Metrics are hard but flying blind is harder. Take your seat-of-the-pants measures and quantify them with aggregate metrics when you can.

19m 8s Americans are dying from “diseases of despair” like overdose, suicide, and liver failure. What gives? How does this compare to past times?

20m 28s Economic data are readily available and centrally documented in the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank’s FRED online database. So shoot your mouth off on the internet all you want, but snag a chart to back it up and cite your source!

33m 41s Terry hasn’t read “How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read” and hasn’t talked about it. Russ hasn’t read “How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read” and has talked about it. A true contemporary classic (of non-reading).

59m 52s “Bowling Alone” comes up again. The premise is that people are going to bowl by themselves as social structures and institutions have weakened and diluted.