Offline with Jon Favreau - The Surgeon General's Very Offline Parting Message (and a Comically Online Holiday Segment)

Episode Date: December 22, 2024

Surgeon General Vivek Murthy joins Offline to share his final prescription for the nation He and Jon talk about why his parting message is all about community, the online reaction to the United Healthcare assassination, and how young people are struggling to find depth and meaning in a culture that glorifies fame and wealth. Then, Max and Jon answer listener-submitted questions, Jon recommits himself to posting on social media, and Jeremiah Johnson returns to the pod to discuss the worst tweets of 2024.

After the election, I was doing a lot of comforting of others. And I guess I hadn't realized how much I needed someone to ask me, like, how I'm doing. You were one of the first people who actually reached out outside of my immediate family and asked how I was doing, and I was telling my wife Emily that, and she's like, I mean, that's amazing. She goes, I'm also a little troubled by the fact that the surgeon general had to check in on you. She's like, I don't know what that says about you. We are just looking for someone to recognize us, see us, like dig a little deeper than, hey, how's it going?

And then just like move on, which I do all the time to people, you know, hey, how's it going? And then you just move on. What you said is exactly right. And I think it's really deceptive from the outside because when the outside looks like everyone's got everything figured out, that they're living great lives, they're hanging out with lots of friends, and that they're constantly engaged

with social events. The reality is profoundly different. It's a lot of people who are bumping into others, but feeling like they can't be themselves. They're walking around with masks on, feeling like they need to perform in some way, feeling like people don't necessarily know them for who they are. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Max Fisher. And you just heard from today's guest, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy.

If you're a long time listener, you know the Surgeon General has been a frequent offline guest. Would you call him the number one friend of the pod at this point? He's been on three times. Has he really? Yeah, this will be the third time. I mean, at this point, he's just auditioning for third chair, basically, right?

He is, yeah, watch out. I think it'd be good. No, no, no, this room with the table. He's just gotta squeeze in next to Luigi Mangione. Ha ha ha. Too soon? Not soon enough? Who knows?

Like, they have Zoom in prison, right? They have Riverside. I'm not getting myself in trouble. Come on. Not doing it. Uh, okay. The Surgeon General and I have talked about everything from doomscrolling to loneliness to the harmful effects of social media on young people. I always feel better and learn something whenever he's on the show. So when Dr. Murthy reached out to let me know he'd be here in LA and was releasing his parting prescription for America soon, I thought it'd be worthwhile to chat

one more time before he leaves the job. So we talked about why his final message is all about community and his successor's plan to ban social media for young people and a lot more. A quick note before we get into that interview, we're going to do things a little differently this week. First up you're gonna hear my interview with the Surgeon General and then It's a fun little holiday treat. Max and I are gonna answer some listener questions

And then friend of the pod Jeremiah Johnson joins us to talk about the worst tweets of 2024 There is a bracket. Yeah, this episode is a it it's a healthy feast followed by a dessert, followed by another dessert that's even worse for you. That's right. That's right. So here's my conversation with Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. Surgeon General, welcome back to the show. Thanks so much, John.

It's good to be back with you. You are now the most frequent offline guest, which I love. Really? Yeah. I had no idea. This is the third time on the show, and we've only had a couple repeat guests, but you're the first three-timer. Oh my gosh.

Well, how about that? You and I connected a few weeks ago. You told me you were working on your... Well, do I get anything special, like an apple or an orange or... Yeah. We'll have a gift bag for you on the way out, which is exciting. Well, we connected a few weeks ago. You said you were working on your parting prescription for the country and that you're

going to be here in LA. When you told me what the topic was, I couldn't wait to talk to you about it because it's a theme that runs through the shows I host, the work I did in politics, why I got into this line of work in the first place. Your parting prescription is to choose community. There are so many health challenges that you've talked about during your two terms as Surgeon General. What made you want to elevate and prioritize community as your parting prescription? Well, thanks, John. I've been thinking about this parting prescription for a long time, and in many ways it's a culmination

of two terms, having served as Surgeon General, really reflecting on a lot of the stories I heard, a lot of the science I encountered, and a lot of discussions I had with experts across a range of fields, not just in health, but sociology and everywhere else. And here's what I realized, John, that there was this deeper the river of pain and unhappiness that was flowing through people's lives. And it wasn't one particular type of group. I was seeing this among people who were older, younger, and rural and urban areas,

people who had a lot of resources, people didn't have a whole lot. Now there are explanations for this that we come across in the paper. And a lot of them are real and true, like economic uncertainty. A lot of people are concerned and true, like economic uncertainty. A lot of people are concerned about security. People are worried about an uncertain future

and how to prepare their kids for it. These are real. And these are things that have to be addressed because they affect our happiness. But I started to realize that even when we address those structural issues, John, that there's still something missing in people's lives. And I realized that three of the essential ingredients to

health happiness and fulfillment have been eroding actually in our lives and those are relationships, purpose and service. Relationships, purpose and service are the pillars of community. They're what make a community work because in any community or society to for it to really function and function well to enhance people's overall well-being we have to know each other, we have to help each other, and we have to be invested in each other. And that's what tracks with relationships, with service, and with purpose. So that the prescription that I'm going to be sharing with the country before I leave

office in January is centered around these three pillars of community about how we can rebuild them, how we can recenter our lives and society around them. And by doing so, they can help really rebuild the foundation for health, happiness and fulfillment that we all need in our lives. This erosion of community, what are the health consequences? And are they mostly physical?

Are they mental? Are they both? Could you talk about some of what you found? Yeah, this is what's really striking because we tend not to necessarily think about community as something that's health oriented. But what I came to see is these three dimensions of community in particular,

relationships, purpose and service, are very tightly linked to our health. So, and when they erode, we see an increase in physical illness, like heart disease, stroke, dementia, premature death. We also see an increase in physical illness like heart disease, stroke, dementia, premature death. We also see an increase in mental illness, increased risk of depression, anxiety, suicide. But the ripple effects actually go even beyond that.

When you look outside of health, we know that when kids are actually more deeply connected to each other in school, they actually perform better. When people actually have strong social connections in the workplace, it enhances their engagement, their creativity, their productivity, and has implications for retention. And if we look at the country right now,

not just our country, but many other countries as well, we see that there's this growing division and polarization, and that takes root when community breaks down. And so if you are, for example, a foreign adversary who's trying to think, how can I target or weaken the United States? What you would do is you would find populations that are struggling with high rates of loneliness

and isolation where people aren't invested in one another because you know that it's easy to turn people against one another in those communities with misinformation, for example. So this is major implications community for our physical and mental health, but also for education, for economic productivity, and ultimately for the security of our country.

Is this a uniquely American phenomenon? Do you notice this worldwide? Are there certain places where you can point to conditions and say, you know, they have a stronger sense of community and have better overall well-being because of it? Yeah. You know, this isn't uniquely American. And I actually just spent time in Japan and India and the UK earlier this year.

And I saw a lot of really similar trends to what we're seeing. We can talk about why, because I think a lot of the root causes of what's degrading and eroding community in the United States are at play in other countries too. But with that said, that there are countries that are different places when it comes to actually working on remedying the situation. Take Japan, for example. Japan has been ahead of the curve in recognizing

that loneliness and isolation are profound issues. So the relationship piece of community, that they've been working very hard on that, actually passed legislation to put more investment into community. They've built up these fascinating programs called Children's Cafeterias in over a thousand locations in Japan where people prepare food as volunteers and they open their doors to the whole community at a local public place where it could be a park, it could be a faith organization. And then people come and they just gather on a regular basis every week. And so Japan has been ahead of the curve there.

But if you had blindfolded me when I was having some of these conversations with students in India and the UK and changed people's accents, I wouldn't have known if I was in India or in Lincoln, Nebraska or Washington, D.C. Because a lot of what the students say is actually remarkably similar about their struggles with loneliness and isolation They talk about how it feels like people just don't really care about each other and they feel like they're struggling a lot of times On their own, but they also talk about the destination that society is driving them to word the model of success As being largely defined by wealth, power and fame. Those three things seem to be driving the picture of success

that they feel that they've got to drive toward as well. And they don't necessarily always want to do that or think that it's gonna make them happy, but they also don't wanna be left behind. And so a lot of this world, by the way, and this definition of success, this triad of success of fame, fortune and power is really amplified online. And that's why where you see countries across the board being impacted by this and it's driving a cultural shift

that I worry has actually been quite harmful for our wellbeing. Yeah, I mean, obviously I'm biased towards that explanation because of the show that social media and too much time on our phones and our screens are causing some of this. I mean, as you say, wealth, power and fame, these have been with us for a long time and sort of the drive to wealth, power and fame prior to phones, prior to the internet. How much of a cause of these problems do you think the internet and social media are? Are there other issues that have changed over time

making this a bigger problem now than it used to be? Or is it, do you identify sort of technology as the main culprit? So I think it's one of the culprits, but it's not the only one. I think what's happened over time is that we've also had just a weakening of the culprits, but it's not the only one. I think what's happened over time is that we've also had just a weakening of the institutions that used to bring us together, right?

And allow us to not just build relationships, but engage in service to our community together and find common purpose. Like whether those are faith organizations or community service groups or recreational leagues or social clubs, participation in all of these has declined over the last half century in the United States.

If you add technology, and what's interesting about technology is it's not only the impact of social media, which I think has been profound and often negative for many people in terms of pushing them toward this intense culture of constant comparison, eroded the self-esteem of young people profoundly and pushed them toward the triad of success, fame, fortune and power.

But the other piece about technology more broadly is it's made it less necessary for us to interact with each other. So I can get groceries delivered to my house, products that I want, like I don't need to go to the store, they just come to my house and what are we going to go out and see anyone anymore? And I think COVID,

what was interesting about the very beginning of COVID, that first year when many of us weren't seeing many people, is a lot of folks were like, oh, I didn't realize how much I missed just seeing people in coffee shops or just seeing someone in the grocery store or saying hello to the person at the cash register. Those interactions actually make a real difference. But finally, I just say this, the pursuit of fame,

fortune and power, that's not new, right? Like that's been like part of civilization for God knows how long. But there are two things that are really different. One is that the emphasis on that has dramatically increased with technology in particular and with sort of online influencers and social media particularly. But the other piece that has happened is there has been a weakening of the forces that have pushed us toward relationships and purpose and service. So the forces that we're actually supporting and driving community and that we're in particular

driving the values and virtues that support community, values like generosity, kindness, courage, love, these forces have also diminished in our lives, right? They just think about like generosity and kindness. Like when I talk to people across the country today, they often ask me, they say, like, why is it that it's become more important to be right than to be kind? More important to be like powerful than to be just?

Why do we care less about each other? Why are we always, why is it all about pushing ourselves ahead at all costs? And people don't wanna live in that kind of world, but when they see that world around them, and it's largely amplified online, they also don't wanna be left behind, right? So if it feels like serving other people makes you a sucker

because you're doing that instead of spending time advancing your own career or building your brand, then that's not good for society overall. So I do think that we don't talk about values enough, John. I think we shy away from them a lot of times because we think, oh, that's really personal. We don't want to alienate people. Maybe people associated with faith or religion.

But the truth is there are a common set of values that we all actually do care about, that we want to see our kids, you know, live out, that we want to see society structured around, like kindness and generosity. And we need to be more explicit, not only about talking about them, but about elevating the kind of people and organizations that are exemplifying those. Because every time somebody tells me, hey, you know, I don't really agree with this person

in terms of their character or their morals, you know, sort of beliefs and, but, you know, I really like their policy on this particular issue, whether it's taxes or on school vouchers or whatever it is. That worries me because something that you know better than almost anyone, John, is that the decisions that leaders make, 90, 99% of them are made behind closed doors

when no one's really watching. And what's guiding them in those moments are their values. So I want us to get to a place where we can lift up people who are exemplifying the core values that support community because that's ultimately what we need. That's what I want my kids to see as they grow up as well. So over the summer, you talked to a physician who writes for The Atlantic named Benjamin Mazer for a piece that was quite critical of your focus on loneliness and well-being, most of it unfairly in my view.

But basically the idea is, you know, I've heard this from other people when I talk about this stuff, that it's too vague and subjective and hard to measure and it's soft. I think he even called this goofy. I'm sure it's like not the first time that you face skepticism about this, especially as a physician, as a healthcare professional. What do you say to help people see differently who may be skeptical of this focus and this is like something to focus on?

Well, I'll tell you one thing that's really interesting, John, that I didn't expect, is that the focus that I've had on mental health more broadly and on issues like loneliness and isolation have actually been received remarkably positively by people in ways that I actually didn't fully expect, I thought there would be a lot more skepticism, but I think part of the reason there hasn't been has been

number one, I think many people are seeing this problem in their own lives. I remember when I came into office for my first term, when President Obama was president, the opioid epidemic was raging, like in the country, and it still remains a profound challenge today. But in that moment, even though opioids and addiction wasn't something that, you know,

we talked about a ton in medicine over the prior 20, 30 years, many people, when I remember talking about it on the road, people had an instant sort of recognition that this is important because they knew people in their lives who were struggling. In this moment today, when I ask audiences, whenever I travel, how many people know somebody

who's really struggling with loneliness and isolation? Almost every hand goes up. So I think that's one of the reasons actually it's been embraced quite deeply. But the other thing that's been interesting is that many people weren't aware of the health impacts of loneliness. They thought it was just a bad feeling.

And the truth is, I was one of those people also years ago. I never studied in medical school. We never came up in residency training. But when you dig into the science, that's when you really see the powerful impact that social disconnection has on our risk for cardiovascular disease and dementia, the impact it has on our risk for suicide and depression and anxiety, but also the overall mortality risk that it has, which is comparable to smoking and obesity. And we think about smoking and obesity

as classic public health issues. And what the science is now telling us is that this loneliness and isolation is a important and essential public health issue as well. But finally, I just look at a lot of this through the lens of history, right? Which is that 30, 40 years ago, if you were talking about mental health,

people have said, that's not really an important part of health. If you talked about nutrition, right, which is at 30, 40 years ago. If you were talking about mental health, people have said, that's not really an important part of health. If you talked about nutrition, John, people would have said, yeah, maybe that's interesting, but it's not really central to health. When I was in med school, you know what my nutrition education was, John? It was a seven week course that met once a week

in the evenings, and it was optional. That was nutrition education. Good way to get people to go, yeah. But it reflected this notion that, I guess it's just not that important. Now, now we know so much better. We know that, wow, nutrition really is important and essential for health.

So over time, what we've done is we've been using data and science to expand the lens through which we look at health and through which we understand the factors that contribute to health. And it's becoming incredibly clear as the WHO and many other entities have now recognized that social health is an extraordinarily important part of our health that impacts our physical

and mental wellbeing. I wonder if one of the reasons it's hard for people to sort of wrap their arms around this as a health issue is the solutions to, you know, you mentioned smoking, right? Get people to stop smoking, nutrition. We can figure out what healthier foods are and how do people take better care of themselves.

With loneliness and community, it feels like it requires so many different societal wide solutions and actions to improve this. And I don't know, I wonder if that's why sometimes people have a hard time figuring out, okay, I can see the problem. I know someone who is lonely, who's struggling, but I don't quite know where the solutions lie. Is it individual? Is it new policy, legislation? Is it like,

you know, how do you think about that? I think you're raising a really good point because in the face of what feel like really big intractable problems, it's easy to feel powerless and paralyzed. And we see that actually with a number of health issues. When people look at the obesity epidemic in our country, it also feels overwhelming. Like what am I supposed to do? Like so many factors around me, the food availability, the health and quality of food, et cetera, that impacts people's overall health and weight.

When it comes to loneliness and isolation, while there are things that we can do at a policy and programmatic level that I've laid out in advisories over the years, it turns out that there are relatively simple steps we can take in our individual lives that can make a much bigger difference than you might think on the surface.

So for example, if we make it a point to do one thing each day to reach out to someone we care about, and we just do that consistently over time, it can be for five minutes, it could be, for example, like, when we're going to work in the morning, I call you and say, hey, hey John, I'm just checking in.

I wanna see how your day's going. What do you got planned for the week? It could be you call your mother, on the way to work for five minutes, but you do that consistently. It actually will make a real big difference in how connected you feel. If you do one small thing to help someone each day,

it could be, you notice somebody, you know, drop their groceries in the grocery store, you help them pick it up. Could be you've got, you notice a colleague is really struggling during a work meeting and you just take a couple of minutes afterwards just to check in on them and see how they're doing. That will also make a big difference in your life.

These seem like almost disarmingly simple, right? Like how could some five minutes, you know, make a big difference in my life? These seem like almost disarmingly simple, right? Like how could some five minutes, you know, make a big difference in my life? But because we are so hardwired for connection, John, our body responds profoundly when we have even a few minutes of genuine connection. And so one of the things that I had to remember

in my own life was that when it comes to connection, quality is what really matters, right? And one of the most powerful levers that we have to force multipliers as I think of it is our attention. So when I would talk to people on the phone, I realized years ago that I was getting into this bad habit of multitasking when I was on the phone. So I'd call a friend to catch up.

We wouldn't have talked in months, but oh my God, awesome, we're finally gonna catch up. And then when I'm on the phone with them, I'm sorting through papers, or maybe I'm checking the scores on ESPN, my favorite website, or maybe I'm doing something else, checking my inbox, whatever it is.

And I'm like, oh yeah, I can multitask, I can pay attention. But the reality is that we now know, from a science perspective, our brains don't multitask. What they do is they rapidly task switch. And so that time that I may be able to recall some of the words my friend said, but I've missed the nuance, I've missed the pause,

and I'm not reacting. And so one of the things I realized is that five minutes spent on the phone talking to a friend where I'm fully present is often much more satisfying than a half an hour of distracted conversation. So these small steps actually really can make a difference in our lives. And it's one of the reasons why last year

when we were doing our college campus tour, focus on loneliness and isolation, we actually posed a challenge, what we call our five for five challenge to the students, which is we asked them for five days to take one active connection each day. And it could be simply reaching out to extend help to somebody, reaching out to extend appreciation to someone, or asking for help.

One of those three things. And we'll often do an exercise with them right there in the room, John. We'll ask them, we'll say, it's just gonna take 60 seconds. So first 30 seconds, just think about somebody that you're grateful for. Maybe it's somebody who just checked on you yesterday or somebody who showed up last year when you were in crisis. And then the next 30 seconds, pull out your phone

because we teach them how to use technology for good. Pull out your phone and just compose an email or a text message to that person right now and just say, hey, I was thinking about you and how you showed up for me. That just really meant a lot. Thank you. It could be something that simple and just send it. And when they finished sending it, we asked them to turn the flashlight on on their phone and to hold it up. And the room is usually dim at this point.

And I can tell you, I've been now in so many rooms and auditoriums with all of these lights, hundreds of lights flashing up into the ceiling, each one representing like a point of connection that's gone out that somebody was going to catch on the other end and feel really good and feel like, ah, I feel like somebody has remembered me. I feel like I matter. I feel like I belong. And that's a power of what you can do in 60 seconds. So I try to encourage people to recognize that, yes, we've got to do things on the structural side to, number one, invest more in social connections, support organizations that bring people together, support the building of social infrastructure, the planning of cities in ways that actually enhance social interaction and engagement. These are all things we can do and should do.

But that doesn't take away from the things we can start doing right now, which is a little bit of time and a little bit of attention, we can forge extraordinarily powerful social connection that can help us feel like we belong, which is what we all fundamentally crave. Yeah, it's so true and I've experienced it. I mean, after the election, you can probably imagine I was doing a lot of comforting of others. People asking me, what happened? What's going to happen now? We're going to be okay. And I guess I hadn't realized how much I needed someone to ask me like how I'm doing.

You were one of the first people who actually reached out outside of my immediate family and asked how I was doing. And I was telling my wife Emily that and she's like, I mean, that's amazing. She goes, I'm also a little troubled by the fact that the surgeon general had to check in on you. I don't know what that says about you. But it is, because it made me think, I first of all, I felt really good. So thank you. But we are just looking for someone to like, recognize us, see us, ask us how we are, ask

us what's going on, like dig a little deeper than, hey, how's it going? And then just like move on, which I do all the time to people, you know, hey, how's it going? And then you just move on. What you said is exactly right. And I think it's really deceptive from the outside because when the outside looks like everyone's got everything figured out that they're living great lives or they're hanging out with lots of friends and that they're constantly engaged with social events like

that's what it looks like from the outside. The reality is like profoundly different. It's a lot of people who are bumping into others, but feeling like they can't be themselves. They're walking around with masks on, feeling like they need to perform in some way. They feel like they can't, people don't necessarily know them for who they are.

And I've realized that, you know, we live in this incredibly over-scheduled world, right? So like you want to get together with friends and you try to calendar something. It's like, oh, you know, weeks, months, I don't know when we're free. But I've also realized sometimes that my wife and I, well, sometimes we'll just like call somebody

like out of the blue and be like, hey, what are you doing tonight? You wanna just like swing by? Like nobody will just like pick up something together. You don't just come back after work, even just have coffee with us or you're on your way to the airport, you're in town, you just wanna sit up by for 15 minutes and say hello.

A lot of people actually have that time. Yeah. And so we have found- Also some of the best encounters. Yes, exactly. And so we have found that sometimes just this spontaneous or like, you know, sort of, you know, without a whole lot of planning type of encounters

can be the best. But we also have just realized like never to say no to the five or 10 minute encounter. Like if you got a friend who's like, oh, I'm so sorry, I'm like booked up with stuff today, but I can stop by for five minutes on the way to the airport or do you wanna like just swing by, like my event when it ends, I have 10 minutes,

maybe I could just say hello. Always say yes to those things because that five minutes is in person. It just makes such a difference because that's how we were meant to connect, not just to enjoy the content of what someone is saying, but to see their facial expression, to hear the sound of their voice,

to just feel the proximity, physical proximity to them. We absorb all of that, and that helps us feel more deeply connected to each other. Speaking of the election, how have the results shaped your thinking on the challenge of building community in America right now? Well, I think that we have been struggling for a number of years now in terms of the

breakdown of community. And I actually think that regardless of what the election outcome was, we were going to have a big task ahead of us when it came to rebuilding community. I understand why folks who work in policy, whether they're policy makers or people who advise policy makers, why sometimes they find it challenging to focus on this issue. It's much easier to say,

there's an illness that has a drug that can cure it, how do we make that drug more accessible to people? That's much more like tangible and straightforward. But sometimes the most important problems for us to address aren't necessarily convenient, or they don't have like simple policy solutions. It doesn't mean that they're not important. And one of the things I think that we need to do,

that we need people of all political persuasions to really recognize and embrace is the idea that without building community, everything else that we want to do is gonna be harder. We can't bring people together to respond to the next pandemic or to respond to economic inequality or the fact that millions of our kids still struggle with hunger.

We can't bring people together around that if we're increasingly fractured and if we become more tribalistic instead of community oriented where we focus more and more on people who are like us and exclude others or if we look at others as Negative or evil or somehow like detrimental to society like we just cannot function as a society if we keep going down that path And so I actually think that the hard work of building community

Was going to be there regardless of the election outcome and it's something that we can't entirely rely on government to do. This is actually something we primarily need to start building on the outside. And it starts with the decisions we make in our day-to-day lives. It starts with the workplaces that we operate in and asking ourselves, how can we make our workplaces like engines for community? How can it be places where we foster actually greater engagement and service in the community, how can we create a culture where we help each other, how can we actually get to know one another more so we build friendships like in the workplace. Like we can start doing this in workplaces and we can do it in educational settings too.

A lot of university presidents I've talked to recognize that they are experiencing a loneliness epidemic. The high school principals and educators I've talked to recognize many of their kids are struggling with without a sense of community. These are the places we can and need to start rebuilding that community and that work needs to start right now. I really wanted to get your thoughts on the biggest health story of the last several weeks, the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. But I wanted to get your thoughts within the specific Context of this erosion of community you talk about so there are Americans who are so angry at the healthcare system that

They are expressing more sympathy for The murderer than they are for the victim Some people have advocated more violence many others just say I mean, I don't condone violence, but. And then there are a lot of other Americans who understand the anger, don't like the healthcare system either, are also frustrated, but think that, you know, political violence deserves to be condemned loudly because otherwise people will, more people will feel like it's okay, including people with views that we don't like.

Yeah. How do you begin to build community and solve these healthcare challenges for people when these are the parameters of the debate now? Well, look, I think two things, John, can be true at the same time. One is that the horrible murder that we saw of that CEO was absolutely wrong.

Like, that kind of violence is never acceptable. But the other thing that can also be true is that the healthcare system has not served people the way it needs to. And look, as a doctor, I have been on the side of patients where I've had to argue with insurance companies about prior authorizations, about other denials

and other barriers that they are putting up to a patient getting the essential care that they need. I've been on the phone with insurance companies where I'm literally standing next to a patient who I know needs a rehab bet because they can't go home because they're too weak to walk, but we're having trouble getting the insurance company to approve the rehab bet.

I mean, I've dealt with medications that I knew my patient needed, but they wanted to throw out barriers with prior authorizations, which would make it harder to get. And I've been on the end myself as a father, knowing my child once needed an inhaler because he had a respiratory infection

and was wheezing as a result of it. But they wouldn't, this is a basic inhaler, they have a basic medication, not some specialty thing. And they wouldn't fill that prescription at the pharmacy without a prior authorization. And it was a Friday. I've been there for my child too. And they were like, well, we have to wait till Monday.

I was like, this is ridiculous. You're telling me I need to go to the emergency room with my child as opposed to getting a simple inhaler filled. So I recognize that the pain of that, I've experienced it myself. And while that does not justify that pain, the murder of a CEO or anybody else in society, the truth is that people have been harmed

and by the broken nature of our healthcare system. And look, I think a lot of this, it comes back to this elements around community because community is a place where you find meaning and belonging, but in community, you also know that you matter and that you're cared for, right? One of the quickest ways to tell someone they don't matter and you don't care about them is to just blanket, you know, deny the care that they need. And when they're in crisis, a healthcare crisis, to tell them that you're not going to support

them with getting the medications or treatment they need. And so I think a lot of people have felt that way over the years. And I think a lot of doctors and nurses who are part of the healthcare system feel very frustrated by that too. They went into their professions wanting to get care and help for patients wanting to relieve suffering

and are finding themselves battling with insurance companies trying to get that care. So I do think that that's a fundamental problem. And look, those are the kind of problems we need to be talking about. Violence never is the answer. And healthcare should be a system that serves people and that allows them to get the care they need. Both of those things are true.

And I think in this case, if we can have a debate on a discussion about how to actually have more civil conversation about this, but to how to actually get to the heart of issues that matter, that's what I think would be productive. Because a lot of people want civil conversation, but I think the frustration they've had is that these issues, these fundamental issues, just often don't get addressed. People skirt them, policymakers will talk about them, maybe in the heat of a campaign, but when the rubber hits the road, the system doesn't change as much as it should. Now, we have made a lot of strides in the last decade or two.

When you were in government and I was in government, that was a time when, around that time is when the Affordable Care Act was passed and that got brought millions of people the insurance coverage that they otherwise lacked, right? That was life saving. Those kinds of changes make a real big difference, but there's still big, big broken pieces in the healthcare system, whether it's drug prices, which we finally made some progress on or whether it's these prior authorizations and denials. And we need tangible paths to address those that people can see and believe in.

Yeah, I mean, part of the reason it's been on my mind is because we went through passing the Affordable Care Act and I think having been on the campaign before that and Obama Senate office, I thought, you know, you look at all the polls and about health care reform and I was like, this is, I don't think it was going to be easy, but I did think it would be easier than it was and that we would be able to pass more sweeping reforms even than we did. And I think that experience, now why didn't we get to do it? Obviously there is insurance industry that you're dealing with and the prescription drug

industry, which we had to wait until this administration that you're in to finally do something about. But getting to your focus, which is community and getting people to have these conversations and understand who don't do this for a living and are living their busy lives and just want a healthcare system that actually works for them. It was so difficult even back then. And now I think about where the debate has gone and something like this happens. And you know, we're talking about murder, justified murder or not, anger and rage. And of course, there's no policy discussion because, you know, Trump and the Republicans

are now going to control government. And so it's going to be very hard to get something done. And I just wonder, like, I think that one of the reasons that our politics are so broken right now is because there is no place to have a conversation that is going to move a lot of these issues forward, even when it's something that should be, I think, to most people as obvious and clear as ensuring that every single person in this country has access to healthcare they can afford that doesn't lead them to financial ruin.

No, look, I share your concern. I mean, I think the two challenges are, one, we don't have places where we can have conversation, period. People are often scared to talk about issues that are mildly controversial, and we encounter this all the time. And online is the place where most people go, and dialogue has fundamentally been broken online. The second is, like, if you have those conversations,

how do you ensure they matter and actually translate to policy change? And look, I am a big believer. I spent a number of years as an organizer as well, and I'm a big believer that when people actually come together in large numbers and call for change, that you can actually make it happen. It's not easy, sometimes it takes time, but it can happen. But it requires them to come together. And to come together requires dialogue and a plan of action.

And one of the reasons I think community is so important here is what community does is it helps us to know each other and understand each other's lives. I may not have an elderly parent, for example, who's struggling with Alzheimer's dementia, but if I'm connected to my community and I have a neighbor who does,

I'm gonna be more sympathetic to the home care needs that many people with aging parents have, right? Similarly, before I had kids, one might say, well, why should I really care about kids who don't have food in school or kids who are struggling with violence in their communities because you don't have kids, why is it a concern to you? But I had friends who had children and I understood their lives, so I cared about them. So what community does is it helps us widen our circle of concern and get behind common sense and important policy initiatives that matter.

Like getting health insurance coverage for folks who are uninsured back in 2010 when the ACA was passed, that was important even if you had health insurance today, right? And they're the intellectual reasons why that's important, right? Overall health care costs rise, that, you know, impacts the entire country, even if you do have insurance. But then on a human level, it should matter if you know people

in your community who don't have health insurance. So that's actually one of the reasons I think that the rebuilding community is so important. It's a place where we can talk more openly, understand each other more openly, but come to support one another more openly. And when people, if people fundamentally care about health insurance coverage because they know folks who are struggling without it, they are more likely to come out and advocate for that, to push policymakers on that. They're more, they're more likely to be able to be brought in to an organizing effort, for example, because

they recognize that issue and they care about it. So yeah, this is one of the many ways in which I see community is really fundamental, but I come back to those sort of three elements that we need in community. Community is a place where we know each other, we help each other, and we're invested in each other. And if we have that, we can actually deal with all kinds of adversity. And we've got big challenges, climate change, challenges in healthcare, so many others. But there are very few of those that we can actually address if we're atomized and if

we're fragmented. And that's actually what we've got to deal with today. I think people want community. I think young people in particular have extraordinary insights, I find, when I travel about the impact of technology on their own lives. But that doesn't mean that it's easy to solve because we have a collective action problem. Just take social media for instance. When young people tell me that they're really struggling with their self-esteem on social

media and the increased FOMO they feel and the comparison constantly to others, the simple answer might be like, well then why don't you reduce your time on it? Not so easy, right, for all the reasons that we know. We've talked about, John, the way these platforms are designed. But also if everyone else is on it, and you're the only one who's not,

you might feel like you're left out too. But when a couple of people come together and say, hey, why don't we do this together? Why don't we actually take a break together, change our practice together? That actually makes it possible for others to do. And so the log off movement that's being built on college campuses around the country where young people are helping each other reduce their utilization and take breaks.

The movement among parents right now to actually wait until after middle school to have their child use social media or get a phone. These are movements that are overdue, but they're happening because more and more people are starting to step up recognizing that making these changes on your own It's pretty tough. I always think about it as the difference between unity and solidarity and You talk about unity and now in a more cynical time people think you're calling for everyone to just hold hands and get rid of your differences and kumbaya.

But solidarity is really having empathy for someone else, standing in their shoes and then engaging in collective action because of your own interest, but also because of the interests of the people that you care about and come to know. That's exactly right. And I love the word to use, their empathy. And you know, actually, I think at some deep level, like we are born, most of us, with a sense of empathy, John. I think that's actually part of our DNA.

It's who we are. But over time, sometimes it gets beaten out of us, or we're told, if you're empathetic, you're going to get taken advantage of, or that's being naive or the world's not like that, so you can't be like that. But the reality is I think this is actually our fundamental drive and to really be able to see each other is that's fundamentally about empathy. It's about being able to recognize whether people

are going through even if we can't go through it ourselves. It's about then standing up to support them, even if their problem isn't ours. That's what empathy is about. And whenever I've started to feel a bit cynical, John, about this, I just think about my own kids, right? And like the other day when I was playing with my kids and we throw balls around a lot, you know,

and tennis balls, all kinds of balls. And my daughter playfully threw a ball to me, you know, when we were sitting at the dining table. And I had that time, I had a frozen shoulder. So my shoulder was really painful. And I just instinctively reached up to catch the ball, which if you've ever had a frozen shoulder, you know, it's like exactly the wrong thing to do.

Yeah. Right? And so all of a sudden I had this lancing pain going through my shoulder, got down on the ground and I was just, I was holding my shoulder, we were just waiting for the pain to go away. And it was in that moment that I felt this small hand on my shoulder and I felt this small head leaning against my head and I opened my eyes

and it was my son. You know, he's eight years old. Yeah. He can go to empathy school, he can go to sensitivity training, but his instinct in that moment was he saw someone in pain. And even though he wasn't in pain, he wanted to respond. And I think that's how so many of our kids are.

I think that's our natural instinct in so many ways. And every time we see somebody else step up and demonstrate that kind of empathy or generosity or compassion or kindness, it gives us permission and encouragement to do the same. And it's something I want people to know because sometimes they can feel like we're maybe a lone voice out there,

trying to do good in a world where so much is going against the tide. But actually that's not the case. There are people who are hungry for a better way forward, who value the kind of empathy that you and I are speaking about, John, and who want to live life that way, who want to know that the world operates that way. And every time they see somebody step up and do that, it gives them the permission and

encouragement to live out those kinds of values too. Last question. What is your hope for your successor? I noticed that she also doesn't like social media. She said that she thinks she should be banned to all teenagers. And so what are your hopes for your successor and someone that's taking this job, you know, party aside? And also, what do you want to do next?

Well, I don't know my successor. I know that she's been nominated. I was glad to see that the position was seen as important enough to nominate somebody early. And look, I want to be helpful to her, you know, and want her to be successful for the sake of the country. So I certainly want to be a resource in what way I can. And what I would hope for her most of all is that, number one, she remembers the core roots and values that brought her to medicine in the first place, that brought

so many of us to this profession, the desire to help others, to be guided by science and also by the stories of our patients and to act in other people's interests even when it's hard and difficult and politically challenging. That is the value that I have found myself trying to constantly remind myself of and that my predecessors in this office have as well. My hope also is that she will feel encouraged and able to reach out to all of us who have preceded her in this role. We're a brotherhood and a sisterhood, the former SGs.

And we help each other, we lean on each other. We come from different, we were been appointed by presidents of different parties, but that doesn't matter because our key priority and our guiding light is what's gonna help people live healthier and happier lives. As far as me, I don't know entirely what comes next. I was sharing with you before this that I asked my daughter

what I should do, which is tricky when you're getting career advice from a six-year-old, but it's come to that. And she just said a very simple answer for me, and it came right away. She sat on my lap and she said, Daddy, I think what you should do next is spend more time playing with me. And I actually thought that was a very wise answer. So so I wanna take some time to be with my family,

to take them on a vacation. You know something, John, that I just wanna say explicitly for everyone who's listening, which is that when we serve in these roles, our whole family serve, right? And so the sacrifices are spread among our partners, our kids, our parents, everyone. So I owe that to them.

But what I do know is that what I do want to focus on next is this deeper question of how we now do the hard work of building community. How do we harness the power of business and government and education and entertainment, including music and sports and art, how do we bring these different sectors together to not only support the policies and programs we need that will bring us together, but to ultimately drive the culture shift that we need to swing us from that triad of success more toward the triad of fulfillment anchored in relationships and purpose and service.

And this is a culture shift because culture is ultimately driven by what people believe and what they do and when more and more people do that, then the culture shifts. And I don't know, I just think, John, you're a parent, I'm a parent. And I think about so much these days in terms of the world that I want to be a part of creating for my kids. You know, our kids are going to be here hopefully long after we're gone. And we're not going to always be there to protect them or make sure that they have the best experience possible.

They're going to rely on the community and the culture around them. And I want my kids and your kids and all of our kids to be able to grow up in a world where people care about each other, where if you make a mistake and you screw up, you don't get judged by your worst moment, where people actually lift you up when you fall down, and where we see the power and importance of connecting with something bigger than ourselves, whether that's to individuals through friendship,

whether that's through nature, whether it's through other forces. I want my kids to grow up in a world where they belong and where they can find meaning. And creating that world is what I want to do next. And I think there are a lot of ways to do that. I think we need to drive a different kind of conversation about what matters in life and what we're driving to in our lives because that determines how we design society.

Driving that kind of dialogue through different channels is something I'm thinking about. But I also want us to be able to create the experience of community in our existing institutions. So how can our workplaces and our schools and our universities become engines for the experience of community? I fundamentally think that if you can experience something, if you can see it, then you can believe in it, right?

But like many people might say, hey, look, this community thing sounds amazing, but like, I don't know, is it really possible? But once you have the experience of actually showing up somewhere where people really care about you and they and people are helping each other and they feel like they're part of a cause bigger than themselves and you're like, wow, that's kind of neat. Maybe it can happen. I was just literally yesterday on the phone with an incredible woman, Sarah Heminger,

who started an organization called Thread in Baltimore. Thread takes the ninth grade students who are at the bottom quartile of the class, really struggling, average GPA of 0.78, and surrounds them with three to four adult volunteers in the community, who kind of becomes her good family. They do anything that's needed. Their motto is we show all the way up.

And that means that if what's needed is making a lunch that day, dropping a kid off at school, picking them up from school, tutoring them after school, connecting them to community resources, whatever it is, we just do together and we show up. And what's really extraordinary about this program is that Sarah was telling me that the graduation rate, they realized, in the kids who are part of Thread is 10x, tenfold greater than the kids who are not in Thread, but in the similar quartile.

But the amazing thing about this is it's helping people believe again, that community is possible. These are people who care deeply about each other. These are people who are helping each other day to day. And the members of Thread, these parents have found such a deep sense of purpose in showing up for someone else. 40% of the kids in this quartile, this lowest quartile in ninth grade in Baltimore are now part of Thread. All right, so I look at experiences like that

and I think to myself, how many of those parents maybe were cynical before? How many of those students and their parents were cynical about whether community really existed or anybody believed in it? And now they believe because they've seen it, they've experienced it. So I wanna see what I can do to drive

a different conversation, to create the experience of community for people. This is a movement we need to build in America and a movement we need to build all over the world. And if we can do that, then I have great faith, John, that whatever challenges may come, whether it's another pandemic, whether it's the ongoing threat of climate change,

whether it's economic inequality, whatever it may be, that we can tackle these because we'll be together, we'll have each other's backs, and that's really what matters the most. Well, thank you. Thank you for your service in government and two tours in the federal government. And thank you also just for focusing on what I think is one of the most important challenges and difficult challenges to solve

that we face right now. So thanks for bringing our attention to it and raising awareness and enjoy some well-deserved time off. Thank you so much, Sean. I really appreciate it. And thank you for bringing these kinds of conversations to light. This is what we need to be talking about. This is what really matters at then end of the day if for the end of

Our lives we can look back and feel like our life really mattered because we were part of something we were part of a community That's that's what's gonna mean a lot, you know, like to me like in this work Like look like anybody else John. I have moments where I wonder Am I getting enough recognition for what am I doing? Am I achieving enough? Am I making enough money? Like I have those moments too. I feel that pull of that triad of success, you know, like on me as well. But in those moments, John, I just try to remember

these conversations that I had with my patients over the years at the end of their lives. See the very end of people's lives is often when they are reflecting on what really mattered. And I've had the privilege of sitting down in those final days by their bedside and just listening to them talk. And what's interesting to me, John, is they never talked about how much money was in their

bank account, how big their corner office was. They didn't talk about the awards they got or the fancy school they got into. What they talked about were the people in their life, the people they loved, the people they helped, the people whose lives they ultimately touched. And we don't have to wait till the end of our life to realize that, that's what really matters. And so if we can build this kind of community for ourselves, for our people we love, for our kids,

then we will be giving them one of the most powerful gifts that we can, we will be securing the future for them in one of the most potent ways that we can. And that's why to me this mission of building community and revitalizing it is so essential. Well, thank you. Thank you. Take care. Take care. And we're back.

So we reached out in the Friend of the Pod Discord and on Instagram to ask you if you all have any questions for the show. Not the most offline method, but you know, didn't have my carrier pigeons, we're all busy. We got a lot of great, very offline questions and some ones that I'm not sure how to answer. Sorry, Maddie, Max couldn't tell us his favorite member of One Direction. I'm a Harry guy. I don't know what that is or who that is, but congratulations to him and them. Harry Styles?

Oh, Harry Styles, sure. He was in Dunker. He was in Dunker. No, pre-night. It doesn't matter. No, you were right. You were right. Okay, let's get into this. We're going to do a couple quick ones before we get to Jeremiah. And can I just say, we will not be answering any of the angry questions I got this week from ophthalmologists. Yeah, I said what I said last week and I was right. That's going gonna be a special bonus episode for the top tier subscribers.

That's right, for subscribers only, Max vs. the ophthalmologist. Roberta asks, this election cycle produced the worst left-leaning infighting since the 2016 Democratic primaries produced. It ain't over. We also saw and continue to see more conspiracy theories. I admit I've been lured somewhat by the Blue Anon Sirens call. I appreciate that, Roberta. Specifically around the ear-snipping sniping. I had to read that a couple of times to understand what Roberta was talking about now and then I got it.

Roberta crafted a hell of a question. Shout out to Roberta. You're a great writer. Big time. Um, all right. So her question is, what do you think is going on? What do you think the source of this is? Are we just post-COVID crazy people now?

I have to tell you, I think 2020 was so much worse. The infighting during the Democratic primary was so toxic and so vicious. I just like, I get it. Honestly, from 2016 through the 2020 election, it was four years of it. I know. Yeah. And now it's back. It was four years of it Yeah, and now it's back. It is back picked up where we left off. I know I know I'm not sure it ever really went away I mean look, I think this is just

It's all of the elections like when it happens three elections in a row. It's not about the particulars of the election It's about social media and I think social media just encourages you to see the world in terms of this like media and I think social media just encourages you to see the world in terms of this like ultra minute narrow factionalism and anyone who is one one thousandth of a degree to your left or to your right is a monster who has to be expelled from the party. Yeah. And it's just not conducive to talking about an election with a lot of people who might have very slight disagreements with you. And yet we're also going to talk about it.

No, I know. No, I mean, I have to say I'm not surprised at all. Like I said to many people and thought to myself before the election like if if we lose this one The in fighting is gonna make it's gonna make 2016 look like nothing. What made you think that? Because you know you elect Donald Trump once yeah shame on him And you know, it's like we've already been through four years. He did, you know, inside an insurrection. I just, it's, I knew it was going to be bad. And in some ways it's understandable. Like we lost to Donald Trump.

People are angry, afraid, exhausted. And those don't make for happy people when they're debating. We had a very broad, fractious coalition that was barely held together by the common goal of beating Donald Trump. And so it's natural that after that doesn't work, that we did that after we didn't succeed, that people are going to start debating. And I think some of it is necessary and hopefully it's productive. It can be a healthy process. One thing I'm trying to do and I urge everyone else to do is just like interrogate my own priors. Yeah.

It's hard. It's really hard. Okay. I think it's easier to be like, okay, the thing I've always believed and no one listened to now, it's just the election results proved me right. Right. And I think we all do that. I've done that. And what I'm trying to do now is really dig in

and be like, is that right? Is there another view? Should I think about the other? So I think that's one way to do it. And it's a good thing to do off social media because you will always find something on Twitter or TikTok or wherever that confirms your priors and that tells you that you were right and righteous

and anyone who disagrees with you shouldn't be listened to. Something I would say to Roberta about feeling the pull of getting angry online, which I have certainly felt since the election, there's a lot of people I'm angry at because I don't like their posts, their tweets, whatever, is just to remember that it feels good when you do it because social media is engineered to incentivize that behavior and to make it feel validating, but it is not actually good for you, much less good for politics. So don't chase that cheap empty high.

Me. I didn't name anybody. I said myself, talking to Roberta. I don't know if anyone else is on Twitter, maybe. I will say though, there's no cheap empty high for me. It's all cheap empty lows. And I don't even post expecting that it's going to make me feel good anymore. I don't post expecting that I'm going to get anyone replying saying, I agree with you.

No, I'm thinking like I, and I finally wrote that piece, but it's like, I go on there being like, I want to say what I think. And maybe it'll land with some people who aren't replying and the people who are replying it probably won't land with, but maybe someone will read it and it'll spark something and it'll, you know, who knows. On the conspiracies, because she asked about that too, like, I do think like we always need to explain, we feel, we look for explanations for the inexplicable. And, you know, whenever we get bad news, our first reaction is like, this can't be happening. And I think that can lead to, especially in a very online environment, a

search for conspiracies, right? Um, and I think, you know, the, the, the ear, snipping, sniping would fall into that because I think a lot of Democrats, when that happened, um, after you get over the sheer horror of the attempted violence, um, or the violence, uh, you think to yourself, Oh God, this is the end. A lot of Democrats thought this is the end of the election. It's over. And you're like, well, it's gotta be something then.

It's gotta be staged, right? Because we just wanna, we want an explanation. Right, right. Goisen, comma, enemy from within asked, you know this. Austin and Emerald, they don't know either. I don't know this one. Is this on the list? The question is, is the internet real life now? Oh, I just need to know this one.

The question is, is the internet real life now? Oh, I see this one. No, the internet is not. The internet was, I think, a little bit more real life in this past election and that it I think it did play a real role in Biden dropping out. I don't know that it would have happened without Twitter because we just needed a place for all these progressive democratic elites to coalesce around this decision that he had to drop out. But I think that ended pretty quickly and Twitter continues to not be real life and

I think becomes less real life every day because people are falling down these rabbit holes of identity, confirmation, bias, confirmation that just pulls them further and further from reality and I see it, I see it in my friends. I have come to develop a slightly nuanced view on this now that's different from before. The people who participate in internet discourse, whether it's Twitter or any other platform, are not representative of the broader population. That remains true.

We know that for a fact. That's all the data shows that. But internet discourse itself doesn't just have a impact on real life. It has an outsized impact on real life because it includes a disproportionate number of influential people. Figures from politics, media, business, literal influencers. And so I do think there's a dynamic there that I would love to keep exploring that we haven't quite wrestled with, which is like, we're all swimming in this morass of social

media garbage. And yet, I think part of what we saw in this last election is it did have an impact on how actual people who might not participate in the discourse voted or at least thought about politics because they got just a, you know, like an algorithmic mix of opinions and takes that started to shape their perception a little bit. Yeah, I think that's true. And I think it influences mainstream media coverage too, for sure. Which is weirdly not something that matters as much for elections now, because people who consume mainstream media are like 99% Democratic voters, but it does still matter

for how our society operates. Yeah, because my example on this is like, say you're someone who doesn't pay close attention to the news or doesn't consume the news much at all, but you know, you're on, maybe you're on TikTok and you aren't even on TikTok a lot, but the two TikToks you see before the election, you know, and maybe they don't make your, I don't say they make your decision for you, but they have an effect. And TikTok does represent a huge, huge number of Americans. Yes.

It's a really significant pool. For now. Yeah, we'll see. Give it a couple weeks. Mariner asked, hey Mariner, I was talking to Mariner on the Discord this week, how do you feel about having created a social media space for a show that was about the dangers of social media that is increasingly just a space to talk about

the discourse on other social media? So great question. Fair hit, I'm gonna be honest. Well, first I would say, I disagree slightly that we're increasingly just a space to talk about discourse on other social media. Just since the election, we've talked about TikTok, as I just mentioned, the latest legal and political developments, not just the discourse on TikTok.

We just did an entire episode about talking to strangers face to face about politics with Dave Isay. We talked about the new FCC chair, Joe Rogan, Trump's approach to tech and the internet, how to make democracy work in the information environment. But yes, we absolutely spend a lot of time on social media discourse. I think it's fair to say we probably spend more time as the show has evolved. I think we do it for two reasons. One, we do it when there is important political or cultural dimensions to the discourse, or frankly because it's fun and we could use a laugh.

And that is always going to be part of the show, because I think we need to laugh once in a while. And if there's something funny on social media, then let's say it. In general, though, I think about this almost like people who critique capitalism, right? Which is like, we can talk about the dangers of capitalism and how to make it work better. We're not getting rid of it. And we're all part of it. We've got to participate in the system. And so I think you can talk, and I think the same is true of social media. Like, I mean, at least for me,

some people are never gonna have to be on social media if they don't want, but like our job is politics and news and media. And so we're unfortunately gonna have to be on social media. So part of the show is what's happening there, and part of it is how to deal with it in a healthier way, which is not just unplugging, which we said even during the offline challenge,

but like figuring out how to deal with it in a healthier way. I'm not saying that we've, I certainly haven't figured that out, but just that's the... Yeah, it's very funny to get this question on the episode where it is sandwiched between an interview with the surgeon general and the bad tweets bracket. And if you don't think people are going to point that out.

It is. It's very much like the angel on our shoulder, Vivek Murthy and the devil on our shoulder, Jeremiah Johnson with the bad tweets. It's like, look, it's both sides of the offline world. That's what it is. You know, it's fun. I would, I got this question constantly when I was doing my book tours. It's like, how can you write a book about how social media is bad and yet be on social media yourself? And it's

like, it's a fair question and I would always give the same answer, which is that social media shapes our world whether I am specifically on it or not. So I do need to use it to just like understand the effect it is having. Now at the same time, I think there probably is a little bit of like, I really back slid on my screen time during the election, spent a lot more time looking at my phone. So what do you know? I spent more time being angry about tweets and skeets that I saw on my phone. So I brought it up more on the show.

But I do think that we are in a moment where we are thinking about the impact of social media on our politics, on the party, on kind of how we're processing what's happening. Yeah. And for me, I'm thinking I'm not like spending a lot of, I'm actually not spending a lot of time scrolling through social media, hard to believe. Good for you. I'm thinking a lot about the election, what comes next, and I have a, like, I'm getting

a lot of thoughts about them, reading a lot, and I need to put them somewhere. Yeah. And like, I know, I do a bunch of podcasts, I can do them there. But sometimes it, you know, as I learned when I wrote up the piece, I'm like, I know, I do a bunch of podcasts, I can do them there, but sometimes it, you know, as I learned when I wrote up the piece, I'm like, sometimes it just helps to write stuff down or share stuff, and I wish I could do it in a place that wasn't so toxic, but there's no place that exists. Don't tell me about Blue Sky.

If only there was a micro blogging service somewhere that didn't have Twitter's algorithm or ownership structure, but I just don't know what that would be. I just don't know if only some enterprising, someone with a background in tech tech maybe who's worked at Twitter But there's not if you know one Let him know because he's really looking for that kind of a place I Like that

Miriam news. Oh asked if we all went back to flip phones. What would you miss most? Oh my god I loved this question because it's the, we've gotten versions of this before, but it's if you didn't have your phone, the idea of everybody giving up their phone and going to the flip phone all at once. I started jotting down some notes and what that would look like, and it looked like the lyrics from Imagine by John Lennon.

No hell below us, above us only sky, no one to kill or die for. What color of the sky? What color is the sky? It's blue, John. Above us only sky, no one to kill or die for. What color of the sky? What color is the sky? It's blue, John. I mean, it's just, it's a beautiful thing to imagine. The world would be so different.

We can't even like get into, I mean, we're just, we'd be less polarized, angry, conspiratorial, but I would also be personally lost all the time if we didn't have smartphones. Oh, like physically lost. Physically, I have a terrible sense of direction. You and Emily, my friends too, yeah. Oh, really? Does she have to use maps to go like, even to the same places she goes to?

You know, it's more like we walk out of the hotel room, we go down the hall, we come back. Oh, those hotels are mazes. All the hallways look the same. No, she's right on this one. But also directions. But she's confident in the direction. Right? We're supposed to take this left.

And then you end up, you're just circling the hotel for... The connector between my phone and the thing in my car broke, so I don't have maps on it right now. It is three turns from my home to my office, and I had to pull over to look it up on my phone. I don't know how to get anywhere. I can't do it. It was like my first two years in LA I will say LA is confusing. Also, I'm stupid

I would miss the texting. Yeah, no, I know you know you can do on the flip phone the whatever But when we tried to do that for a little bit the texting is in I didn't use it at all when we went to possible when we went to flip phones the one thing that I was like my life is worse off for not having this is Group texting and FaceTime. Yeah Yeah, that would be mine. All right last question Cacti and cats asked will there be another offline challenge this year and John will 2025 finally be the year you seriously consider limiting your interactions on Twitter. No No, I said this on terminally online if you heard it, but my resolution for 2025,

I'm getting in more Twitter fights. Are you really? Yeah, and more blue sky fights too. Who are we fighting with? Who's target number one? I don't really know. Do you have an enemies list? It's not really fights.

But I am, I am. Spirit and exchanges. And I don't even know if there'll be exchanges, but I'm posting. I am posting. You're getting out there? I mean, as long as you're getting the screen time down, I sanction it.

I have thoughts and I'm going to share them. And if you don't like them, you can unfollow me. That is totally fine. You can write back all kinds of nasty things. That's okay too. Fetch these. I'm just going to tweet less personally. That's my journey.

I'm going to try to get off my phone. But you know, we're getting off my high horse here. We're A-B testing. I'm on my very low horse. We're AB testing. We're all coping in our own ways. I am not holier than thou. But the answer to Kat's question is the yes, we are going to be doing another offline challenge. It's going to be focused on, I don't know how much we want to give away,

but we're going to change the focus a little bit. Okay. You said the word. It's going to be about focus. It's going to be about focus. It's going to be about focus. It's going to be about not just getting, putting down your phone. It's going to be how do you maintain your attention span? How do you focus what you're, what you want to focus on, what's going on in your life?

And I'm excited for it. Yeah. Emma came up with the idea and it's a brilliant idea. And we're all very excited and we're working it out now. And it's, it's nice because it's an offline challenge. It's not exactly like what we did before, but it's going to be, I think, focus and attention are incredibly important. And we're going to have lots of ways for people to follow along, things that you

can do at home to work on your focus and attention as well. Yes. All right. When we come back, Jeremiah Johnson, author of the phenomenal Substack Infinite Scroll joins us to talk about his worst tweets of 2024 brackets. But before that, few quick housekeeping notes. First, Cricket Limited series. We got a bunch that we've had over the last year or so, and they're

fantastic to listen to. You can unravel the mystery of a prominent judge's death and killing justice. You can follow the shocking transformation of a Chinese civil rights activist into a MAGA Trump supporter, in dissident at the doorstep. Or you can immerse yourself in the hidden history of America's largest police force with Empire City, the Untold Origin story of the NYPD, named one of the top podcasts of 2024 by Time Magazine, Vulture, and the New York Times. And by me.

And by Max. Max Fisher too. It just belongs right in that list. Binge these series and more at crooked.com slash limiteds or find them wherever you get your podcasts. Also crooked's friends of the pod subscription is offering an exciting 25% off new annual subscriptions through the end of the year. If you're feeling anxious about 2025 in the avalanche of headlines, news alerts and Trump adjacent puppy killers that will bring you're not alone. Crooked is here to make sense of what matters, what it all means and what

we can do about it, rather than constantly freaking out about all the what-ifs. Rest assured, we will still freak out sometimes. And your subscription will support all of that work. You'll also get ad-free episodes of Pod Save America, subscription-exclusive shows, and access to our lively Discord community. I will tell you one New Year's resolution,

as I also said that I'm going to dive into more Twitter and Blue Sky exchanges, but I'm also, I'm going to try to spend more time on Discord, talking to our wonderful subscribers. We've had some great conversations in the last couple weeks. And you know, you can yell at me there, you can disagree politely, which most people are doing. And we had some great productive discussions.

It's really fun, so check it out. Subscribe now at Cricut.com slash friends or through the Pod Save America feed on Apple podcasts. [♪ MUSIC PLAYING FADES out...] Jeremiah Johnson, welcome back to Offline. Really glad to be here, man. How you guys doing? We're pretty good.

I got to say, you have this every year, you collect the 64 worst tweets of the year, you put them into a bracket, and then you have people vote on them on Twitter. And this was really hard. There's some real good ones. This is like, this is an intense competition this year You managed to get me assigned as a work responsibility at my job reading bad tweets And I really don't know whether to be grateful or angry about that Look, I mean I've looked through like hundreds of these to get ready for this and at this point

My brain is fully melted. It's like sloshing around the bottom of my skull. So, you know, whatever comes next, I've just accepted. How long ago did you start this? I feel like I remember it from a couple years ago. At least that's when I hopped on the bandwagon here. And my question is why? Are you okay? I started it in 2022. And I'll let you in on like a just a little secret. People have

accused me of spending too much time on the internet. That's the thing that happens. Sounds familiar. Yeah, it's just this thing. I think it actually the Genesis was like a Rebecca Jennings tweet that went viral. She's a writer for Vox on online culture and in 2022 she tweeted something about like what's the most unhinged discourse you've seen this year and that was the year of like the the coffee wife and the chilly neighbor and Bean Dad and like all these like famous Twitter things people who don't know what we're talking about I sound like an insane person but

Basically, it just kind of why I was thinking well Why not just gamify it everybody likes everything to be gamified in the modern culture in in the modern World and why not just have some fun with it should team up with fortnight And people who do know what he's talking about, this is the show for you. This is, yes. In fact, this is the segment of the show for you. Your home. All right, so jokes aside, we thought it'd be fun for each of us, Yumi and Max, to select

our two favorites, or I guess least favorite, our favorite worst tweets from the bracket and make the case for why we each think our tweet should be the worst tweet of the year now you have already we're recording this on Wednesday December 18th I believe there's already one round that's already happened we have what 32 left are we at the round of 32 yet yes we are currently voting the top 32 by tomorrow. It will be to the top 16 We will eventually get to one winner one one single champion of just putrid Twitter awfulness now Have you partnered with any specific casino in Vegas for odds taking on this or is it just kind of all black market at this?

point I Have actually had people offer to sponsor the bracket and mostly it has been like weird crypto scam shit. So I have declined, but like, I'm not in theory opposed to like, if somebody wants to offer me a bag, I'm not gonna, you know, decline, but crypto is maybe a bridge too far. Will there be a one shining moment, like video of the worst tweets at the very end.

Austin's going to do that. Great. Thank you, Austin. All right, Max, what's your first bad tweet? So this is a phrase that has been just bouncing around my head ever since I was cursed enough to see it on my screen. I text it to friends occasionally just so that they know that it's going on in my head. My online Dom lives in Israel because she's so stressed about living next to a war zone,

I haven't properly gotten off since October 7th ceasefire now. It's a beautiful sentiment, I feel. Now, I will say we had a whole segment on Terminally Online where Kat Abo, that was her item for that week, and boy, that was special. The real heads know, this one is for the connoisseurs, I feel.

Now that one's already been eliminated, I guess, right? Cause I did not see that today. Ah, that's not true. That one, so it's funny that this one was included. One from Blue Sky snuck in without me realizing it. That one is actually from Blue Sky. Damn a skeet. It is a beautiful tweet though, because it has this like, there's a certain genre of tweet where it's

like there's this big really important societal thing happening. Some geopolitical events, some societal event. But how can I make this about me? You know, what's really important about the October 7th attacks is whether or not I've been orgasming recently. October 7th attacks is whether or not I've been orgasming recently. Anytime there is major news somewhere now I'm texting someone that my online Dom lives there. So they're in Damascus at the moment actually. Jeremiah, you can go next. What's your pick? All right. So just as like a setup, one of the things that I think

Takes like a generically bad tweet into really really amazingly bad territory. Is that really like? snotty tone of voice that people use, you know where people like hey John Saw you tweeted this hope you can do better. You know, hope that helps that kind of like millennial snot kind of do better, you know, hope that helps that kind of like millennial snot kind of tweeting style where like I'm a pretty chill guy, but anytime somebody says hope that helps at the end of a tweet, I start thinking about the death penalty. So there's one of these where this is after the Joe Biden debate to kind of disaster. Miriam tweets, Steve Harvey messed up announcing Miss Universe in 2015 and we didn't call for him to step down from hosting Family Feud just saying. And then somebody asks, did Steve Harvey have access to the nuclear codes? And their response is, not

my job to educate you. The genre of like pro-Biden, like anti-Biden dropout tweets is really some incredible stuff. It was a soft year, honestly, up until that point, and then Twitter really brought it with that moment, I feel. The implication being that like, I'm not going to educate you, and Steve Harvey might have had access to the nuclear codes. Not my job to educate you is gonna be right up there with one of my, the Twitter phrases.

It's just like, okay, maybe it's not your job to educate me, but it is your job to criticize me. That's right. You have used, you have found it within yourself to offer the emotional labor to criticize on Twitter, but you will not educate on Twitter. Well, that is all of our jobs, to send shitty tweets to each other is my understanding.

Uh, so I have, I have to be honest guys, there's like eight that I have been trying to decide between, but I'm going to keep it in the Biden dropout category. Just because this one I remember at the time, and it's one of my favorites. category just because this one I remember at the time and it's one of my favorites. So this is at Rebecca Ryder and I guess this is like a play here. This is a one act play. Pundits, Joe Biden needs to drop out. Biden, no. Pundits, but we really want Joe Biden to drop out. Biden, no. Eight house Dems, Joe, the pundits say you need to drop out. They really want that. Biden, no. Eight house Dems. Joe, the pundits say you need to drop out. They really want that. Biden, no. George Clooney.

Come on, Joe, just relax. You'll like dropping out. Biden, no. Voters. No means no motherfuckers. And then, this is how she sums up the whole thing. Politics and rape culture are too similar for comfort. Is calling for Joe Biden to drop out, like rape culture.

Yeah, I mean, it's a great question. It's a tweet. And it went viral, so I guess that that's true. Also guess what, that's not what the voters said. I mean, those are words you can put in that order, right? Those are English words that I recognize, but you put them in that particular order, and it's like, there's a second genre of tweet that is just like, I'm going to take some legitimate idea

and then just extend it so far beyond the goalposts of where it needs to be that, you know, that you see that all the time. Yeah. Whenever I see a tweet like this, I always picture someone like in line in CVS and the tweet coming to them and then breaking out a line to run home and type it up on their screen. Got it. Tell the world. Okay. Second one from me. This is, this is just an important capital I important tweet.

This is from Navy Seal Robert J O'Neill. Oh, okay. So it's an important one. It has to be in the canon to some zoomers who voted for Kamala. You're not men, you're boys. If there was no social media, you would be my con-cubines. It is a crazy thing to say to somebody. Seal Team Six.

Listen, from what we've heard about the culture on Seal Team Six, this is actually not shocking news. This is the guy who supposedly shot Osama bin Laden. This is the guy who, in all probability, I don't think we have confirmation, but this guy probably killed Osama bin Laden and now he is shitposting on Twitter? That's his new job? You win some, you lose some. Chris Pratt is out here telling the Zoomer boys that he is going to... No, someone was like, what?

And he said, no, Jake, I'm telling you what the bait is like. It will be used for sex and food, mostly food. I like that, it's like, in case you didn't understand what I meant when I said concubine. I meant concubine. I'm gonna use you boys for sex and food. Just very specific from Mr. Sealed Team Six. He's got a worldview, he's sticking to his guns,

it's consistent. Incredible, incredible. All right, Jeremiah, what do you got? I think cannibalism on top there, just the adding of cannibalism on top of the concubines and now I'm actually I'm scrambling for a second Cuz that was one of mine I abuse my position in the in the lineup. It's true Okay, so I've got another one that I think is just really it's it's very special

It's the kind of thing you only see on Twitter, I feel like. So the setup here is that Lawrence says, something about a white girl criticizing the Brown Nation, exercising their sovereignty, it just rubs me the wrong way. And you're like, oh, well, that sounds concerning, right? A white person criticizing a Brown Nation? And then the reply is, Lawrence, it's the fucking Taliban That was my other one this is a great one because when Afghan government fell the Taliban took over there was like a an hour when you could tell Twitter was really toying with like are we gonna

Be pro Taliban now. Do we like really like maybe we're gonna be pro Taliban. Yeah, let's try it out And then people kind of backed off Okay, some of these I really liked but I was like I cannot even say this on the podcast because it has it just feels so Are you looking at the Rod Dreyer? Look, there's a lot What do I want to do? Is it do I want to do polyphobic or do I want to do? Is it, do I want to do polyphobic or do I want to do, do I want to do abolish bedtime? It's not, it's not a synopsis of Twitter in 2024 unless there's a mention of poly.

I'm going, I'm going both, cause they're both quick. Okay. This one, this one is from Jess. We need to talk about how giving people a plus one for events is low key polyphobic. Yeah, low key is another phrase that it had its use, it did, but it's been used in so many like rage bait viral tweets.

Now you just can't say, you can't say it anywhere without sounding like a tweet. And then this one, this is, this is, I like this a lot because this is another kind of category that we haven't hit yet. The anarchist turtle, great follow. I don't understand people who recognize that social constructs exist, but think time abolition is silly.

And then Moonlit Misfit quote tweeted it, I unironically support bedtime abolition, but I think full-time abolition is an unrealistic prospect. Someone drew a line. There was a time abolition discourse and I think it was like 2020 and 2021. Do you remember this? It came out in New York Times Magazine story where there was references to mechanical clock time.

Oh my God. As being something that was a racist construct. Fixed bed times are a symptom of the control wage labor and formal schooling have over our lives. But time measuring is useful for organizing voluntary leisure activities too. So, we've got your time abolition absolutists, and then you've sort of got your moderates

who just want to do bedtime abolition. I mean, hasn't Lovett been talking about this all week? Yeah, it goes all the way. He's like a mushy centrist now, going all the way to daylight saving time. He's a moderate, yeah. He's got to hear both sides. Wow. The funny thing about that one is that in kind of trying to choose the 64 that got into the bracket, there was more than one abolish style tweet. And I had to kind of do like a little run

off among a few friends of like, which one gets included because I can't have half the bracket be just abolishing things right and it was stuff like abolish bedtime abolish kitchens Abolish school and at some point you start to realize wait This is just like an eight year olds list of demands like abolish school abolish bedtime I don't want to do the dishes mom so like it's you know Well, that's that's, you know.

Well, that's all the time we got. I can't wait to figure out who wins this thing. I just voted for this round. I, the big question is. Some of them are really tough. Cause you had some real, real good ones going up against each other in this round. Like just two that I read. I think that, I think Taliban, it's the Taliban is going up against the Biden one, which is tough.

I will say is that we've gotten some listener feedback that we need to be more open to blue sky. So I would say open up the bracket to skeets, open it up to blue sky. You mean next year, man, bad skeets. That's good. You do a whole separate bracket. That's like the NIT. That's right. All right Jeremiah, well I'm excited to see who wins. Everyone should check out

Jeremiah's fantastic substack Infinite Scroll. You can follow him on Twitter if you want to read more bad tweets and good tweets from Jeremiah, but bad tweets otherwise. That's our show for today. Jeremiah, thanks a ton for stopping by. Thank you to all the listeners who submitted questions. And of course, thanks a ton to Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. I'm sure he's really happy to be in this episode. We will be back in your feed after the holidays. offline is a Crooked Media production. It's written and hosted by me, John Favreau, along

with Max Fisher. It's produced by Austin Fisher and Emma Illich-Frank. Jordan Cantor is our sound editor. Charlotte Landis is our engineer. Audio support from Kyle Seglen. Jordan Katz and Kenny Siegel take care of our music. Thanks to Ari Schwartz, Madeleine Herringer, Reed Sherlin and Adrian Hill for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn and Dilan Villanueva, who film and share our episodes as videos every week. Wired is constantly reporting on Silicon Valley's biggest players from going inside their companies to testing their biggest products. Now it's time to discuss the changing faces of tech and how the decisions of a few powerful

people impact us all. Every Thursday, Wired's podcast Uncanny, provides an insider look at the people, power, and influence of Silicon Valley. From Mark Zuckerberg's style glow up to the shared obsession amongst tech bros to live forever, the hosts explain why these things matter and how they affect you. Listen to new episodes of Wired's Uncanny Valley wherever you get your podcasts.