If I Speak - 130: The inconvenient truth about convenience culture

Episode Date: September 29, 2026

Moya and Ash get their nerd on with a conversation about the rise of convenience and the loss of enchantment. How can we access feelings of wonder in a world of quick fixes? Is friction the spice of life? (With reference to LOTR, Jaws and Tony Stark.) Plus: when a so-called friend can’t do the bare minimum. The book Moya mentions is Gabe Bullard’s Against Convenience. Send us your dilemmas: [e-mail] Music by Matt Huxley.

Hello and welcome to If I Speak. This is a podcast for neurotics, for hotheads and for people who are just a little bit nosy. I'm Ash Sarker and you are. Moia Lothian McLean. I didn't realise I was neurotic until recently, by the way. What impression were you operating on before? I just didn't know exactly. I don't think I really thought about what a neurotic person entails.

and then it was I was informed let's just put it that way that I am indeed neurotic What do you think your neurotic qualities are? This is a bonus bonus start as a question

constant fretting constant trying to organise everyone else organise myself just worry I think neuroticism is a lot of worry and I'm a big worry I didn't realise how much of a worry it was

my boss was like you worry all the time you always think about risks and I was like, am I? Yeah, apparently so. Yeah. I would say if we're thinking of neurotic and hothead

as an axis, right? But I think we've done that before. I think we may have done it before. Maybe we did. Maybe we did. Is that I think you are bang in the middle. Maybe we're just a neurotic hothead.

Yeah. No, I do. I do obsessively ever think about mine issues. I do fixate on tiny details. I do react strongly to small frustrations. Thank you, AI summary. I've got different questions for you Alright let's go bring it on

Question one for 73 questions minus 70 Question one is what is the best sweet treat It's so context dependent ash Maybe I am neurotic I can't answer a question straight It's so context dependent What do I always love And also very specific Like there's a specific

brownie, a salted caramel brownie that they sell at a local bakery here that drives me wild. But I will only eat it like on a specific day, like a sundae or whatever. I can't have it mid-week. It's too decadent. What is the perfect treat? Because also like a sweet treat you can, there are so many ways you can answer this question. It could be like here's this particular brownie, which is like the platonic ideal of brownie. It is. Right. You could be like, okay, if I'm just at the new. agent, this is the thing that I'll get. It could be like... Salted caramel grenade bar.

Oh, there you go. There you go. I eat what every day. Well, that's your favorite sweet tree. That's where the housing deposit goes. Forget the fucking white Americanos, match or whatever, which I don't have. It's the £2.95 salted caramel grenade bars. Now they do half sizes, which is better for the budget, but my God, those things are like crack.

Please help. My family is dying. Please help my family's dying And if you eat more than two in a day It's a laxative effect So they're pooping too Oh wow I don't do that

I learned the hard way Question two What's a meme that you've been quoting recently Not a meme But In a bit in the Law of the Rings Where Frodo goes Keep your secrets

Can't I've been doing a lot of My housemate says that all the time If he's like, what are you doing? And I give a vague answer. And he'll be like, oh, keep your secrets. And you have to do it with like a stupidly over, keep your secrets. Like, I just fucking love it.

That one, doing crazy for meat on the menu. We've been doing that quite long. I've listened to the entire first book and I'm nearly at the end of two towers. That's what I'm doing with now I have free time and I'm weaning myself off text slightly. But not enough because I still have Spotify, clearly. weaning myself off, so I don't have social media right now. So in that time, I am doing my book edits. I'm doing lots of long walks.

I'm spending quality time with my loved ones. I'm doing lovely obligatory things with now extended family. I'm also listening to a fuckload of Lord of the Rings. My God, I've mainlined Lord of the Rings. I bring up all the time. I think that's so fine. I think that's so, so, so fine. I've got lots of thoughts on the first.

first book, which is needed and edited so badly. What the fuck is Tom? I think I've talked about this. What the fuck is Tom Bombadil doing in this? You keep your fucking dirty minutes of Tom Bombadale and his hot wife. His hot wife, who he doesn't want to leave. Yeah, separate story though. That was a separate story. That should have been in his whatever similar era or whatever the fuck was called. Put it in there. Tom Bombadil was clear. You can tell when it's really, because I'm all the editing my book at the same time and no, my book is not quite on par with Lord of the Rings in terms of ambition and imagination. Who's your Tom Bombardill who had to go? A character called Cat, but I have Tom Bombardills all the way through. And this book is average, but I've cut already like, I don't know, it was

100,000 words and down to like 8,000, like fucking 20,000 have gone. Is that 20,000? I can't do math. Many words have gone. And when you're doing it, you're like, why did you not just cut Tom Bombadil and put him so on after you have to kill your darlings? Cut, he doesn't, there's so much faffing around. And I read a theory. about Tolkien where he was clearly in the first book, searching for the plot, which obviously makes sense because he was looking for a sequel, etc. But instead of going back and revising,

he was just like, yeah, it's perfect. It's perfect. And you have two towers, it's just action, action, action. Two towers is great. Two towers is fucking banging. That's tight. That's tight as fuck. Fellage for the ring, sprawling.

Right. Question three. Thank you for let me talk about that. What is a telltale sign that you don't like somebody? You don't want to give it away. What's a tell-tale sign? It's hard because also you know that I'm very bad

at having a handle on my reactions. My face does a thing. My face does a thing. My boyfriend's like, you obviously did not enjoy that encounter. I get very polite. Very polite. A bit clipped. I get very formal, very polite.

I'm like, okay, that's great, wonderful. For example, okay, so I went to take my bike in to be fixed. The day before I moved, London said, all right, fuck off. And someone stole my bike tire. So, which was my fault. I left outside, but I had a feeling it would get stolen. And it hadn't been stolen very, just got stolen.

I had a feeling. Anyway, some of my bike tire. So I bring it up and I take it into the local place, which is attached to QuickFit. I'd normally take to an independent place, but they were all closed because it was Monday and everything closed up here on Monday. Take it in. The guy's like, hello? I'm like, can you get bike tires?

And he's like, yeah. It'll take two weeks though. This is that fucking quick fit to add on there. He's like, it'll take two weeks. And I was like, it's not really quick fit then, is it? No, but I was like, that's okay. I can wait? He was like, are you sure?

We'll have to order extra parts in too. And I was like, that's fine. And I'm like, can I leave it here? And he's like, you know what? It's just like really awkward. And you're like, why are you being so weirdly hostile? I was like, I was being so put on extra politeness. Because like, that's fine.

Thank you so much. Can you do this? That would be great. I fucking hated him. And they quoted me 2.30 because I didn't want to do the job. 2.30 to replace the wheel. That's insane. If you hear this, people who work at Fettle,

I know your game, I talked to someone who knows bikes. They said, that's ridiculous. Then I've taken it as well else. 90 quid to replace the wheel. Fuck you. Fuck you for being so rude to me. You're dickheads. I can't say that to their face, though.

But you wanted to. I really wanted to. But I was very polite. My telltale sign is that my voice suddenly goes really up here? Yeah. Like, yeah. Yeah. It's great.

This Richter's grin. Plasted on my face. I also start relying on interview questions. So like you go into... And does you always dream about doing that? Like, you know, would you say that satisfies you? Like, really interviewing questions. And then you're kind of like, I've run out of things to say.

Yeah. I think, like, if I'm confronted by someone who I don't really like, the noise I'll make is precisely. this, it's, hi. Hi. Is that high? It's really hard. It's also difficult when you know someone hates you and like they're hating you but you have to be in close proximity to them and you just have to like sit and what's the word?

Absorb their hatred. Oh no, I can. I have that recently. It was horrible. No, no, no. Once we're there, I enjoy it. No, it was horrible. I had to sit next to someone who really fucking hated me.

It was just like calming off the ways like the, what's the word? resentment yeah it was horrible but I think this because I'm a much more toxic person than you I hate it when I don't like someone

but they don't know but when I can like detect that someone hates me I'm like I hate you bitch let's die no I'm it really hurts me because if they know me at all I'm like oh they've clearly seen to my core and it's rotten and they fucking hate it

oh no no no but I said the other day to my friends I was like I have so really obstinate they're like you have literally one op and then the other person you've made it up about. They're like, you know, they're like, there's no evidence that person's an op at all. You've made up an op. You have one certified off. That's so funny.

Yeah. Oh, that's so, so funny. Making up ops. Making up ops in these streets. Let's move on. Let's move on. But I would, I could do a whole episode on ups because we did, we did an episode on hating. I'd quite like to do an episode on when someone hates you.

What do you do? because I think there's something to talk about there I can't remember who I was saying this to but I was saying this someone recently which is I I know I'm not like a emotionally healthy person because when I watched the last dance

the Michael Jordan documentary I was like yeah yeah it makes total sense like when he was like when he had to make up someone saying something so he could perform and he was And I took that personally. I was like, yeah.

Yeah, despite, despite power you or like what powers you. I'm having to de-cup off from that because I've always thought if you get a nemesis, the problem is your nemesis might end up doing well. And you don't want that. Yeah. It's either pick a nemesis who doesn't operate on your level and then what's the point? Or pick a nemesis who does and then you're risking. And that's the problem because I think people have picked me as a nemesis.

who operate kind of at the same level or even slightly above and then every time I have a bit of success they're like, fuck that bitch. It's never... I said, don't pick me as a nemesis then. For me, my nemeses are never tied to success. They're never ever tied to like success levels

which I think is good. We can do a nemesis special at some point. But let's move on because you've got a big theory. I do have a big theory. I also have a question for the special ones. How do I stop being like... Because I said, my boyfriend, I said, I need to stop citing you, but I then also have to credit you.

And he was like, but it's getting embarrassing because every week I'm like, my boyfriend said this to me, my boyfriend. He's like, you're, he's like, you've just, you're like now spending all your time with me. And I'm the only person you've sort of like talked for two weeks, which isn't true, by the way. I phone all my friends, but I'm around him a lot. So we're talking a lot, okay? And he hears a lot about my Lord the Rings theories.

And that's why he's in a lot of my theories. No, you're just in love. Like, you're just in love. No, but you're embarrassing. No, but you were like this. You were like this before you were, you know, temporarily living in the same place. You're just in love and that's fine. You're just down bad and I think that's beautiful.

And I enjoy it because I'm, I'm not, every time you do on my boyfriend's citation, um, what I'm hearing is, you know, the bit from loving you, which is la la la la la. No, because what I actually want you to do. here is my current creative partner. Because that's what I think these big theories often think, because this is another thing we discussed, which is ideas are not really creating a vacuum. And that's something I wanted

to ask one day, which is how you get your ideas. But I'll save that for a seven to three questions. You can save that for another day. It's a communal sort of process. And so often I'll discuss some friends. And right now it's my creative partner. So it's my creative partner. The thing is that you only say,

I'll actually, it's more like my creative partner, because you're in love. You only say these things. No, we want to do writing together. Yes, because you are down bad. No, because you've got imagination. I've got, I've got, what's the word? Anyway, it doesn't matter, let me get them.

It doesn't mean it's going to be shit. It doesn't mean that it's devoid of quality. That's not what I'm saying. But it is born from love. I hope it can make some money. My real love. My real love. I'm a socialist.

Okay, so. Two books and a chat with the creative partner gave rise to today's theory, which is convenience and optimization is killing enchantment. I feel like when we say enchantment, we need a flute music. How do we bring it back? That's the question. So we live in a society. We live in a time.

We live in a period where optimization is seen as synonymous. with good, I think, maybe not individually, but sort of broad consensus, the more optimise something is, the more efficient and the more convenient, the more it is considered to be positive, supposedly giving us time to do things that really matter. So, you know, if you're getting,

you get takeout because it allows you to work later or you listen to all your music on the go because it takes the time out of cataloging CDs and you go, how are your friends, I don't know, that bullshit. But I've started reading a new book called Against Convenience by a journalist called Gabe Bullard, who is American but lives in Switzerland, which I think gives a great individual perspective on convenience because the heart

of convenience culture is America, but the more Americanized everywhere gets in the Western sphere, the more convenience culture leaches in. And the book isn't saying we should make our lives harder. He's very, very, very firm about that, but it is saying a lot of the things we think make our lives more convenient actually don't. There's actually more things. steps, more processing, and it's making consuming a more isolated and sterile process. And he says that there's always a trade-off. You know, like when you think something's convenient, the process that goes into that is not, it hasn't disappeared, it's just been outsourced or hidden from you.

And he uses a really good example at the start about Starbucks, boo. But he talks about when you, you know, order Starbucks on the app, the Starbucks app is lauded. It's considered this amazing thing. And when someone orders Starbucks on the app, what actually happens in the Starbucks store is a process that used to be, people would come in, there would be in-person interaction. The staffers would make the amount of coffees that were needed for the people there has turned into these really overcrowded stores where it's all a mess. There's people trying to pick up their deliveries.

There's a sticker system that doesn't work. Then you have the delivery apps themselves where you have the delivery drivers coming in. That's another mess. And then you have the people who are coming in to order straight from the register. There's so many combinations on the app that the staffers are having to make these crazy orders. that you never would have ordered in real life. Like, it's not more convenient at all. And it takes that interaction.

And he talks about how he used to go to Starbucks and you'd be like, that was a really nice break where I would, you know, leave the office. I would go get my coffee. I would interact with the real world. I would have a discussion. I would be in my local neighborhood. I would feel rooted to a place and people. And now I get in, I'm like, I need to get the fuck out of here as soon as possible.

You know, pick up the coffee and go. It becomes a stressful experience and stuff. The break is not a break. Is that more convenient? No. So, well, When I started talking about this book with the boyfriend, he started talking about.

With the who? The man who should not be named. He's the dark lord. Sarah or Voldemort, take your pick. He started talking about enchantment. And it made me realize how being enchanted by the world around us really denotes the state of surprise and wonder. And that's where Lord the Rings comes in

because I'm reading Lord the Rings. And I'm like, this is such a fucking enchanting book, you know. It's an analog world. And I think that at the time, like, it got popular in the 1950s, which was a huge period where this new tech and convenience culture was coming in. And instead, here's this massive fantasy land, which is all about like little hobbits in the shire and these peasantry people, like moving across the land and they all got cloaks and daggers. And it's, it's very enchanting. It's very woodland. Not like Star Wars, which is all like, piao, pow, which is less enchanting, I feel.

So optimization and convenience culture are the opposite of enchantment. They don't give you surprise. They don't give you a sense of discovery or wonder. They have raised the opportunity for having enchantment. And an example of this is, you know, when I think of the meals that I really remember in Treasure, it's the ones where I've stumbled across a restaurant. It's not one where I've like meticulously planned out the experience

It's using Google Maps and the reviews. I know exactly what I'm going to order. It's the ones where I've gone down the street and I'm like, I'm just going to go in there. I'm like, wow, this is amazing. I'm sitting here and there's this and there's this. You know, especially on holiday as well. It's the discovery that really sticks it in my mind. And it's like when people meet on dating apps, I've noticed that even then there is a,

they cling to any scraps of like organicness, which is not a word, but whatever. Organicness about the connection. Like, oh yeah, my sibling knows. them, my friend knows them, like something to try and inject a bit of like discovery and almost fatedness back into this very sterile process of picking a mate. Books that I order of Amazon do not hold the same emotional value to me as one that I get from a charity shop. And I think this makes a huge part of nostalgia as well. Like there's a big wave of nostalgia we have, like this longing for this feeling of being surprised and enchanted by the world again.

When I watch, we watched Blade Runner recently. I was like, holy fuck, they don't make movies like this anymore because it's all CGI and there's not this sense of like you know specific model making and effort and there's no enchantment. Look at Spielberg's work now versus when he started when he had these limitations.

I think limitations bring enchantment. Or if you're talking about Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson. I have a perfect example for this that my boyfriend did give me but you might already know about it but I'll mention a second. But when everything's sufficient, nothing can be enchanting.

Do you agree with this grand theory of loss and how do we combat if so? So the first thing that I'd say is that I'm scared that we're merging into one entity. We are. Right. I'm scared that the brains have congealed because by the time this podcast comes out, I will have delivered my lecture at the South Bank. I will have interviewed you as part of the one interview. But this is actually a.

big part of it. So for me, maybe the place is that like convenience kills us because the trend that we're on as a society and how technology has developed is that is taking us further and further away from embodiment. And to be embodied is to be limited. It is to encounter friction, but that is what it means to be human. And so I was looking at it first through the lens of human relationships and actually I had a conversation with a theologian called Carmody Gray and I think everyone should just chat to a theologian now and then because like fuck me do they have a sense of perspective they're like yeah I'm thinking about God all the time and it's like I was thinking about Zendaya yeah same thing same thing same thing but I was talking to her

about embodiment and we were talking about the importance of embodiment to relationships and And like maybe the idea that with the sort of dominance of like, you know, text-based communication on our lives, that we've maybe over-determined the importance of verbal communication and clarity at the expense of what happens when it's two people in a room physically talking to each other. because the sentence structure is very different from what you would send on WhatsApp. You are partial, you're picking the wrong words and having to correct. But the fact that there is another person in the room with you and there is a level of communication that's happening between bodies means that there is a higher tolerance for ambiguity.

And what's interesting to me is that particularly with WhatsApp is that we've got no tolerance for ambiguity. And so you think about something that you mentioned, I can't remember if it was this episode or the one before where you said with this partner, I don't screenshot texts for the group chat, which is WhatsApp is the promise of clarity, right, because you're writing things down and yet we still feel it's not enough. So there's something important about embodiment and what that does for our just, our tolerance for like the real lived friction and imperfection and ambiguity of everyday life.

I think it's central to relationships. And I think that there is something which you can extrapolate from that, that embodiment isn't just important for relationships, but we tend to think about what makes us human as being this very cognitive cerebral thing, right? But it's not, like, the self is not separate from the body and, you know, the sort of transhumanist existence

that we all have now of, like, projecting ourselves into fucking cyberspace and whatever, like, is bad. Like it's not, it's not good. It is very, very bad. Because that sort of smoothness, that perfection, that filteredness, that posedness, that curatedness is just shit. And I think you're right that it robs us of our sense of wonder. And if I could, if I could read you a section from the lecture, where it's just like a bit of a tangent is AI cannot make art which moves us. It can demonstrate an ability. to generate spectacular visuals and very intricate patterns, but it is never impressive. It is never moving. And so you think about the difference

between blockbuster cinema events and think about the difference between Marvel and their use of CGI versus Christopher Nolan's practical effects. So Marvel CGI, which is polygons colliding into polygons, set into motion by someone at a computer.

Sure, you can see someone like flinging stuff around and slow motion and impossible movements, but that is not the sense of wonder that comes from, they made a big cyclops puppet. They made a big cyclops puppet. He turned a corridor around and they had to choreograph a fight scene physically. So there is something that something is valuable precisely because of human intelligence and human craftsmanship in all of our ape-descended primitivity. The wonder comes from,

how could these fucking flesh sacks, which can just about peel a banana, how can we make cathedrals, how can we make great cinema, how can we write great books, how can we make great art? And so the sensation of wonder comes from an intimate knowledge

of our own limitations. I'm glad we've merged into one, because that was great. It's amazing I wrote that. That's great. I think I would that's led on perfectly to what else I want to discuss in terms of like convenience culture because I think AI as we're mass adopting it, I'm not talking about AI being used to cure cancer, which it hasn't yet.

But AI as we're using it and how it's being marketed to us as like Joe Public is sort of the end point of this idea that cerebral is the only kind of intelligence that matters and that efficiency and optimization and that it's about the end point rather than the actual process of getting there that's most important like you don't need to do the thinking you just need to have the output it's this idea of output culture um and sort of AI and CGI I think are to me two sides of a similar the coin in that this is where the Peter Jackson example comes in, which I have ripped wholesale from my creative partner. Such an annoying way to refer to that I'm going to keep doing that.

Which is he was talking about, because what, okay, so one of the most memorable characters for me in the films, Lord of the Rings, are the Uruguay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like just the physicality of them, the physiology, when they're in Isaac guy, they rip free and they go, like throttle, throttle one of the orcs. These are actors having the time of their lives in there. Yeah. But it's just such, it's such a striking depiction of these, you know, super goblins

who've been made, made part man, part goblin, this brand new thing, like they immediately kill one of their own. You're told that this is a brand new type of species that has not got the same limitations and rules as anyone else. Anyway, so the Uraki, Peter Jackson, my boyfriend Tommy, was never happy with how they looked. He said they didn't, it didn't come out

the way he wanted them to look in his head. And when it came to The Hobbit, obviously, CGI had come on so much. So first of all, he got the costume department to mock up some new Urachai and they made them and they looked amazing. But he was like, no, no, no. So he went on CGI.

In the CGI, he said, rendered exactly as he wanted. And they look like crap. They look shit, because you shouldn't be able to realize them as perfectly as we think, because that's not actually where the magic comes in. Because tactility is important. And so when I think about the Lord of the Rings, Urichai, and I think about them bursting through the membrane, like you said, or in Lord of the Rings 1, where there's a fight scene

with Aragon and he licks the black blood off the knife. There is this sort of like, it's really embodied. Do you know what I mean? It's there's slime and there's blood and there's violent and there's bones crunching and there's all of this stuff. Like one of my favorite things about some of the the orcs who are all cockney for some reason. Like really did. Really did it. What if I ate you.

It's like they're a bit hairy. There are these little bits of hair coming like off of the leathery skin. And I was just like that's so great. Like that's so so great. That is exactly what what gives me. a sense of wonder, right? Is that I can, I can imagine touching this, right? And so when it comes to like, you know,

the slippery, horrible, slimy memory, it's like, I can imagine touching this. It's the limitation as well, because that creates the genius. So another example that my creator partner is. And also I want to get back to like sort of apps and how we think they make our lives more convenient about how they don't in a minute.

But another example he gave, he was too much jaws. And he said, obviously, one of the best things about Jaws is you never fucking see the shark except once. But the reason you don't see the shark is the shark was broken. You were always meant to see the shark but the shark broke

because they tested it in fresh water and then they were putting salt water and like, oops, it's broken. So then they had to make the film without a shark. And that was never the plan. The plan was always the shark's going to be seen but the limitations of the mechanical model and the technology at the time that you couldn't see the shark.

So they had to innovate around it And that created 10 times more tension. And that's one of the most lauded things about the film now that you never see the shark that creates this mounting tension and dread until finally you just have these massive jaws and you see the shark like once. Well, I think there's a sort of,

the way in which having endless money can also kill your project. Yeah. Like, when I think about films, which I really love and that I really like, obviously every single film is hugely expensive, but that's a sort of relative scale. But, like, Marvel doesn't even have, scripts by the time you're shooting.

So they're just like, shoot a load of stuff and they go, all right, and then we can throw money at the problem with three shoots if we need to. It'll come together in the edit. Whereas when you think about a script which is really tight and perfect and there's a shape to it and there's like these resonances all the way through, so it's not just sort of like random self-contained bit of entertainment and then there's another random self-contained bit of entertainment you go well part of how you've had to write this so well is because you get one shot like you get one shot of shooting this you can't afford reshoots yeah well that's exactly as well

it's like we also have now i say we there is especially in culture an equation of the more money the better the product and also the more money that's in it and the moment it comes out of it that's not true avatar is like the highest grossing thing in the world and also the most expensive who are the where's the cultural staying power of fucking avatar there's no there's no there's There's no cultural imprint of it. And we were, so we were in a comedy club up here recently and they were showing Sam Rami's Spider-Man on TV. And I was just hooked and I was like, I forgot how good this was.

Yeah. Especially, but one of the main things as well is, I think we talked about this how Spider-Man is the man of the people. He is meant to be this working-class kid. And it's like, he's in his cage match. It's Toby McGuire in his cage match and he's his homemade costume and he's like, clearly like this skinny teenager. And now when you see Tom Holland, he's like, he's in his cage, he's like, he's his home-made

he's from the get-go he never had that limitation because he was picked up by Tony Stark and immediately given all this tech and then he inherited all this money and stuff from Tony Stark because he's Tony Stark died, sorry, if you don't know that by now, you should fucking know that. Inherts all this money.

So like the latest film, I haven't watched it, but I've seen these clips because they're everywhere. And the latest film has him just like, he's meant to be alone because friends have all forgotten him because of some fucking plot twist. But he's surrounded by this tech and he's got this accent.

There's no real limitation. on this man. There's no real stakes. Like there's meant to be emotional stakes, but it's not really because everyone knows that you can just time travel and change this and change that. Whereas the first one, there was real stakes. Uncle Ben died because he let those robbers get away because he was high and cocky off his cage match. It's just great, and he needs money. That's why he was doing the cage match. There's just these great stakes, these great class divisions. And it's all limitations. Like, it's, there's limitations with the characters and there's limitations with the budget of the movie. And there's limitation of the directors. But now, I know you love the

audacity. I thought it was fucking shit, even with his. practical effects, but he doesn't have limitations. No one says no to Nolan. No one says no to Spielberg now. They don't have the same limitations that say in the past, like a, you know, the unions have been like, we're not doing this, mate. This is too much to ask for like, you can't expect him to do this. Another creative partner anecdote where he was talking about Star Wars and he was like, George Lucas was like, I can't believe they're allowed to take tea breaks. Their union mandated to take tea breaks on my set. It's like, yeah, they need tea breaks. You know, there's no limitations on these people. So the creative and the creative products suffer as a result. But we also,

as individuals in our little lives now live, and this is an argument Gabe Bullard makes in his book, we live the lives that the super wealth used to live. You know, like we can call chauffeurs, we get everything delivered, we, you know, and even the process of consuming, it's so transaction in the past,

you'd go to a shop and you'd have a discussion, it'd be like an interaction. Now it's just transaction. It's purely transaction. And I think it goes back to the thing which I was talking about last week, which is about how difficult it is to reverse the effects of social isolation,

which is, I think you add on to that the sort of rise of contactlessness both as a technology but also as a response to the specific context of the pandemic and then what it does to us is that it then really reduces our tolerance for things. Like I have a feeling when I'm going to shops

and I'm having a look around that I'm doing something wrong. Having a browse. And I'm obviously not and nobody thinks that I am. It's just, what would have just been seen as one's God-given right to have a peruse.

Yes. I have this sense that this isn't how it's meant to be because what I'm supposed to do is be as like unobtrusive as possible. So you have this idea, right, of convenience and inconvenience is also, as you said, it's an illusion. So what I think of as me like being less intrusive

on other people is actually way more intrusive because you think about the sort of logistics and the like chains of labour involved in like, you know, Ubering my burrito to me. That's actually a lot more trouble than me going to a place and having it there. So I think there's something there about like the sort of illusion of convenience

which is really important as well as what it's doing to us. I think that again, and this is a point of like my lecture is that I do think that we are like classic Marxist proposition, which is how we are with each other, like, you know, it reflects the sort of, you know, social, economic relations of how the economy is organized. And I think that it's really quite disgusting that the user experience of dating apps,

which is like, come, give me your vulnerability, right? Come, give me your desire to find a sexual or romantic. partner, which is the most tender part of us and that the, the, like, UI of it, the interfaces is you throwing faces into the abyss. Like, there is something about that, which is actually, I think, like, morally quite offensive. Yeah. And it's, it speaks to, as you say, like, we have created a culture of disposability, consumption and disposing of things. Like, what does, what does our economy actually produce now? It's all just, like, service. It's just services. And And it's just like consume and dispose.

And that's why I'm like, this can't keep going forever. There's going to be a very hard stop soon. Sorry, the economists are going to phone and be like, this is exactly how it works. But there's going to be a very hard stop soon because it is just like consume and dispose. And I think everything, you know, when you look at dating apps, is that more convenient for us?

I think it's caused a lot of pain and hurt and confusion. It's a net negative. It's just, I'm sorry, it is a net negative. Like, people, are struggling to find love, right? They're not struggling to find interaction. This goes back to what we're saying last week, which is sort of, you know,

interaction is the thing that, like, digital immersion offers us, endless interaction, but no connection, because connection requires reciprocal obligation. It requires, like, we mean something to each other. And I think that it's also, when I think about the area that I live

and when I think about the shops that I go to, right? Like, just like little shops and like, you know, this is my corner shop and this is like where I get my very reasonably priced sandwich is that those are interactions which turned into connection on the basis of regularity, right? And there are sort of like, you know, and there's silly reciprocal obligations, right? Like it's, you know, it might just be like, you know,

oh, where's your husband today? Or like, you know, oh, like, how are your kids? Or like, oh, I know you're on holiday. day. Like at Christmas, the place where I go get, like, my sandwiches from, like, he gave me like a big bottle of red wine, like, in a big Portuguese red wine. I was like, have this. And I was like, we're fucking part of something. Like, we owe things to each other. Um, like, you know, whether it's dating apps or whether it's Instagram or wherever it's TikTok, like, the fundamental horror of it, like, and I think that this is why it makes us so anxious is that it's all this

interaction when no one owes anyone fucking anything. Yeah. Like, I, I, I've, They don't even owe you treating you like a human. And then you don't treat them like a human either. But I've noticed in recent days, maybe it's my non-alograms, this is just a substack, but I've really noticed a step up. People have been sending me on WhatsApp. Again, one of the things I haven't got rid of yet,

but I have just moved to say. Photos of adverts, which are like low screen time. It's like back market saying low screen time and then advertising iPods, old iPods. I'm really noticing. an uptick in sort of anti-social media, anti-scrolling rhetoric. I don't know if that's maybe just I'm more aware of it, but I don't think it is just that.

It's not a real thing. Yeah, well, someone commented recently, they were like, oh, I think Moyer's perception of, you know, social media is because of her profile, and that's where she does work, et cetera. I think that's only true to the extent that mine's particularly exacerbated by, like, my career being mediated through social media and all of that. I don't think that's actually true.

a whole when you look at like the impact smartphones have had on society like you there is research you have brought it to this podcast about what smartphones do to everything from the way we interact with each other economically to the way we have sex birth rates like like like like the smartphone is the only thing which explains the collapse of birth rates everywhere and it's because of distraction like it makes us less present and again this comes back to embodiment and And I guess when this is a silly example, but when you're talking about Starbucks, which is the app allows you to make these ridiculous orders that you never would in real life, because being face to face with someone and having 20 lines of instruction is you know you're being a cunt.

Do you know what I mean? Like you will know you're being a shit person. And so there is something about embodiment which isn't just a limit which provides us with a sense of wonder. It's also a moral limitation. I would definitely say to people listening as well, something I want them to think about, I think that, you know, the book I'm reading has made me think about, is what is a, a, trade-ups you making as a result of this convenience, and what actually does make your life

easier and what simply separates you from the world around you, like, is it convenience or is it an avoidance of actually interacting with the real life? And I've been thinking, I'm like, what, what, because also I'm doing, like, my lower tech with the hope to go lowest tech, but I think there'll be things that I can't give up, I think something like a streaming app of Spotify, like music, audiobooks. That is something I find very hard to let go of. Audiobooks in particular, I could just about do music because I'd come home and do this. But having like Lord of the Rings on my phone, that's really hard for me to give up.

A messaging app of some sort, like WhatsApp I think is ultimately quite bad for you. Because it's this constant state of availability. And it is this idea that you should be the convenience of messaging other people that everyone should be at your disposal. or you should be at theirs, they should be at yours at any time of the day. It creates this pressure to reply even if the person doesn't intend it. But I think that sort of like connection is hard, although I'm phoning people a lot more and that's been great. I haven't missed Instagram one bit, not one bit.

Instagram gone TikTok, all of that, that's fine. I will hopefully one day get rid of like my substack feed. I'd like to just be able to post somewhere. Maybe it'll be my own website. I don't know. I like writing and putting it out there. I think the feed of it, the notes, useless. I'm also find that I'm offsetting my,

what my behaviours why I would be on like Instagram to other places. Like someone messaged saying, oh, I went into comment sections on FT. Me too, brother. I'm commenting on NYMAG like no one's business. Yeah, but it's like that's an addictive behavior. It's just trying to find another outlet.

And that's really interesting. But in terms of convenience, another thing that Gabe Bullard said was he said, he was talking about great leaps forward, right? That's very Mao. Oops. He was talking about... You said it?

I wasn't the word to say it. What he meant was great innovative periods. So, for example, someone in the 1820s would not recognize a kitchen in the 1940s. And my boyfriend, when we're watching Blade Runner, he was like, this is what it was like. It's crazy they thought this was 2019, but it's not actually that crazy when you consider in the 1980s that 40 years before it had been the 1940s. Imagine someone in the 1980s looking back at the 1940s and go, yeah, like, obviously 2019 is going to be like that. And Gabe Bullard's comments, you know, if your grandparents walked into your kitchen, they would recognize most of the appliances. Yeah.

They stood test of time. If their grandparents walked into their kitchen, they would be like, what the hell is this? Washing it inside the house? We do all our laundry at the laundress down the street. Like, you know, there's all these different appliances that a dishwasher, a fridge, you've got electrics in here that have really, really changed the way humans lived their lives. But we have not done that. We've just made these small tweaks that are called convenience. So it's like building on the existing thing.

Like, okay, you have takeout. What if that takeout came in a taxi to your door and you didn't talk to anyone? I mean, and there's also just the sort of the availability of streaming all the time and like streaming of entertainment and then like the sort of like tiny like microarrue nuggets of entertainment like reels is that the innovation is for us to, I guess to go back to, you know, your choice of words, like to swaddle ourselves and to infantil ourselves. and to infantilize ourselves so they're like,

I'm baby and I need to shake my rattle. I need my rattle, these constant microhips of dopamine and even removing that, it's also another thing I've noticed about this editing process, right? Because I'm trying to also think of things to write about, etc.

It's really hard on your editing because I'm like, no, I need to focus on the book stuff. Don't try and do six things at once. But if I listen, if I get up and I listen to Lord the Rings in the morning, my editing is way worse because I'm already filling my mind with like words and stories I'm not giving myself time to think. If I get up and I don't

listen to anything and I just literally don't have anything in my ears, I just have breakfast, great, because I'm giving myself that time to think and create. If I walk outside and I'm looking at the color of the trees and the sound of the wind, I've been noticing slugs everywhere. I've been thinking a lot about slugs and how I don't notice them down south because it's got so hot. I haven't seen slugs for ages down south. And it's not because I don't get up at the right time. I do. It's because the rain is not in this. It's not as wet. The slugs are back. The slugs are back.

I want to reassure you. Okay, the slugs are back now. But there's so many slugs up here. They're everywhere. And it's just like those small things. I wouldn't notice them previously because I'd be locked into my ears. I'd be on my phone. It's like this, this Olivia Lang was described loneliness as this like icebox.

She said it much more elegantly than me, but she was surrounded by this glass ice box. We have iceboxed ourselves, as you say, swaddled ourselves into these little, as P. Moscovitt says, into these little muck mansions where we have all just these. distractions constantly and these conveniences that are meant to make our lives so much better, but people know deep down, they can feel there's something wrong. They can feel there's a gap, there's a void. And so the question I do want to end on before wrap up is like, what actually, what convenience actually is convenient for you?

Also, another thing that gave Bullards in this book is there will be pissed of listening. You're like, I can't leave the house unless I have an Uber. That's fine. That's not, we're not talking about you. There are other people listening who know that excuse doesn't map on for them. That's who we're talking to. The thing, so what I would say to both of those things is that one also like what you feel you can do is elastic and determined by context as well. And I'm not saying this to be like, you know, have you considered not being disabled?

Like that's not, that's not what I'm saying. The thing that I'm saying is that like particularly for friends of mine who have like very debilitating anxiety, like that sense of this is a hard limit is also. that can be moved. And I think that also part of the reason why I think that an element of why, I think convenience is making people more anxious because it means that it's so easy to not build up your resilience and not build up those muscles that you need to be able to,

you know, cope with and mitigate discomfort. Yeah. And yeah, I think it was, it was really astonishing to me that like so many people who I know and so many people that my friends know are, you know, those feelings of discomfort have become so huge to them that it's debilitating. And actually I think a problem is

is that sometimes that there aren't these like actually quite strong material pushes to like have to overcome it because you can create a sort of like web of convenience around you which means you don't have to. So I think that's one thing that I would say, which is that like what's a hard limit is, is hard limits exist, but they're not always the ones that you think that they are. And the world of convenience allows us to stay within the space,

which is constantly getting made smaller by anxiety. What convenience has genuinely made my life more convenient? I mean, to be honest, it is just like the big 1950s dishwasher washing machine shit. Like the fact I don't have to lose a hand or a working class woman doesn't have to risk losing her hand so I can have clean unterhosen is really a fucking big deal. Refrigeration. The miracle of refrigeration. No more salmonella. You know, like no more salmonella. You know, when I was in Thailand earlier this year and you go like Bangkok can be Bangkok

because of air conditioning. Singapore exists in the way that it does because of air conditioning. Like, it's some good shit. It's some good shit. And another point that actually I thought of when you were saying this is about, you know, hard limits. When we allow private companies and convenience culture that they offer us, also for direct debits that just come out so you think you're not spending any money and you're like, oh, it's a small bit, it's a small bit. It's a little bit. It's fucking money. Spending loads of fucking money. I spend like 1899 on Netflix and I never watch it.

But it allows the state to sort of recede. it stops this idea that okay you know you're getting an uber everywhere as an individual what if instead there was a push for this sort of like state service state transport service that would actually get you around like in glasgow for example it has a pretty good suburban railway but trains stop at like 11 or something the buses are all privatized there's not the subway system is very small there's not a direct line to the airport getting from the at glasgow airport to central one bus ride, 15 minutes, cost 10 pounds 50. 10 pound 50. It's now been capped at two pounds because Andy Burnham. But when you were an individual, you're like, I'll just get an Uber, I'll just do this, I'll just do that. There's not that space where the state's like,

you are someone in need, you are a disabled person in need, and we need to actually care for you. There's not like even a mutual sense of like, okay, what if we had a carpool? It all puts it back on the individual and the individual's ability to pay for their own care. rather than like what does a society, what do we owe each other? And I think that's something you think about too.

Like there was, I remember Jason Okunde said about the P13 bus route, I think it was, in South London. That was instigated as a result of people, I want to say in Wandsworth who, sorry if I've got the bus route wrong, but in Wonsworth who were like, we need a bus route that covers, goes to the Patmore Estate, maybe it's not Wonsworth, Patmore Estate. And so they pushed for it and they got the bus route based on places that were in need. It can't be completely tailored, but there are these spaces

where the state could do way more, like, you know, in the north. Everyone has to drive around because the train services are so unreliable and interconnecting these places that should be about 30 minutes away from each other. That is surely a space where we should be pushing collectively.

I mean, that's the thing, is that like, when I think about convenience, to be honest, it's like, I don't really get Uber's that often anymore. It costs so much money. Like, they cost so much money. It's because it's just, up here we have to get Uber's way more

because it's just, if you miss the bus, you're fucked. Yeah, whereas like, I've got a whole range of net buses and night tube options. And so when I think about convenience, I'm like, oh, you know what would be like really convenient for me, crossrail too? Do you know what's become convenient? Line bikes, but their private company

because TFL was really slow to move on the e-bikes situation. So the space where that could have been like a convenience innovated by the state and that money could have gone back to sort of taxpayer services is now going to all to a private company. Let's move on to our dilemmas. This is, I'm in big trouble.

If you're in big trouble, email us at if I speak, at navaramedia.com. That's if I speak at navaramedia.com. Should I read? Should you read? I don't mind. Well, you made me read out, you read out the last one because you wanted me to go first and I kind of want you to go first on this one.

So even though I did the middle segment, I want to read out. Okay. Okay. Dear Ash and Moyer, long-time listener, first time in big trouble. That's good. I have a lifetime best friend whose flakiness is bothering me more than usual, and I might have had enough. That, by the way, is a great setup. That makes you want to read more. That's good writing. My best friend of many years has a history of being the flakiest person I know. We grew up around the corner from each other. Our families are close. We have seen each other through many ups and downs. Due to being quite neuroscient, spicy, she requires quite a lot more patience than my other friendships and a lot more care.

I've come to pick her up during episodes and take care of her during whatever kind of down period she may have. She is very much my sister in this way. It has been the dynamic that she doesn't offer the same level of friendship in return. I don't frequently need to ask, need or ask her to look after me, but she often doesn't commit to plans we have together, which I would deem the baseline requirement of any friend, let alone a best friend. I'd often keep a day or evening free for her only for her to cancel on the day and leave me in the lurch. More recently, for my 30th, I asked her to keep a date free to come to my party in a few months' time. Weeks later, she said she wouldn't come because she booked a holiday, and it was already

booked when I asked her to keep it free. She said she hadn't booked flights when we first talked about it. She also didn't offer to make up for missing it by offering something else to do together, or a gift, or even imply that she felt bad. I've stopped texting her. for a little bit because I felt let down, seeing as I asked little of her to begin with, and was reminded by why this was the case. I texted her telling her I felt let down and upset by her not coming. She just replied, this isn't reasonable fair seeing as I was out of the country. Again, no apology or intent to make it up to me. I really regret saying how I felt, seeing as she doesn't feel bad at all. I feel like I'm asking for about 50% of the effort I put in,

I'm not even getting that. Am I being a mug for staying in this friendship? Am I being too entitled for her time and attention. Am I being a martyr for always being at her beck and call? Lots of love, special one. They also put a nice bit at the end, but I cut it out because it was a bit too revealing. But thank you for the nice words. Okay, special one. I think you've got a decision that you need to make.

You need to decide whether she's friend or family. I was going to say the same thing. We have meshed. Oh my God. Sharing the one brain cells. You have it right now, so take the floor. Okay. Delicious brain cell.

Okay, like if she's like your sister, the thing about family is that not everyone is able to be in relationships of equality. And things move over time, right? The sort of direction of care between parent and child, you know, overturns and reverses later. in life or like it does if you're lucky. Some people have abilities to contribute in certain ways and others don't. And so the thing about family units is you go, well, the family as a whole is a thing which is just about works. But if all you had was family, some people would be feeling very, very drained.

And that's what family is. Like, that is just what it is. With friendship, I think that you can't be counting like you're keeping a ledger. and that's obviously bad and it's transactional. But friendships work with like some give and take, some flex and an understanding that while you might not be wholly equal in all sorts of ways and there's like some beautiful things about it, like my best friend who lives abroad has a baby. She cannot come to see me.

It's a lot easier for me to go and see her. That's fine. You know, not everything has to be cut down the middle 50-50. but the sense that like we both really value each other, we both really love each other, we're both working hard to be as present as possible in each other's lives is like that feels like a very equal project. So I think that you can have friends who are more like family

and I think that that's fine. I think that you can have family who are more like friends, but you've got a decision to make about what sort of expectations you're going to have because if this person is like you go, okay, well, this is my sister, then you could go, well, actually, sometimes it is kind of draining on me. And it is kind of one way. But I'm trying to keep this thing, which is bigger than either one of us afloat. If you go, no, actually, this is a friendship and it's a very close friendship and a very longstanding friendship, but it is a friendship. I think that actually, you know, it's not wrong

for you to withdraw. It's not wrong for you to withdraw. Like, you initiate a conversation and you say, here's why you say the things that you'd want to be different. And then it's her move. And you have to be okay with the idea that she might not make that move. But that's how I would describe it. Make a decision, friend or family. I don't really have anything to add because you just nailed it. Also, there's drilling behind me.

So there's not much to add because there's a little drilling. I really don't have much to add. I was going to say the exact same, which is also the special one, sure I didn't mention, says that this person has quality similar to their mother. So there's... About saying some of it. Yeah, there's, you know, you're like, you're parenting your own parent here, even though you describe them as a sibling.

Like, this is, you're parenting your own parent, and it sounds like maybe you already have to parent your parent. But I think Ash is right. You have to make a decision. Do you want this person to be your family? Do you want them to be your friend? If they're your friend, that's going to be a very jarring change for them because you spent your entire life martyering yourself as if they're your family.

And now you're suddenly, I would ask yourself, why have you changed how you want to relate to this person? what's going on with you? And that's not a bad thing. Like, you know, I've undergone a big change recently where I'm asking, like, I'm asking questions of my friendships and how I've conducted them. And I've been sort of like actually talking to my friends

and getting their view on the dynamics as well. And it's been really interesting because some of them are like, I never realized that was, you know, our dynamic. And then they've, because they've been offered the opportunity to sort of reset it and change it so it's more equal, then they've taken that because no one really wants to be in a friendship where their friend is treating them like a child. Mummy tyrant.

Mummy tyrant. Turns out people don't want you to be mummy tyrant. Well, some do, but then you get locked in. But as you change and grow up, hopefully, that also switches with you. So, but this friend doesn't seem like she's ready for that. And that's, I would consider why you suddenly, as you've hit 30, are looking at the expectations you've placed on yourself

and the parenting you're doing and why you might be tired of that because that probably signifies there's a bigger change going on with you, especially maybe you're tired of how you perceive love to be given. You know, maybe you've decided that you are tired of trying to find love via always mastering yourself for other people and sort of creating yourself in a mummy role, a parent role. And maybe you're sick of that and maybe you want more equality from your friendships

and you've realized that whatever's going on here is not really a friendship. It's something else and you don't like that dynamic, in which case you have to be really honest with yourself about what's changed on your part because nothing's changed on her part. Yeah. She's been this way. She's been this way. She's going to stay this way, it looks like.

But you're now asking things of her that you've never asked before. And I think it is perfectly fine. Like Ash says to walk away from that, but you have to be communicative. And you also have to look at why you want to do that and how your other friendships as well. Like if you have friendships where you feel they're truly reciprocal, why you're drawn to those? If you have friendships that also might mirror this dynamic, how can you reset those? So you don't just cut all your friends off and go like, Those are all toxic because that's the worst thing you can do.

You can reset friendships and it's a lot better for you in the long run if you do. I think that's wise. Yeah, that's wise enough. We'll leave you that. I think this ship is coming into harbour. Right. I-I, cap'n. Buy special ones.

Lester's embark. Bye. Bye.