Why Get Super Rich?

Regulars will know that I am a huge fan of David McRaney's podcast called You Are Not So Smart. Each episode takes an area of life which many of us think we understand and then politely and gently explains why we are usually wrong. Sometimes it debunks, occasionally it demythologises and almost always it has a guest who knows what they are talking about. There have been 271 episodes so if you enjoy it I just cost you a lot of your future listening time. No apology. Find it, as they say, wherever you get your podcasts.

The latest episode is a rebroadcast of an episode called Survival of the Richest and the guest is Douglas Rushkoff. Rushkoff is a media scholar, cyberpunk journalist and professor of digital economics. You may not have heard of him but he gave us a number of much-used expressions such as viral media, digital native and social currency. His documentaries are on YouTube. His books are available.

A group of billionaires called him in and asked him to address them about the future. And, surprisingly for Rushkoff, the majority of the conversation was about their 'bunker mentality'. The question that bothered them was how they might maintain control of their security once their money no longer had value. They were preparing for the inevitability of an apocalypse over which they would have no control. And Rushkoff's answer did not cut it for them. It's a fairly obvious answer. If you are nice to your security team now they will find it harder to shoot you in the face when they take over.

But these guys (yes guys) were addicted to insulating themselves. Insulating themselves from the problems of the future created by the shit they had done to people by the way had earned their money today. The US slang for this sort of person is prepper. They treat life as a computer game in which there is a secret to survival to the next level but you gotta find it.

If you often find yourself asking how people can be so rich and so stupid you should listen.

What are Museums for?

A few years ago I heard the story of a west coast US firm who did driveways. Interviewed, the Company Director was asked what he would do when every driveway in California had been done, 'Well I guess we'll do garages. Or windows' he said '...doesn't really matter'.

It didn't really matter because the firm did not exist to do driveways, garages or windows. The firm existed to provide employment for ordinary Californian guys. I loved that. We exist to give jobs out. Nothing else.

Despite a bit of pressure to sell just one Michelangelo statue the Royal Academy say they have absolutely no intention of selling any works in their collection to save jobs. 'You heartless bastards' shout some. I guess once upon a time I might have agreed with them. I don't any more. Museums are collectors. Hoarders if you like. They exist to collect. They have thousands of things collected but not on view to anyone.

Malcolm Gladwell dealt with this question, although it concerned the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, in his Revisionist History Podcast Season 5. Museums exist to hoard. They employ people to aid this aim. People are expendable; the collection is not. Harsh, but consistent.

Grace and Peace My Friends

Writer, speaker and broadcaster Rob Bell has been a useful resource to me over the years. He was the creative muse behind the NOOMA series of short discussion starter films. Click here for an example.

His books have intriguing titles such as Velvet Elvis, Or Jesus Wants to Save Christians. They are always nicely laid out with lots of white space. Easy to read for those who don't read a lot. Plenty of points at which you need to stop and say hmmm though.

He is American and Bible-based. But he is neither Bible Belt nor Brian McLaren. He prods all evangelicals with a stick but does it gently. He was once asked to leave a church because of his attitude to women. But not how it sounds. Turns out he was far too enabling and promoting of them for the likes of his eldership.

Now I have found The RobCast. If I might start with a criticism it is that he starts with 20 minutes material and crams it into an hour, but it is a light hour and feels like someone chatting to you in his shed. In fact for the most part he is in what he calls the back house - which I'd like to imagine is a shed.

The episodes are a bit like an interesting uncle chatting about life and faith in the corner. You can phase in and out of concentrating.

But he also has guests with whom he has conversations. Pete Rollins is a delightful guest. Pete's delightful Belfast accent totally baffles Rob when he talks about seeing a cow from a car. Both nouns sound the same. Identical even. Pete is also an ace Christian thinker. Sometimes I think he has read and memorised everything. But as Rob gets him to open up, and to explain the tricky bits of theology and philosophy, we all learn.

My favourite guest so far has been the episode where Rob's wife (Christen, I think) turns the tables and interviews him. And in overhearing this conversation we are party to the amazing happenstance of the marriage of a creative communicator and an editor. She is clearly the one who makes his books more concise than his podcasts.

I commend this podcast very highly,. If you have not found it already, seek it out.

New Popular Culture

I haven't listened to much new music for the last few months. I feel the loss but it was a decision, of sorts.

I think I have discussed previously the rule, as it relates to those of us with limited time to engage with cultural activities, of cyclical proficiency.

In case you haven't come across it, the rule suggests that developing knowledge of one area of culture can only be achieved by disregarding some other area temporarily.

Do you have a hierarchy of culture? I think I do, although it has flexibility. I read every day. I make sure I haven't gone to sleep without reading some of a book. Even if it's only a chapter of a pappy thriller before lights out, it is a rule of life for me. No TV or tablet in the bedroom last thing at night.

Secondly there is sport. In particular football and cricket. Not so much live these days but I make sure I keep up with the weekly TV updates.

What else is there? Theatre, cinema, music, art. I love all these things.

So it becomes quite awkward, when I am already lamenting that I haven't been to the cinema for six months or so, when something new and demanding pitches up. Podcasts are it.

I let them pass me by for a while, apart from occasionally catching up with a Radio 4 show I had missed. Then I started noticing reviews of podcast shows in the weekend newspapers. About Easter time this year people were writing and talking about S-Town. Presented by Brian Reed of This American Life (a programme on Chicago public radio that became a podcast once it could) it is a wonderful seven part story that introduces people not normally given air time so positively, heads off in all sorts of strange plot-twist directions and ends with a nice resolution.

It wasn't long before I discovered Serial, another spin-off which goes into an old news story in more detail over a longer period. It hunts for miscarriages of justice, or at least the truth about controversial carriages of justice.

Now I am into twenty two back years of This American Life and I may be gone some time. It is what is on the headphones as I walk about these days, or playing in the car on long journeys. Getting inside the skin of the USA and introducing intelligent, thoughtful stories is a real antidote to the news from Trumpton.

If it's OK, please nobody invent any new culture for a bit. Thank you.