Hey friendos! It's an off-week for the pod so you know what that means: it's a bonus episode! We're watching three episodes of that beloved TV sitcom, iCarly!

What on Earth is iCarly, you ask? Why, the world of iCarly is a sinister mirror of our own. It is a place in which parents are fully absent from their children's lives, teens do professionalized labor in their free time, and children make high-budget internet television using their parent's no-limit credit cards to national acclaim. iCarly's SpecOps Air Force dad didn't slit all those throats in Yemen to have his children not grow up in a hype loft. U! S! A! U! S! A!

If you want to watch along, we watched:

• S03E18 - iPsycho, Part 1
• S03E19 - iPsycho, Part 2
• S03E14 - iFix a Popstar
• S04E23 - iMeet the First Lady

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We're continuing our investigation of what the junk happened to Millennials! Did you know that in a competitive economic system, a class-differentiated ideology of temporarily-embarrassed-superstardom will emerge in which parents cope with the material consequences of dwindling Good Life Outcomes by fantasizing about their child becoming the most important goober in the universe? Well it's true! What happens when an intergenerational star search passes over everyone but the most networked few? Well, let's just say it makes for some incredibly overworked, anxious, and unsocialized children whose first adult experience is learning that they are, in fact, significantly less talented than their parents let on. We didn't give ourselves all those got-dang gold stars! And I thank my lucky stars that I threw my child-sized violin out the window at the age of six. It was the best decision I ever made. It's chapter 5 of Kids These Days!

Chapters:

(00:24:02) The Discussion Zone

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Our book is Kids These Days: Human Capital and the Making of Millennials by Malcolm Harris. Pick up a copy from the publisher ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and read along with the pod!

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The ancient American Empire worshipped a universal force called "The Market." People back then believed that if they reduced all social relationship to a financial transaction, The Market would favor them and give them prosperity. The Americans were very competitive. They entered their children at birth into a society-wide competition to follow all of the rules and not get "in trouble." The Americans had a very strict legal system and were fearful of "Rulebreakers." They called their leader the Great White Father and it was His job to approve new rules. Every year new rules were made, others were amended, and everyone had to always follow them in order to be "good." Anyone caught breaking the rules would be captured and imprisoned in a large concrete fortress. The Americans believed that Rulebreakers were a burden on The Market, whose disfavor would bring suffering. However, if a prisoner had enough money, they were allowed to buy themself out of imprisonment. If they had significantly more money saved up, they were allowed to buy themself "out of trouble" all together and back into The Market's favor. Most people did not have that much money, so the Americans built many, many compounds to isolate the unworthy. The American Empire had a social structure based on economic service. People who lived their lives in service to The Market and did great deeds on its behalf were revered as heroes. It's chapter 4 of Kids These Days!

Chapters:

(00:19:08) The Discussion Zone

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Our book is Kids These Days: Human Capital and the Making of Millennials by Malcolm Harris. Pick up a copy from the publisher ⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠ and read along with the pod!

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Did you know that we are being paid in exposure to do this podcast? Every time you listen to an episode, we are mailed an Exposure Coupon and when we get enough of 'em we're gonna redeem 'em for an Amazon-Web-Services-branded Dirtbike for the pod! Some of us have to pay rent, though, so we also sort boxes for a guy who owns a big building. If we do a good job, we get to select a bill from the big bag of money every two weeks! It's chapter 3 of Kids These Days.

Chapters:

(00:28:15) The Discussion Zone

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Our book is Kids These Days: Human Capital and the Making of Millennials by Malcolm Harris. Pick up a copy from the publisher ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠ and read along with the pod!

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chat is college a scam? It's chapter 2 of Kids These Days.

Chapters:

(00:17:35) The Discussion Zone

Our book is Kids These Days: Human Capital and the Making of Millennials by Malcolm Harris. Pick up a copy from the publisher ⁠⁠here⁠⁠ and read along with the pod!

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A second episode has hit the podcast feed!

It's book club time and everyone has to participate. We're reading Chapter 1 of Kids These Days and having a silly time reminiscing about how got-dang tired childhood made us. Did you know that your child is a speculative asset and that you're leaving money on the table if you don't force them to play sports? We learn about how competition is a terrible way to distribute good life outcomes.

Chapters:

(00:23:59) The Discussion Zone

Our book is Kids These Days: Human Capital and the Making of Millennials by Malcolm Harris. Pick up a copy from the publisher ⁠here⁠ and read along with the pod!

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Hello friends! It's the inaugural episode! We do a read-through of our first text, which explains the framework of thinking that we will use to look at history throughout the podcast. Afterward, we have a goof-'em-up time and gear up to hate on some of history's greatest twerps.

Chapters:

(00:02:02) Introduction

(00:07:53) The Development of Knowledge

(00:18:31) The Physical Basis of Knowledge

(00:24:49) The Physical Basis of Behavior

(00:32:46) Tendencies in Human Behavior

(00:36:05) Notes on the Preceding Section

(00:42:41) The Social Basis of Humanity

(00:48:14) The Social Basis of History

(00:58:46) Understanding the Ruling Class

(01:06:20) Understanding the Motion of the United States

(01:15:24) The Discussion Zone

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Our first book (which we start next episode) is Kids These Days: Human Capital and the Making of Millennials by Malcolm Harris. Pick up a copy from the publisher here and read along with the pod!

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