The Loss of Common Culture is Breaking Us | Brian Daitzman Joins Sam Osterhout

Indexed: 2026-05-18

[00:00:01]Hi everyone. I'm Sam Asterhout. Uh I'm really excited for this conversation today. I'm I'm about to bring in Brian Datesman to talk about something that I think gets at really an essential fissure in American life and politics.

[00:00:18]And Brian Datesman, as you you all probably know, is the founder and editor-inchief of The Intellectualist, a progressive platform that's become really essential reading for understanding the structural forces reshaping democracy and culture. Um, he's also the host of the incredible new podcast, The History of the Present, which he produces in collaboration with Lincoln Square.

[00:00:42]the guests he's booked and the conversations they're having have been like for real mind-blowing. Um, you you really have to watch. I have been fortunate enough to be in the in the green room for a lot of those conversations and I'm just never not stunned. Um, but Brian's latest piece is called The Great Fragmentation, and it it landed just a couple days ago, and it's already generating some pretty serious conversation, and when I read it, it really struck a chord with me.

[00:01:13]So, he argues that something fundamentally broke in American culture around 1999.

[00:01:22]and not not that culture died at all. Uh and he makes that very clear, but that we stopped experiencing it together. Um you know, the shared room collapsed into private feeds.

[00:01:36]But here's what I want to dig into.

[00:01:39]If this diagnosis is right, what does it mean for democracy, for organizing uh you know, coalitions, for building the kinds of movements that we need if we ever hope to overcome something like Trumpism.

[00:01:58]And even more personally, you know, writers like Brian and outlets like Lincoln Square, we're trying to create shared understanding in this fragmented world. How do you do that when the very infrastructure for arriving together has dissolved? So without further ado, uh let's bring in Brian.

[00:02:20]>> Brian Datesman.

[00:02:22]>> Sam, great to hear you. Great great to see you and be here today.

[00:02:26]>> Yeah, thanks for joining. Uh this piece is uh is really compelling and and you know, I want to I want to start there. I want to talk also a little bit later about the history of the present um and and give the our audience a little, you know, teaser about that because it's really an amazing show.

[00:02:44]>> Thank you. It's true.

[00:02:45]>> But you write in this piece that um you know about culture becoming tunnels instead of a room, right? I I wonder if there was a minute where you first felt this happening in your own life and if can you explain what what you mean by tunnels instead of rooms?

[00:03:03]>> Well, I I feel that unfortunately um there there's a lot of structural forces at play. What it you know we can't just blame it on one malevolent actor although that might be um desirable. Um what has happened unfortunately Sam just to kind of give a broad uh you know maybe a broader answer essentially is that the public square right um that maybe me and you grew up with and we can say that it was limited had limited participation there were gatekeepers right but I believe that there was a public square probably before 2000 where you had this sort of collective sense of culture a sense that we were there was unified side, right?

[00:03:46]There's some sort of unification. I don't see that anymore. Um, and so the question is what are the structural forces that are creating this where essentially the public square unfortunately has become Babel. All right.

[00:04:01]>> And what is Babel, right? And so in the in the the Bible, uh, there's this big, uh, story.

[00:04:08]>> Brian, we're going deep, man. We're going deep here.

[00:04:11]>> We are. We are. And and and I'm not going to go into sort of what this all means. the big picture but you know >> do I want to yeah go okay sure sure okay so you know the Tower of Babel right what was that you I don't remember I I forgive me Sam I I I didn't u I I haven't studied this in a while um but basically the Tower of Babel was this attempt by in the Bible where people are building this tower and they want to attack the heavens or something okay so this is in the Bible and the idea though was that well why don't we just make it so they can't communicate with each other and then they can't uh basically coordinate activities, right?

[00:04:48]>> And the Tower of Babel analogy is essential to understanding the public square in May 13, 2026. Uh because the ideas here are that when we join this sort of collective square, no one is really speaking to the same audience, right? they might not be speaking to this to the same thing, but we've been put into this algorithm, >> right, that essentially siloizes us and prevents us from really getting past um our our sort of basic um you know, our our basic uh content needs, right? So, a lot of what we see is really just confirmation bias. So, you click on something on a feed, then another thing, and they're related probabilistically, right? All of a sudden, your entire feed becomes based on this really singular vision of America or the world or technology. Take that and do it 350 million Americans, right? And all of a sudden, you see the the the illustration I chose for this article. The reason why I chose that is because we've entered a funhouse mirror of reality and of information where maybe some of us get a better insight because maybe we have more access, right? But then there are a lot of us who are just seeing the reflections and we're not seeing the full picture. And so Sam, bringing it to your point, how does this have to do with democracy? Is how do we have a democracy where it's there's public uh where the public is supposed to be communicating? There's supposed to be this public square when no one is seeing the same things or experiencing the same things. And this is the central problem, I believe, for what we're experiencing.

[00:06:37]It's why we're experiencing so much loneliness, right? why there's so much atomization because essentially we've created 350 million silos for every American whose realities aren't necessarily commensurate. And that lack of commensurate is that lack of sort of permeability between these worlds is creating this problem or this funhouse effect where no one knows what the issues are and how to talk to them.

[00:07:04]>> Yeah. I I mean, man, my I go to a lot of different places here, but I I think about this thing, this conversation I've been having with my own kids, right, about >> Blockbuster Video.

[00:07:16]>> Sure. Yeah.

[00:07:16]>> Go with me here. Right. Uh, so there there's a a there was a a kind of slow and painful beauty about Blockbuster Video or any of the old video stores in which you went you made your selection based on, you know, your friend's recommendation, based on the, you know, the guy at the counter who has very strong opinions about what you should and shouldn't watch. And every town had one of those, >> of course. Oh, yes. Uh, the person you feared and revered above all else was the record store guy and the the the video uh cassette guy. But in any case, you looked at the image on the tape, maybe you've heard of it, maybe you hadn't, and you rent it, and then you're [ __ ] stuck with it, right? you go home and you've paid for this thing and you're by God, you're going to watch it, right? You're going to get through the entire thing. And I and this may not sound like I'm making a point related to the fragmentation. However, I I think it's essentially uh fragmented because what uh social media and algorithms and all of the things you're talking about have done is reduced all of that friction, right? and they present to you a very well-curated thing of only the the content that you will like or that will make you enraged or that will make you horny or whatever it is. It will make you it is tailored towards you. You no longer have to communicate with the woman behind the counter. You no longer have to listen to your friend's recommendations. You no longer have to just take a risk on something you're probably going to hate. And when you are allowed to read books that you hate or watch movies that you hate, you develop uh a richer understanding of your own preferences, right?

[00:09:14]>> Oh yeah. I I I mean part of the part of the challenge is that there's no unified culture, right? And we see this, you know, I I was having a conversation recently with my father and he was said, you know, without sports, right? Uh there's there really is no unified culture anymore. and we're a societ and what does that mean to be a 350 million people without a shared experiences right and I think that's the concern and that's why when you hear about people talking about the erosion of the of of our society how our society is becoming more atomized which is a bad thing um because loneliness has not just individually is bad for your health but for a society of lonely people that's a very dangerous thing and that's something that I believe is probably counter to our history and counter to our evolution because all humans right for maybe our first 290,000 of the 300,000 years I'm now going into a history of the present right 29 of those 30 years we lived in small huntergatherer bands of 20 to 70 people and we defined ourselves in reference to those people what happens when those people disappear that's the question that's the great fragment ation. How do you who are you in when you're not in reference to anything else? That's a question that we have not really discussed yet. And so we have this society uh that's completely atomized or is getting there. And I think it's probably getting there faster now with AI because AI can make it so much easier to optimize the algorithms, right? and very easy to connect all these different data points that are inherent to who you are as a person and just give you that flow. Give you that flow. And so you don't have to push back to your point. But the the thing is is that historically push back is t is is good because not everyone is 100% correct in their beliefs and the lack of that is just showing that this siloization of 350 million people is something that is we are seeing this in our democracy.

[00:11:24]We are seeing this in commerce. We are seeing this internationally as well that there's not a uniform sort of human experience which is you know okay that's that's fine people are allowed to have their own experiences but the human experience of these cultural events um and and I kind of go into it in the piece um and and I think you know I'm making a subjective statement but I think I can defend it is that the quality of our arts has declined significant ificantly because I believe the people who have been the gatekeepers saw that um you know and that's why 99 2000 is such an inflection point because you start seeing the Blair Witch Project right which was uh an amazing movie right but then all of a sudden you have this whole genre of of found fil of sort of found film right >> sure >> and then you also have all these sort of comic books and the concern is that because people's interests are so diffused now that they c that these sort of big sort of artistic pieces are not going to find an audience and that's not wrong. Um right.

[00:12:33]>> So the people behind the arts who are funding the arts are saying this is a culture that wants um reruns. They don't want to be challenged, right? Um and we are seeing how that the lack of sort of a larger sort of cultural moment um is leading I believe to societal loneliness which is very unhealthy.

[00:12:58]>> Well and I think um you know I have a couple of questions about our own sort of role in this but you know I'm you mentioned the sort of evolution of human culture and society. Um and there are uh you know deaths of desperation um are spiking.

[00:13:20]>> Yep. Y >> um and and it does seem as if you know we've evolved to derive our purpose from uh our contributions to each other.

[00:13:31]>> Yes.

[00:13:32]>> Right.

[00:13:33]>> Uh and uh social media has evolved to remove that. And so uh it is promoting and by the way when it promotes I'm saying it's promoting something an idea a concept to you every eighth of a second right the algorithm has uh figured out a way to get inside your brain and spin up dramatically faster than any human ever could um and provide you with the dopamine that that you need to get your fix and so on and so forth.

[00:14:07]But uh it's promoting this concept that no purpose isn't what you do for others.

[00:14:13]It's what only what you do for yourself, right? Uh and and that's that's siloing.

[00:14:19]That is uh leads to incredible loneliness and also incredible depression because we're not we actually didn't evolve that way.

[00:14:28]>> No, we're a social.

[00:14:31]>> We're a social species. Um, and and it's it's just we are because uh you you know when people are having fun, you think of photos of parties, you think of your kids, you know, you think of your kids Christmas or Hanukkah party or whatever.

[00:14:45]You're thinking of your family. When people are thinking, where am I most connected? They're not thinking of themselves in a basement.

[00:14:52]>> Yeah.

[00:14:52]>> Going on Facebook looking for things.

[00:14:55]They're thinking of my mother, my father, my wife, or my neighbors, my friends. And that those are the things that give us purpose. And really I think unfortunately what the powers that be when it came to the algorithms they saw something that's very clear to for I think for all of us maybe just not spoken about is that there's this inherent need for us for escapism and escapism is really part of the human condition. And these algorithms um they take us on that journey but it's not um it's not like we're going on an adventure per se. This is purely extractive. So when we're giving information to Facebook, to Twitter, to others, we're interacting. It might they might say it's free, but we are the product, right? And I think the lack of understanding of that, the lack of understanding that we're essentially part of this extractive economic system that really doesn't care about us, but sees our interactions with each other as a fungeable good that can be traded, right? Data is the new gold. Have you heard that? That really goes to this moment, right? Where's all this data coming from? It's coming from us. And guess what? We're not getting paid for it either. and and so we're we're actively engaging in the siloization undermining our collective experience and we are seeing that tying this to the greater point Sam we're seeing that in our democracy um the inability for people to connect the things that are wrong with why they are wrong the causation that is super important you know >> I I want to ask about that because this you know the fragmentation happened alongside the rise of you know tribalism, political tribalism, QAnon, >> you know the big lie.

[00:16:52]>> So where is the causation? Do you see this cultural break and the political break as the same phenomenon or did one cause the other? Where are we here?

[00:17:02]>> That's a [snorts] really that's a really tough question. I think the the causation is purely is legal and structural and the legal and structure then has an effect downstream on the culture because legal and the structure creates the conditions of our environment. So um we look at what is what are we experiencing now? This is the downstream effect of deregulation of the 70s 80s and 90s and we are living we are living we are living in that world that is the result of a lot of the the sort of uh I don't I don't want to say maybe libertarian people like Milton Freriedman who became very prominent in the 70s 80s and 90s and they may have had some good ideas about some things but when it came to overall social policy for a country of 350 million you cannot have selfishness as the uh unifying creed. You cannot have uh this sort of rustic individualism cowboy culture as a unifying creed of 350 million people. And part of the reason why people are are are so lonely now and they feel that they have no connection is because I think partially because um they realize that in the end the powers that be are purely looking them as a extractive tool.

[00:18:22]And we see this you you said what is the causation this really you like I said 70 80s and 90s I recall there was a uh study released in 2018 and I want to say it was based on uh since 1982 or maybe 40 years of supply side economics how much money which should have gone to the working people was sent upward $50 trillion it was something of of a magnitude of that sort that's years of life exper experience. That's year that's years that's years of uh people living longer. That's people having healthier lives. That's people with communities. How many of our communities in this country have been gutted because people just don't care to invest it anymore and are saying, "Well, that's not my problem." Um, and so all of this ties back to a love of individualism above the collective. And there always has to be a balance, but when it goes too far in one direction, that's when we have trouble. And right now we're in a lot of trouble because people don't think they're getting a fair deal in an economy where the wealth is where the wealth is overwhelmingly owned by the top 0.001%.

[00:19:35]And so you're saying the causation the causation unfortunately is that we've created a legal infrastructure that rewards greed over the collective good.

[00:19:46]>> Right. Uh yeah, I spoke to a um a economist a couple of weeks ago uh who who cited that you know 50 trillionish um stat and you know said that 70% of market wealth right now is monopolistic >> um this our system has been rec constructed to favor monopoly right monopoly power and and the tech industry is particularly good uh at creating that and you know I I think about um this book Escape from Freedom by uh Eric Fro uh written after uh Nazism in the 40s and 50s um where he talks about uh alienation from process from product uh right and and the the external locust of control right the when you are just putting in a screw on a factory assembly line you are separated or alienated from the end product.

[00:20:47]>> Yeah, that's that's very important.

[00:20:50]>> It's incredibly important. Um and and I the our entire society has been built, you know, on based on the ability to separate workers from the process, >> the end result >> from the end result, from the product.

[00:21:05]Um I I I I wonder um and you know by the way Fro's um uh ending thesis was that eventually you do look for connection or you look for uh a locust or center of control. And in Nazism for example they put their center of control on Hitler, right? You look for something external that uh gives you purpose and connection and all of those kinds of things. And I I see now QAnon um I see right uh look I I have friends and family who went down the Q hole and what I see mostly is um a real uh feeling of connection.

[00:21:50][snorts] >> I mean that's what MAGA is. That's what MAGA is. MAG MAGA is a way so I don't I I I don't buy you know people when they talk about MAGA you know there's obviously it's not a positive social movement in my opinion and I think there's a lot of evidence to to show that but really what MAGA is to your point Sam is that there's a community and there is a sense that they're in it together and that was QAnon too it's us versus the bad guys and those bad guys are the um I think in the QAnon mythology are the child sex traffickers who are connected to Jeffrey Epstein and um ironically um some of the elites that they think are protecting them from the likes of the Epstein class are probably tied to them. Um talking about the president of the United States. And so unfortunately this goes to what I was just talking about the inability to connect the injury with how the injury happened. Um, and this inability to connect. Carl Sean talked about this. I believe it was in the demon haunted world. There's going to come a time when people are not going to be able to connect how the injury happened, how this in the in the public sphere. I don't understand where where did the vi what happened to the voting rights act.

[00:23:10]And the part of that I I'm going to say that there's been a lot of bad actors who have basically taken TNT to the public square on purpose because organi organized people who are angry can get results and when you got them confused angry at the wrong people it's the best that's again if you're totally cynical and you don't care about human if you don't care about human goodness you don't care about the social safety net if you just care about getting rich and [ __ ] everyone else that's how you do it.

[00:23:41]You blow up public square. And that's what has happened to the United States.

[00:23:44]And I I really want to press this point that we don't have a collective public square. But right now, our commons is owned by the likes of Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, who don't really care about us. They don't care about democracy.

[00:23:58]They see Yes, >> I know. I'm so sorry to to burst uh [laughter] I'm so sorry to burst everyone's bubble, but these are some of the worst actors in human history.

[00:24:10]And we're watching the damage happen in real time. And so you know Sam recently on history of the present we interviewed Michael Rosenblat and he kept and who is Michael Rosenlat? He was he's a ANR executive music industry multiple decades helped sign Madonna B-52 Seesh Mode. He knows what he's talking about throughout that interview. He kept bringing up his iPhone and saying this is what's keeping us apart. this and he wasn't talking about the iPhone but the apps and all these things that are taking our attention from what is right in front of us. Our democracy is cratering.

[00:24:45]>> It is cratering >> it. Look, I think um uh yeah and all of it was um sold to us as connected, >> right? It was sold as a way that will, you know, that that inspires us to actually be more connected.

[00:25:02]>> Um and it did the exact opposite. And I think I think about people like Trump and and you know Musk and uh and so on.

[00:25:11]Um and I I think they are catastrophically wrong and deeply effective.

[00:25:19]>> They're very good at what they if you have no morals and you're completely cynical and you're smart and you have people who are immoral, cynical, and smart who are willing to do anything for a buck working for you, terrible things happen. Yes, >> we're seeing that right now.

[00:25:34]>> So, uh, so much of many of the politicians we're counting on to sort of pull us out of this are right and ineffective, right? It's it's the flip side of the coin, but I I want to ask, you know, if we if everyone read this this piece, and if you're just joining, I'm with Brian Datesman from The Intellectualist. We're talking about uh a new piece that he has out on the great fragmentation. If you accept your thesis here, um your diagnosis. What's the path forward? Is it possible to rebuild shared this sort of shared sequence or do we need you know entirely new models for how democratic discourse works in a fragmented world?

[00:26:16]>> So here's the thing in America. What's great about the United States is that we vote. It's mandated by the Constitution that there's a vote for Congress every two years. There's a vote for the presidency every four years, a Senate every six years. Um, I think the challenge is we need to align where we know where things are with what we want politicians to do. And politicians don't necessarily want to do that because long ago, again, this is going back to 70s, 80s, and 90s. We transitioned from a a not a great democracy. We still had authoritarianism in the United States.

[00:26:50]Uh, African-Americans couldn't vote until basically the 1968 election. Think about that. We did not have full suffrage in the United States until there. That's like that's my parents lifetime.

[00:27:00]>> Yeah.

[00:27:00]>> Right. And so we need to respect that our history has always had this sort of balance between those who want to live to the American ideals of freedom, liberty, democracy, equality, all these ideals. And those who don't want that, who want to be able to sell that version of America overseas in order to enrich themselves, in order to enrich themselves at the expense of the people who are the idealists. Um, and so do I think that there is a solution? Of course, because for every problem there must be a solution. There must be an exit. And if you recall in the early 20th century, there was a man named Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican. He was a Republican. And what did why did he why is historically why is he important today? Because he was a trustbuster, right? And those trusts, he knew those trusts were undermining democracy. He knew it aundred years ago. He knew that uh more than a hundred years ago. And it's the same thing today. If you want a free market economy, you need competition. If you don't have competition, you have igopoly and monopoly. And that leads to oligarchy. And that leads to a system, our system, where you have the richest people are able to donate as much as possible to get representatives and lawmakers into the system that represent their very particular interest, which is low taxes, low regulations. Whereas most Americans I believe if you were to look at this uh holistically because unfortunately we divide ourselves in the left and right. I believe the new paradigm in the future is going to be is this something that is destructive or constructive and if it's not constructive why are we doing it that is the change in the paradigm I think we need to get away from left versus right per se and because in the end it's very similar is it construct is it constructive to create laws that discriminate against Americans so they can't live their best lives they can't go to college where they feel like are secondass citizens.

[00:29:05]No, that's destructive, right? That shouldn't be a left or right issue.

[00:29:08]Would you want that happening to your children, to your grandparents, to your parents, right? And so, we need to focus uh get away from unfortunately these labels which are helpful, right, in our discussions, but in reality, when it comes to a country of 350 million people, is this a pro-social policy? Is this a policy that's progrowth that's going to lead to the greatest possible benefit for the most people or is this a policy that's going to lead to extraction of those same people and take those receipts all that money from the people those policies are against and send them upward which is what we have now unfortunately because of our supply side economics. So we look at the original sin. Um in 1980s the United States did not have a 100% debt uh debt to what was it uh the national debt is what 100% GDP now if not more. That is a recent phenomenon. It's more. Yeah, it it was just announced that it was more.

[00:30:08]And and look, I I think there's, you know, this I agree. Um we need to to build to focus on what builds what is constructive rather than what is destructive. Um however, there are the destructionists, right, who are a major faction in our politics, the zero summer, and >> many of them are Republicans. I'd say in our current in in our current reality, unfortunately, the Republican party is an authoritarian party that is contemptuous of Democratic norms, that is contemptuous of the best of American history and sees itself merely as a project to validate the um the whims of a a a um decrepit decrepit twice impeached felon president. And that is the truth. And why is this Republican party protecting all these people related to Jeffrey Epstein? Why? Why do they not have parents? Do they not have daughters?

[00:31:06]They don't have Do they not have any empathy for this tough on crime that they love to claim is their uh birthright? How could you be tough on crime if you're letting child sex traffickers get away with it? And this is the central problem. And I think this is why Americans are so pissed off right now. Yeah. Doesn't matter. Republican, independent, Democrat, liber liberal, it doesn't matter. They see these crimes.

[00:31:30]These criminals are getting away with awful crimes and they're doing it in our name and they're using the Constitution to protect these people. They are that is what people see. And that is why I believe it's important that 2026, 2028, people have to show up and vote because to vote is to show you affirmation of our values with behavior.

[00:31:53]>> And so, you know, it it also occurs to me that um and and I want to wrap up uh shortly. This has been an incredible conversation, but um >> look, we're both on Substack, [laughter] >> Lincoln Square. uh we you know pushed a YouTube you you could be watching this on YouTube right now. Uh we there's a you know a siloed sort of nature of our audience. In fact with the exception of probably some trolls who are out there making comments about libtards and all this [laughter] kind of thing.

[00:32:25]>> The best comments. The best comments.

[00:32:26]>> Only the best. Only the best. Yeah. With names like you know Franklin G724397642.

[00:32:34]um with the exception of of those people most of the audience in this uh who've stuck around with us till now are in our own particular silo but I want to ask for you know for people who are watching this or listening to this who recognize themselves in this diagnosis and I think it's important that we all recognize our own part in this culture >> absolutely >> um we we all need to realize we are living in our own tunnel what's the actual practice is for breaking out and what does it look like daytoday to resist algorithmic extraction?

[00:33:12]>> Sam, this is a great question and I think it really gets to something very basic. Meet your neighbors, meet the people in your town, go to your town, meet the local towns people, go shopping, see the local stores, get to know that this is the your real life, that the the neighbors next door, those are the people who matter. uh the the friend online. I'm sure that there's a ton uh very important relationships that people have online, but really as humans, we're again getting back to the 290,000 years of human evolution where we evolved with small groups, 20 to 70 people who were probably interrelated or friends, right? Which makes sense. Uh that's what makes us happy is the community, right? The get to know your neighbors. If you can't get to know your neighbors, I believe one of the most important things Sam and I believe that this is going to be so important is to c ability for for organizations like Lincoln Square uh the intellectuals to help uh create community in shared in real life spaces so people know that they're just not this voice screaming into the void that there are people just like you who love who will love you who will accept you, who will not judge you, who uh will see in you parts of themselves. And when we do this, when we recreate community in real life, that is how we break free of the algorithms because a lot of this comes down to our sense of loneliness. But those algorithms make it worse because they keep us engaged with the outrage. They keep us engaged with, oh, look who this this new post. Oh, I'm going to click on that. But when you click on that, they're getting your data and then they're giving you more stuff to suck up all your attention because we live in an attention economy now. That is our economy. The more eyeballs on this, the more conversions and conversions equal dollar signs. And so people need to understand that they are the product when they are using online when they're using Facebook and to appreciate that the person next door that there could be there could be a someone next door there could be a friend from high school there are people who really want connection and I think we need to make it easier for positive again positive social connection not extractive connection that focus on feeding outrage anger and hatred towards our neighbors. and other people in our greater community. If we could focus on just getting to know the people closest to us, even if we're not best friends, we're going to feel more connected than we are um when we're on this sort of algorithmic feed that really just exists to make you upset, angry uh at the world.

[00:36:01]>> So, the advice is uh not only touch grass, but find somebody with whom you enjoy touching grass.

[00:36:08]>> Absolutely. Even if it's even if it's just one person because one person can could really open entire world. They might know someone who also is of a similar mindset and all of a sudden there's three people and then that's how communities form and I think that's what we need to focus on is online is e makes things easier. It does. Uh technology is incredible. You and I we're talking right now. I don't you know you're not here. I'm not here yet. We're in the same room. Incredible communication. We should take advantage of that. Yeah. At >> the same time, we also have human needs.

[00:36:41]And those human needs probably can only come from interacting directly with other humans. Um, and I think that once we appreciate that and we create a society of dignity where people feel that they can connect with others in real life, that's going to take away the need for all this escapism, which is what which is what we're experiencing now, which is we're all on a thousand feeds, 350 million silos. Going back to the illustration of the article, we're in a fun house of mirrors. And you can't run a country of 350 million people if no one can agree what the problems are, what the solutions are, or how to find them.

[00:37:25]>> I I will also say there have been a lot of research that says um doing something kind for someone >> absolutely >> is >> absolutely >> incredibly curative, right? Uh it uh leads to great connection. So go get your neighbor a cup of coffee and take it over just for fun. Um, >> every every day is a new opportunity to be the best version of yourself. That's right. And that's what is great about the American ideal and the American premise is that we are a free people and we can choose what we want to do.

[00:37:59]>> We should not take we should not um we should we should defend that. We should honor that. And we honor that by meeting our neighbors, by voting, and taking care civically of what it means to be part of a unified society.

[00:38:14]>> Well, we'll leave it there. Brian Datesman is the founder and editor-inchief of The Intellectualist here on Substack and the host of the incredible new podcast, The History of the Present. You got to watch it. Uh you can find that at the Intellectualist and also right here on Lincoln Square.

[00:38:30]Brian, always a pleasure.

[00:38:33]>> Sam, it's always a pleasure. It's always an honor speaking with you and everyone at Lincoln Square. And thank you so much for this conversation today. Thanks all.