Ep. 002 | (Pt. 2) Here we are, like it or not: Why Should We Care

In Part 2 of the pilot episode of 'Better Nation,' host Igor Alves, reflects on the need for more inclusive and meaningful metrics than GDP and profits. He emphasizes the importance of considering people's lived experiences, theorizes on the spread of right-wing populism, and the failure of Democrats and liberals to win more sustained support.  Crucially to the show's purpose: Why should we care? Igor gives his answer and invites opinions.

The episode touches on topics like social media alienation, hyper-consumption, AI's impact, and the societal consequences of extreme wealth disparity. He also sets the stage for future discussions on innovative policy solutions and urban planning. 

Chapter Titles:
00:30  Going Beyond GDP
04:26   Hyper Consumption and De-growth Economics
05:18   Unwelcome in the 2nd Gilded Age
05:24   AI and Future Challenges to Progress
09:14   Why Should We Care?
12:45   Igor's Reasons for Caring
14:58   United States of "Me"
16:54   Re-imagining Success and Wellbeing
20:08  Conclusion (Part 2)

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Chapters

• 0:30 Going Beyond GDP
• 4:26 Hyper Consumption and De-growth Economics
• 5:18 Unwelcome in the 2nd Gilded Age
• 5:24 AI and Future Challenges to Progress
• 9:14 Why Should We Care?
• 12:45 Igor's Reasons for Caring
• 14:58 United States of "Me"
• 16:54 Re-imagining Success and Wellbeing
• 20:08 Conclusion (Part 2)

Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome to Better Nation. I'm Igor Alves. I originally recorded this episode on the day of Trump's election in November of 2024.

[00:00:10] I hope you enjoy, my initial thoughts And I'd really love it if you can send me feedback and comments and questions. Enjoy the show. 

[00:00:20] What does development with this progress in a country without gentrification and massive displacement look like? How do we get to a post GDP world, where that's not the main metric, in terms of assessing people's well being and progress?

[00:00:46] A world where GDP, simply the sum of all products and services sold in any given year or quarter which has been seen as the least worst option for measuring progress in a given country, is on its face reductionist an oversimplification of real life and whether people, can verbalize in words and essays that that number does not connect directly, or in many cases at all with their quality of life. They know that they need to protest in some way. 

[00:01:34] And I think what we find ourselves in this moment of a lot of right wing populism spreading around the world and here with our Trump phenomenon is that desperation, exasperation for the powers that be to hear that "Cri de coeur." I've been waiting for an opportunity in life to say that phrase and here it is. So what kind of world can we imagine? And what are better ways to measure to assess and to stimulate progress that is more inclusive? Progress that touches the lives of more people and it's not based on what the numbers say but actually what people are living. 

[00:02:33] Because I've experienced this sometimes where you go to different places around the world and they could look a certain way in terms of salary per year but their lifestyle is one that they may not easily trade with a place where people are having to break their backs to make that extra money so you can spend that extra money and still feel like you're trying to catch up and catch up and catch up.

[00:02:57] The economist who proposed , that GDP be used never meant for it as this one giant sacred number to measure progress in a given country. But the simple number has a gravitational force to it. It's like a grade, a score.

[00:03:20] And that's part of the logic of our liberal capitalist world. Hey, there's a rationality in statistics and following the numbers. And , we shouldn't completely throw that out and do, this is my opinion but I'm willing to hear others out. That we shouldn't completely toss out the value of being able to track well and understand what the numbers are showing us outside of our emotions, outside of anecdotes.

[00:03:52] On the other hand, people live. in those anecdotes. They don't live in the statistics. 

[00:04:01] And I think the powers that be, and the current crop of elites should have a better way of absorbing people's lived experiences into the key decisions that affect people's lives.

[00:04:15] I flirted with the idea of degrowth economics back in college and it's, gotten a little more traction lately with a Japanese author and thinker who's gotten provocative reactions to his work.

[00:04:35] I'm forgetting his name. Let's fill that in that blank. And others who have brought it as a serious idea to discuss. I personally need to dig into that more. I do think that we are in a period of hyper consumption, whether that's Products, services or whether that's even people and our eyeballs that have become productized. 

[00:05:04] It feels like we are in a hyper speed stage that might be fast approaching a breaking point. And yet we have AI on the horizon which is something else that I would love to dig into. If I can continue this and speak to smarter people than me about this subject, which I've been fascinated with for the last few years, like a lot of people it gives us a acceleration force that takes us beyond the limits of natural resources and maybe even the breaking point that has to be there on the horizon with this inequity. It may be hard to see right now when I think we're in a society that cherishes the ultra, ultra wealthy and doesn't necessarily resent them in a revolutionary kind of way.

[00:06:03] But at this pace, it does make you question whether there's just so much sleight of hand and divide and conquer and media manipulation at dissuading any serious , widespread challenge to the ultra concentration of wealth.

[00:06:26] We are really in the second gilded age in the United States. People's anger is reflecting that and you have statistics to back that up too. Not that anyone is listening to those statistics. Because those have been put into question oftentimes by influencers media outlets that are owned and managed by interests linked to these ultra wealthy individuals and groups and corporations, et cetera.

[00:07:00] So I look forward to talking with Senator Bernie Sanders on the next show about that very thing. Meanwhile, until we can get him maybe we can explore that with people that are feeling this and dealing with these issues through other words, other language, other concepts. 

[00:07:19] I wouldn't consider myself a very online person, but might be close. And I think everyone, including myself, has an obligation to step back from that ultra connected space, from the leading media voices, and listen to people who are less online, less of a leading voice, and understand their framework their ideas. Even if it's ideas that come from fallacies, , or from misinformation, it's still valid to engage and to understand who is influencing how does your life experience connect with these bigger issues? I have a tendency to extrapolate a lot from the micro to the macro. But I'm fascinated about the connections between the micros, which give you a broader sense of a certain phenomenon.

[00:08:22] But people don't live in the macro. They live in the personal. They live in the micro. That is the story of our lives and that's something that I'm trying to center. 

[00:08:32] Hopefully this will be a project that allows for that exploration. And really that's something that I've done as a documentarian, , as a producer, filmmaker, is try to get those voices to share candidly, comfortably, and have a link between their experiences and a broader social issue. 

[00:08:53] But why should we care? Why should we care what progress looks like? Why should we care of a world that goes beyond GDP and I'm grappling with that too. Right now there's a good amount of reflection happening and I think it needs to continue.

[00:09:24] And I think it will continue for the weeks and months ahead. Although we are in an era of hot takes . So who knows? Amid the many prescriptions that are going to come, one of the questions I think we need to ask ourselves early on is, 

[00:09:39] why should I care about the political system? Why should I care about voting? Why should I care about X policy or Y policy? all the same. , they don't have my interest. They don't know what my life is. And if anything, I'm going to vote for the one who's going to go in there and throw a grenade, which is what Trump and Trump type characters have represented.

[00:10:08] Populists on the right have been able to more successfully channel that energy into gains In the takeover of our political system right now. That's what we stand on the precipice of. I'm convinced that at its heart this kind of energy does not have a political side, because people's experiences are party neutral.

[00:10:35] They want solutions and they want people to hear them and to validate their concerns. And of course, someone's concerns from Iowa are going to be different than New Jersey are going to be different from Florida. And even within New Jersey, someone in Newark has different concerns than someone in Asbury Park.

[00:10:59] And even within Newark, you have an executive making 500, 000 a year, and you have someone who's unhoused, and they're in the same city, but they have very different priorities, different viewpoints different frameworks of life. 

[00:11:16] It's a monumental task to listen to and speak to all these different kinds of people. And that's the beautiful, maddening challenge of public service and of civic engagement. 

[00:11:31] And I understand how people can tune out from that challenge when we are already feeling overwhelmed with so many other things that are competing for attention and that our brain cannot get a chance to relax and to daydream and to imagine a world that looks very different from ours. Instead we find ourselves having to react to the next stimulus and I'm trying to do that here and to sit with my thoughts in a way that is hard to do when you're on the other end of the feed.

[00:12:11] So I'm hoping that this project is an exercise in deeper thinking, to absorb this world more completely. To become a better citizen, a better neighbor, a better colleague, and hopefully a better friend. 

[00:12:28] But that still doesn't get to the question which I have to ask myself, which I think maybe you're asking yourself: why should I care? If this is the world that people have pushed for, if this is the crop of politicians and elites that we have, then this is the world that we deserve.

[00:12:50] And I need to just be looking out for my little corner above all. And, I think that's both the right answer and very much the wrong answer, for me. 

[00:13:03] I think we should care because we have loved ones. We should care because of the next generation of people, of children that we are raising.

[00:13:14] We want them to live in a world that allows them to thrive. And there's so much that we are not doing to make that happen. And it is a existential crime to not fight for that better world, if we really love them and love those who cannot advocate for themselves. So, to me, I think that's the answer. I think it needs to be the answer.

[00:13:49]  I think we can all get behind that one. I hope. Even if people don't have kids they have younger loved ones and or younger students or mentees and we should pay it forward and inspire them to be better than us and hopefully their children will be, more. knowledgeable and sensitive to the world. 

[00:14:12] Instead we are in a moment where it looks like the letters of America have been crossed out except for the M and the E and we are in a "me" era of pop culture discourse of political movement. There's only so many me's that can fit in a we and not have it get divided up in our political culture. 

[00:14:44] You may not know exactly what the facts are, but you know that whatever side is trying to pull one on you. And that's a problem because you're creating this giant ball of resentment that is flung back in the faces of all the powers that be. And unfortunately that energy can, and in my opinion is being, manipulated by some bad actors. And if more reasonable, sensible people who belong to some of these political and intellectual, cultural elites, want to prevent worst case scenarios, they need to hear that energy and work with people to create a better country. 

[00:15:36] Just because someone may not have all the answers or solutions, doesn't mean that the energy and the issues that they're bringing up don't have something to it. I want to be open to that as well. I would like to do a series where we're just discussing very specific policy solutions examples of creativity in urban planning and in government and in sustainability family living and not just because something that is new and innovative and creative is automatically better.

[00:16:14] Not everything that's new is better. But we do need to innovate our way out of this crappy status quo. The conveniences of modern life are spectacular, but it doesn't actualize you in a deeper level. And that's why people are suffering so much mentally, emotionally and physically. Their expectations for this world is not matching the reality of their lives. And it's highly influenced by the supposed reality that they see on their feeds, on TV, in the movies that is hyper glamorized.

[00:17:03] And it's very hard to get away from keeping up with the Joneses or Kardashians or whatever. 

[00:17:11] You know, people have the right to dream. And I do think that we should have better dreams as well.

[00:17:21] I think a lot of people in society can start dreaming about things that go beyond the accumulation of wealth, which right now in the U. S., in my view. is too often associated with success. And that's something that I'll continue to reflect on in my own life. And it's really hard to, escape that pull when so much of society is equating someone's worth with how much money they have in the bank account.

[00:17:56]  We can dream of, a world where the love that they shared and the education that they imparted on their loved ones or their students, the highly proficient feat that they accomplished after many years of ,training the lives that you help are all measures of success. 

[00:18:20] Instead it's not that way. Will the economic wheels fall off our wagon if we get a bit more hippie like that?

[00:18:31] I'm curious to ask more people what that can look like. Can we go beyond the prosperity gospel as they call it and have more of a solidarity gospel?

[00:18:44] A little more Scandinavian type, where we have a sense of just enough. That's enough for me. I'm good. The rest can go to those who have less. And that that's seen as a great measure of a person. Because we're social animals, and I think that if that gets elevated to a higher status, then more people will pursue that path. 

[00:19:10] Right now in the U S it's never enough. I guess if you have a hundred billion, you try to have 200, you try to have 300 and how healthy is that?

[00:19:21] Thank you for making it here to the end of my two part pilot. So future episodes will be less wide flowing probably even though I have a tendency to do this. And so I can try to focus on certain areas with my guest we'll have a theme and a prompt or two for each discussion.

[00:19:51] Thank you again for listening. I'll catch you next time.