Capitalism Is Making People Dumber (feat Maya Adkisson)

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]Hi Mark, you are on the line. What would you like to talk about today?

[00:00:04]>> I I hate to break it to you. I'm gonna talk about education as well. I do apologize, but it looks like >> I hate talking about that.

[00:00:12]>> Right. Right. So, one of the things while you're speaking and and something I've thought of before and I want to give a big like I love Maya. So, it's it's fantastic to see you on there. It's so good and and good to meet you Shannon as well. Yeah, you're just for your side. Yeah, I'm here for Maya.

[00:00:25]Absolutely. Um, look, >> I 100% endorse that.

[00:00:30]>> No. Yeah, Mark. We've been on each other's channels more than once.

[00:00:35]>> Oh, cool.

[00:00:35]>> Absolutely.

[00:00:38]>> A pleasure to meet you. Um, so one of the things that's been going around my head a lot, and it's not just sort of the the sort of literacy rate of the the US, which I believe is below the world average kind of thing. I think it's about 130 something um out of countries.

[00:00:54]It's also that um the cost of education and even as something that I've I've experienced myself like you go to you know somebody says hey there's a paper on this you go to read it and there's pay wall right so um yeah >> the commodification of of education and knowledge in general it's more the commodification of knowledge that um the more money you have or the more you can spend the the more knowledge you actually have access to and it it certainly has concern concerned me um after coming out of university, I can access way less information now. Um so um I want I want to get your thoughts on it and um is is the uh privatization of the education system a good thing? Do you think that what's the what's the um where are we headed towards in this?

[00:01:44]Like what what do you think the outcome will be when we commodify having knowledge and the the um the the gap between the rich and the poor is just getting larger and larger.

[00:01:59]>> I think we're reaping the first stages of that now. Late stage capitalism is rearing its ugly head currently and it's education is something that is a privilege that is only afforded a few and the less educated the populace is the more likely they are to be influenced and indoctrinated and I think I think the same thing about the commodification of media like it used to be the time it used to be a time when news was something >> like that had some integrity and now because it's it's about making money and it's also about pandering and framing in rhetorical strategies that specifically speak to like either left or right because that is your like base of consumers that you want to watch your shows so that they will >> spend money on that show or watch those commercials so that you can make money.

[00:02:58]it whereas people just having the straight news like in an unbiased fashion isn't something that we as a culture rally behind. So it's led towards this shift.

[00:03:13]But I don't think that in a capitalist society there's going to be anything different than this because if you're allowing the markets to determine >> um things like education like universities require funding in order to run because they need to be able to pay professors, they need to be able to pay faculty and staff. um it becomes a business >> and since it's a business >> they're they're going to you know obviously charge an entry fee unless we do some sort of like reg serious regulation that allows education to be free.

[00:03:49]Wouldn't that be nice? Wouldn't that be nice if we just allowed free?

[00:03:56]>> No. Um I >> I was thinking of so if if capital determines knowledge, how do you get the knowledge of this happening? if capital is going to actively or or capitalism and and the the use of private um uh media is going to actively work against that because even if media is sort of more left or against conservatism, it's still not going to promote um the the um negatives of capitalism in in the media.

[00:04:30]It's going to promote the the virtues of it. So it seems to be a cyclical thing to me.

[00:04:39]>> Yeah. I mean I don't disagree. I don't I don't I think late latest late stage capitalism is ruining society personally. I mean I'll let I'll let Maya speak. Sorry. Ma, you were say saying you were thinking about something. Oh, >> sorry. Think no. I mean you're you're fine. I mean I think you're um you know when you I think Mark was talking about like the privatization of everything and um you were talking about latest stage capitalism. That's immediately what came to my head. It it it's really hard to get education once you're out of school. Everything is behind a payw wall. And I was >> talking I can't even remember who I was talking to, but it was a bunch of scientists and we were talking about um h getting information out to people so that they wouldn't make um conspiracy theories about things. But all of the peer-reviewed um papers are hidden behind pay walls.

[00:05:36]And I mean they're also kind of hidden well the actual uh so if you give me a paper then I'm going to write down my things and then that's going to be um that's going to be blind like nobody's able to see that and it gets compiled. I mean it's different depending on genre but nobody gets to see that which is >> also um unfortunate because then we don't have access to like how did you get here?

[00:06:15]We're just, you know, trusting that, oh, well, it was peer reviewed and we said no and, you know, that's that. Um, without the how do how did we get here?

[00:06:26]Um, which is also, um, kind of concerning. We need to figure out ways to make things, I mean, even for the peer-reviewed journals, you know, all >> kind of system.

[00:06:39]>> Yeah. more transparent because most of the most of the science um articles I am able to find you know come from pop science articles. It's not actual journal articles. Those are really hard to find.

[00:06:54]>> Um and you have to look specifically for them.

[00:06:57]Um, >> and there's problems with pop science interpretation of of of journals and and how they interpret it because they'll say, "Hey, you know, we've we've, you know, cured cancer." And that's not what the actual journal says. You know, it says that this may have an effect upon, you know, sort of thing. So, um, there's a problem there with with hyper sensationalism of of science. Um, so, um, yeah, now that I've asked my question, I feel like I'm just asking you guys to solve capitalism now that I'm now that I ask it. So, I do apologize. I'm all over it.

[00:07:29]>> No, no. And I thank you. I thank you for bringing that point up. I really do.

[00:07:34]Thank you for bringing that point up because I don't think a lot of people realize just again, if you're not in a science, you don't understand the difference between what a scientific journal looks like versus um, what you're reading. when I'm reading, you know, a pop science article, I can generally tell that this is somebody's interpretation because I've read so many science articles. But if you've never done that, you may think, well, this is the science art. In fact, I know people think that because people like to send me them to prove their point often. And um then I have to kind of read through the journal and or read through the article, figure out what the journal is, go to that journal, and >> it's like, no, there's nuance in here.

[00:08:19]Um they're they're trying to dub it down to bring science to and I'm not against that at all.

[00:08:24]>> But >> yeah, >> we're not preparing people for the world that they live in. And that's kind of my greater issue.

[00:08:34]Yeah. And misinformation isn't all of >> Well, I I just think that if you if you want to sort of um deter people from doing something, usually you'll put a tax on it, right? So, if you want to stop people from drinking alcohol, you'll put a tax on the alcohol. Or if you want to stop people from smoking, you put a tax on the smoking. And I feel like we're sort of in in a situation where they're sort of putting a tax on knowledge. So of course that's going to deter people from getting knowledge because if if you know it's costing them and there's >> it's you know financially life's hard enough as it is you you will not spend more to get that knowledge. Um I I would like to live in a world where we don't have to spend money like the knowledge is open and free but um you know I don't I don't see a path to that world currently.

[00:09:27]I don't think that there should be any privatization of things that should be considered public amenities.

[00:09:32]>> Yeah.

[00:09:32]>> So like water, >> power, right?

[00:09:35]>> Like all like education, >> but like none of those things I think should be privatized. Like if if we live in a world >> where, you know, we're already paying taxes. Do you get the news? Yeah. Well, in Canada, we actually do have >> uh it's called the CBC. So, we have like a governmentf funed channel with governmentf funed news, but there's a huge right-wing swell to dismantle it, to just get rid of it because they say it's like a waste of taxpayers funds to have >> this public like cultural media like it it funds Canadians who like not just news but like who do actual, you know, music and art and television shows and it's it's it's a great source to have that public culture. But there's a a huge right-wing swell now to just get rid of it because that's a waste of taxpayers funding. But I I think that that's the thing that >> tax you know what they're doing, right?

[00:10:38]>> Oh, yeah. uh they're try they're trying to get rid of unbiased news sources so that they can saturate the media with more um partisan news structures so that they can point to their news and and say well look at this is my like they're trying to get get that out of the way.

[00:10:54]That's I I absolutely agree with that.

[00:10:56]>> But like all that is to say that I think that that should be considered a public amenity. So should education. Like these are the types of things that we should have taxpayer funding go towards. Like stop bailing out banks and you know giving people that are drilling oil all of these subsidies and these tax breaks and take that money and use it to make better schools and have continuing education and make education free and like that that'll better society almost instantaneously.

[00:11:22]Everybody will be more educated.

[00:11:26]>> Like wouldn't you want a society where everybody's more educated? Like it seems like a no-brainer to me, but for whatever reason, I'm constantly up against people who are like, "No, education shouldn't be free. My taxes shouldn't go to that." Well, do you know what your taxes go to?

[00:11:39]>> Do you even know what your taxes go to?

[00:11:43]I don't think you actually have any idea. So much of it goes to corporations. It's wild.

[00:11:47]>> Right.

[00:11:47]>> It's insane.

[00:11:50]>> And in the US, so much goes to the military. And you know, I don't I don't see why, you know, that's entirely necessary to have a military sort of five times the rest of the entire rest of the world. I I don't see the, >> you know, but as somebody pointed out, there's an industrial military complex that's making money. So when when you say it's a waste, I think that, you know, they sort of say it's a waste, but really what they're talking about is in the short term it's not profitable. Like they're just looking at sort of next couple of quarters. that doesn't m turn a profit like privatized industries do.

[00:12:23]So I think they're sort of saying waste but they mean you know immediately profitable is what they actually mean.

[00:12:30]>> Well someone please think about the poor defense contractors.

[00:12:36]>> Oh yeah that's >> please please >> what will they do without that third yacht? Yeah.

[00:12:45]>> Yeah. So I think we solved capitalism. I think we're good. Education should now be free.

[00:12:49]Yep.

[00:12:51]Schools and um free education and you know free daycare, >> healthcare for all solve all the world's problems today.

[00:13:01]>> Utopia.

[00:13:01]>> Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

[00:13:04]>> Um and and thanks for talking about that and yeah, thanks for solving capitalism.

[00:13:08]Of course, you know, I couldn't have done it myself. Um so good to see you, Maya. Absolutely wonderful. Good to see you, Shannon. Thank you so much. And uh I'll I'll get off the line for somebody else.

[00:13:18]Nice to meet you, Mark. Have a good rest of your day.

[00:13:21]>> Thanks. Bye.

[00:13:22]>> You, too.

[00:13:23]>> Oh, I didn't mean to cut him off. It was self capitalism, eh? Look at us go.

[00:13:28]>> I know.

[00:13:28]>> Everybody was just waiting for us to come along.

[00:13:30]>> I know.

[00:13:31]>> We're finally here, everybody. Don't worry.

[00:13:34]>> I know.

[00:13:34]>> The problem is >> I know. I wish like I think about it a lot because I don't know if like like a communist type of solution is the answer because then that gives like another small group of people so much like unfettered power and I think that that will lead to like an inevitable corruption and like downfall but like at the very least we need significantly better regulated capitalism.

[00:13:59]>> Yeah.

[00:13:59]>> Than we have now. Like just allowing the markets to dictate everything is not going well.

[00:14:06]like it's just >> rich people owning everything. I mean, they can own things. I'm not saying they they can't, but personally, I feel like a government should be there for its people. You know, if if we're going to give you our money, we should get something back. Something at all, anything that helps all of us.

[00:14:31]Um, maybe it's just me. I don't know.

[00:14:36]Well, I think it's more than just you, but because of the way the political funding system works in most, you know, democratic societies, governments are just subsidiaries of large corporations via packs >> right now.

[00:14:48]>> Right now.

[00:14:49]>> So, >> and that's and I am fighting so hard like nobody I don't know. I feel like I'm the only one who's saying we need to get money out of I mean, I know I'm not the only one saying we need to get money out of politics, but I don't feel like enough people are taking that seriously.

[00:15:04]>> I know. Oh, it's wild to me. Like, you would think that it would just go without saying if for no other reason than it's a massive barrier to entry, too. Like, if you're willing to conduct yourself ethically and you do not come from like some form of nepotism or you have money for some reason, >> you're you're not even if you are the best person for the job, even going to have the opportunity >> to to contribute in that regard, >> right? Unless you can raise a boatload of money, in which case you have to court a bunch of people who are only going to give you money if you serve their interest once you get the position. Like that is just a matter of fact that you think they're just giving think corporations are just giving politicians money because they're like, "Oh, we just like the cut of this jib."

[00:15:47]No, they're hoping that it's going to be some sort of tit fortat thing that's going to serve their interests ultimately, which means the politics serve corporations because that's where the biggest injection of their money comes from. It's so obvious, it's ridiculous and people don't seem to want to do anything about it, >> right?

[00:16:04]>> Because we're all so distracted because people are getting us into these partisan fights with one another >> where we're factioned off and we're not paying attention to the man behind the curtain.

[00:16:15]No%.

[00:16:17]>> Come at me.

[00:16:19]>> Can't wait to read the comments. So, >> I don't read comments. All right.

[00:16:25]>> I would weigh in, but I think we still have summary of calls. So, I'm >> We do. We do.

[00:16:29]>> I could go two hours.

[00:16:32]>> I am such a junkie.

[00:16:34]>> We should be better friends. Maya should hang out more often, >> right? Shane is my best friend. You heard it first.

[00:16:41]Yeah, we are