So we are going to have a really long and rough couple of months ahead when it comes to COVID-19 and as bad as it is now it could get even worse. I mean we are seeing almost 200,000 new cases per day. We've surpassed 250,000 deaths in the United States due to COVID-19 and even though the virus is spreading more and more Americans are disregarding you know social distancing protocols. They are traveling in larger numbers for the holidays and when governors take action and issue more lockdown orders such as in Oregon residents are defying said orders and they're protesting outside of the governor's residence and on one hand you know it's easy to be angry at these folks for not wanting another lockdown but at the same time the federal government hasn't taken any action so governors they don't have the power of the purse that Congress has so without another federal stimulus if a governor locks down which is the right thing to do to mitigate the spread of the virus then you're just harming small businesses so is this really horrible situation that we find ourselves in where there's no federal money that states have to assist them with this lockdown but you have to lock down otherwise more people will catch the virus and die but yet more small businesses will go bankrupt people will suffer it's a disaster and we're not even thinking right now about what's gonna happen January 1st when the moratorium on evictions expires is Trump a lame duck president going to want to reissue that how many people are going to face eviction how many more people will go hungry before the holiday season like it's it's genuinely depressing to think about all of this and to make matters worse you know you have politicians like Congresswoman elect Marjorie Taylor Greene it responsibly posts selfies of herself bragging about how they're not wearing masks in Georgia we're still seeing the viral videos of Karen's getting kicked out of Costco's for refusing to wear masks and it just proves that people are incredibly selfish incredibly selfish and not only that that our government just doesn't care about us the United States government which is the richest country in the world responded to this pandemic as you'd expect a failed state to respond to it I mean think about how insane it is that with all of the economic ruin that this pandemic has caused Americans got one payment just one of $1200 they expect Americans to survive on that so it's gonna get worse it's going to get worse having said that though I do think that there is some room for optimism we are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel because we have two vaccines that are very effective and on top of that the University of Oxford found that AstraZeneca's vaccine is very effective at stopping someone from contracting COVID-19 and on top of that the FDA has authorized Regeneron's antibody cocktail for emergency use on high-risk patients with mild to moderate symptoms and the government is apparently subsidizing some of the treatment so that way there's no out-of-pocket costs I think that the devil is in the details there but you know it's getting worse but at the same time we're starting to see a glimmer of hope with regard to vaccines and therapeutics so the question is you know as it gets worse and we start to see you know a cure basically in the form of a vaccine how long is this gonna go on for I mean everyone has quarantine fatigue myself included nobody likes wearing masks we just begrudgingly do it because we we want to protect others so how long until things start to get back to normal and there is some encouraging news with regard to when we might start to see some normality again as the pandemic goes away but there's a lot of caveats so according to one vaccine expert it could be as early as may of next year that things could get back to normal meaning we could actually have a relatively normal summer so as the guardians Joanna Walters explains as the number of COVID-19 cases in the United States past 12 million the Trump administration's vaccine program advisor predicted that life in America could be back to normal around May of 2021 as immunization is set to begin the note of optimism came even as millions of Americans were expected to travel for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday this week and many appear to be ignoring warnings from health officials about furthering the spread of the infectious disease Monsef Slaoui chief scientific advisor of the government's operation warp speed vaccine development and distribution program which involves the military and the private sector as well as government health experts said that pending regulatory approval for the first vaccine means that first Americans could be vaccinated outside of clinical trial by mid December and Slaoui said that if the vaccination distribution and immunization plan goes well enough Americans should be vaccinated by May or something like that of 2021 to allow life to go back to normal the first application to the US government for vaccine approval was made on Friday by the pharmaceutical team of Pfizer and its partner bio and tech the food and drug administration regulatory body is scheduled to hold a key meeting on December 10th that could award the team emergency authorization for the vaccine by December 11th or 12th I'm hopeful the first people will be immunized across the United States in all states Slaoui told CNN State of the Union politics show on Sunday morning the administration plans to vaccinate 20 million people in December and another 30 million per month thereafter health care workers and the most vulnerable populations such as residents of nursing homes are expected to be the first in line Slaoui said that with the first vaccines the US pharmaceutical firm Moderna is expected to apply for regulatory authorization soon on its vaccine need to be given to at least 70% of the US population for true herd immunity to take place so if he's right and you know we could have 70% of the population vaccinated by May this is this is really good news I will admit though you know I'm not that optimistic and there's a million different caveats and when Dr. Fauci was asked about this timeline he was a little bit more skeptical because the next task that we're going to have as a country is getting people to take vaccines because as we know there's been increasing anti-vax sentiment in this country although when it comes to COVID-19 it doesn't seem to be as prevalent as normal vaccines and Gallup shows that support for a COVID-19 vaccination is that 58% meaning that 58% of Americans would take a vaccine and when you control for party affiliation unsurprisingly more Democrats would take the vaccine than Republicans so if it is the case that 58% of Americans in total take this vaccine you know when you factor in that as well as all of the people who have antibody responses generated from having COVID-19 we could be close to 70% to reach herd immunity but it's going to be tough to convince people because Joe Biden will be president and Trump supporters will be more conspiratorial and think that it's unsafe it's going to be I think a really huge struggle so I'm kind of more in line with what Dr. Fauci says and that it's probably a little bit too optimistic to think may is when things are going to return to normal but to me I take this as sometime in 2021 things will return to normal most likely now there's there's some reason to want Donald Trump to take credit for the vaccine at least some credit for the vaccine because if Donald Trump doesn't give it his stamp of approval will his supporters take it we need people to take the vaccine in order to have herd immunity in order to protect ourselves and the world from the virus so just getting people to take this vaccine is going to be tough in and of itself now the good news is that if a lot of people don't want to take it immediately you know others will have access to the vaccine assuming it's affordable or accessible at all who knows that's a different story for a different day or discussion for a different day I should say but I mean look we're gonna have to wait and see but you know there is I think cause for optimism there's a glimmer of hope we're starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel just a little bit but to get to that point where we see you know a more normal country and world again what we have to go through to get there is gonna be tough we still have to take precautions and I mean given how Americans have responded they're probably going to celebrate Thanksgiving a lot of people at least as if there isn't a pandemic which is worrisome because you know it's not like these celebrations you know will occur in a vacuum society doesn't exist in a vacuum so if you you know travel and you see your family and you contract COVID-19 you could give that to others your grocery store clerks and whatnot so it's just it's exhausting and this is just it's gonna take a long time but I think that if there's some cause for optimism we should try to hang on to that because it's gonna be a really really rough couple of months


Hello everyone. Welcome to the now 12-13 talk on Stage A on Burnout and your Meek computer. It is about to be given by Jessica Rose, technical manager at FutureLearn, host of the Pursuit podcast and running karaoke here at camp. But before we dive into this talk, just a brief little reminder that we could use more volunteers. You could be the awesome person up here having technical difficulties.  Please go to the website and sign up and volunteer and help make EFMF an absolutely incredible experience. Thank you so much. Good morning, love. Oh my. Hello. It is not even remotely morning. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm so excited to be here with you today.  I'm going to be talking to you about burnout while extremely burned out. So this is going to feel a little bit like bad performance art. This is going to feel a little bit like performance art. Just to get things started, I was going to introduce myself, even though I've gotten a fantastic intro from RMC. My name is Jessica Rose. I do get to manage some fantastic engineers over at FutureLearn. But I also travel and give talks and I do this podcast and I do this other stuff. I do too much all the time and everything is just fine. But some of you, especially some of you who came to this for that really hands on great stuff was like just because we're on a first name basis, you say, yes, that's great. You're going to talk about burnout. I've opted into this talk. But really, why are you bringing a talk about burnout to EMF? We're going to be making things and breaking things. Why should I care about my brain? I hope you care about your brain because it's part of you.  Your brain is this teeny, it's so small.   That weird thing that happened in middle school that wakes you up at three in the morning. That's your brain.     So I'm in technology, but I'm absolutely obsessed with cognitive psychology and cognitive psychology sort of became a thing in the 60s where people started studying the brain and studying the brain's processes as though they were computers. They say, wow, we've got these computers. They're so modern. They fill a room. They're the future. Let's look at our brains as though there are these computers. And there are two big concepts I want to talk to you about today. The first one should feel really familiar to most of us. Working memory is the cognitive psychology concept of sort of how much working memory we have. It's how big a hard drive you've got, but wet bag of meat terms. It's the space you've got to work with right now. Whereas cognitive load is how much of that working memory you've got taken up right now. And you might think, well, I'm not thinking about that much. I'm not doing that much now. I'm just watching a talk. The cool thing about cognitive load is it's not just the very conscious thoughts on your mind right now. It's that email in your inbox you've been ignoring. It's that brown letter from HMRC. It's that, oh my God, did I lock the door? Every single process running in the background fills up part of your cognitive load. And to make this more challenging, the amount of working memory you have changes all the time.  You might be ready to go. You say, wow, I have all of this glorious working memory to fill with processes. If you're my age and you were up drinking last night, maybe you were at the karaoke tent. Maybe we're still that little guy around noon today. But it's not just about how you feel right now. Age, impairment, injury, burnout can all change the amount of energy you have. So as this is an all ages show, I got to take all of the swears out of this talk. So I thought I would swap by drinking on stage instead. We're okay with the idea that this is sort of like the conceptual amount of that tiny beaker, right? We're a long way from home, most of us, right? Okay, I got to get back. I eventually have to get back. Sunday, Monday, I'm going to have to take a train back and, oh my God, I have to go to work. Oh, is that meeting still on? Oh my God, one of my reports needs a new computer. And it just goes and goes.  The really, really crappy thing about emptying your working memory is you don't get to just drink bubbles on stage. You need to clear these things. You need to get rid of stuff that you're thinking about. I want everyone here to not think about axolotls. Don't think about salamanders at all. Oh, everybody's fine, right? You've consciously willed yourself to clear that from your plate. Perfect. So we've talked about these two big cognitive psychology idea. We've got working memory and cognitive process. What's burnout? So occupational burnout has been a concept since the 70s. And occupational burnout is just exhaustion. It's both physical and mental exhaustion. And it's exhaustion that you get from doing too much. People find themselves burned out when they find themselves facing protracted, ongoing stress that they feel is inescapable. So it might not be that you're working very, very hard. I imagine all of you today are working very hard. Yes.  There's somebody at the back just going, no, I'm not going to comply. If that stress feels inescapable, if it feels like you can't get away from it, it can make things worse. Even if you're not working hard, if you're in a toxic environment, if you're in a toxic home environment, that's still stress that can contribute towards burnout. It's not just doing too much. It's doing too much that hurts you. The best thing about burnout, the most exciting thing about burnout, the most wonderful thing about burnout is it's absolutely terrible. It's symptoms mirror classical symptoms of depression. And as an added bonus, occupational burnout can trigger full bone depression, even in folks who don't have a history or propensity for it. For folks watching on the live stream, we just got to, I guess folks who are really into psychology going, yay. Or like folks who are not very into the human condition. So you say, yes, that's fantastic because we're on a first name basis. We've drank together. How do I know if I'm burned out? And we're all very cool. Most of us are adults. We're not going to raise our hands. Please look visibly distressed. And I understand that we all live in Britain. Most of us live in Britain. It's 2018. This has sort of become the standard. Maybe up that a little more. Look visibly upset. Instead of raising your hand something like this. If these points apply to you. Hey, my loves, my doves, my darlings, have you become cynical or critical at work? Like don't raise your hands for the folks on the live stream. There's somebody up in the front row jazz hands and get over there. Do you just drag yourself to work?  Have you become irritable or impatient with humans? Become like if you started that way, that's not on me. Do you lack the energy to be consistently productive? Like the people who wrote this, I got a little bit of suspicion because consistently productive sounds very sort of Horatio Alger work yourself out of debt kind of thing. But who lacks the energy to be consistently productive? You're not able to see yourself in your successes. Are you not able to feel good about the stuff that does get done? Oh, no. Do you feel disillusioned about your job? For folks on the live stream, that was a loud drawn out moan. Have you, my dear audience or my dear listener, have you been using booze, food, snacks, escapes to stop feeling or to feel something different? This live stream is gonna look so weird because there's tons of people just going, yeah, booze and food, or drugs as well, like you do you. Have your sleep habits or appetite markedly changed? Aside from camping? Are you troubled by unexplained headaches, back aches, insomnia? Some of this is just getting old, but like unrelated to age this stuff. Cool. So you've kept a very, very careful tally because I'm not counting for you. You say, Well, you know, Jess, I only got four of those. So I feel like I'm completely fine. I got some real exciting news. This survey was developed by the Mayo Clinic. And if you've answered one of these or more, you may be suffering from occupational burnout. We haven't miked the audience. So it's just gonna look like I'm just like really suspicious of y'all over here.  Good job. How do I fix it? The one thing I would warn is I am not a therapist. I'm not a doctor. And I'm especially not your doctor. I would have you drink and then sleep it off. In real life. I like officially not a doctor. Please, please, if you are suffering from anything that feels like this, immediately talk to your doctor, go and see your GP. We for those of you in the UK, like enjoy the NHS while we have it, go and speak to a medical professional. The one thing I would warn is that recovering from burnout is going to take a long time. I burned out spectacularly a year ago. And I'm still drinking and swearing on stage like give yourself the time and the patience to sort of ease into it. And I'm gonna break these two sets of tips down into two different things. So anybody here who here is burned out and you've got time and you could just afford to take a big chunk of time off work. Fab, I have no idea what to say to you people like, take some time off work, go, I don't know ride your horses or whatever rich people do like, I genuinely don't know what rich people do.  Like, it's not that I don't care. It's just that your problems aren't actually that bad. You got horses for God's sake, just go. If you're not super rich, and you can't take a huge chunk of time off work to recover. There are a couple little things you can do. If you can't stop doing that thing, if you can't leave your job, if you can't leave the family life that's hurting you, if you can't remove that inescapable stressor, let's look at small things you can do. Please do less in ways that aren't going to damage your life. I want you to do emotional energy triage. Oh, wow, I've got a list of all of these things to do that are destroying me. Which of these things can you put off? Or which of these things can you ignore without damaging your life? You probably got to pay rent. I bet you got to pay your taxes. Please eat food and please shower. But like outside of that, what can you just sort of push under the duvet for a little while? If you've got either the cash on hand, or the social capital, start outsourcing some of the stuff that exhausts you. Outsourcing doesn't just have to be something you do with cash.  To do all of the Christmas shopping and all of the holiday things. Just taking someone that you love, I hope, or who cares about you, I hope, and getting them to share the load a little bit more, redistributing some of that work can be an incredible way to sort of give yourself a little bit more emotional space. Everybody repeat after me and say no. Hey, can you do that thing? No. It feels... There's very clearly like a small pocket of glorious contrarians over here. Saying no is fantastic. A lot of people I see burn themselves out or become burned out. Whether or not we want a passive or active voice that. They do it because they're helping so many people. They're helping people do things. They're saying yes to other things. They're helping people and they're doing such a good job and it's wonderful and oh God if I say no, I'm going to be a bad person. What will they do without me? It's so good to help people.  You really need your meat computer to be, yeah, not on fire right now.  Yeah, you can't really do much for other people if you've destroyed yourself. Selectively emotionally invest. This is my favorite thing. I've only recently learned how to do it and it's like absolutely cracking the code to something glorious. And when I say selectively emotionally invest, I mean something really specific. But as we've already mentioned, this is an all ages talk. Does anybody know what mom swears are? Oh heck. So mom swears are when you really want to say the thing but you don't want to teach small people to say the thing. When I talk about selective emotional investment, I'm talking to you about sitting down and counting out how many hex. You've got left in your inventory. And those hex, they're yours. You only got somebody left. You're only going to pass them out when you genuinely care. If somebody comes up to you says, Hey, hey, Jess, we're all on first name basis. I've got this ridiculous thing and I need you to do it now. And it's got a lot of urgency. I'll say, Wow, that sounds like a terrible problem that I have no emotional connection to. I really hope that works out for you. And it ties right in there with saying, No, it feels really gross the first couple of times. But then as the last fragments of your soul slip away, it feels so good. Because you do have to be nice. If you want to outsource, if you want people to help you, you probably need to keep some of your social contacts going. So maybe don't say the, Wow, that sounds like your problem. Say it inside. Ask for help when you can. When you're burned out, it can feel like you're drowning. It can feel like there's nothing left for you to hold on to. Don't come to someone and say, Hi, here's the problem that is my whole life. Please. And thank you. Please fix it. That's not super actionable, but saying, Hey, I need a little bit more time at work. I need longer weekends. I need a break around the house. Selectively asking for help can really give you a little tiny bit more room if you don't have the cash and if you don't have the horses to take a proper rich person break. Recharge the whole point behind trying to recover from burnout is trying to give yourself a break from those intense, inescapable feelings of stress. If you're super into board game, is there board games here? Do you must today? Apparently those, those two people are board games. Read, go running, do the things that legitimately feel good to you. It'll feel like escapism at first, but you've earned yourself a little bit of an escape. I think one of the most important things here is to start to practice forgiveness specifically for yourself. When we talked about ways to detect burnout, one of the big ones was you're unable to see your own successes. Folks who get burned out, it feels like depression. It is often depression. You don't feel good about yourself. You're hurting yourself with more work. Everything's terrible. And it's an inescapable loop of me not swearing on stage. Hi, cute little kid. Get patient with yourself, forgive yourself. You're going to screw up, but you're caring a lot more about your mistakes than you usually would. Forgive yourself. It's okay. Statistically, everything's probably on an individual and small scale. Okay. Globally, that's not on you.  You're exhausted. You can't do the emotional energy of like helping other people and fixing their lives. But man, you're going to be burned out for a while. You're going to need some friends along the way. Try not to hurt yourself by lashing out at yourself. And try not to hurt other people. It's a really fantastic opportunity to look around you and see what people in your life maybe aren't contributing in positive ways. But the folks who are there, the folks who are helping, be good to them with the energy you do have. So for burnout, please, please, please, if you can, do less. Reduce whatever stressors you can. This is not an invitation for murder. This is not an arson thing. Dramatically reduce your stressors without doing crimes. And take the energy you have and invest that really selectively. So this talk has been an incredible downer so far.  You could break your brain. If you break it, it's broken a long time. But I want to stop for a second and tell you a short story and maybe suggest that being burned out can give you some magic powers. So for a really quick detour, I'm going to tell you about the weird magical superpowers I got from being extremely burned out. I get to give a lot of talks, strongly recommend talks. You can do essentially whatever you want. You can get them to bring you booze on stage, like please see me after class if you want to get into public speaking. But I was in an event last year when I was very burned out and I had a contact. Somebody I'd met once or twice came up and said, yes, how are you doing? Oh, wow, I didn't know you were pregnant.  I'd be like, oh my god, like, did I get fat? Is it this dress? Oh, man, should I not be on stage? What am I doing? But like, burn out Jess does not care about any of that.  Oh, all of you Britishers, you will love this. If somebody says something that is just beyond the pale, look at them with a completely neutral expression and stay quiet for at least three seconds. I didn't know you were pregnant. This kid doubled down. Like, because you can repeat that pause, it is devastating. Oh, no, I suppose it just happens with age, you know? And eventually this talk is going to get around and they're going to see this and they're just going to go, this talk is better with swears. My suggestion is that if you do wind up burned out, that glorious recovery zone gives you the incredible opportunity to get on stage if you're afraid of it, drink obnoxious fruity booze while doing something professional and just not giving the hex when you don't have them to pass out. Even if you are burned out, even if everything's terrible, even if it's going to be terrible for a while for a year, for however long it takes you to save up for those horses, I want you to be gloriously forgiving to your brain. Even when it's a little bit broken, it still loves you. Thank you very much. I've got time for a couple of questions from the audience, so I'm going to throw this blue cube back and hopefully it will work. It actually works. Mine's not a question but I'm going to give it to my friend after quickly for a question is just that I'm also past a part of the first stage. I've been with Saint John ambulance, I've been with Saint John ambulance for a while. I've been around mental health nurses and doctor for a while and even though I'm not qualified, I have a message from them is what first one is the fact that it is important to know that at least that we know of one out of four people in the whole world will go through some mental illness, most of them depression, even if they don't know it through their lives. So it's completely okay to be to recognize that you're depressed. It's not abnormal, you're not different from anyone, you're not it's not the end of the world. Everyone, almost everyone will go through it at a stage in their life. So it's very important to know that. I'm sorry it really got through me to learn that statistic so I thought I would share it. That's one and two it takes a lot of effort to recognize that something's wrong with you and rather than be proud it's like no I'm okay like you were saying it's actually are you proud of yourself when you're not okay and you go through a burnout or you're proud of yourself to recognize I have a problem and I went to work on it and I went to see my GP or some sort of mental health professional. There is no stigma about or there is a huge stigma about mental health and there shouldn't be because depression is a normal fact of life. So please, please please look after yourself. Thank you that was lovely. I have a question for you Jess. Oh I don't know where you are. I'm here. Oh hello. Hello. Do you consider complacency a form of depression and if yes how would you suggest a reasonable alternative to it? Like I feel like I'm gonna stay with this bottle come and get me in a little while like I'm going to need to ponder a bit. Maybe. Hard maybe. Sorry. So I think we've got time for one more. Usually the questions I get after this I can just answer by like see your doctor everything's terrible but these are all like weirdly deep. I wonder if you have any advice for detecting burnout in others people you interact with socially or in employment and what you might do to mitigate that and try to help them. So this is fantastic like yeah just to repeat this in case the cute softbox is not picking up for the live feed. Oh I repeat nothing. So looking for burnout in other people especially if you're in a management role or especially if you're you're sort of in a leadership role in a community or in an organization is incredibly useful. So look for things like look for sort of representations of the points we touched out but sort of out loud so folks who don't seem to engage with their successes folks who are continually saying oh I'm oh I have no idea what I'm doing oh I for me one thing I really notice with other folks when they say they're burned out is I'll often hear people talk about I just need to get through X I just need to get through this project I just need to get through this next project I just need to get through this event I just need to get through this other thing when you see people continually talking about I just need to get through this one stretch of everything being terrible and my life will be okay like I think that's just how life works I think that can often be an early warning sign fabulous thank you all so much oh thank you everyone um and uh you can continue talking with Jess outside and uh remember emf is entirely put together by volunteers and so if you'd like to be part of making an amazing event like this happen go to the website sign up for volunteering there are lots of ways you can contribute and help


Note that Orban talks about the Western Christian civilization. For conservatives, the West is Christianity. And I'll just say, and I think I told the story of actually telling conservatives this years ago at a think tank in Washington DC, I consider Christianity to be one of the enemies of the West. The West is the abandonment of Christianity. The West is the turning its back on Christianity, the marginalization of Christianity, the depoliticization of Christianity, that is separation of church and state. The West is the secular. The West doesn't become the West until the Renaissance. And the Renaissance through today is a process of marginalizing religion, marginalizing Christianity. It is a process. Now, you'll see how he defines what this Western Christianity, what he considers the West to be in a second. So you'll be able to get a good grasp of ways coming from it. But notice that they want the West, they want to associate the West with themselves. But they indeed are the enemies of the West, they are anti-Western, they counter to the West. And in that sense, they are the enemy. Let me go back. It's more about our civilization. I mean, the Western Christian civilization. Now, the main division line is not according to ideologies. It's deeper. It has an anthropological character. So on one side, in Europe and probably in your country, but in Europe, definitely. There are groups of people who think that the most important thing of the world is their ego themselves, me. This is the center of the world. The other camp of the people, the other part of the society thinks that it's not true. Because there are certain things which are more important than me, than my ego. Family, nation, God. And because they are more important than me, I have to serve this higher level of things. So this society has a majority here in Hungary. And the other society, which is concentrating only me, you know, only dealing with myself, it's a more westernized, dominating factor of the political life. So he is a fascinating thing. He's absolutely right. The fundamental, the fundamental dividing line in the West, the fundamental dividing line in our civilization today, but it's more complicated than he sees it. It's more complicated than Michael Knows can believe it, is individualism versus collectivism. That is the fundamental divide. Individualism versus collectivism. And as much as I despise European liberalism, as much as I despise, you know, much of the American ruling class, people who, the culture in America, the West's spirit fundamentally is an individualistic spirit. Now, the challenge there is individualism has never been grounded in an objective morality. It's never been grounded in, okay, what do I do with myself now? What do I do with pursuing my own life? What do I do with my freedom, my rights? What do I do with my liberty? And as a consequence, individualism has been captured, this idea of individualism, it's not real individualism, has been captured by the left and being turned into subjectivism, emotionalism, and a different form of collectivism, a socialist collectivism, a collectivism of mother nature, a duty to the earth, and really become a kind of religion. So it is true that the left is not about family, nation, God, but it's completely untrue that the left is about the individual.  So the left has become victim, poor mother earth to replace family, nation, God, something like that. The right is family, nation, God. And indeed what he describes as this idea of me, myself, I'm the most important thing, that doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. It exists at a sense of life level. It exists at the level of day-to-day behavior.   So there is a sense in which there's a kind of an eye there, an ego there. But what they're missing, of course, is a morality of egos and what they're missing, of course, is reason-guided individualism, reason-guided self-interest, reason-guided ego. And in that sense, because they're missing ego, because they're missing reason, they're not really being egoist. It's a pseudo. So there are really three forces today in the West, geographically the West, in the United States and Europe, and to some extent these are in plays in other Westernized places like Japan and South Korea and other places, but not really. Culturally, those places are still followers and are leaders. It's still Western Europe and the United States that are the leaders. There are three elements today. There is the element of collectivistic right, family, nation, God. Duty. Duty, duty, duty, duty, ethics. Forget about yourself, don't think about yourself. Indeed, when you think about yourself, you're being bad. You're being evil. You're being captured by the devil. Family is the only unit that counts. We'll hear Knowles talk about this. And families put together, create tribes that create nations and all serve the ultimate authority which is God. You don't count. That is a message. Now, again, they can't actually live that. They don't live it. They can't actually hold that consistently. They don't hold it consistently. But that's the fundamental, as Orban said. There's something more important than you, family, nation, God. Then there is the collectivistic left that worships the victim and that idealizes mother nature, both the left and the right, both of these collectivistic groups live on a day-to-day basis as a practical life in pursuit of individual values, at least to some extent. The real alternative to both of these collectivistic visions is real individualism, is rational, long-term self-interest. And that they can't even conceive of. They can't think of that. That blows their mind. That's just not within the conservatives or the left's possibility. So insightful. One thing I really admire about Orban is he's a seriously intelligent, educated person who takes knowledge and learning and wisdom very seriously. And then applies it to destroying liberty and freedom in his own country, applies it to destroying the institutions that make liberty and freedom possible within his own country, applies it to a real destruction of free press, of really of free speech, a real destruction of vibrant individualistic society. So yes, he's well-educated, incredibly well-educated, as many authoritarians often are. He knows the stuff and he knows how to argue for it, as many authoritarians are. But Orban is, is, fundamentally. Orban is the most authoritarian political leader in the EU. Why they tolerate him in the EU? I don't know. The reason he stays in the EU, because as a nationalist, you would think he would want to leave the EU. He would want to Brexit the EU, right? Hungarian exit, something like that, is because Hungary is a poor country. It has very high inflation, for example, right now, because it's not on the euro. It has high inflation, and it is a poor country. And it is, it struggles economically. And the way Hungary survives, the way Hungary survives economically, is by leaching off of the EU, by leaching off of the Germans and the French and the others in the EU. So it's, you know, the real hypocrites, a massive award for these guys. The real hypocrites, on the one hand, nationalists condemning the EU. We want to be Hungarians. We want to be by ourselves. And then, of course, not leaving the EU, too afraid to leave the EU. Why? Because they depend on it, because they're basically parasites. And I know that seems really basic. You would hope that all your statesmen would do that, but they don't. They patently don't. And the other thing I like is he's not just some completely disconnected intellectual in an ivory tower somewhere. He's a guy in the rough and tumble of politics. But he takes these broad historical and philosophical questions very seriously. And he can simplify it. This is one of the signs that somebody knows what he's talking about, is when he can take a complex matter like this anthropological divide within Western civilization and distill it down in really simple terms. Here's the divide. People who think that I, me, my is the most important thing on Earth, and people who think that there are more important things than me. So Michael Knowles hates I, me, my. I, me, my is the devil. I, me, my is the enemy. There's much more important things, much more important things than you, than any one of you. Yeah. Simple enough, and it's so true. I think even if you caught the... What's fascinating, and you'll see this again later, he says it's so true, or it's so wrong, or it's so... Evidence, argument, something, nothing. Right? Just assertion. It's so true. And then later on, I and Randy, you'll say, she's wrong in everything. And what things? In what way? Architecture. She's wrong in architecture. In what way? Prove it. Show us. Why? How? No. Fact. Western liberals and liberal-leaning so-called conservatives, if you caught them in a moment of candor, maybe you got them after a couple of drinks, they would commit this. They would be proud of this. They would say, yes, of course. I exist to fulfill myself. I'm interested not in caring for my family and community and country. I'm interested in self-love. I need self-care, you know? It's just, I'm going to take care of me now. Kim Kardashian said this after her divorce. She said, in my 40s, I'm finally going to... I'm going to take care of myself. As though she'd... She was Mother Teresa before that, but now she's going to take care of herself. And it's not just the left. And I wish this were true. I wish people did that, but of course, I wish they were serious about it. And I wish they took guidance on how to do that. But isn't it at the end of the day all about taking care of yourself? Isn't that the purpose of life? Life? Whose life? It's the right. When we talk about life, whose life are we talking about?  Isn't the first thing you should be doing is taking care of your own life? Is living your own life? Is making the most of your own life? So he can caricature it.  But isn't that the reality that, including Michael Knowles, doesn't he have to take care of himself? Isn't he going to be better at anything else that he does if he takes care of himself? But isn't ultimately the purpose here to live the best life that you can? With the one opportunity that you have? Now, people don't know how to do that. And they need to be taught. And that's Iran's job, right? To teach them how to do that. To give them principles and guidance. That's what moral philosophers are for. That's what intellectuals should be doing. That's what Michael Knowles should be doing as a public intellectual. That's what I try to do a little bit here on the show, is to give some guidance. This is how you should live your life. This is what a good life means. This is what a good life leads to.  But no, Michael Knowles, because the individual fundamentally, fundamentally to his worldview does not matter. He has to ridicule it. He has to make fun of it. He has to demean it, diminish it. Because what matters is family, nation, God. You don't matter. It's the right under the influence of people like Ein Rand. People like Ein Rand. First mention of Ein Rand. Ein Rand's influence on the right of being self-interested. Yes, cool. I would say to come more seriously. The problem with the right is they don't take it seriously enough. The right under the influence of... He can't think of anybody else. That's really interesting, don't you think? That he can't think of anybody else who's influenced the right of being self-interested. It's Ein Rand, and that's it. A hyper-individualism. The right under the influence of libertarianism. Which says... Yeah, me. I mean, my greed is good. I'm just going to pursue my own interests. You leave me alone. You can't tell me what to do.  That's my freedom. That's my liberty. That's not the classical western understanding of liberty. That's not... That's right. It's not the classical western understanding of liberty because there was no proper understanding of freedom and liberty until suddenly the Enlightenment. Because the conception of liberty and freedom before that was liberty and freedom constrained by a God who created the box in which you function. And you only free in... as long as you behaved according to God's commandments. And it's only in the Enlightenment that people shrugged that off and said, no, freedom means freedom. Acting on my own judgment. Acting based on my own ideas. Acting on my own mind. Free of the coercion but also free of the guilt imposed on me primarily by the church. Which is coercive. Both psychologically... Well, you don't curse psychologically, but coercive physically and psychologically oppressive. Or else, this is a new conception of freedom. It's not the quote classical conception of Christianity because it is fundamentally a rejection of Christianity. Not the Christian understanding of liberty, but it is the modern liberal conception. It's exactly what Prime Minister Orban is talking about. And he says, look, that's a view. He's obviously criticizing it, but he's more just describing it. He's saying that is the dominant view in the West. But we have a different view. Right now, go to Metashare.com Now, notice something. Who do you think we have a better chance of actually convincing here?   At least the second person gets it in the right direction. And you now have to get them to think about guidance about morality about reason about what actually leads to a good life. But how are you ever going to get to Michael Knowles? How do you even argue with family, nation, God? He's rejected the individual completely. There is no basis on which to discuss. At least the so-called liberals he's describing are orient towards self, wrongly and ultimately collectivistically. But at least there's some orientation that now you can have a discussion about what does it mean to be oriented towards self? The way he's caricaturing, I just care about myself, self-fulfilling, happiness, okay? Yeah, me too. Let's talk about how you achieve that. And maybe there's a path to actually communicating with somebody like that once you get past the emotionalism and actually start talking about how do you achieve that self-fulfillment that you want? We have a different view which is much as I want to pursue my own individual interests much as I like myself Why? Why do you like yourself, Michael? Why do you want to pursue your self-interest? Much as I have certain desires, I recognize some things are more important, namely family country and God. Why?  Liberalism says the basic unit of society is the individual. Christianity and Aristotle and classical understandings of politics say that the basic unit of society is the family. I hate that he brings Aristotle in on the side of Christianity but the Christians have been doing that since Aquinas so they've been doing it for a long time so it can't blame him when it's been a what, a 700 year tradition. And it's the family because politics is public involves other people. It says that man is a political creature, the social animal. Okay? You also said man is a rational being. Difference. So Orban says starts with the family and then goes to love of country and the importance of nation. Why? I keep going back to why. Why is family the initial unit? Why can it be some other, if it's political why can it be a voluntary association of people? Why is it necessarily family and what do we mean by family? Just the close family unit, your children when they're adults does that still count? Does family count your cousins and extended family? Does family count your parents? What does family actually mean? And is it a political entity? Do we do politics in a family? Is that what we're actually doing? Right because that's an extension of the family is an extension of the Kinsfolk and the tribe and your patriotism is an extension of filial piety. So kinship is an extension of filial piety so this is why there's so anti-immigration, right? Because if a nation, right I mean it's family extended family is a tribe tribes come together to form a nation. And that's kind of organic from the family up. So when somebody comes in as an individual crosses a border and wants to enter your nation well wait a minute, you don't belong to any of the tribes you don't belong to any of the families out you go. So the whole orientation is tribal the whole orientation is collectivistic but again, why? Why is a tribe good? What about the individual within the tribe who doesn't like the tribe? What about the what is it about tribal history that recommends it so much? If you look at tribal history it's pretty brutal, pretty barbaric isn't it a fact that civilization is a product of abandoning tribalism quad tribalism? I mean if the founding fathers listen to nobles they would be horrified they wouldn't recognize him as an American intellectually they weren't tribalists they didn't believe family was the be all end all there's no family in the Declaration of Independence so where do you get this idea that it's all family and I can see once you accept family and then family is all important individual doesn't matter, family is all important then an extended family okay I see that that's kind of a tribe if we want a bigger political entity then we have to combine some tribes and form that I get all that and therefore it has to start with is the individual important isn't it perceptually the individual is all the really that exists intellectually we know that each one of us is an individual we are allied because of our own actions we are as individuals are the unit we might for families and then we extend ourselves to those families we might not we don't lose value because we don't because value is our value I mean where does value come from value to human for what the whole concept of value is an individualistic concept my values the things that I want to gain or keep the things that are important to me values don't come from the outside well they do and this is the fundamental philosophical issue they do once you accept the kind of a God that a Christian might accept they do once you accept a Christian God who dictates your values are external to you the values are outside of you your job if anything is to discover those values and somehow the Christians have decided family is all important it certainly is not in the Old Testament nobody cares about family in the Old Testament this polygamy and all kinds of shenanigans in the Old Testament but there's no real importance to family tribe maybe but not a family if you had to go in the Old Testament it's tribe nation God that's it and ultimately what this is ordered toward is God yes because some things are good and true and beautiful and we should want to and it all falls apart without God God is the key without God there's no answer to the why the family why the state the nation and of course the justification for all that is God God has told us God has revealed this to us but once you get rid of God the whole collectivistic pyramid falls apart and that's why they have to fight for it so hard they have to constantly religion is so important for them it's not trivial seek for those and some things are destructive and ugly and false and not conducive to our flourishing destructive to whom non-inducive to whose flourishing yes some things are clearly destructive to my flourishing clearly some things are bad for me there is good and there is evil for my life the standard is human life the standard is individual human life but that's not because God dictates it that's because that is the nature of reality some things are good for you some things are bad for you some things will kill you some things will allow you to flourish and be happy and be successful you want the things that allow you to be happy and successful because those are the same things that allow you to survive death does not allow you to pursue values death is a dead end but for him it's often the outside and why should I care about flourishing if the individual doesn't matter you should avoid those and yeah you should the name for truth for truth himself is God is Jesus and the name of truth is not just God it's Jesus I mean that is wild that is what what made Jesus truth truth I mean that is such a theological BS but Christianity is full of this Christianity is the most bizarre religion I'll do a show on this once I finish the book on Christendom just a bizarre religion I don't know that you can say it's Jesus separate from God isn't Jesus God and God Jesus and it's the trilogy is all one name for the highest good the sumum bonum in to use an older Latin phrase is God so that's what we're going to orient to all and how do we know that all of our political efforts toward really basic stuff and by the way what common denominator in what world does Michael and I have anything I mean anything in common in what world are we on the same side of the issue in what world are we trying to do the same thing when he just told you it's all about God you want to form alliances with this guy we're in the same big tent to fight the left no we're not he's just as evil as the left there's no difference I mean in many respects Orban I really like he's really humble about it because he'll say look we're a country of 10 million people we're not going to lead anything we're not going to be the dominant hegemonic power ever we're landlocked are you kidding me but because of the unique circumstances of Hungary it's got this weird language that nobody speaks it's a pretty coherent people the country's 1100 years old we've been able to preserve this thing and maybe we could look and learn some lessons because there's one statistic but what is it that Hungary has right are they happier than we are no if you ever be to Hungary are they richer than we are no do they innovate more than we do no do they have a great civilization that they built no what is it about Hungary that we should emulate listen to this stick that shows you how these ideas are playing out in society every single country in the west is dying is literally dying not having enough people to replace themselves and the birth rates generally continue to plummet one country has started to turn the birth rate problem around coincidentally it's the one that says I mean I is not the top priority family country and God is pretty simple stuff I'm not saying I we're going to skip that but I do want to make this show you this this is this is the since they care so much about birth rates so this is Hungary 1.56 Hungary is not a particular religious country but Hungary is subsidizing childbirth so if you have children you get a small subsidy notice that the Czech Republic a very liberal I'd say and very secular society society has higher birth rate than Hungary Poland which as a society is significantly more religious than Hungary the Polish are Catholic and they're you know Hungary don't go to church that much they don't consider themselves religious if you have the Hungarians on the street Polish much more religious and yet lower birth rates by the way the only western country in the world that actually has well above replacement it's not Hungary 1.56 is not particularly it's not anything to you know to be get excited about but the one country that does have a birth rates that are significantly higher is Israel now primarily because the religious the religious in Israel but not only secular Israelis as I've told you before having above replacement only country in the world secular society has above replacement so even by the measure of childbirth yeah I mean nothing particularly promising here and again you know their adoration of Hungary of the right today is so ridiculous could if they've at least have chosen a richer country a more successful country a more innovative country a more creative country a more civilized country they chose the backwater of Europe one of the backwaters of Europe in relatively speaking and they chose a country that is this poor they chose a country that depends on the country and they chose a country that is not as religious as they want to believe it is Oban talks more about religion to his Western audiences and he does to his local audiences because it resonates more with Michael Knowles and Tucker Carlson than it does with his own people what Hungary is this is true is it doesn't like immigrants and that's what really got Oban his popularity is his anti-immigration stance and that's what they really dislike


Well we're here at New Frontiers and I think this is a perfect opportunity to get some top tips for entrepreneurs working out of Wellington and how they can grow their companies and yeah I'd love to hear your thoughts. Great. So I have experience growing several businesses of my own, investing in several companies. I tend to invest in SaaS platforms and advise them. I guess my observations are when you're starting a business as an entrepreneur and you're focused on innovation and growing your business, sometimes it's easy to get a little too myopic or a little bit too focused on just the thing that you're good at and I think that if you're going to be successful growing and scaling a business, there are a few things in my opinion that you should never completely delegate. I'd say the first thing is probably leadership. You always want to be the one with the vision, telling the story, telling the story of how you got to where you are and telling the story of how you're going to get to where you're going, helping your team and your customers understand the events that are happening in the world, interpreting them for them so that they all make sense and particularly make sense in relationship to what you're trying to create for them. So never totally delegate leadership and visioning and I think it's a good idea to study the leadership and kind of management geniuses out there. Study people like Warren Benes and W. Edwards Deming and Peter Drucker and go back and read some of those books and get the foundations. Another thing I think you should never completely delegate is marketing.  Read the classics like David Ogleby's books and so forth. I also think that recruiting and hiring is an area you should never completely delegate. You want to be the one that's always attracting that next level of top talent. Steve Jobs reportedly all the way through growing his companies invested a lot of time personally recruiting those superstars. Go back and study Brad Smart, read the book top grading and really learn a lot about recruiting. How do you think the entrepreneurs and leaders of these companies can balance all of that? When they're driving their company forward and these key three things that they need to hold on to, how do they manage that? What are your tips? I'd recommend coffee. We have a lot of that in our community. I used to drink a lot of coffee when I was growing businesses. Yeah, balance. Growing a business is kind of like juggling, where you've heard like plate spinning, where you do something for a while and you get that part and then all of a sudden there's a constraint or a bottleneck or an opportunity and in growth mode you have to be very opportunistic I guess. I mean that in the positive sense. You're always looking for the areas of your business where a small little change can create a very magnified or geometric growth effect. I don't think that there's a way ... I can't say, okay, put 10% of your time into hiring and 10% of your time into market because you'll come into a phase.  You can get some feedback. If you're a five person business, it could be if you just hire that next amazing developer that could be the quantum leap or if you just can get a great designer on your team like that's going to change everything or if you can just get another distribution channel. You're always looking, you're kind of a growth opportunist looking for that place in the business where you can put that attention, that all precious, all powerful attention to get the most growth. Awesome. All right. Well, thank you very much for your time and enjoy the rest of New Frontiers.