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Any Rigid Idea About Yourself Is a Prison · Never Post

• 0:10
  Mike Rugnetta: Friends, hello, and welcome to Never Post, a
• 0:13
  podcast for and about the Internet. I'm your host, Mike
• 0:16
  Rugnetta. This intro was written on Tuesday, 04/08/2025 at
• 0:20
  09:07AM eastern, and we have a life defining show for you this
• 0:26
  week. First, researcher, product consultant, and contributing
• 0:30
  producer, Young Na Park tackles, finally on Neverpost, LinkedIn,
• 0:35
  and how it is people construct and advertise themselves on the
• 0:39
  business brain site, and what has been called the last truly
• 0:43
  weird social network. Then I chat with clinical
• 0:46
  psychotherapist, social worker, and cohost of Unraveling over at
• 0:51
  the Brattleboro Institute, Kurt White, about how the Internet
• 0:55
  helps us become ourselves, and if he, in his professional
• 0:59
  estimation, thinks that is a good thing.
• 1:03
  And also, the people united will never be defeated. But first,
• 1:08
  let's talk about a few of the things that have happened since
• 1:10
  the last time you heard from us. I have six stories for you this
• 1:15
  week. Way back in November, Elon Musk sued Amazon owned streaming
• 1:22
  platform Twitch over alleged conspiracy to boycott
• 1:25
  advertising on his social platform x as part of the Global
• 1:29
  Alliance for Responsible Media aka Garm, which has since
• 1:34
  disbanded because of the lawsuit. DMR news reported that
• 1:38
  the lawsuit cites a Garm document suggesting Twitch
• 1:41
  executives endorsed the coalition's brand safety
• 1:44
  standards, which x claims unfairly excluded the platform,
• 1:48
  end quote.
• 1:49
  According to Business Insider, the suit named Mars, CVS Health,
• 1:52
  Danish Multinational Energy Concern, Unilever, and Twitch
• 1:57
  amongst others. At the end of last year, Unilever settled and
• 2:01
  on Monday this week, so did Twitch. A motion was filed in
• 2:05
  the Northern District Of Texas, ex's preferred venue for
• 2:08
  litigation, ordering a stay action in the suit, citing both
• 2:12
  parties entering into a memorandum of understanding.
• 2:15
  Pursuant to which they will contemplate dismissal by January
• 2:18
  of next year pending satisfaction of certain
• 2:21
  conditions. Wonder what those conditions could be.
• 2:25
  As Meta continues its rollout of teen accounts in The US, UK,
• 2:30
  Australia, and Canada, they have, as of this week, added an
• 2:33
  additional restriction beyond parentally controlled time
• 2:36
  limits and the blurring of suspected nudity in private
• 2:39
  messages. Minors will now be blocked from streaming live on
• 2:42
  Instagram without parental permission. The Guardian reports
• 2:46
  that the announcement comes quote as The UK implements the
• 2:49
  online safety act end quote, which in its own words is aimed
• 2:53
  requiring platforms to quote prevent children from accessing
• 2:56
  harmful and age inappropriate content and provide parents and
• 3:00
  children with clear and accessible ways to report
• 3:03
  problems online when they do arise, end quote. Critics of the
• 3:07
  bill say among other things that it requires or allows platforms
• 3:10
  to scan private messages to ensure compliance, a massive
• 3:15
  privacy concern given it implies the defeat of end to end
• 3:19
  encryption in personal communications. A similar
• 3:23
  concern is popping up around the US senate's take it down act,
• 3:27
  which aims to reduce the prevalence of non consensual
• 3:30
  intimate imagery, most notably pornographic deepfakes.
• 3:34
  Critics of the bill say its non specific provisions could lead
• 3:37
  to undue burden and abuse. Platforms must review material
• 3:41
  within forty eight hours and there are no penalties for false
• 3:44
  claims. No process is outlined for appeals and it is not
• 3:48
  entirely clear what counts as non consensual intimate imagery
• 3:52
  leading to questions on whether say the president may use the
• 3:55
  law to remove constitutionally protected free speech critical
• 3:58
  of him. Trump has said he would. I'm gonna use that bill for
• 4:02
  myself too, if you don't mind, the Washington Post reports
• 4:05
  Trump saying, because nobody gets treated online worse than I
• 4:09
  do, end quote.
• 4:24
  Posts. Move markets. Amidst global turmoil around The US
• 4:29
  Admin's trade policy, a post reading, Hassett colon, Trump is
• 4:32
  considering a ninety day pause in tariffs for all countries
• 4:35
  except China, made tanking markets reverse course on Monday
• 4:39
  for a few minutes. The problem, it was unsourced and as of later
• 4:43
  that afternoon debunked by the White House itself calling it
• 4:47
  quote fake news. Don't believe everything you read on the
• 4:50
  internet, I guess.
• 4:51
  Minnesota state democrats have proposed a law taxing social
• 4:56
  media platforms for collecting data on users. Under the bill,
• 5:00
  the Minnesota reformer reports, if a social media company has
• 5:03
  fewer than 100,000 monthly consumers from Minnesota, it
• 5:07
  wouldn't be taxed. If the social media company has between
• 5:10
  500,001 Minnesota consumers, the tax per month would be $40,000
• 5:16
  plus 25¢ times the number of consumers over 500,000, end
• 5:21
  quote. This echoes a similar law that has been passed around the
• 5:24
  New York State Senate for several years now and recently
• 5:27
  reintroduced in January of twenty twenty five. Oregon,
• 5:31
  Washington, West Virginia, and others have also put forth
• 5:34
  similar legislation.
• 5:36
  And finally, Microsoft has canceled construction or leases
• 5:41
  of data centers around the world. Pivot to AI has compiled
• 5:46
  a list including plans halted in The US, Europe, Indonesia, The
• 5:49
  UK, and Australia. Much of this processing power was set to be
• 5:53
  put towards the development of AI technology about which the
• 5:56
  company has been increasingly cautious. Perhaps surprising
• 5:59
  given their $13,000,000 investment in OpenAI and their
• 6:03
  ownership of 49% of its equity. In show news this week, we got
• 6:11
  nominated for a Webby.
• 6:13
  Woah. If you're not familiar, they're sort of like the Emmys
• 6:16
  of the Internet, maybe the MTV VMAs. Either way, our x o x o
• 6:20
  live episode was nominated for best live podcast recording,
• 6:25
  which I mean, not to toot my own horn, but it was a good show. We
• 6:31
  need you, please, to go vote for us. Please.
• 6:34
  I'm gonna say it one more time. Please. We're gonna put a link
• 6:37
  in the show notes. Just go give it a click. You sign in.
• 6:39
  It's fast. I promise. Just you can search for never post. It's
• 6:43
  probably the easiest way to get to us. Click on our show art to
• 6:46
  give us a vote.
• 6:46
  It would mean the world to us. Also contributing producer Tory
• 6:51
  Dominguez Peek's episode about AI powered recreations of
• 6:54
  deceased loved ones, which we called to BRB or not to BRB, was
• 6:59
  an honoree as a finalist in the category for best individual
• 7:04
  episode of a podcast. Just like of all of them out there last
• 7:10
  year, which is amazing, and I think extremely well deserved.
• 7:14
  Tory's work on that episode was amazing. There's no voting needed for that one, once you
• 7:19
  are an honoree, you are just an honoree. But extremely exciting
• 7:22
  nonetheless, congrats to Tori who's working on some new
• 7:25
  segments for us right now. So hopefully, you're gonna get to
• 7:28
  hear more of her work very soon. Okay. That is the show news I
• 7:32
  have for you this week.
• 7:33
  Go vote for us for a Webby right now, and then listen to the rest
• 7:37
  of this episode. Next, Yungna Park on self narratizing on
• 7:41
  LinkedIn, then me and Kurt on the internet making you who you
• 7:47
  are question mark. But first, in our interstitials this week,
• 7:52
  field recordings from the hands off demonstration on April 5 in
• 7:58
  Saint Paul, Minnesota.
• 9:43
  Youngna Park: As a technology consultant, I spend a fair
• 9:45
  amount of time on LinkedIn, either looking to connect with
• 9:48
  people, trying to generate work, or responding to messages from
• 9:52
  other people. I use it mostly to research potential clients,
• 9:56
  individuals, companies, and also use it to do a fair amount of
• 9:59
  sleuthing. Who knows who? Do I know anyone who has worked with
• 10:03
  someone? Who is this person who wants to meet for a coffee?
• 10:07
  What is this company my friend mentioned, and are they making
• 10:09
  something I should know about? I've been on LinkedIn as long as
• 10:12
  I can remember. It feels like an important part of appearing
• 10:15
  professional, especially because I work in the tech industry. But
• 10:19
  recently, I started to notice that of all the places I spend
• 10:22
  time on Internet, the place that increasingly leaves me feeling
• 10:25
  the absolute worst is LinkedIn. And when I say worst, I mean
• 10:29
  envy, jealousy, despair, annoyance.
• 10:32
  I wanted to know why LinkedIn was making me feel this way. Is
• 10:37
  it the collective desperation of people searching for employment?
• 10:40
  Is it the blatant celebration of capitalism in a country with so
• 10:44
  little social infrastructure? Is it watching people completely
• 10:47
  renaritivize their lives in service of some middle manager
• 10:50
  job using language full of platitudes? I
• 10:55
  Melanie Ehrenkranz: feel like what you described is sometimes
• 10:56
  how people talk about, like, Instagram. You log on and it's
• 10:59
  like FOMO. You see all these people, like, living their best
• 11:02
  lives and you, depending on where you're at, might feel
• 11:04
  jealousy.
• 11:05
  Youngna Park: This is Melanie Ehrencrantz, a technology
• 11:08
  reporter and creator of Laid Off, a substack and Discord
• 11:12
  community for people who've been affected by layoffs.
• 11:15
  Melanie Ehrenkranz: The way you talk about LinkedIn, it feels
• 11:18
  like it aligns with, like, this like, how our self worth is also
• 11:21
  really tied up in work and, like, productivity and, you
• 11:27
  know, having something to show for it in, like, tangible terms.
• 11:30
  And I'm curious if you feel like your self worth and your job are
• 11:34
  tied up, and LinkedIn is maybe, like, a toxic place to hang out
• 11:37
  if that's the case.
• 11:38
  Sara M. Watson: I generally feel like I have completely
• 11:41
  disconnected my self worth from my work for the better after
• 11:46
  many, many years of being extremely tied up in my
• 11:52
  identity. But when I go on there, I think I see a lot of
• 11:55
  people trying to perform at being very enthusiastic about
• 12:00
  work or looking for work or doing work that does not read as
• 12:04
  necessarily very genuine. And I think I just really feel for
• 12:08
  that effort that it requires to do that when it's unclear that
• 12:15
  they'll get any reward from it.
• 12:20
  Youngna Park: That reality is that in 2025, work is more
• 12:23
  precarious than ever. There are unprecedented numbers of
• 12:26
  layoffs. The economy is tanking, and there's wide scale anxiety
• 12:30
  and anticipation about AI. And still, LinkedIn is the largest
• 12:34
  professional social networking site on the planet. As of
• 12:38
  January, in The US alone, there are a 70,000,000 employed
• 12:42
  people, but an estimated 250,000,000 LinkedIn users.
• 12:46
  That's 80,000,000 more users than employed people. But I
• 12:50
  believe LinkedIn is also shifting as a product in ways
• 12:53
  that amplify how precarious our work lives feel by evolving the
• 12:56
  platform to make us more and more reliant on it. The
• 12:59
  combination of the shape of the product, its focus on work, and
• 13:03
  the way we use it has created a perfect storm. To unpack what
• 13:08
  LinkedIn is at this moment, I talked to Sarah Watson, a
• 13:11
  technology analyst and researcher. When did she think
• 13:15
  that the way that people post on LinkedIn started to shift, and
• 13:18
  how has the shape of the product changed as we know it?
• 13:24
  Sara M. Watson: I can think of a couple key moments, x and
• 13:28
  Twitter being one of them as we kind of collectively decided to
• 13:33
  abandon and leave. Mhmm. And I think that started to change how
• 13:38
  much people were posting on LinkedIn because that it was the
• 13:42
  default Mhmm. When you all of a sudden kind of lost another
• 13:47
  audience that you might have been cultivating over an
• 13:49
  extended period of time. So I think that kind of shifted
• 13:53
  pushing to share shorter bits that feel like tweets.
• 13:58
  Right? But I also think over the past couple of years, there's
• 14:03
  been a real shift in the engagement metrics, and
• 14:08
  therefore behaviors around how to game the LinkedIn system. And
• 14:13
  also as more people have awareness of the role of
• 14:15
  algorithms in populating our feeds, in working through
• 14:20
  engagement. And so, those jump out to me as a couple key
• 14:24
  moments.
• 14:25
  Youngna Park: What do you think LinkedIn is really pushing you
• 14:28
  to try to do? Like, what is the medium of LinkedIn?
• 14:31
  Sara M. Watson: Yeah. The shower thought I had before we jumped
• 14:35
  on this call was LinkedIn is the ultimate platform of capitalism.
• 14:41
  I think Twitter, Instagram, those have kind of more cultural
• 14:46
  aspirations at least. Like, what's the zeitgeist? What's the
• 14:49
  aesthetic?
• 14:50
  What's the micro trend niche, that's surfacing on those
• 14:54
  platforms? And I think about those more as as culture.
• 14:57
  Obviously, there is culture coming out of the way that
• 15:01
  people use LinkedIn, but I think it's the most pure form of a
• 15:07
  platform that is a vehicle for capitalism.
• 15:12
  Youngna Park: And if it is a vehicle for capitalism, maybe
• 15:14
  people don't know to what degree they're actually opting in to
• 15:17
  participating in that. In my mind, it creates different types
• 15:21
  of users, which, like on another platform, might be consistent
• 15:24
  with types like a momfluencer, a chronic selfie poster, someone
• 15:28
  who never posts but replies to everyone else. I feel like
• 15:32
  LinkedIn has its own set of types with their own language of
• 15:35
  self awareness and self promotion. I was curious if
• 15:38
  Sarah were to identify these, if her categories would overlap
• 15:42
  with mine.
• 15:43
  Sara M. Watson: The top ones that come out for me is like the
• 15:45
  influencer, thought leader as one, the like ultimate networker
• 15:52
  amplifier,
• 15:53
  which
• 15:53
  I think is actually a very important role socially. Like,
• 15:56
  there are people who repost a lot, and I see that as like a
• 16:01
  service role that they're playing within their networks as
• 16:04
  amplifier, as supporter. And I think those those folks are
• 16:08
  actually really important. There's the self promoter, the
• 16:12
  humble bragger, the extended metaphor that's like super
• 16:16
  cringe is a certain type of poster.
• 16:19
  Youngna Park: Give me like an example of that one.
• 16:21
  Sara M. Watson: Yeah. So this is well, I so I pulled the polar is
• 16:26
  another one. Mhmm. I pulled my LinkedIn folks in anticipation
• 16:31
  of this conversation and only got one reply because it wasn't
• 16:34
  apparently engaging enough of a post. But I did get one good
• 16:38
  answer which was I was sentenced to five years of hard time in a
• 16:42
  Russian gulag where I was forced to do manual labor 23 a day.
• 16:46
  Here's what it taught me about product management. That is the,
• 16:49
  like, extended metaphor cringe post.
• 16:52
  Youngna Park: There's, like, find and follow your passion
• 16:54
  people.
• 16:54
  Sara M. Watson: Like Oh, yes.
• 16:55
  Youngna Park: Who got their job, and now they're, like, telling
• 16:58
  you how the thing to do is to follow your passion.
• 17:00
  Sara M. Watson: Yeah. The the advice givers. Yes. For sure.
• 17:04
  And that that feels in alignment with the thought leader, but I
• 17:10
  think there are two separate it's it's like the life coach
• 17:12
  version and then there's the, like, hot take counter argument
• 17:17
  perspective person.
• 17:18
  Melanie Ehrenkranz: LinkedIn user, Srikanth Kumba, comments.
• 17:22
  LinkedIn: I can suggest an equation that has the potential
• 17:24
  to impact the future. E equals m c squared plus a I. This
• 17:31
  equation combines Einstein's famous equation e equals m c
• 17:36
  squared, which relates energy e to mass m and the speed of light
• 17:41
  c with the addition of a I, artificial intelligence.
• 17:46
  Youngna Park: When you think about the typologies that you've
• 17:49
  come up with and those largely overlap with the ones that I
• 17:51
  thought of, then how do you think that interacts with, like,
• 17:54
  what LinkedIn is actually trying to get you to do?
• 17:57
  Sara M. Watson: Their business model is getting you on their
• 18:00
  engagement ads, but it's also premium. And for all the folks
• 18:07
  who are using it actually as part of their jobs, recruiters,
• 18:11
  marketers, all range of people who are, like, there to actually
• 18:15
  do business.
• 18:16
  Youngna Park: I mean, this might be a conspiracy, but, like, I
• 18:19
  wonder if they actually want you to find a job on LinkedIn
• 18:22
  sometimes because when I think about it from, like, what
• 18:27
  behavior do you wanna optimize? You wanna optimize interaction.
• 18:30
  You want people to subscribe to premium, which is a real premium
• 18:34
  price tag. But the more they help job seekers actually find
• 18:38
  jobs, those people don't need premium as much because they
• 18:42
  don't need the full suite of functionality or tools that
• 18:46
  might be offered to someone that is like that.
• 18:49
  Sara M. Watson: Mhmm.
• 18:50
  I mean, I think they've gotta have a model of, you know, there
• 18:53
  is the person like you, the archetype of or the user type
• 18:57
  who is going in and out when they're job searching and
• 19:00
  they're gonna pay for it when they need it. And Mhmm. But, you
• 19:03
  know, you're gonna be hopping between jobs. They know you're
• 19:05
  not a recurring revenue in the way that a recruiter would be.
• 19:09
  Mhmm.
• 19:10
  But, you know, I think ultimately, because there it is
• 19:13
  such a complex ecosystem now, there are many different use
• 19:19
  cases. And so to lump it all together is is is kind of hard.
• 19:23
  Youngna Park: Yeah. When I see some of the posts of the
• 19:26
  typologies that we were talking about, sometimes my question is,
• 19:30
  like, who is this for?
• 19:32
  Sara M. Watson: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
• 19:32
  Youngna Park: Yeah. You know, I'm a little bit like like,
• 19:34
  there's a type of post that I don't think we've talked about,
• 19:36
  which is, like, when someone announces that they have a new
• 19:38
  role. Yeah. They seem to list out, like, I'm so excited to,
• 19:42
  like, launch brand campaigns and growth hack my way with this new
• 19:46
  company. And I'm like, I'm not sure who you're talking to or if
• 19:51
  this is, like, what you've been taught that you need to say,
• 19:55
  like, not directly taught, but
• 19:57
  Sara M. Watson: Yeah. Gleaned. Well, I also, out of sheer
• 20:01
  curiosity, asked Claude to not typologize posters, but types of
• 20:07
  posts. So Claude would would call this the corporate
• 20:10
  cheerleader. If use of praise of employer, team, or product, The
• 20:16
  purpose is to signal loyalty and team spirit.
• 20:19
  Here's an example. Blown away by what our incredible team
• 20:21
  accomplished this quarter. So proud to work at my company that
• 20:24
  truly values innovation. Yes. And I think that one is
• 20:28
  specifically for, like, who's gonna engage with that?
• 20:31
  It's all of your coworkers. Right? Right. And all your new
• 20:34
  coworkers if you're announcing a new job.
• 20:39
  Youngna Park: As you can hear, Sarah used Claude to do this
• 20:41
  type of LinkedIn categorization and largely came up with a very
• 20:45
  similar set of the ones I'd had in my head. What about the
• 20:49
  language people are using on LinkedIn made it prime fodder
• 20:52
  for categorization? And what does that say about how people
• 20:55
  talk and use LinkedIn? Is it because the way we talk about
• 20:59
  work is so predictable? We've adopted rote ways of describing
• 21:03
  our relationship to our jobs, which makes a large language
• 21:05
  model the perfect tool for summing up our behavior.
• 21:08
  Sara M. Watson: There's something about the, like,
• 21:10
  regurgitation that feels so compelling about asking LLMs to
• 21:17
  categorize LinkedIn posts. Because I said, categorize the
• 21:20
  many types of LinkedIn posts as archetypes, including comments,
• 21:23
  use of emoji, extended metaphors, anything that people
• 21:26
  typically write on LinkedIn. How would you analyze the language
• 21:29
  of LinkedIn? And they said, the humble brag, the personal
• 21:34
  triumph, the corporate cheerleader, the thought leader,
• 21:38
  the life coach, the pseudo vulnerable. I love that one.
• 21:43
  The poll starter, the networker, the one upper, the link dropper,
• 21:49
  and the emoji reactor.
• 21:51
  Youngna Park: I had a typology called, like, the reply guy
• 21:54
  Sara M. Watson: Yeah.
• 21:54
  Youngna Park: Who's, like, congratulating everyone on any
• 21:57
  new launch or job.
• 21:58
  Sara M. Watson: Yep.
• 21:58
  Youngna Park: Yeah. I feel like Claude did a good job.
• 22:02
  Sara M. Watson: I Yeah. But it's also like, it does a good job
• 22:05
  because LinkedIn content is regurgitatable. Yes. It it's
• 22:11
  slop.
• 22:12
  LinkedIn: LinkedIn user Kathleen Booth comments. Can we please
• 22:15
  stop shaming people for using AI to write LinkedIn posts? Yes.
• 22:20
  This post was written by AI, but it's still 100% me.
• 22:26
  Youngna Park: This got me to wondering if there's a more
• 22:28
  genuine way to communicate on LinkedIn and which types of
• 22:32
  posts do come across as more real. It feels like there's got
• 22:36
  to be a better way to talk about work or interact in a way that
• 22:39
  feels a little more human and doesn't just feel like hanging
• 22:43
  out with Claude.
• 22:45
  Sara M. Watson: I so I I have a lot of thoughts about that. And
• 22:48
  I I think this moment in particular okay. So I'm having
• 22:53
  multiple threads. One is about solidarity in this moment and
• 22:58
  LinkedIn having the potential as a solidarity platform, which
• 23:01
  feels crazy to say. But also, I think whether it's federal
• 23:06
  layoffs, tech layoffs, there's a lot of disruption.
• 23:10
  And you can tell the difference with those posts. Right? Like,
• 23:12
  they feel more genuine than just a like, sorry for everyone
• 23:18
  affected by this. They sound different. I think there is like
• 23:23
  a potential right now as we are getting into AI generated crap
• 23:30
  that it is actually more salient when you can feel somebody's
• 23:35
  sentiment in a post.
• 23:39
  Youngna Park: I think that solidarity is an important idea
• 23:42
  and something we'd all benefit from right now. It really feels
• 23:45
  urgent for a particular subset, which is people who've been laid
• 23:48
  off. At a time when attitudes about work are routinely
• 23:51
  described in headlines as bleak, how does this group find support
• 23:55
  and solidarity here? And how do people talk about being laid off
• 23:58
  in a way that toes the line between professional, personal,
• 24:02
  and not too desperate. I spoke to Melanie about this.
• 24:07
  Like, if you were to describe what a layoff post looks like on
• 24:13
  LinkedIn, like, what to you is a layoff post?
• 24:17
  Melanie Ehrenkranz: Yeah. I've been thinking about this a lot
• 24:19
  because layoff posts have definitely evolved to be almost
• 24:23
  more about, like, the entire journey. I see a lot of, like,
• 24:25
  day a hundred of unemployment, you know, applied to this many
• 24:29
  jobs, have had this many interviews. So I'm seeing more
• 24:32
  people, like, chronicle from, like, day zero to wherever they
• 24:38
  are at this point in their journey because people are
• 24:40
  looking for jobs for a really long time. So Who do you think
• 24:43
  that that chronicling is for?
• 24:48
  Yeah. I mean, like, psychologically, I think sharing
• 24:52
  is almost this, like, act of defiance against shame. You
• 24:57
  know? You're saying, like, I'm not ashamed of this experience.
• 25:00
  This is just what's happening to me, and I think it's, like, a
• 25:03
  moment of solidarity.
• 25:04
  But I also think it's I hate using the word desperation, but
• 25:08
  it's even in the Discord, the laid off Discord, it's, like, a
• 25:11
  word used a lot of people are you know, have been out of work
• 25:14
  for so long, and they're doing all the things that you're told
• 25:17
  to do to get a job and aren't moving the needle at all. So
• 25:20
  it's like this way that they can kind of take control of their
• 25:23
  own narrative and put themselves out there through a channel they
• 25:26
  control when all of the other channels seem to be giving them
• 25:30
  nothing. So I think it's also a way to just be heard and
• 25:35
  recognize that they're doing their best. And, like, if anyone
• 25:38
  can help, great. And if at most, they can just, like, acknowledge
• 25:41
  their experience, I think that helps.
• 25:50
  Youngna Park: I'm not asking for a magic bullet on how you how
• 25:52
  you guide people to find a job, but I am curious if you have any
• 25:55
  particular takeaways in terms of, like, how you might talk
• 26:01
  about your layoff publicly after the fact.
• 26:04
  Melanie Ehrenkranz: Yeah. I talk a lot about, like, rejecting
• 26:08
  toxic positivity when it comes to how you talk to people who've
• 26:11
  been laid off. And I think I think it can also apply to what
• 26:17
  you're posting. I don't think you have to be like, everything
• 26:21
  happens for a reason. I'm gonna be okay.
• 26:24
  Like, you don't have to, like, put a face up unless, of course,
• 26:28
  that's how you feel. Like, you should be authentic. That being
• 26:31
  said, I think really focusing on, like, building and
• 26:36
  nourishing a community of people that feel aligned or tangential
• 26:41
  to the work that you wanna do is really important. So, you know,
• 26:45
  showing off the work that you're doing while you're laid off. You
• 26:48
  know, it could be a personal project.
• 26:50
  It could be I had someone recently who did an unpaid edit
• 26:53
  test and didn't get the job, and he was like, can I share this?
• 26:56
  We're like, I'm proud of this work. Can I share it on LinkedIn
• 26:59
  as, like, something that I did that I'm proud of? Reaction. And
• 27:03
  I think thinking outside of the box in that sense of like, you
• 27:05
  are still accomplishing.
• 27:06
  Even like share your experience and and connect with people. So
• 27:11
  even if you're just connecting with like one person a week who
• 27:15
  can mentor you or give you advice or is just like in a
• 27:19
  community that you're interested in. One other thing I would
• 27:22
  recommend is like, look for people you're connected to that
• 27:25
  are connected to someone at companies you like and ask them
• 27:28
  to make an introduction for you. I think being really
• 27:32
  comfortable, even if it's, like, faking the confidence of asking
• 27:35
  for help, there's no shame in asking for help. So if someone
• 27:38
  you know knows someone else, like, I would just ask them to
• 27:42
  make an intro.
• 27:44
  Mhmm. Mhmm.
• 27:45
  Youngna Park: What do you think is the biggest contributor to
• 27:48
  false hope on LinkedIn?
• 27:50
  Melanie Ehrenkranz: I think seeing all of these jobs that it
• 27:54
  says, like, you match nine out of 10 of the qualifications.
• 27:58
  It'll say, like, you know, you're a top contender for this.
• 28:02
  You're super qualified for this. For the easy apply, it'll be
• 28:06
  like someone viewed your resume or, like, if you I will say,
• 28:10
  like, a recruiter viewed your profile. So there's all these,
• 28:13
  like, little, almost, like, gamified moments that kind of,
• 28:16
  like, maybe the second you start to feel a little hopeless, it's
• 28:20
  like, well, this could be the one, but it never it never is.
• 28:29
  Youngna Park: Full of false hope on this platform, I started to
• 28:32
  wonder what a better alternative to LinkedIn would look like. Is
• 28:35
  there one out there? I asked both Melanie and Sarah, but
• 28:39
  neither could come up with a clear alternative. And to be
• 28:41
  honest, neither could I. I started this journey wanting to
• 28:46
  know exactly how we got here and remain unconvinced that this is
• 28:49
  the best version of professional networking technology can
• 28:52
  create.
• 28:55
  My takeaway at the end of it all is whether you've been laid off
• 28:58
  or hiring or just trying to be a person with a career is to try
• 29:02
  to remain as human as possible. This might be how you post, how
• 29:06
  you reach out to people, or by saying something in your own
• 29:09
  words, even if it takes a bit more work. Although the product
• 29:15
  has shifted and the world has shifted, we don't need to treat
• 29:18
  each other in only the way that they've designed. Thank you to
• 29:24
  Melanie and Sarah for taking the time to speak with me. And I'm
• 29:28
  really curious, what do you think could be a better
• 29:30
  alternative to LinkedIn?
• 29:32
  Let us know. You can find all the ways to contact us in the
• 29:35
  show notes.
• 32:15
  Mike Rugnetta: You are about to hear a conversation between me
• 32:19
  and Kurt White. And I wanna just say, upfront here, who Kurt is
• 32:25
  and why we wanted to chat with him. We all know him because
• 32:28
  he's the cohost of a show called Unraveling. It's a podcast that
• 32:32
  looks at the world through the lens of mental health. It's
• 32:35
  published by the Brattleboro Retreat, which is a nonprofit
• 32:38
  psychiatric hospital in Vermont.
• 32:41
  And Hans and Jason, who you know from Neverpost, also work on
• 32:44
  unraveling. But besides being co workers essentially, we're all
• 32:48
  just huge Kurt fans, honestly. He's a clinical psychotherapist.
• 32:54
  He's a group psychotherapist, a social worker, a teacher, but
• 32:57
  he's also just a very smart, very thoughtful, kind guy who is
• 33:03
  very reasonable, which is you know, think a rare quality. So
• 33:09
  we wanted to talk to him about something that's kind of been a
• 33:12
  theme throughout so many segments that we've done on
• 33:15
  Neverpost, which is how it is that the internet can help you
• 33:20
  become who you are.
• 33:22
  And you know, as a psychotherapist, I think he's
• 33:25
  got the right set of skills to help us figure this out. There's
• 33:28
  so much fret and worry and anxiety over the deleterious
• 33:33
  effects, let's say, of algorithms and certain types of
• 33:36
  content and certain types of content for certain age groups
• 33:40
  and encountering certain concepts and ideas both
• 33:44
  generally and at different points in your life. There's so
• 33:47
  much conversation about the encountering and the misuse of
• 33:50
  concepts related to therapy and mental health. And so just
• 33:54
  taking all of this together as one big really messy
• 33:57
  conversation and we wanted to know from Kurt, how are these
• 34:03
  things impacting us? Are they?
• 34:05
  People seem worried. Should they be worried? How can the internet
• 34:12
  really shape who we are? So, Kurt. I'm curious if you are
• 34:34
  familiar with this thing that people say online.
• 34:37
  It's usually a comment that people leave under a video, and
• 34:40
  it says, I built this algorithm brick by brick, or I placed this
• 34:45
  brick myself, or things along those lines.
• 34:48
  Kurt White: No. I don't know about that. What what does that
• 34:50
  mean?
• 34:51
  Mike Rugnetta: Do you wanna take a guess as to what it might
• 34:52
  mean?
• 34:53
  Kurt White: I I I have heard that people have a certain pride
• 34:56
  sometimes in the idea that the algorithm really gets them, you
• 34:59
  know, that they that they're careful about the things that
• 35:02
  they like or even linger on, I think. Right? So that they're
• 35:05
  only getting that sort of special unique content to them.
• 35:08
  Is that is that what that would mean?
• 35:10
  Mike Rugnetta: You absolutely nailed it. Yeah. It's it's a way
• 35:12
  of describing the work that you put in to training the algorithm
• 35:19
  on social media, right, usually TikTok or Instagram, to show you
• 35:22
  really specific things. So I I've been thinking about this a
• 35:26
  lot, this like brick by brick idea. Alongside I think another
• 35:30
  much larger and more abstract idea, which is that like in the
• 35:35
  process of being online, a lot of us like figure out like who
• 35:40
  we are.
• 35:41
  Or we figure out like who we could be, like what the options
• 35:44
  are. And the comparison that I make to myself a lot when I'm
• 35:49
  thinking about this is now is kind of like what the mall was
• 35:53
  when I was a kid. Just like a place that you can go, and you
• 35:57
  can see lots of different people all at once, and you can kinda
• 36:01
  get a sense of what your options are. What you might imagine
• 36:05
  yourself as at some point. Mhmm.
• 36:08
  And I think maybe there's this thing that's happening,
• 36:12
  especially in the algorithmic internet, where people are going
• 36:16
  to the internet to make some versions of themselves, building
• 36:21
  this thing brick by brick while we also in a sense are built
• 36:25
  brick by brick by it. So it's this strange like funny
• 36:29
  recursive loop like making a feed that influences our sense
• 36:33
  of self, which is then reflected in the feed, which then
• 36:35
  influences our sense of self, which then is reflected in the
• 36:38
  feed. We ascribe a lot of agency to this technology, and we say
• 36:42
  it knows, and it puts you places, and it has figured
• 36:45
  something out. And it's just doing complicated math. And
• 36:48
  every once in a while, it's, you know, it's not imagining a
• 36:51
  version of me.
• 36:52
  It's it's running an algorithm that will sort of never never be
• 36:56
  able to know or understand.
• 36:58
  Kurt White: And the only thing it's really, the sort of way
• 37:01
  it's evaluating how it works is probably very simple, actually.
• 37:04
  Just are you do you stay doing it? How much do you do it? Yeah.
• 37:08
  And so it isn't necessarily even optimized.
• 37:11
  I mean, not only is there no mind there, but, right, it's not
• 37:13
  even necessarily optimized to give us the thing that we'd like
• 37:17
  the most. It's just optimized to give us the thing that we don't
• 37:20
  stop doing. People often conflate pleasure and and sort
• 37:24
  of reward, and, actually, they're, like, related things
• 37:27
  neuro neurobiologically, but they're not exactly the same.
• 37:30
  Mike Rugnetta: Right? Wait. Can you say more about that just as
• 37:32
  it relates to, like, the feed?
• 37:35
  Kurt White: Yeah. Sure. I mean, you know, a lot I mean, a lot of
• 37:38
  this stuff I I studied and worked with folks with substance
• 37:41
  use disorders and addictions for a long time. And I really think
• 37:46
  an essential way of understanding that is to
• 37:48
  understand that there's a set of brain circuits that developed
• 37:52
  with a common ancestor that is so far back in the evolutionary
• 37:56
  tree that we share this set of circuits in common with as
• 38:00
  distantly related creatures as things like lizards. Right?
• 38:03
  Sure. Like, it's way before the mammalian branching and things
• 38:06
  like this. And this was a set of circuits to sort of get like
• 38:09
  like a lizard can't do meal planning. Right? I mean, it does
• 38:12
  very poor at that.
• 38:13
  You know? In a five year plan, absolutely nothing. Right? I
• 38:16
  mean, really low.
• 38:17
  Mike Rugnetta: Lizards lizard's not thinking about bacon, a
• 38:19
  bunch of chicken breasts for the week, and
• 38:20
  Kurt White: then Exactly right.
• 38:21
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Their credit report.
• 38:22
  Kurt White: Yeah. But so you have to develop a a system that
• 38:25
  has nothing to do with conscious thought that involves getting
• 38:29
  them to eat the right nutrients in the right proportions and
• 38:33
  kind of do most everything else that it does. It has to reward
• 38:36
  the things at a basic biological level. And that works so well,
• 38:41
  you know, as an adaptation to the environment, you know, over
• 38:44
  millions and millions of years that, you know, it's still kind
• 38:47
  of like the basic system that most creatures use today. But
• 38:52
  there are hacks to this as it's sort of really how it is.
• 38:55
  It's an unfortunate chemical accident that some substances,
• 39:00
  sometimes just naturally occurring and sometimes if you
• 39:03
  refine the heck out of them, they they sort of tell the brain
• 39:07
  that the reward part of it is super important when they take
• 39:12
  that in. Right? Cocaine, you know, like, oh, yeah. It's sort
• 39:14
  of like, you might feel good, the pleasure part, it's sort of
• 39:17
  a related circle in the dopamine, but then you take in
• 39:20
  cocaine, it also your brain says in a very particular way, I'm
• 39:24
  pretty sure this is a thousand times more important for me to
• 39:28
  do than anything I've ever done I'm I'm pretty certain I need to
• 39:32
  do this again. Right.
• 39:33
  Mike Rugnetta: I've checked the math. I've looked at the
• 39:35
  numbers.
• 39:36
  Kurt White: I checked the math. That's I've I've had this I've
• 39:38
  had this system a long time. Yeah. And I don't know how I
• 39:41
  didn't know about this, but I've gotta reorient what I'm doing. I
• 39:44
  kinda don't care about any of that other stuff anymore.
• 39:47
  And some people more prone to that than others and social
• 39:50
  context, but we could do a whole thing about that. But but,
• 39:53
  basically, that that set of circuits is the right way. But
• 39:55
  drugs is not the only way to overwhelm the circuit, actually.
• 39:58
  You can you can do it through clever manipulations of people
• 40:02
  that sort of get your brain to produce its own chemicals that
• 40:06
  that get you into basically compulsive compulsive action.
• 40:09
  Right?
• 40:09
  Gambling is the sort of classic one, of course. Right? But if
• 40:13
  you kinda look at what we've done with a lot of this kind of
• 40:17
  social social media, algorithmically based social
• 40:20
  media, it's people who know this and have consciously tried to
• 40:25
  optimize the algorithm to get as much of that dopamine to release
• 40:30
  to get you sort of compulsively behaving in that way, to not put
• 40:34
  the thing down or to pick it up again as soon as it's down. Put
• 40:38
  it down. Pick it up.
• 40:39
  Put it down. Pick it up. They don't care if you like it. Yeah.
• 40:42
  They don't care if you like it.
• 40:44
  Right? You if you do great. Right? I mean, it's like it's
• 40:47
  like, you know, you like cocaine the first time you try it. The
• 40:50
  thousandth time you try it, there may not really be much
• 40:53
  pleasure in it anymore, but your brain still thinks you
• 40:56
  Mike Rugnetta: need I mean, it's amazing the number of sort of
• 40:59
  systems I have in my life to remind myself when I have spent
• 41:03
  too much time online that it's like, you're you could be
• 41:06
  hurting yourself right now. It feels like maybe you're having a
• 41:09
  good time, but like, let's check-in with the body and the
• 41:11
  brain and see. You know, I talk to myself the way that I talk to
• 41:14
  my daughter. Like, how are you feeling? Or we do should we take
• 41:18
  a moment?
• 41:19
  It
• 41:19
  Kurt White: makes effort. I mean, isn't it isn't that wild?
• 41:22
  Like, mean, that's one of the hallmarks of recognizing Yeah.
• 41:25
  When you're in a compulsive process. Right?
• 41:26
  Like, if you say even if you're not using excessively, like, you
• 41:30
  say to yourself, when I go out tonight, I'm only gonna have
• 41:34
  three drinks. Right? Now you're you're having to put thought
• 41:36
  into controlling it. You don't say to yourself, I'm gonna wake
• 41:39
  up tomorrow. I'm have only two glasses of orange juice.
• 41:43
  You don't have to do it. Right? Orange juice isn't that
• 41:45
  rewarding. It's just not. And so, you know, you just drink the
• 41:49
  orange juice you drink.
• 41:50
  You don't have to think about it. Right? Even the effort to
• 41:53
  control that you suggest how out of control we are. Right?
• 41:57
  Mike Rugnetta: So how does this construction of self or even the
• 42:02
  feeling of you are constructing yourself through these actions,
• 42:05
  like how does that relate? Are we I imagine it's probably
• 42:08
  different for different people, but is it like we have these
• 42:11
  compulsive actions and we want to justify doing them because
• 42:15
  we're just like, like, oh, but this is who I am. Or are those
• 42:18
  feelings just making us feel like this is who I who we are
• 42:22
  because in some way they're positive, and we associate sort
• 42:26
  of constructing the self with a positive effect.
• 42:30
  Kurt White: Well, man, Mike, I didn't know you were gonna get
• 42:33
  my dark read on this. I don't know if you're gonna like my
• 42:35
  answer to this, but I don't I the darkest read of this, which
• 42:39
  I think is plausible
• 42:40
  Mike Rugnetta: by the
• 42:40
  Kurt White: way, is that all of that is a made up after the fact
• 42:44
  justification, but on a part of the brain that is just simply
• 42:49
  doesn't like that it didn't know what it was doing. There's a
• 42:52
  part of your brain that wanted what it wanted, wanted to pick
• 42:54
  up the phone, wanted to not set it down, wanted to do this, and
• 42:57
  it did it. And now you sort of say to yourself, why did I do
• 43:00
  that? And the brain doesn't really like that. You know, we
• 43:03
  sometimes call it confabulation.
• 43:05
  The brain doesn't like a big hole in in its set of schemas,
• 43:08
  but that sort of compulsive part of the brain can connect
• 43:12
  directly to the motor cortex. It can get you in motion. It can
• 43:14
  get you doing things without being processed through sort of
• 43:18
  higher order cognitive functioning. You know? Even
• 43:21
  things just as simple as, like, intention and values and things
• 43:25
  like that.
• 43:26
  And so you say you might say to yourself, I like this because I
• 43:29
  think it reflects who I am. And maybe that's actually total BS.
• 43:33
  Like, it's a lie your brain is telling yourself. That's a
• 43:36
  darkest read. K.
• 43:37
  But I I I do think there's a slightly less dark way of of
• 43:41
  looking at it, which is that the world can be broad and narrow.
• 43:45
  And I think the great joy for me in discovering the Internet in
• 43:49
  1991 was this sort of idea that the world that I knew in the
• 43:54
  suburbs of Metro Detroit was no longer the limiting factor in
• 43:59
  the people I could hang around, the kind of conversations I
• 44:02
  should have could have with people, the things that I was
• 44:05
  interested in, you know, the games that I I had, this love of
• 44:09
  this Japanese game, Go. Yeah. It's actually a Chinese game,
• 44:12
  Weiqi. And I found that I could play it on servers in the middle
• 44:16
  in the middle of the night with people from all over the world,
• 44:18
  which mostly just crashed at that time.
• 44:20
  But I but it became, like, the most important thing in my life
• 44:23
  for a couple of years like that, like, doing that. And there was
• 44:26
  a real solace to it, you know, and I and I do think that, like,
• 44:31
  if I hadn't had that, you know, if I hadn't been able to find
• 44:35
  something, you know, that commune that group, that sense
• 44:38
  of self, even if it's playful and exploratory, I probably
• 44:42
  would have been more depressed than I was as a teenager. I
• 44:46
  think that's true.
• 44:47
  Mike Rugnetta: In the middle of all of this, right, you have
• 44:49
  access to this information, these communities that really
• 44:54
  lets you expand your idea of what's possible both in the
• 44:57
  world and for yourself. There's all different kinds of things
• 45:02
  that you can learn about yourself, about the world. An
• 45:05
  infinite number of ways that you can go. And I'm curious about
• 45:09
  one particular very narrow, though maybe you'll tell me it's
• 45:13
  very broad, aspect of that, which is something that I see
• 45:18
  increasingly on TikTok especially. And that is
• 45:22
  diagnoses.
• 45:25
  Seeing videos on TikTok, commenting in this brick by
• 45:28
  brick sort of fashion, somewhere between I've worked hard to get
• 45:33
  this algorithm, but also the algorithm knows some things
• 45:36
  about me that maybe I don't. And then at the end of
• 45:39
  Kurt White: that
• 45:39
  Mike Rugnetta: is, has the algorithm given me this video
• 45:43
  because I have ADHD? Then people being served videos by
• 45:50
  therapists, or psychologists, or whoever, who aren't diagnosing
• 45:54
  people online, but who are, you know, talking about symptoms,
• 45:57
  and then, you know, going to the comments and being like, well
• 45:59
  that seals it. That's gotta be me. And I'm curious about your
• 46:04
  perspective about this kind of thing that like figuring out
• 46:09
  this part of yourself using the internet. Because I imagine, as
• 46:14
  I said, it's I imagine it's extremely complicated.
• 46:17
  Kurt White: I mean, can I give you a weird answer to it that
• 46:19
  backs that backs way up a bit?
• 46:22
  Mike Rugnetta: Oh my god.
• 46:22
  Kurt White: Absolutely. One has to see, I think, that the
• 46:26
  history of psychiatry and mental health treatment through the
• 46:31
  lens of its relationship, its complicated ambivalent
• 46:36
  relationship with science and medicine, and with the
• 46:40
  constructs of science and medicine as increasingly the
• 46:45
  unquestioned sources of truth and reality for us. Right?
• 46:51
  Freud, for example, was really kind of more of a humanist. You
• 46:55
  know, he was actually excluded from studying neurology because
• 46:59
  of antisemitism, and so had to sort of invent psychoanalysis as
• 47:03
  a way of as a way of understanding what people are.
• 47:07
  In the ways that his approach was scientific in a sense and in
• 47:11
  other ways not so. But he used these sort of beautiful terms
• 47:15
  like soul, you know, psyche. I mean, they just would have
• 47:18
  conjured that. They use psyche, you know, meaning soul, you
• 47:21
  know, And having those associations more to sort of
• 47:24
  classical literature and experiences than this. The id is
• 47:28
  just the it, the I, and the beyond the I.
• 47:31
  Right? I mean, this is poetry in a way, isn't it? And that kind
• 47:34
  of played in Europe. But he said when we translate this into
• 47:38
  English, you've got to think about the Americans. And the
• 47:42
  Americans are not gonna buy this.
• 47:43
  They're not gonna take that seriously. And so I want you to
• 47:46
  use the Latin words for these things because that's what they
• 47:49
  use in science. They use the Latin words. And they'll they'll
• 47:52
  buy that, you know. So we have ego and id and superego.
• 47:55
  Right? And the rest. And so sort of ideas that were sort of
• 48:00
  fundamental to the way that mental health treatment
• 48:02
  developed in America and the psychoanalytic version of that
• 48:05
  in particular had to do with this sort of wishing to be more
• 48:09
  a part of the structure of knowledge power dynamics that
• 48:12
  come from medicine and science. Medicine, however, never really
• 48:16
  wanted psychiatry, you know, and so I think there's been this
• 48:21
  struggle to be taken seriously as a profession and the sort of
• 48:24
  wish to have diagnoses. And by the way, we have, like, almost
• 48:27
  no lab tests for.
• 48:29
  Right? It's diagnosis by checklist, basically. You know?
• 48:32
  It's symptoms, and it's a serious business. I'm not trying
• 48:34
  to poo poo it, but it's different than I think the way
• 48:37
  you often get diagnosed with a lot of things in medicine.
• 48:41
  The rest of medicine, I guess, should say. And so finally,
• 48:45
  maybe it gets to a point where people are are sort of saying,
• 48:48
  oh, okay. It's a medical thing. It's like that. I can take it
• 48:52
  seriously.
• 48:52
  I can have a medicine. I can have a diagnosis. And then
• 48:55
  almost right at that moment, on comes the Internet, you know,
• 48:59
  like a like a damn freight train, you know, and it's like,
• 49:02
  ah, here we are. Here's the we don't need to decide. We could
• 49:05
  just have a YouTube video about it.
• 49:07
  You know? And I maybe it's the internal chaos agent in me where
• 49:12
  I'm like, bring it on. That's great. You know? You figure you
• 49:14
  out, man.
• 49:15
  You know? That's okay. These categories, what whatever. You
• 49:18
  know? I I really don't feel like as a representative of the field
• 49:23
  that I personally don't really wanna to feel gatekeepy about
• 49:28
  it, you know.
• 49:29
  Which isn't to say I don't believe in the construct
• 49:31
  validity of diagnoses. I do actually. But I don't really
• 49:34
  believe that that science and medicine and psychiatry or
• 49:39
  anyone else gets to fundamentally decide how you
• 49:44
  divide those things up, how you divide those categories up. And
• 49:47
  what I see in the Internet, even in this sort of weird versions
• 49:51
  of it that come out, is this beautiful interstitial
• 49:55
  intermediary play space version of things where people can toss
• 50:00
  around different ideas of the self, and they can be true for a
• 50:04
  minute and not true for not even a minute, ten seconds. It could
• 50:07
  be true for ten seconds, and then you're on to Scottish kids
• 50:11
  swearing.
• 50:11
  Mike Rugnetta: You I mean, you almost like took the next
• 50:13
  question I had out of my mouth, which is like, do you worry
• 50:16
  about people over committing to things that they this is very
• 50:19
  loaded, think they've learned about themselves online? It
• 50:23
  sounds like the answer to that is no.
• 50:24
  Kurt White: I don't really worry too much about it. Yeah. I mean,
• 50:27
  probably like if you were to study this, you'd find the most
• 50:30
  common thing is that people kind of toss it around in their mind
• 50:34
  for a while and think about it, and maybe it gives them a
• 50:37
  different sense of their self. Maybe they talk to a couple of
• 50:40
  people about it, but they're not gonna go schedule an appointment
• 50:42
  and and get a prescription for something or go see therapist.
• 50:46
  There but probably far more people don't do that than do
• 50:48
  that.
• 50:49
  But the experience of it might really mean something to that
• 50:52
  group too. Right? It may have done something meaningful to
• 50:55
  them in opening up the sort of window of possibilities of the
• 50:59
  self just a little bit for them in a way that, like, I don't I
• 51:02
  don't think we can we could be in danger of underestimating the
• 51:06
  impact of that sometimes. And if and if some people do, they go,
• 51:10
  you know, like, jeez. Like, sometimes it's not subtle.
• 51:13
  You know what I mean? It's sort of like, yeah. I don't know.
• 51:15
  Like, I'm I'm seeing people here talking about I discovered that
• 51:20
  this is why I have no friends, and this is why I've never
• 51:22
  turned a paper in on time ever. And I'm not and I gotten fired
• 51:26
  from three jobs because of this, and I'm late constantly.
• 51:30
  And I'm in trouble for that. And these are real areas of
• 51:32
  suffering. And you go like, oh my god. I thought I was just a
• 51:34
  screw up. You know?
• 51:35
  And they see that. They said, no. I I went and I saw someone,
• 51:38
  and I I have this trouble now. And I now but I'm getting help
• 51:41
  for it, and I'm liked anymore. Look.
• 51:42
  I'm in a relationship. I have a job. It's better for me. And if
• 51:46
  that person calls the phone and picks up someone and says, I
• 51:49
  don't know. Do I know.
• 51:52
  Like, great. Great. Great. You know? And if you don't have it,
• 51:58
  what's the harm?
• 51:59
  Really, what's the harm? They're just labels. We shouldn't be so
• 52:02
  precious about it.
• 52:03
  Mike Rugnetta: It's just a it's a perspective about this kind of
• 52:07
  thing that you just never ever hear online. And it's, I will
• 52:11
  say, extremely refreshing to hear a professional say, so
• 52:15
  what?
• 52:16
  Kurt White: So what? And I don't you know, I'd refer to this
• 52:21
  idea, like, if you really wanna talk about self, you know, and
• 52:24
  self, how that develops. Like, you know, I've used this word
• 52:28
  play a couple of times, not accidentally exactly. Because I
• 52:31
  think it you could say fundamentally that the self
• 52:33
  develops through play relationships
• 52:36
  Mike Rugnetta: k.
• 52:36
  Kurt White: In in a developmental way. Right? Of
• 52:39
  sort of, like, you come out of the womb in a symbiotic way.
• 52:42
  You're not really exactly a person, but you develop being a
• 52:45
  person. You know, you're a person in the sort of usual
• 52:48
  legal sense of things.
• 52:49
  I'm not gonna say that. But, like, you know, you don't really
• 52:52
  have an identity yet. And you develop that in relationship to
• 52:56
  others and in relationship to the parts of you that are only
• 52:59
  for you. And you do that by trying it on, moving in and out
• 53:03
  of letting things be true and not true at the same time.
• 53:06
  That's what play is really.
• 53:08
  Right? It's you could have it's true and it's not true. And you
• 53:11
  do that over time, and then that gets and and then that's the
• 53:14
  sort of, we think, the sort of psychological basis for
• 53:16
  development of creativity, actually. That this kind of play
• 53:20
  structure never goes away. We just learn to do more with it,
• 53:24
  and we learn more about ourselves in doing that, which
• 53:28
  is more of a process than a result.
• 53:30
  Right? The self the self as development rather than the self
• 53:33
  as a sort of an entity that way.
• 53:35
  Mike Rugnetta: I built it. I built the self, and now
• 53:37
  Kurt White: it's built. That's right. And that's the part
• 53:39
  that's wrong about that. It's it's not built. It's that you
• 53:42
  built a prison for yourself.
• 53:44
  Any rigid idea about yourself is a prison. Any rigid idea. Right?
• 53:49
  We always if we don't have playfulness about things, then
• 53:52
  then we're going to start suffering eventually, maybe not
• 53:55
  immediately. And there might be some times where we really need
• 53:58
  to have that rigidity.
• 53:59
  It's a protective function. But if we can't get it back, then
• 54:02
  they were in real trouble. And I think, like, the Internet can,
• 54:06
  like, it can be like a seed of that. It can sort of so, like,
• 54:09
  uh-uh. I'm not alone.
• 54:10
  Uh-uh. Here's an idea. Uh-uh. But you need the relational part
• 54:13
  of it to metabolize it.
• 54:15
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Kurt, that's so good. It's making me a
• 54:19
  little emotional.
• 54:20
  Kurt White: Yeah. I'm glad. I see it in your eyes.
• 54:24
  Mike Rugnetta: I think the thing that's really beautiful about
• 54:26
  that is that there's a hopefulness to it that
• 54:28
  especially in this moment, like right now, you know, this week
• 54:33
  on the internet is very absent. And it feels agentive in a way
• 54:41
  that I think a lot of people don't at the moment. People feel
• 54:45
  really controlled. People feel really hemmed in, and people are
• 54:49
  really trying to like search for how it is to be themselves. Some
• 54:53
  people feeling I think like doing that is dangerous.
• 54:57
  And so knowing that there's this like way to think about this
• 55:01
  which is just like, look out for you and just pay attention is I
• 55:06
  think really empowering.
• 55:08
  Kurt White: Well, I think even the dark moments in in life are
• 55:13
  things that we can bring some some of that quality of openness
• 55:17
  to if we find the right way to do it, I think, with some
• 55:21
  people, with some community, I think you might find even that
• 55:30
  sometimes even things like despair, you can have a little
• 55:35
  bit of playfulness that creates a room around despair, where all
• 55:39
  of a sudden possibility opens up again where there was none for a
• 55:45
  minute. And I think that's the task of being human, quite
• 55:49
  frankly.
• 55:51
  Mike Rugnetta: Even online.
• 55:52
  Kurt White: Especially online. Why not? Not? Bring it on, man.
• 55:57
  You know, bring it on.
• 55:58
  The online is just bad in the way that we're bad. And it's
• 56:02
  good in the ways that we're good. And if can find ways to
• 56:07
  use it to open us up, then let's rejoice in that. Let's rejoice
• 56:11
  in that. If it's bad, then let's just work together to to put it
• 56:16
  down when we need to.
• 56:17
  That's that's important too.
• 56:27
  Mike Rugnetta: Kurt, thank you so much for joining us. I really
• 56:30
  appreciate you taking some time to chat with me about these
• 56:32
  huge, complicated, extremely important subjects. Thank you.
• 56:37
  Kurt White: It has been a pleasure.
• 56:39
  Mike Rugnetta: Where can people find you and your work online?
• 56:42
  Kurt White: Oh, well, we're at the Brattleboro retreat where we
• 56:45
  have a we have another podcast, Unraveling. If you're listening
• 56:49
  to this on the Never Post feed, check it out. We have some
• 56:52
  really interesting stuff going on, and, you can find me
• 56:55
  primarily on LinkedIn as sort of the only only place I keep a
• 56:58
  real presence, on on the socials.
• 57:01
  Mike Rugnetta: Legit. LinkedIn, real hot right now.
• 57:02
  Kurt White: Oh, yeah. Oh, well.
• 57:18
  Mike Rugnetta: Thanks again so much to Kurt for talking to us.
• 57:21
  We talked for nearly an hour. It was a really great conversation.
• 57:24
  If you want to hear more of it, you can hear a longer cut over
• 57:28
  on Kurt's podcast that he does with journalist Mary Wilson,
• 57:31
  Unraveling. They have published our full conversation on their
• 57:34
  feed.
• 57:35
  While you're there, please check out all of their other excellent
• 57:38
  episodes. There is one about how AI is starting to be and can be
• 57:44
  used in therapy. And it turns out, you know, it turns out it's
• 57:48
  more than just chat bots giving you advice. There's a lot to
• 57:51
  consider there, very carefully, which they're very good at
• 57:53
  doing. So thanks to Kurt.
• 57:55
  Please go listen to Unraveling. That is the show we have for you
• 1:00:13
  this week. We're gonna be back here in the main feed on
• 1:00:14
  Wednesday, April 23. Give us money. The show is very hard to
• 1:00:19
  make.
• 1:00:20
  And if you've listened to this far, I mean, you're in the
• 1:00:22
  outro, you must enjoy it. You must be having a good time, or
• 1:00:26
  you are currently racing towards your speaker on the other side
• 1:00:28
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• 1:00:31
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