The Art of Manliness - The Future Is Analog

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast

00:00:10.860 in 2016 david sacks wrote a book called revenge of the analog which made the case that even as

00:00:17.100 we march towards an ever more digital future we were increasingly returning to real tangible

00:00:21.400 things choosing vinyl records over streaming brick and mortar bookstores over amazon and

00:00:25.920 in-person conversations over skype in the intervening years the pandemic hit and david

00:00:30.660 argues truly reaffirmed his case which he lays out in his latest book the future is analog today on

00:00:36.300 the show david explains how the pandemic gave us a trial run of an entirely digital future and made

00:00:41.460 us realize we don't really want it or at least we don't want all of it we discuss the drawbacks that

00:00:46.380 came from going virtual with work school shopping socializing and religious worship and discuss how

00:00:51.820 we're not as smart when we don't use our embodied cognition how information is different from

00:00:55.480 education and why there are a few things quite as awful as a zoom cocktail party after the show's 0.99

00:01:00.700 over check out our show notes at aom.is slash futures analog all right david sacks welcome back to the

00:01:16.780 show it is a pleasure to be back here brad so we had you on back in 2017 that's a long time ago

00:01:23.140 to discuss your book the revenge of the analog where you highlighted these you know pockets in

00:01:28.860 our culture where people were intentionally choosing analog versions of things we now do

00:01:34.280 digitally so like people listening to the vinyl instead of streaming i guess now the thing is uh

00:01:39.640 cassette tapes are coming back too so that you probably could have talked about that i never

00:01:43.160 predicted that right i never i still astounds me yeah we got playing board games instead of video

00:01:48.880 games you know people going to independent bookstores etc in your new book same thing about

00:01:53.740 the analog but you make the case that the pandemic showed that the future is indeed analog why is that

00:02:00.680 i mean because didn't the pandemic show that we could move everything to to screens and to the to the cloud

00:02:06.040 well that was the promise right the promise of the digital future was that going forward

00:02:12.080 you know everything could be done through a computer through a screen or maybe a vr headset

00:02:18.460 which is like a screen that you strap to your eyes and for years that was kind of the the heart of the

00:02:23.980 sales pitch of every company pitching to a venture capitalist of you know companies getting up and

00:02:29.040 doing their best sort of steve jobs product demonstration the core of the sort of sci-fi singularity

00:02:36.280 technological futurism which really was kind of the heart of the way we thought about the future

00:02:41.840 that the future was going to be digital the amount of times i heard the term the future is going to

00:02:46.140 be digital the future is digital you know when i was out talking about the revenge of analog when i

00:02:50.140 was giving talks or doing interviews and people like well what do you mean that you know the revenge

00:02:53.880 of analog everything's digital now and everything's becoming more digital and i think what the pandemic

00:02:59.160 showed us was a preview a test drive if you will of that digital future right one day we were going

00:03:08.460 about our lives we were doing things on computer but we were also going to restaurants and our kids

00:03:11.660 were going to school and we were going into offices and seeing plays and you know doing all the things

00:03:17.740 that one does out in the real analog world and the next day you know march 15th 2020 everybody in the

00:03:24.540 world except people in new zealand are inside and they're conducting every single aspect of their life

00:03:29.580 through the screen so we actually got for at least a few months or even a few years depending on your

00:03:34.180 circumstances to test drive the digital future right and on the surface as you said it worked you can

00:03:44.020 work entirely remotely if your job isn't like you know surgery or construction or driving something you can

00:03:52.820 send your children or be a university student you know entirely for computer without ever stepping into a

00:03:58.560 school you can stream all the culture you want music plays dance theater improv you know you name it

00:04:07.360 just from your screen through various services you can be a good christian or good jew or good muslim

00:04:14.900 and attend all your rituals and do all the things you have to do through streaming services or through

00:04:20.580 various online platforms you can live in theory a full and complete life in the digital world in a

00:04:28.220 non-vr metaverse if you want to call it that and on the surface that will work but what did we

00:04:33.940 actually discover for the most part and for most people that had its limits and we came up against

00:04:40.760 those limits very quickly within like days of going into quarantine and lockdown you know that there

00:04:48.160 are certain aspects and many aspects of our analog life our life beyond the screen of of real face-to-face

00:04:56.420 relationships and physical spaces and the interaction with all of them in our bodies

00:05:02.800 that are irreplaceable and that the digital version of that is a far cry that that's no substitute and

00:05:11.320 no equivalent of the real deal so i mean at what point in the in the lockdown in the pandemic

00:05:18.740 did you realize this is not great because like for me i remember when it first happened it's kind of

00:05:22.540 exciting i think for a lot of people it's like oh this is new this is different uh don't they go

00:05:26.460 out this is kind of cool but then they reached a point where you're like oh geez when's this going

00:05:31.400 to be over was there a moment when you were like this is no longer this is not fun anymore

00:05:36.140 i would say you know four days into it for me i mean i think it was just you know there was a point

00:05:44.040 in one day where it was like every screen in this house i was in which is my mother-in-law's kind

00:05:50.040 of weekend house where we had gone to get more space was on like you know she has so many tvs it's

00:05:55.540 like an airport lounge every tv was on you know playing cartoons for the kids or you know someone

00:06:00.680 was doing exercise class in one or just like cnn on like a like a bad you know pizza takeout place

00:06:07.900 that just keeps the news on on silent you know everyone was on their phones and tablets you know

00:06:12.780 i was bouncing from zoom calls for work to zoom things for podcast interviews to promote another book

00:06:18.000 i had to typing things on microsoft word documents to you know trying to get my child onto google

00:06:23.740 classroom so her teacher could give her assignments that we then had to do on another computer while

00:06:27.080 my wife was coaching people downstairs and it was just like there was one day probably i don't know

00:06:31.600 you know within the first week where it's like five o'clock i finally come up for air and i realized

00:06:37.460 i've been staring at screens and everyone in the house has been staring at screens all day

00:06:40.860 and it's like we have to go out we have to take a walk and nobody wanted to no no no like the kids

00:06:45.520 were just ensconced in their screen my wife's working and i went out and i took a walk it was

00:06:49.300 rainy and cold and miserable and i all of a sudden for the first time the entire day i felt alive i was

00:06:55.400 out i was hearing birds it was like i don't know it was like it was like i was on like psychedelics

00:07:00.360 and like i had been like reborn to see this world outside of the screen and realize just how out of whack

00:07:07.080 that was and how i cannot live you know another day like this let alone the rest of my life that this

00:07:12.260 is no future i want a part of so in the book you break down the book into different aspects of

00:07:18.140 our lives and explore the downsides of moving that aspect into the digital world and you kind of use

00:07:24.600 the day of the week as sort of the organizing principle and monday you explore the world of work

00:07:30.440 for those who shifted to work from home what was the biggest problem of transitioning to remote work

00:07:35.960 what in your research and you that you did yeah i i think what we realized and what i even knew

00:07:42.320 is that there is a big difference between work in quotation marks which is seen as this kind of

00:07:50.320 measure of economic productivity based upon certain tasks you are paid to do and much of that can be done

00:07:56.980 online and if you're an information worker if you're someone whose work is done on computers already

00:08:00.900 basically and the broader world of work that folds around that right the relationships you have with

00:08:07.960 people you work with in an office the setting there the building the restaurants around it the place where

00:08:15.700 you work the environment that that's in all of that comes together to form something greater around

00:08:23.280 work that actually informs the work that you do so i talked to an interviewed gentleman a researcher in

00:08:30.700 new york his name is andres hofbrauer and he studied architecture studios and how they work and he said

00:08:36.920 during the pandemic a lot of the architects he had studied and talked to had noted that the work that

00:08:42.140 they were doing was quickly declining in quality that they were able to work on projects that they had

00:08:48.740 already been engaging in prior to going virtual but anything new was really difficult to get new ideas for

00:08:55.540 there was something missing and he talked about the process of embodied cognition embodied cognition

00:09:01.260 is the learning that we get the information we get from our surroundings so think about an

00:09:07.100 architecture studio right you have a bunch of desks you have an office you know it's in a tower it's in

00:09:11.260 a loft wherever it is you know they're all kind of the same you know beams and whatever and yet around

00:09:18.020 that are all these sort of different visual sensorial cues that an architect will pick up on in their day to

00:09:24.360 day right tile samples you know sheets of metal swabs of paint different renderings and photos and

00:09:32.780 clippings of ideas for a building or maybe different iterations of a design for a building for example

00:09:37.960 that plus the individuals whose different jobs are there you might have an engineer you might have an

00:09:43.480 urban planner you might have someone who's the lawyer you might have someone who deals with you know

00:09:47.340 interiors and facial materials all working together people who you bump into on your way to get coffee

00:09:53.540 on your way to the elevator and the five minutes before a meeting and you have conversations and

00:09:58.180 in those conversations many of the ideas and structures and pieces of that building are being

00:10:02.640 discussed or you're walking by on your way to go out for lunch and you see a drawing on someone's

00:10:09.420 desk you see a piece of a model you see something and so all of that builds this collective

00:10:14.760 understanding of work in an idea and that along with the different things like trust right human

00:10:20.920 relationships built not just on the tasks people do but on conversation on time spent together on

00:10:28.500 time spent talking about things that have nothing to do with work right and the understanding of

00:10:33.440 people's personalities and how they work and now you take all of that and you get rid of it and you

00:10:38.080 just have the tasks the work that someone does their deliverables or their things and all of that

00:10:45.240 communication embodied cognition is reduced down to what you can digitize and send through a flat piece

00:10:52.120 of glass on a platform like slack or google work or whatever right whatever it is teams i don't know

00:10:58.220 what it doesn't matter what whatever that thing is so you lose a lot of that information there and

00:11:02.840 information is inherently social and you know there were a lot of studies that came out very early in the

00:11:08.680 pandemic and they said you know oh well this is going to be great for productivity because people are

00:11:12.940 working more hours you know and they're being distracted less by time with the commute or you 0.99

00:11:19.040 know random office banter and chit chat and stupid little birthday cakes but you know there was a big 0.98

00:11:23.820 study that was done by microsoft corporation which actually led the way in many ways saying we're going 0.96

00:11:27.860 to do a lot of remote and it studied i think 60 000 people across all their divisions you know microsoft

00:11:33.580 linkedin xbox whatever and said like look we what we are seeing is a decline in communication amongst

00:11:41.900 different teams people talk to the exact people they have to talk to and no one else and over time

00:11:47.040 they forecast kind of an atrophying of creativity and productivity because things were increasingly

00:11:54.280 siloed and so you know it doesn't mean that everyone should go back to the office five days a week but it

00:12:01.000 certainly means that if you go entirely digital with your work there are sacrifices that can be made and

00:12:06.460 over the long term we're going to see the consequences of that which will be unfolding

00:12:10.080 as work becomes more atomized and it's just this notion of like here's the task and you do this task

00:12:17.160 here's the task and you do this task without all those other aspects that is actually what makes work

00:12:22.720 work okay so it sounds like there are times when working remotely works right when it's task-based

00:12:28.020 stuff like you're doing a spreadsheet i also think a lot of people they don't want to give up

00:12:32.100 working from home all together right they tried it during the pandemic and they figured man i really

00:12:36.680 like this i want to keep doing this but what your chapter on work is showing is that there are times

00:12:42.960 if you want to be creative and be productive with your creativity you really got to be in person

00:12:48.980 and what you talk about is that figuring this balance out it's going to be tricky because

00:12:56.100 first you know we have to redefine what productivity even means you know you talk about shifting away

00:13:01.580 from this industrial revolution mindset of you know productivity is numbers of hours worked to

00:13:08.980 something where it's more like you know what leads to creative output and you say this could take

00:13:14.160 this could take decades to figure out so it's it's going to take a long time but i mean i think the the

00:13:18.700 big takeaway is we lose that embodied cognition when we move everything to completely virtual i mean

00:13:25.740 i've noticed that in my own works a lot of my work is through a screen but sometimes there's things

00:13:30.000 where i have to get tactile with it right where i have to like you know you get a whiteboard and

00:13:33.780 you're doing stuff on a whiteboard and working things out or you're getting pen and paper and

00:13:37.160 working things out and what's interesting you know there's companies that have tried to digitize that

00:13:41.320 and i've used some of those services before where you can kind of create a digital whiteboard and

00:13:46.020 you know that but it's not the same it doesn't it doesn't grab i don't know it just it just seems

00:13:50.760 flat and i don't get anything out of it yeah i interviewed uh someone named jennifer kolstad who's the head

00:13:56.320 of interior design for ford's offices around the world and during 2020 2021 you know her and her team

00:14:05.740 were really trying to design and figure out what the future of the office was going to be

00:14:12.620 for ford the ford motor company right and they were using all these virtual tools and remote tools

00:14:19.220 miro and you know google docs and whatever to try to do it and they were just getting nowhere she said

00:14:24.940 it was like a sand trap you were just so focused on this thing and the different capabilities of

00:14:29.340 the tools and so what they did was they got everyone together in a in a detroit office boardroom

00:14:33.900 you know they had to wear masks everyone had to be vaccinated they had to sign like waivers that they

00:14:38.280 wouldn't sue them if they got sick and she said they got it done in three hours because it was just

00:14:42.080 a wall with whiteboard and drawing and people pinning things up that they printed out and it was like

00:14:47.480 it was it was she said it was just seeing that in the physical space changed everything and i think

00:14:53.040 that is that basic truth that i realized sitting at home trying to do everything remotely and i think

00:14:59.060 a lot of people did and it's something that we forget which is that we are we have bodies right

00:15:05.880 we are not screens you know we have not uploaded our brains as ray kurzweil and peter teal want us to do 0.95

00:15:12.180 and live in the cloud or zuckerberg and his you know headsets or whatever and his stupid avatars 0.87

00:15:17.900 like we are flesh and blood creatures we exist in the analog world as much as we might try to deny 0.96

00:15:22.840 that and when we remove that we're removing a lot of our capabilities we're removing a lot of our

00:15:28.480 intelligence in a way and the benefits of our evolution all right so it sounds like the future

00:15:33.820 of work we got to change our idea of productivity but then also don't downplay the importance of

00:15:38.220 analog like and that's going to be different for every person every company and totally we're

00:15:42.960 going to be figuring this out let's talk about school for you for decades you know we've been

00:15:48.460 hearing about the the promises of online digital school we need technology ed tech i remember when

00:15:53.760 i was a kid in the 80s and 90s it was all like we got to get computers in the school multimedia

00:15:58.580 multimedia in carta with cd-rom we finally got online school with the pandemic what do we learn about

00:16:06.380 digital school i mean this is you know if you can find me somewhere in the world someone who's like

00:16:14.980 you know what this was a tremendous success like if you could find someone who's like a student

00:16:20.920 or a teacher or a school and they're like you know what this is what we're doing we're moving our

00:16:26.240 entire school online this was such a success for the vast vast vast majority i'm talking 99.9 percent

00:16:32.440 of students teachers schools whether we're talking kindergarten to you know harvard grad school it was

00:16:38.100 a dismal failure and a real eye-opening cold water bath in the limits of digital learning and the

00:16:49.480 realities of what education is the difference between education and learning and information delivery

00:16:58.180 because again as you said for years we're going back to like thomas edison and his claim that we

00:17:04.760 wouldn't need schools because of you know phonographs and radio and and film that lectures would be

00:17:10.720 delivered that way and we would do away with these buildings even people selling encyclopedias you 0.92

00:17:14.620 know in the 19th and 18th century right up to sort of cd-roms and cartas as you wonderfully

00:17:19.700 reminded me you know nicholas negroponte and the one laptop per child we're going to have these

00:17:23.840 hand-cranked laptops we're going to drop them from planes to kids in africa so they can learn

00:17:27.620 right like there has been this this notion that schools are these horribly inefficient

00:17:35.460 institutions and they're ill-suited for teaching people the skills of the digital era and the

00:17:41.780 digital future and so if we can bring some efficiency to this and the secret sauce of silicon valley

00:17:47.160 and make it remote like think of what we can do you know a million young steve jobs as will bloom

00:17:52.760 and that was always false every experiment that was done in it you know sending giving every kid a

00:17:58.840 laptop in in public schools in in various southern states in different countries the mooc movement the

00:18:05.460 massive online open course movement by sebastian thurn a bunch of brilliant google engineers which

00:18:10.680 received billions of dollars in funding and tons of universities tried like all of them were failures

00:18:15.900 they resulted in worse learning worse scores you know the moocs pretty much every one of these large

00:18:21.860 online courses i mean they have like a 10 completion rate not even talking about learning not even talking

00:18:27.480 about outcomes only 10 of people will do all the classes in that thing that is i mean could you

00:18:33.520 imagine a school that had 10 attendance that's insane the information was always there and yet it

00:18:39.220 was this question of oh well we just need more people to do it we just need the technology to be better

00:18:43.700 so the technology was pretty great you had zoom you had google classroom you know these were platforms

00:18:48.680 and i saw it with my own children you know the teacher was there and they were able to put things

00:18:52.520 up on the screen they were able to send things out and everybody could post things like wasn't a

00:18:56.240 perfect technology but there's no such thing right and there was time to implement it it wasn't just

00:19:00.880 done for three weeks yeah it was chaotic at first but you know many schools like the kid the ones my

00:19:05.220 kids went to were closed for almost a year right so there was time for people to get used to learning

00:19:11.100 about that that thing and and do it and there was money right it wasn't just underfunded public schools

00:19:16.860 that were doing it in in poor countries it was the wealthiest countries in the world the wealthiest

00:19:21.140 private schools in the world and all of them sucked all of it failed every student pretty much was

00:19:27.480 miserable it was terrible there was learning loss there was a loss of comprehension but more than 0.68

00:19:33.240 anything there was this horrible experience of watching your children floundering in front of an ipad

00:19:42.580 day in day out when they all just wanted to go to school yeah and so it was great it was great no

00:19:50.060 yeah i mean it was a weird like i always tell my kids you know you have the weirdest experience with

00:19:55.920 school ever no one's ever had this like how old are your kids 12 and 9 so i tell them like this never

00:20:02.340 happened to me like never happened to your grandparents it didn't happen to your great

00:20:04.820 grandparents right where you just like you're not going to go to school for a year yeah and so i think

00:20:08.660 you know given that the situation was different we did okay with it but yeah i noticed with my kids

00:20:14.280 the teachers could only do so much the assignments they give were pretty like pretty easy it was like

00:20:19.700 draw a picture of a plant and it's like well that's it you know and i i mean i didn't i couldn't get

00:20:25.280 angry because like what else are you gonna do and then i also noticed my kids they were starting

00:20:28.980 to check out with some of the assignments but also there was they'd have times where the teachers

00:20:32.900 would schedule these zoom meetings where you can get together with all the kids and like do a story

00:20:37.040 time i thought it was interesting my kids did it at first but then after a while like i don't want

00:20:40.760 to do that anymore i don't like yeah this isn't real school i don't like the zoom meetings yeah

00:20:44.540 and so this gets to the core of this this thing that i talked about before which is the difference

00:20:49.240 between information and education right if i want to teach you to do something if i want to teach you

00:20:54.700 a skill arithmetic like you know basic you know multiplication i can teach that online you

00:21:01.260 know con academy great like go online you can find all these con academy videos how to do these

00:21:05.020 things but education is a deeper thing and there is a wonderful professor at stanford named larry cuban

00:21:10.780 that i interviewed for the last book and i i reached back to him again and i said what do we learn from

00:21:15.240 this and he said it's it is the difference between information and education education is a far greater

00:21:24.580 thing than information it is a series of relationships a human relationship that is built in person

00:21:30.420 which you can't do online between a teacher and the students and students and each other and

00:21:37.260 and the students and other classes and teachers and other teachers and a school and other schools and

00:21:41.840 a community right when you think about your children's school i think about my kid's school

00:21:45.280 it's a community there are interactions constantly between parents talking to other parents and

00:21:50.180 students talking to other students and the relationships and love and fight and jokes and

00:21:55.220 whatever like all of that is part of the thing the authority that the teacher has in front of that

00:22:00.800 classroom is and and the trust that they're able to build by being an authority figure that is also someone

00:22:07.980 who is respected is what allows them to teach that arithmetic to the child and for the child to care about

00:22:14.740 that for the child to respect them to talk to their peers when they're having an issue to to learn

00:22:20.060 together and and really build something that's the building block of complicated modern society right

00:22:26.820 but online all we have is the information because the relationship is so weak when your teacher is just a

00:22:33.740 little you know four inch square on a screen that you don't have that relationship you don't have

00:22:39.640 that trust my son was in kindergarten when we began this right junior kindergarten which is like pre-k in

00:22:44.560 america and i'm in canada and you know like he was jumping up and down you know pulling his pants down

00:22:52.980 and he would put the thing on mute you know would ignore his teachers and they had no authority whereas

00:22:57.900 in the classroom he knew he had to sit there he knew he had to listen he knew he couldn't make a poo joke

00:23:04.160 in the middle of you know her reading a story or he would actually get in trouble but at home that was

00:23:09.780 removed the teacher was just some pixel on a screen right and i think you saw that across so

00:23:16.200 if anyone now is arguing that you know virtual school is the future of education i mean i think

00:23:22.660 they will actually be run out of town tarred feathered and sort of chased and then there's also

00:23:28.380 that embodied cognition part right when you're an education or school is like the place right that all

00:23:33.000 the weird smells like there's like i think all of us you know you can remember the smell of your

00:23:37.300 elementary school and you bump in with the environment you might see a flyer for some

00:23:42.160 robot club or whatever and that doesn't happen online you can't get that and then there's just

00:23:47.840 the social aspect i think our kids can kind of be like canaries in the coal mine to show us things

00:23:54.760 about ourselves that we don't see i noticed this with my kids particularly my daughter you know when

00:23:59.640 we shifted to online school she just like withered like a plant and it was awful just it was terrible 0.89

00:24:06.100 you know it just broke my heart to see her but then when we went back to school in person she just

00:24:10.600 like you know she just like regenerated it was like you could almost see her coming back to life

00:24:14.200 because she needed that social aspect of school so much so i mean i think the takeaway from that for

00:24:19.960 me from that experience was like you know people need people we're gonna take a quick break for your

00:24:23.920 word from our sponsors

00:24:24.740 and now back to the show shifting gears another thing you talk about in the book was online commerce

00:24:33.320 and you know during the pandemic people started doing more of their shopping online like everything

00:24:38.720 was mediated through amazon or doordash or some other online service and it kind of made e-commerce

00:24:45.420 monolithic and you know limited your options and it was terrible for smaller businesses you know a lot of

00:24:51.580 brick and mortar businesses struggled went out of business just remember reading stories in the

00:24:55.920 newspaper about local businesses that have been in business for decades went out of business and then

00:25:00.900 speaking from the consumer's point of view i find online shopping there's some benefits to it for

00:25:06.000 example you know you can you don't have to leave your house but i find i hate shopping online actually

00:25:10.960 because it's because you need so shopping for clothes for example terrible something like that looks

00:25:16.600 really good you buy it and you get it's like this doesn't fit it looks doesn't look like what i thought

00:25:21.260 it would look like in person and then you have to send it like sending stuff back like my wife and i

00:25:26.520 once a week we have this sort of to do of like we had to return stuff and it's a big paying you got to

00:25:31.120 do the thing and even for the um i don't think a lot of people realize this on the business end

00:25:36.280 return logistics is one of the most complicated expensive things that a business does a lot of it

00:25:42.840 they just throw out yeah you know or sell for like pennies on the dollar it's like some real

00:25:47.220 grapes of wrath stuff right uh so i don't like online shop like clothes i don't like i hate buying

00:25:52.420 clothes online even like buying like doing groceries online you know oh good luck to you with the ripe

00:25:58.120 tomato right like the produce that's the thing you never get good produce right because you can't pick

00:26:03.880 out the avocado you want when you go to a grocery store whether it's a whole foods or a random you

00:26:09.880 know fruit store or whatever it is right and you want to buy a tomato or tomatoes you know what do

00:26:16.400 you do you look with your eyes you touch with your hands you you smell with your nose right you might

00:26:24.880 ask someone something right you know you have these senses that all of which is kind of rendered flat

00:26:32.020 on a screen and it's just a photo of a tomato a stock photo of a tomato and what we what's interesting

00:26:38.380 is what we've seen is that you know it went from e-commerce went from something like i don't know

00:26:44.400 11 or 12 of u.s retail sales excluding gas or some other category to the peak of the pandemic like

00:26:52.560 we're talking i don't know april may of 2020 16 and all these retail analysts and people and e-commerce

00:26:59.680 boosters were like this is it this is the new normal you know it's just going to keep growing and no

00:27:03.300 one's ever going back to stores and then as soon as they reopened stores like people were back you

00:27:08.520 know back in the grocery store back in the clothing store i remember it was the first day they reopened

00:27:12.720 retail stores here in toronto it was like may or june of 2020 and it was limited shopping and blah blah

00:27:18.260 blah and there was a huge lineup around the corner for a vinyl record store sonic boom it was record store

00:27:24.220 day like these are you know you don't have to feel a vinyl record to know like it's it's a piece of

00:27:30.920 plastic it's really durable these things last forever right you you can very easily click and

00:27:34.980 collect it people voted with their feet and now you've actually seen e-commerce sales sliding and

00:27:40.340 the e-commerce sales of amazon are down like i don't know a tremendous tremendous percentage and

00:27:45.420 it's like 30 40 or something like that shopify same thing too they just over assume that people

00:27:51.400 only want that i think it's it's that mix right like there are certain things i know i want a

00:27:57.220 specific thing so for example i'm a big skier i wanted to buy new skis but i wanted a specific pair

00:28:04.060 of new skis dinastar you know m pro 99 millimeter waist and i knew i could get them on sale and i looked

00:28:13.040 and looked and looked because you can't just go into every ski store they won't have them they're a year

00:28:16.300 old and i found a pair from a local store here in toronto that uses shopify for its e-commerce

00:28:22.940 solution and i bought it and i went and picked it up but i knew i wanted that and then i had to get

00:28:27.160 the like bindings that went with it and like i hunted those down a specific specific thing right i know

00:28:33.440 that that's what i want but like grocery shopping i've done it it was it was there was a part of it

00:28:37.840 that was convenient the delivery i it's really annoying to spend an hour online like clicking through

00:28:42.800 every single item in a grocery store to sort of find it it's a lot easier to just walk down the

00:28:47.660 aisle and be like oh yeah peanut butter oh yeah bread oh yeah you know tortillas oh yeah well

00:28:51.440 hock and cheese like that looks good that looks tasty i'll get that i'll get that i'll get that you

00:28:55.220 know three hundred dollars later or five because of hyperinflation um and and so you know again it's

00:29:02.520 it's it's this notion of where does it make sense and i think what the future we're looking at

00:29:09.060 and the future i hope and the hopeful future that i sort of talk about in the book for commerce is

00:29:14.320 what is what is the best balance right what is a future where you know digital commerce is supportive

00:29:23.260 of analog brick and mortar commerce where where does where does it allow you to to order something

00:29:32.780 from a store or see what a store has that's near you and get it delivered or pick it up

00:29:37.580 without competing with that store right i think the amazon model and the the three third-party

00:29:43.340 delivery service model is competitive it's like that classic silicon valley own the market we're

00:29:48.200 going to be the only grocery store left we're going to put everybody out of business right

00:29:51.460 and it just doesn't work that way in the real world it's not like a software platform there's

00:29:56.720 tons of stores for everyone for every demographic or every price point for every neighborhood

00:30:00.800 and people want a mix of that they want the convenience but they don't want it

00:30:04.820 only one option well i think another place why people are flocking back to in-person shopping is

00:30:11.180 you get to talk to someone who's an expert right so yeah perfect example is outdoor gear like

00:30:16.560 backpacks tents now we're talking baby right so uh this past year we needed some new backpacking

00:30:23.420 equipment and you can go online it's just so confusing because you're reading like just reviews

00:30:27.340 from just tons of different people here's what this is by the way the art of manly this is right

00:30:32.500 right well so what and my wife was looking for one and she was just i'm just overwhelmed there's

00:30:37.860 too many choices so we went there's a uh this really great outdoor store in my hometown of edmond

00:30:43.360 oklahoma it's called native summit and we went there it's it's small it's not huge it's not like an

00:30:49.500 rei or an academy or whatever it's small it's well curated and the guys that own it and run it like

00:30:55.460 they're outdoorsmen right and so beard game is strong yeah the guy had a beard their hacky sack

00:31:01.400 they got there i bought it i actually bought a hacky sack i bought a hacky sack and a frisbee

00:31:05.800 while i was there but it was great because that you could try on the backpack and they would fit it

00:31:10.520 right for you and if you had questions they can answer it you couldn't do that online no i went i

00:31:16.520 have a a jacket from patagonia that i bought a couple years ago when the when the last book came

00:31:20.800 out when revenge of analog came out it was cold i was on book tour about a jacket used it like crazy

00:31:25.240 it has so many holes in it so you know they have this whole repair thing so i went in and we talked

00:31:29.480 and debated about repairing it not and you know they like they show me the new ones and and she's

00:31:34.900 like honestly if i were you like here's my opinion here's what i can do and i can get it and they

00:31:38.700 sent it away for a free repair and i got it back and it's as good as new and then i had to buy another

00:31:42.840 jacket a shell to go over top of it and we went and like picked up all the things and she showed them

00:31:47.700 to me and tried them on she's like well what are you doing where are you skiing and how often are you

00:31:51.280 doing carrying your skis on your shoulder you're wearing a backpack like all these different points

00:31:55.020 of information which yes i could have gone and researched and gone on every blog and read every

00:32:02.220 review and gone down that internet rabbit hole to find that most information about which jacket i

00:32:07.120 wanted or i could have had the pleasure of just going to the store and touching and feeling it and

00:32:11.440 having it and at the end of the day she didn't have the size and color i wanted so she's like look 0.98

00:32:15.160 go ahead order it online we'll ship it to you you know you can come here and pick it up like

00:32:18.620 no problemo or here's a free shipping code like it still went through the company and it still

00:32:24.360 worked with their e-commerce but i got the best of both worlds right i got that tactile analog human

00:32:30.400 experience and not only that but i'm now loyal as loyal as a middle-aged white man could be to

00:32:37.320 patagonia right you know i was like that was great like this is a company that stands for a certain

00:32:42.500 thing and they really showed up and sort of stood behind that that's that deeper relationship and it's

00:32:47.280 good for their business i'm gonna go buy my next jacket there when this one you know dies in 20 years

00:32:52.360 after they repaired or whatever so you have a section about how our conversation is mediated

00:32:58.140 through technology and you that picked up during the pandemic like we've been doing this people

00:33:01.960 have been talking about oh you know social interaction isn't the same on the screen but

00:33:06.260 on the pandemic a lot of people are forced to do that and you talk about your experience with zoom

00:33:10.800 cocktail parties why did this well-intentioned idea completely fall flat you know i have a friend

00:33:19.180 dan he's uh he's is israeli originally he's a lawyer and he got a new job early on in the pandemic

00:33:25.960 here in toronto with a engineering company as an in-house lawyer and he's like you know it's not

00:33:30.920 bad you know but they invited me to this thing this zoom cocktail so i go i show up i take off you know

00:33:36.120 my shirt i change into my other shirt and i show up with a glass of wine and i look around and no one

00:33:41.980 else has a drink in their hand and i'm like oh this is a conference call right that sums it up

00:33:48.360 you know what is a cocktail party a cocktail party is like the most unstructured social gathering

00:33:56.320 that there is here's a group of people we have selected this group of people because they are

00:34:01.060 i don't know related to each other they work together they're linked by a common interest whatever

00:34:05.200 here is a space here is some alcohol to you know lubricate and allow the conversation to to go and

00:34:11.780 i'm sure there are sort of non-alcoholic versions of it which is just like you know a potluck or a

00:34:16.160 gathering or whatever you want to call it right and that's it go talk talk freely talk amongst

00:34:20.540 yourselves make different groups go one-to-one have some one-to-one conversations and then someone else

00:34:24.820 is going to come in it's a third person conversation whatever and the conversation just flows naturally in

00:34:29.460 that space with body language and gesticulations and uh unsaid things and facial expressions and the

00:34:36.720 music and you know the booze and all of that like that forms a cocktail party and and when it is when

00:34:42.700 it's great it's an incredible thing and when it's bad you know it can be a little boring but it's not the

00:34:49.060 worst thing in the world the worst thing in the world is the zoom version of that which is like and now 1.00

00:34:53.740 it's your turn to speak brett right now it's your turn to speak sheila and what about you

00:34:59.400 ahmed yes that was funny it's just so antithetical to the natural human rhythm of conversation

00:35:09.460 because conversation is something that we've evolved to do in person over hundreds of thousands

00:35:17.380 of years it's our greatest skill as humans when you also talk about your experience you belong to

00:35:23.240 some book clubs before the pandemic started i have one book club yeah you're only one you belong i

00:35:29.140 i belong to i i belong to a couple book clubs before the pandemic and then we we tried to keep

00:35:34.620 it going at the start right with like doing doing it on zoom or something but then eventually just

00:35:40.380 petered out like no one wanted to do it anymore and i think it's because of that it's just it's not

00:35:44.840 the same so when we were in person my experience was you you talk about the book whatever but then

00:35:50.180 like the conversation would shift to other just random stuff you talk about family you talk about

00:35:55.120 stuff that's going on at work and the conversation would just be flowing and you know two hours would

00:36:00.260 pass and you're like oh my gosh it's time i got to get to bed it was great and you just felt awesome

00:36:05.100 and it was a memorable experience then you did the zoom version and it just it was it dragged on and

00:36:11.820 on and on and you're like when is this going to be over and then you know people be like when are we

00:36:16.320 going to do the next one and people like well i don't know you know it just hemming and on

00:36:20.260 and eventually just stopped it just stopped yes i had the exact same experience as you i mean we did

00:36:26.880 one virtual one in april 2020 so very early on the book had been picked before the pandemic had

00:36:33.740 like come in and it was a book about like a species ending plague with time travel and

00:36:39.820 kind of aliens and it was like grotesque and violent and everyone hated the book and it was just like

00:36:46.800 it was it was a miserable experience of uh experience that has always been good like

00:36:53.660 we've read books that we've loved we've read books we've hated but the book club itself is always a

00:36:58.700 wonderful wonderful time and it's just conversation that's all it is it's you know seven people coming

00:37:07.520 together to talk about a particular cue but everything else that comes into it and that conversation just

00:37:15.600 flows in and out and it has its natural rhythm and it wraps itself around the evening or the weekend

00:37:21.560 if we're doing a sort of retreat one and it never gets old and it never gets stale and you're never

00:37:26.680 like all right well i gotta do this boring like it it never has that if you have you know a group of

00:37:32.380 friends or people or peers that you you like right that's the beauty of conversation and it just

00:37:38.900 loses its life online well you talk about there's this one researcher dr esam i think it isam e-s-s-a-m

00:37:48.740 yes yeah and marie esam esam yes so she pointed out you know a crucial difference between conversations

00:37:55.840 we have online and conversations we have in person is their impact on our memory and she pointed out like

00:38:01.480 do you remember like the zoom calls you did like i don't know but i remember i can remember like you

00:38:06.500 know book club meetings that i had a couple years ago that were just like it's i guess when you're

00:38:11.320 in person it's just you have so much information flooding you that's very rich that it hits it you

00:38:17.420 know you remember it as opposed to a screen it's very flat and one-dimensional and it's not as memorable

00:38:22.160 yeah i you know i remember where we were right i remember sitting there i remember talking to you

00:38:28.840 and and there was that music playing or we were at the ball game and oh yeah yeah that burger and then

00:38:33.720 that bird pooped on someone and you know and then we ran into that guy we knew like all those things

00:38:39.660 context it forms around it and informs the conversation again versus just the words it's

00:38:47.620 like a you know it's i mean this is a digital conversation we're having and i think it's a

00:38:52.420 great conversation but imagine if i was in oklahoma and we were talking or you were in here in toronto

00:38:57.940 and we were talking in the same room or at a bar or at a restaurant or going for a walk in the

00:39:03.360 park or something like that the conversation would be so much more because it would be informed by

00:39:10.200 those things around us there'd be a natural rhythm i could read your body language i could see on your

00:39:14.620 face when i'm talking too long or if something i said is not sitting right with you or if it if you

00:39:20.800 find something funny and you kind of smirk and smile right i can i can detect when you want to say

00:39:26.040 something because your body is kind of your body is kind of doing it and that is you know again

00:39:32.420 hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution has taught us to speak in that way and so when we

00:39:38.540 strip all that out we just have the words and it's it's functional for sure for certain things for a work

00:39:45.860 meeting or whatever you can get by you can get by with a conversation with you know your parents but

00:39:51.640 i don't know like does your family your parents or whatever and i don't know you know if they're

00:39:56.580 still around but like do they live or did they live at some point in the same city or have you lived

00:40:01.780 away from them yeah i've lived away they yeah my parents live about an hour away from they live in

00:40:06.220 oklahoma city right so when you speak to them on the phone or on facetime with your kids or whatever

00:40:12.760 like you know it's a very different thing from being in the same house as them or being yeah for sure

00:40:17.540 right right you you talk you catch up but there's just kind of like okay all right uh you know it's

00:40:23.580 like you know oh your mom's calling oh gosh okay here we go like all right hey mom how you doing you

00:40:28.140 know versus seeing them it's it's it wraps itself around the thing you're doing you're cooking you're

00:40:33.860 going for a walk you're walking the dog you're taking the kids to school you're playing at a

00:40:36.280 playground you're on a vacation together like the fabric of the conversation just weaves into the

00:40:41.820 rhythm of what you're doing that's natural no yeah for me i feel like the communication tools

00:40:47.220 whether it's phone email i don't know zoom or whatever text text whatever it's it's i think

00:40:53.220 it's useful for just passing along information right like coordinating okay this is what's going

00:40:57.540 on hey we're picking up this kid or blah you need to pick this up but having in-depth conversations

00:41:03.440 via a text or a phone call it doesn't work i'd rather use i'd rather have a phone call or zoom to

00:41:10.380 like set up hey when can we meet in person so we can have this conversation it'll be great yeah but

00:41:14.660 if someone calls me yeah i'm like i don't want to do that and obviously there's there's there's

00:41:19.220 limitations to it right like i have good friends who live in you know other parts of the country

00:41:24.060 of the world that i cannot go and see more than you know once a year or every few years and so we

00:41:30.740 catch up you know we have friends in argentina who listen to your podcast no less this is once for you

00:41:35.740 pablo i have you know friends in in new york you know i have i have very good friends in other places

00:41:40.840 and i can catch up with them on the phone or catch up with them on facetime and it's it gives me that

00:41:48.300 baseline but my god it's nothing compared to when i see them i've noticed with me i don't i don't mind

00:41:54.900 talking on like just voice only but like something about adding the the video element i don't like it

00:42:00.320 throws me off i can i can have a conversation on phone with somebody i don't mind doing that so i'll

00:42:04.120 catch up with a friend i'll go for a walk outside and just have my airpods in and just just yammer

00:42:09.980 away but i couldn't i don't like doing the video something about it throws me off and it's why on

00:42:14.740 the podcast i don't actually i'm not seeing you i never seen any of my guests they don't see me

00:42:18.640 this is this is and i appreciate this because everybody has been using podcast platforms and

00:42:24.080 i've been doing tons of podcasts because the book's coming out soon and they all want to do the

00:42:27.900 video i don't like it and i'm like oh and some of them are like oh will you upload the video

00:42:31.380 to youtube i'm like oh god okay i better brush my hair but yeah it it shifts it because what do

00:42:37.000 you do you're basically looking at your own face right that's the crazy part that's the craziest

00:42:41.960 part you're like it's like when was the last time you know i guess the equivalent is like you go to

00:42:47.940 some french bistro and they have like mirrored walls and you happen to be sitting facing the wall

00:42:53.320 and you see yourself in the mirror and so every often you're talking you end up glancing yourself 0.94

00:42:57.140 like man i look like a schmucker god i'm fat like yeah but this is like you're constantly 0.96

00:43:03.120 seeing yourself talking someone's like oh well all you gotta do is turn off the camera like 0.96

00:43:07.440 you know or just turn it off or have an actual conversation with someone yeah let's talk about

00:43:13.720 our spiritual life you talk about this how did our how did uh moving our spiritual life online how

00:43:18.340 did that pan out you know i think again like i'm jewish i'm not particularly religious person but i

00:43:25.320 you know put in the motions and and go to synagogue a couple times a year and i you know appreciated that

00:43:33.320 there was a tremendous convenience to being able to do these things virtually but i found them

00:43:40.160 bereft of any meaning you know i would do virtual passover with you know we we made you know the

00:43:50.280 brisket and my mom like handed the chicken soup through the door and we gave her some brisket and

00:43:55.300 we set up a computer and another computer for my wife's family because god forbid the two families 1.00

00:44:00.420 could share a zoom call and we did like this passover seder and it was just like okay that was

00:44:08.000 really easy to clean up right but i don't know yeah what's next and then you know usually jewish people 1.00

00:44:15.660 outside of israel for some ridiculous reason that we won't get into do two seders two nights in a row

00:44:21.700 right two passover dinners two nights in a row god only knows why god literally only knows why

00:44:27.540 and the second night someone's like oh what are we doing for the second night we're like nothing

00:44:31.240 no we're not doing that like we're not doing this again this year for the first time we had

00:44:37.420 the full in-person seder back and we decided to host it at our house which is like the smallest house

00:44:43.220 of anyone in the family it was a five-day ordeal of like buying shopping setting up cooking hosting

00:44:53.100 cleaning cleaning cleaning cleaning cleaning like you know just insane and it was so much work and

00:45:01.720 there was family dynamics and people fighting and whatever and it was actually very wonderful and

00:45:06.980 meaningful and that was the thing that i found that there is you know if you're looking to do

00:45:13.160 something that you know what is religion what is faith right on the surface it's kind of a set of rules

00:45:19.780 based upon you know a liturgy or texts and you can you know recite passages from the quran or you know

00:45:29.680 recite a buddhist mantra or you know say the shema the jewish sort of holy prayer or recite the lord's

00:45:38.180 prayer you know kneeling in your bedroom or in your living room by yourself or to a screen

00:45:42.580 and read along with it but that is that is like the basis of it what is really faith what do people

00:45:50.220 look for when they go to church on sunday they're there for that as the excuse for the greater community

00:45:58.960 and doing that with other people is the thing that gives it that sense of some greater purpose and

00:46:06.360 and our greater purpose or identity or whatever in this world as spiritual people and i think this

00:46:14.620 applies for people who aren't religious at all right you know i got a lot of faith and spiritual

00:46:21.320 nourishment this year or the past few years out of being outside like it was like that first walk when

00:46:28.500 i went out and i heard the birds chirping it was like any time i was feeling suffocated and isolated

00:46:35.220 and inhuman from you know ping-ponging between screens for all my activities i would go out and

00:46:43.840 i would go for a walk or on the weekends i would go for hikes and drag my children through the woods

00:46:48.280 kicking and screaming or bike rides long bike rides or you know skiing or surfing i got into lake

00:46:56.300 surfing like i'm talking about surfing in the great lakes in you know sub-zero temperatures

00:47:02.440 with ice on my like wetsuit and it was the it was it was when i felt the most alive because i was as a

00:47:09.820 human being as a creature in this world bringing myself back into it fully in that context and i think

00:47:16.780 again you can't do that online right like you can you can go and sign up for peloton and get some

00:47:24.320 fancy ass bike delivered to your house put your shorts on and clip in and you can spin your little 1.00

00:47:29.420 legs and sweat sweat sweat sweat sweat and get your heart rate up but that is a very different thing 0.90

00:47:35.420 from getting out on your bicycle and riding on a country road or riding through the city or even

00:47:41.020 just like going in with your kid and going on like a little sort of puppet ride around the neighborhood

00:47:46.240 like that is those are two incomparable things one of them is just purely for your body or the other

00:47:52.440 one that's purely for your mind this is like everything body mind soul it's the full the full

00:47:58.560 high fidelity experience right so even something's spiritual that's ethereal needs physicality needs

00:48:04.460 the analog for it to really thrive i mean i just don't see how it doesn't like listen there are people

00:48:12.540 who love it they love going to zoom church or whatever zoom whatever religion you are right or you know

00:48:20.320 online thing and they're like yeah i get to read you know i can read the bible on my phone and i get

00:48:25.080 whatever passage i want and that gives me the spiritual fulfillment i need and then i can go

00:48:28.640 about my day and i don't have to drive to church and sit my butt in those hard pews and you know hear

00:48:33.620 the pastor grown on or i can just download the sermons and listen to them while i'm walking and that gives me

00:48:38.380 the fulfillment and if that's what someone needs hey praise be more power to them but i think

00:48:44.120 you know a spiritual life is an embodied life right the whole idea is that you're not separating

00:48:51.500 yourself from the world that you're actually engaging with it more and when you think about those

00:48:57.600 rituals religious rituals that are the ones that are the most significant they are the most physical

00:49:05.380 right you know our spirit is tied to our body if that's something you believe in

00:49:10.580 and you know to really engage in it it's it is that full body experience right it's that leap of

00:49:18.220 faith in that thing i don't think that's something that lends itself particularly well to like

00:49:22.400 digitized convenience and simplicity and delivery all right so the pandemic gave us the test run of the

00:49:28.300 complete digital life and it it's lacking and i think i think you're right my experience we need

00:49:34.120 the analog because as you say we are analog beings so we'll need that analog experience to live a

00:49:38.660 fulfilling flourishing life so you're not anti-tech some people like when you think what you people

00:49:43.960 talk about the the importance of analog they well you're anti you're it's like no you're doing a

00:49:47.880 podcast you promote your stuff online you're just making the case that look if you really want to

00:49:52.020 have a flourishing life we have to remember that we need to do stuff in the real world with our bodies

00:49:57.080 and have those in-person relationships if we if we want to have a flourishing life listen if people

00:50:02.600 read this book and and they take anything away from it it's the following right think about your own

00:50:07.920 life and think about the experience you lived through during those months and years when all you

00:50:14.080 had in the world out of necessity was digital when everything that you did work school conversation

00:50:21.920 religion you know shopping whatever culture all of that was done through a screen and through digital

00:50:27.760 technology were you content is that the future you want were there parts of it that you really

00:50:33.440 liked and you've adopted into your life and you want to sort of grow going forward and use more of that

00:50:37.920 technology and other parts of it that you know like a zoom cocktail party you viscerally reject 0.97

00:50:43.380 and and feel nauseous just at the sound of you know be honest with yourselves because i think for a long

00:50:48.880 time we have defaulted to digital technology and the people who create it and sell it and promote it

00:50:56.660 as the sort of byword for the future oh digital is the future and it's newer and it's better and this is

00:51:02.920 the way this is what progress is but you know progress can be sourdough bread right progress can

00:51:09.780 be bike lanes that were hastily put up in cities because people needed exercise and people realize

00:51:14.960 hey it's great to have bike lanes in toronto and tulsa we should build more of these we don't need

00:51:20.220 forget self-driving you know electric cars like this is the future of transportation that we want

00:51:24.220 right or sidewalk patios something we crave for years in north america and then all of a sudden got

00:51:30.120 and don't want to give up so you know be honest with yourself right what is the future you want

00:51:36.240 based on that lived experience based on that test drive that you had how much of it is analog how much

00:51:41.100 of it is digital and where do you stand in that what's your role in it well david this has been a

00:51:45.360 great conversation where can people go to learn more about the book and your work

00:51:48.140 they can go to i guess twitter oh god feels disgusting even saying that you know what

00:51:55.420 honestly if you search my name you'll find some stuff i have a website which i never update

00:52:00.380 the book can be purchased from independent bookstores wherever you are and if you don't

00:52:04.840 have one near you go to bookshop.org it's a great site a sort of e-commerce site that supports

00:52:10.960 independent bookstores and independent businesses near you and you can order the book from there or just

00:52:15.240 go into your local bookstore and and pick it up and if you don't want it ask the person who works

00:52:19.440 there what are the books you might like they'll have recommendations they'll have thoughts you'll

00:52:23.140 have a wonderful experience doing it well david sachs thanks for your time it's been a pleasure

00:52:26.600 my pleasure my guest today was david sachs he's the author of the book the future is analog you do the

00:52:33.140 analog thing go pick up a copy at your local bookstore find more information about his work at his

00:52:36.900 website sachsdavid.com also check out our show notes at aom.is slash futures analog where you find

00:52:42.280 links to resources we delve deeper into this topic

00:52:44.480 well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast make sure to check out our website at

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00:53:15.980 haven't done so already i'd appreciate it if you take one minute to use review not podcast or spotify

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00:53:23.640 friend or family member who think we get something out of it as always thank you for the continued

00:53:27.420 support until next time this is brett mckay remind you on listening way on podcast but put what you've

00:53:31.960 heard into action

00:53:32.820 you

The Art of Manliness - November 21, 2022

The Future Is Analog

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