times for people, I assume. I mean, like I can't obviously speak for every individual person, but that there's more give than take in terms of what you're giving up freedom wise and what you're receiving. It's safety is really what it boils down to. You give your freedom to then take some smaller, you know, 20% freedom in response uh with more capabilities like high-tech living and [ __ ] vacationing and air conditioning and all this. And then safety, you know, not having to live in the cave and be worried that you're gonna get eaten alive or if you get sick, you're you're just gonna [ __ ] die. It like it it's more it's kind of like just an advancement as a species to ensure our survival and longevity is really what it it boils down to. It's like obviously we're a curious, you know, animal or curious species and we want to advance so we could obviously just understand more of the world around us, but it's also like this weird almost natural evolution socially where we're kind of giving up like the natural life but naturally going towards a means of actually ensuring longer survival and more boring lives. lives, but safer lives to a degree. Safety is destroying us over time. Yeah, you could argue that with like like the society we're in is now creating school shootings and like other I guess terroristic acts that are killing people. But it's like then the counterpoint to that was was if there no it was no society, we would still just be killing each other with [ __ ] sticks and stones. You know, you'd be murdering somebody in the [ __ ] woods rather than somebody, you know, killing somebody on the front lines in a war.

[00:10:20]Like There's counterpoints to each side.

[00:10:25]>> They honestly think there is no choice left.

[00:10:30]People's values were chosen for them by the culture into [music] which they were born. The modern world did not offer sufficient time or space for an individual to arrive at their own conclusions about life. [music] It was financially, materially impossible to engage in this self-examination.

[00:10:47]A person was just too busy. So instead, the world forced judgments onto a person. It told each individual what was important, and the person more often than not accepted those judgments, whether or not they felt any innate [music] attraction to them. The result of this passive value acceptance had been thorough noted a culture of rampant but somehow passive materialism. Indeed, today we seek happiness in riches because the world has told us that is where happiness is to be found. in reality.

[00:11:20]>> Yeah. From people that don't even exist anymore telling you that this is how the way this is the way that you should live.

[00:11:26]>> We will.

[00:11:26]>> And we've kind of just passed that down through generations.

[00:11:29]>> Ever find happiness in these things.

[00:11:31]They are distract.

[00:11:32]>> I think the other thing I mean he he had a video b-roll of church and I did pause. I don't know if he was mentioning religion as well, but I feel like religion does that as well. like uh the way that people live their lives is largely influenced by the first church leads that existed in the religion that you currently believe. You know, obviously you can say it roots back to Jesus, but like all of that [ __ ] really roots back to the church like more like in what they teach you, right?

[00:12:02]And that's why there's a million denominations and you go to a different church where you have a different pastor or preacher priest telling you different things. It's like what depending on any religion that's really what it kind of comes down to especially in the United States >> actions from discovering true internal fulfillment.

[00:12:20]Thorough points to a farmer who has inherited a barn, cattle and farm tools.

[00:12:25]This circumstance could be celebrated.

[00:12:27]The farmer now had a means to make a living. But in reality, these things were not gifts to the farmer. They were burdens and they were obligations thrust onto him by powers far outside of his own. Thorough suggests that if the farmer had been born into the wild, suckled by a wolf, he may have been better off. He may have been free to find his own pasture, his own calling.

[00:12:52]You see, upkeeping the farm does not just cost the farmer money. It costs toil and trouble. It costs time. time that can be used to explore what the farmer himself actually wanted and valued. The farm costs life and so the farmer from birth is born to dig his crops and also his grave. But to abandon these inheritances is equally treacherous. How then would he make a living?

[00:13:21]As far as I can tell, such is our modern version of humanity. We have all inherited this farm of technology, the crops of our systems, the implements of trade, banking, and commerce. In one breath, we thank the skies for such a prosperous [music] world while not recognizing that this so-called prosperity is also a vampire. It truly drains our lives. It forces our hand, forces us to exist within [music] its neverending loop. And just like the farmer, to abandon these things would destroy our civilization.

[00:13:56]Thorough notes that most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the [music] factitious cares and superolously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them. Their fingers from excessive toil are too clumsy and tremble too much for that.

[00:14:18]All of our knowledge and efforts must be thrust into the market into the modern system of living so that we simply cannot use any to explore our innermost selves.

[00:14:29]Even as I type this, the idea of exploring what it means to be alive comes to me as so bizarrely abstract. It is [music] like a distant shout from the outside, barely discernible. But I think that's what like society has built this idea that like to be able to experience what you want to in life. You just need money. So everybody's goal is in some way rooted towards money. Oh, I want to do I know I want to have freedom and do this. Okay. Well, to do that you need money. So you got to [ __ ] do something that you aren't free to do to obtain that so you can be free. But like what would be a societal solution? Like there I don't I don't see a world where like everybody could just do what they want to do without in a society like you would need chaos like a sense of anarchy to achieve this and then there's other you know problems that would ensue otherwise because it's like if everybody did what they wanted to do you wouldn't have most of the conveniences in today's society like you would have to completely dismantle and re rewrite what it's like to be in a [ __ ] civilization to even be able to do this because like you can't just go all right everybody do what they want to do it's just not Karl Marx is an answer what like the root of socialism like I mean Karl Marx wrote a lot of critiques on capitalism and I've read Karl Marx before but like what is his solution to that I like socialism doesn't solve that I'm not saying socialism in general is the only thing that he wrote about but I'm saying how would you what is his solution solution to that. I actually don't know >> attributed to the woes of some events on the street and far easier to simply ignore than examine.

[00:16:20]In this way, we are pushed to not only ignorance of our existence, but to the ignorance of this ignorance. We just don't know any better.

[00:16:30]In battle against all of this, Thorough stripped life back to its most bare essentials. At Walden Pond, he sought to live deliberately. This was to lead life with intention, to arrive at conclusions and judgments independently, and to do things on purpose, by your own choosing.

[00:16:49]The spent his time at Walden largely in solitude. This word should not be taken to mean just being alone. It is rather to be with. It is a very active engagement with the world around oneself. Thorough noted that he in fact at Walden quote had a great deal of company in his house. He said that on his land he had the company of an old settler of the man who had first dug his home at Walden Pond. He had the company too of an invisible old woman who he described as owning a wondrously fragrant herb garden. This woman, Thorough said, told, quote, "The original of every fable and that on which everyone is founded." So thorough in his solitude is very much not alone.

[00:17:36]The past, the present, and the future were all in society at Walden, pouring out in the natural world around him.

[00:17:45]Theo's solitude was not indicated by miles of space, but rather a nearness, a nearness to himself and to the very fibers of the world, an appreciation for those things which formed and existed infinitely [music] in nature. Like I would love to experience this in a sort of retreat of sorts, but I don't think I would ever want to pick up and move and like live in the wilderness alone forever. You know what I mean? Like I would love to be able to do that for like a month, experience life with nature, you know, alone, maybe without somebody else, whatever. and just like actually feel not what it's like to like hunt and gather and put myself in some [ __ ] high stakes like uh naked and afraid show where I'm like, you know, oh, I [ __ ] ran out of food and winter's coming. Like, no. I'd give myself still the luxury of like what society has to offer, which is what we get back to here. Nature's great, yes, but it's like we've built this because at the end of the day, the upsides only exist because of the downsides of society. Like you going to this retreat and him living there, like Theorough probably still had some sort of luxuries that society provided that enabled him to experience that to its fullest. Like if you were actually still in a very anim animalistic way of living, you'd be like, "Oh, wow. This is awesome." And then you'd [ __ ] die of like dysentery.

[00:19:12]Then you would get a [ __ ] back. You would get E. coli in your water and you would die. You know like society is advanced be soci science advances human life and you know safety but science is only capable through society. It's like it's there's going to be a trade-off.

[00:19:34]It's like life is full of balances in that sense. Solitude can help us break free from unintentional living. When removed from society, a person is too removed from the distractions it presents. While social dynamics are important, how I wish I could have God with me and lay down on the grass field to look at the stars and just wonder 100%. Equally, I would love to lay on the ground in the middle of the night, you know, look at the stars, have aliens abduct me, they're friendly aliens, and they explore the [ __ ] universe with me, you know, give me some [ __ ] insight, tell me the same [ __ ] I mean, in the same sense, it's like not a god, but it's like more of like a higher being that's like, you know, hey, this is what life is. And then just [ __ ] put me down and then I live rest of my life with a smile on my face because I get it. or reverse really grim dark meaning it's bad and then it's like you know afterlife you're actually going to be turned into a gummy bear that's eaten by Skippy 62 Abel in a YouTube video just to be vomited into a toilet.

[00:20:37]I'd be like whoa that's the meaning of life. That's pretty [ __ ] shitty. Odds are that's not the meaning of life. But like that very specific. I'm high.

[00:20:44]That's why I came up with that. Brain's kind of just firing right now. Chat the neurons are cooking. I'm just saying exactly what's immediately entering my brain. Anyways, anyways, I would love for yeah, like them to just bestow any info on me of like, oh, here's the answers, but it's just not that >> important for social life. They often override things which otherwise would allow us to flourish. In the developed world, we are ostracized, misunderstood, or admonished for not embracing societal norms. And so society at large encourages and even requires oppressive conformity.

[00:21:24]Solitude frees us from these norms and values which we have passively accepted.

[00:21:29]It removes the barriers which prohibit us from truly knowing ourselves. When we are not bound by these constructs, we can better find what we individually, authentically, and truly believe to be important.

[00:21:41]>> I believe I agree with this. your solitude blocks out all other I mean it's like kind of like just long-term meditation in the sense of solitude.

[00:21:51]It's like not that you're meditating while you're in solitude but it's like you're you're blocking every other external stimuli that would sway you in a different direction from your truest deepest like you. Of course writing is not so simple and its context also deserves attention.

[00:22:14]Thorough does not declare that all of humankind should return to some primitive pre-industrial society.

[00:22:20]Indeed, while at Walden, Thorough wasn't entirely [music] cut off from the world.

[00:22:24]He recounts dinners with friends, trips to town, and occasional meetings with towns people. Some people have said this invalidates all that he wrote. I disagree. Walden was not created as a man against nature tale. In the book, which is basically a diary, Thorough never proclaims himself as being entirely self-sufficient or living off the land. Instead, it is the desire to simplify life that is the driving force behind Walden. It is less of a physical self-reliance that Walden espouses, but instead a spiritual self-reliance.

[00:23:00][music] Walden is not an outright rejection of modern society, but a quest to better know oneself so that we can discover which parts of society we are suited to.

[00:23:14]>> After all, throw him.

[00:23:16]>> This is good. Now >> himself went quite happily and even ambitiously back to the civilized world after leaving Walden Pond. Thorough's idea was not that everyone should follow his lead. Walden was not a guide book for living, nor a copyable road map for happiness, as much as it pains me to admit. Instead, it was an exaltation to find your own Walden pond. In the book, Thorough writes, "I would not have anyone adopt my mode of living on any account. I desire that there may be as many different persons in the world as possible, but I would have each one be very careful to find out and pursue his own way, not his fathers or his mothers or his neighbors. [music] Instead, there's a school of thought today that happiness is not a cabin in the forest.

[00:24:05]That to propose this concept or anything near it is a suggestion of cowardice.

[00:24:10]That retreat to nature represents some [music] misguided version of running from your problems.

[00:24:17]Theorough did not run from his problems and neither should we.

[00:24:20]>> I wouldn't say that. I wouldn't say Oh [ __ ] Did I just [ __ ] >> It is rather to force is not an outright rejecting Walden for happiness anyone way guided version of running from your problem.

[00:24:34]>> I don't think it's running from your problems. I think it's confronting them in a more intricate way, right? Like actually being able to step away and only think about that without being misguided elsewhere.

[00:24:47]>> Problems.

[00:24:48]>> Yeah, solitude's like the best way to figure out your problems. H once you figured out your problems, the best way to solve them may be with other people, but figuring out problems is generally through solitude. Yeah. a selfanalysis first solitude solution potentially with people because at the end of the day we are social creatures. We should follow [music] his example and run to our problems. In solitude we are closest to ourselves and we can confront all that we know. We can sort the important from the unimportant. We can understand the world around us in ways completely impossible within the confines of systems and social dynamics. In solitude, all we have [music] is our problems.

[00:25:36]Certainly, this worked pretty well for Henry David Thorough. As he was dying at just 44 years old, Theorough said, >> "Wow, >> I suppose that I have not [music] many months to live, but of course, I know nothing about it. I may add that I am enjoying existence as much as ever [music] and regret nothing."

[00:25:56]Bro, see, like I don't want to die at 44, but like that's the type of we were just talking at the other video of like I would love to be able to be on my deathbed satisfied with my life and and die peacefully, you know, not in like fear, struggle, regret, depression, you know, like or anxiety like this is Oh my god. God. Like that's literally the the goal. That is the goal in life to be like on your deathbed just being like, "Yeah, you know, I've done everything I want to do. I'm fine."

[00:26:39]>> In the private sense, I think Theorough's insights are invaluable.

[00:26:43]Taking individual action can radically transform one's >> train is about this. Is that a movie?

[00:26:48]>> But Theorough's meditations represent a conflict. a conflict of humanity versus itself.

[00:27:01]Martin Haidiger was a German philosopher who has emerged as a rightfully divisive figure. We can discuss that momentarily.

[00:27:09]For now, we will focus on an essay he wrote called the question concerning technology. Here we must first define technology. Haidiger does not say technology to mean just electrics, computers or circuitry, but instead it is any object or system which forces the manipulation of the natural world. A factory is technology. A road is technology. A business is itself technology.

[00:27:35]In his essay, Haidiger investigates what he calls >> so almost anything that's humanmade is technology.

[00:27:41]>> The essence of technology.

[00:27:44]The essence of technology is that which it truly is. A tree can have green leaves and brown bark, but that doesn't make it a tree. Plenty of trees do not have these things. So, what makes a tree a [music] tree? Likewise, Haidiger says we must find what technology truly is aside from its various configurations and incarnations.

[00:28:08]Haidiger argues that [music] in this conversation, humans have a fundamental misunder. I can't get past that [ __ ] tree analogy. I feel like I did not like that. He's like, "Well, what makes a tree a tree?" I There's like there is a categorization of what makes a tree a tree. Like there is an answer to that.

[00:28:25]It's not like, "Oh, there has to be like deep analysis like that. That's a real like there's science that shows that like plenty of trees do not essence of technology is that but that doesn't make it a tree. Plenty of trees do not have these things. Soal understanding people generally believe that technology [music] is two things an instrument of human activity and a means to an [music] end. But neither of these have proven to be true in practice.

[00:28:56]Technology is not an instrument. It is not a tool that humanity wields. If all technology fails tomorrow, humanity would very likely collapse. [music] This is just not how a tool works.

[00:29:09]humanity or society like humans would still exist many people would die but like society it's what society is what would collapse rather technology is a condition an event in which humanity exists and because of this event we have rearranged our entire world >> hold upology is a condition an event in which humanity exists and because of this event we have rearranged our entire world.

[00:29:42]A tree is no longer a tree but a resource. It is a [music] thing we can use to fuel technology to create books and newspapers and >> yeah it's like an age we live in. We're in the age of technology because you don't view Wow. You really don't view a tree just as a plant. It's like the tree itself is a means to an end. Wouldn't the tree itself as a resource be some form of techn like everything in that sense would be technology >> timber and houses metals found within the earth are no >> it's like a way of thinking >> no longer metals they are to a resource the same can be said for any naturally occurring material on earth today the question always seems to be >> playing Minecraft on adventure mode is just experiencing playing Minecraft in any other sense is living in technology.

[00:30:38]>> What is this used for?

[00:30:39]>> There it is.

[00:30:40]>> Or not what is this? So these natural things now exist like Haidiger says as part of a global supply closet.

[00:30:51]This doesn't stop at plants or animals.

[00:30:54]It extends to humans. You yourself are a resource for technology. The market does not see you as a human with thoughts or feelings or imagination or much of anything besides the potential to fuel some other piece of technology within the modern marketplace. Your utility.

[00:31:11]>> Yeah, humans view each other as that. I mean, that's literally what marketing is. Like humans are a product in that sense >> is to be some part of a supply chain, a resource no different than trees or rare earth metals.

[00:31:24]>> Wow. So like Theorough also suggested, technology pulls us farther and farther from reality. We ourselves are distorted into resources, surrounded by these other Yeah. surrounded by other things that are also considered resources themselves. It's like we're kind of like hardlocking humanity into this like endless cause and effect that's like digging our hole deeper and deeper and snowballing us more into this like technology society because everyone is seen as some sort of product or means to another end technologically like even if you're a factory worker or the manager or the boss or the CEO you're still serving the system. Is anyone not serving the system >> in this way?

[00:32:14]>> [ __ ] that live in the middle of nowhere alone.

[00:32:18]Dead ass. Literally people that don't pay taxes in any way and are just a part of like existing like even billionaires are still serving the system >> is us too ignorant.

[00:32:30]>> They exist because soci society made them. society created them which is you know fractionally affected by every human as a whole but it's like it's society that put these people in these places right people on the top are still a part of the system they're not they're on the ladder you know they're on the ladder even if you're on the top you might own the ladder in a business sense you're still on it >> don't know what we really >> if you're on the ladder you're [ __ ] part of it they created the system they didn't cuz the people I mean you could maybe say humans at the top, but the people at the top today did not create the system that we're currently a part of. They may have affected it, but the reason they're in that position is because people before they even existed, the system itself put them there.

[00:33:18]>> Generations, we don't just not know what it means to be human, but we entirely forget that there is even a concept of being human outside of existence as a resource.

[00:33:30]>> Wow. So again, we become ignorant of our own ignorance.

[00:33:36]Technology is not really a means to an end either. It is not a wire that eventually turns on some light bulb. No, it is a circuit, a closed loop. I have found this demonstrated explicitly in the confines of the city. When the American city was constructed, it was done so along a rational, quantifiable set of data. The city will provide an economic boon to the country, perhaps even the world. In the city, we will produce more money, more buildings, and more people. The city is progress.

[00:34:10]But like the progress towards nothing, though, what are we progressing towards?

[00:34:14]It's just endless growth. Maybe in the ends to just serve human desires and their own freedoms or just advancement as a species like fueling curiosity.

[00:34:25]when Haidiger would have suggested that progress is not free.

[00:34:29]>> Progressing towards a utopia. We are not progressing towards a utopia.

[00:34:34]We are not progressing towards a utopia.

[00:34:36]Is that like the ideal? Yeah, if you're watching [ __ ] Plato's Republic, but like that's not what's happening.

[00:34:45]>> The city demands things of its residents towards a utopia. You could maybe think that if you were like alive in like the 70s or something, but like today it's like we're regressing even further back.

[00:34:57]I mean, dude, like the gap in wealth and capacity, freedom that people have is more on a social setting, but less in a fiscal setting. Like people are broke, man, comparable to the people at the top. Like more than ever, >> the city needs people to work and create its material and its economic output. So >> it's like socially maybe I guess you could say that we've had progress. Yes.

[00:35:21]Because like, you know, slavery doesn't exist anymore and there's rights for, you know, LGBTQ people and, you know, women are able to vote. And you could say like in that sense like we've progressed, but like economically the the dystopia is rising.

[00:35:38]>> Civilians >> in the US at least. I'm not saying other countries. Other countries function as their own many societies >> are bossed around and bullied throughout the metropolitan area, not necessarily by any individual, but instead by the city itself. The city demands, "Put aside what dreams or plans you have for your days. The market needs you.

[00:35:57]Progress needs you. You must wake up at 7:00 a.m. because the train comes at 8:00 a.m. And you must be at the station when the city says. because the shop must open because people must buy things and pay taxes and produce market prosperity for the city. In a circular sort of conclusion, your reward for doing as the city dictates is [music] continued employment. You must keep catching the 8:00 a.m. train. On the other hand, there is the man dying in the subway with his rotting leg. At some point in his past, he could not catch the 8 a.m. train. And so, the city has no reason now to help him catch that 8 a.m. train. Ultimately, for as much opportunity as cities promise, they are quite the system only serves you if you serve the system. It's like being stuck in a cyclical loop. We're in a we're in a system today like as an example where uh you can as a rich person evade taxes in a more efficient way than people below you. So you're constantly able to do so and [ __ ] people over at the bottom. But if you don't do it, you're an idiot because then you're not like you're you're you're shooting yourself in the foot, right? Like this guy in just like a different setting. It's like you have to be a part of it, you have to serve it or to gain anything from it, you have to be a part of it.

[00:37:19]>> Effective traps such as the >> I feel like I just said nothing.

[00:37:24]>> Nature of technological progress. We drill for oil to build more things. But now we have more things, so we must drill for more oil. The factory worker builds wrenches, right?

[00:37:36]>> That's called something like the inflation of goods. Like even if you're able to find any more like say we come up with a technology that reduces the cost of something right instead of it just being cheaper and more accessible.

[00:37:50]What we end up doing is just ramping up the goods and the value of that item. So you might make more factories to make more of them, right? Which reduces the cost. But when you reduce the cost now you need more coal. So you're going to constantly start mining more coal to fuel the more factories you have. So the price is always going to stay high because if you're able to lower it, you just expand. You grow more, you expand, you grow more, you find a solution, you expand. It's just a constant loop of like, "Oh, wait. I found a [ __ ] cheaper energy source." Instead of like energy just being cheaper, we're going to create more things that need energy.

[00:38:25]So energy is now still the same price that it always was. That is going to be that's just humanity. Like society does that. If you go, "Oh, we could actually save money doing this." We go, "Oh, let's [ __ ] open another one. Let's start like, oh, now we have more money to [ __ ] do it." And then it stays the same price >> which are used to maintain.

[00:38:44]>> So scamming, it's not scamming. It's like highcale inflation industrialization. Yes, AJ.

[00:38:50]>> But it's like it's not just industrialization. Like that's just an error of growth itself. But now we're stuck in like this industrial age.

[00:38:57]>> Factory. The robot builds robots.

[00:39:01]Progress produces itself but then requires itself and so it must consume itself again and again. Today we are so dependent on technology that we cannot really let this loop stop.

[00:39:16]So we dedicate ourselves as resources to keep it going. But in doing so we have relinquished control of the circuit. We cannot turn it on and off. We are now just in the circuit.

[00:39:36]Any conversation of Haidiger should and will include one thing. In 1933 he joined the Nazi party >> and we've ruined it.

[00:39:46]>> Later he resigned and later called >> called the decision to join the greatest stupidity of his life. Today, discussions surrounding Haidiger often ignore his ideas and instead focus on this decision and its implications on his work. Academics comb through.

[00:40:02]>> I mean, he could still make a valid point and be wrong in other things that he's done. It's like even even I mean, it's smaller scale than being a [ __ ] Nazi, but like [ __ ] Aristotle is sexist as [ __ ] his writing is so wrong when he talks about women and just like other like because he lived in a time where just women were looked down on greatly. So he'll say like there's imbalances in love between a man and his wife and the wife has to love the man more than the man loves his wife. It's like that doesn't exist anymore, right?

[00:40:37]Obviously that's not on the same level as being, you know, an anti-semitic Nazi, but in the same sense it's like his individual point could still be correct. You could agree with somebody that's you could agree with somebody on a point that had that has idiot ass [ __ ] takes and horrible atrocities on the other sense, right? It's not even the argument of like, oh, separate the art from the artist. It's like, okay, this is just a valid point that you're making. The other [ __ ] is not in the same bubble this topic hundreds of times per year, aimlessly and without any unique purpose or conclusion. And so Haidiger's work has likewise been transmuted into a resource not for grappling with technology or changing human direction but instead a resource for a bloated industrialized ostensibly [music] free market academia.

[00:41:29]And so we will not engage in that road.

[00:41:31]We will just say that Haidiger's work must be approached with caution in two [music] directions. caution that we consider it within its context and caution that we do not ignore it because of this context. As the years go by and as progress continues, I tend to think his writing relevant.

[00:41:57]There has been a rigor of scientific studies that show higher incidences of mental anguish within metropolitan [music] cities rather than more rural areas. Mental illnesses have also risen alongside industrialized society and our collective obsession with technological progress. If >> well because I think there's certain aspects of big city living that separate you from the natural world too much.

[00:42:24]Like I think we are naturally civilized and society based creatures because that fuels our capability to reproduce, but we still can't detach ourselves from what our bodies were effectively made for to like live in nature, you know, at the end of the day. Like that actually changes people's mental health. Like living in a [ __ ] skyscraper city full of concrete and no trees is inherently pretty [ __ ] depressing. Like it's not great. If these correlations are significant in a determining way, I don't really know. That is a conclusion to be reached by more qualified individuals.

[00:43:03]I can only say that I have reached other conclusions.

[00:43:13]Capitalism or whatever version of it we live under now pits the private economy against the public economy. Your choices, food, shelter, clothing, hobbies are dictated by the needs of the market and your capability within it.

[00:43:30]Collective action is important and public reform is most desirable. But it would be a great tragedy to spend one's entire life working for a better world while one's own backyard remains a mess.

[00:43:44]I think that a retreat partial or entire from >> I mean that just also boils down to a level of like you got to watch out for yourself first and foremost.

[00:43:55]>> Metropolitan [music] life m >> like it's not selfish to care about yourself. You know it's selfish to be a selfish a selfish person right but that's a different categorization >> multiplies our possibilities within the capitalist landscape. This withdrawal allows us to become more free of the world's impositions and the [music] market's desires.

[00:44:17]>> Holy utter hang.

[00:44:18]>> In doing so, our eyes are open to new modalities of life, new forms of happiness which are not based on the arbitrary judgments or clumsy feelings of other people.

[00:44:31]There's some great irony in all of this which is not lost on me. I sit here writing [music] this perched on the glamorous forwardmost part of human technological achievement, the internet, the computer. How can I reconcile this [music] massive inconsistency?

[00:44:49]My honest answer is that I don't really have an answer. I don't know everything.

[00:44:55]And this is one of the many things that I do not know.

[00:45:00]All that I can do, maybe all that I want to do is >> side note, I'm listening. I'm listening, chat. And I think he's spitting facts. I think it's going back to what I'm saying where there's a trade-off. You know, there still are good things that come out of society. Do you not see a man with an afro and a long beard here? Or am I [ __ ] crazy? This is his chin.

[00:45:20]This is his mouth. Eyes, eyebrows, afro.

[00:45:24]Boom. Beard poking out to the chin.

[00:45:28]I'm seeing this perfectly, Chad. I'm seeing this perfectly. If you see, you see it.

[00:45:34]>> This express myself.

[00:45:35]>> Yeah. Kind of looks like Bob Ross. Try to improve myself within the world as it exists and have some hope that I will come out better for [music] the effort.

[00:45:47]If we feel hopeless, as I often do within this storm of modernity, we can again examine a Theorovian approach.

[00:45:56]Hope is something that comes from within [music] and it can resist oppressive forces around us. If we are strong enough, it may also be something permanent. Walden Thorough wrote that we must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves [music] awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation [music] of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep.

[00:46:22]Modern life has lulled us into a sleep with its material demands, money, houses, cars, power. But we should keep hope, always have hope. No matter how hard we lean on material [music] pleasures, how deeply we sleep in this way, we should always know that we can one day wake up, that the dawn will be there, waiting [music] just for us.

[00:46:49]>> [sighs] >> That was cinema, man. That was a [ __ ] great YouTube video.

[00:46:55]Well, this was two years ago. Horses.

[00:46:57][ __ ] sub to them. Jesus. Well, this wasn't about birds. Yeah, the title had nothing to [ __ ] do with the video.

[00:47:04]Birds do not sing in caves. What? This was not about birds nor caves. I don't think a bird or a cave was mentioned once in the entirety of that video.

[00:47:14]Well, chat, we're gone now.

[00:47:18]Little [ __ ] a couple [music] with some