The "Boomer Blues" and a Return to Faith | Roger Mitchell

28:13Demetri Kofinas:Actually, my godson and his sister baptized our son. And they're very religious. They go to church all the time. And we moved to a new neighborhood where the church that they go to happens to be a really wonderful Greek Orthodox church. And they go there all the time. They're right there in the first was pew. And so I started going and it has been a very emotional experience for me going, I will tell you. And it has been one of the - Why's that? Why's it been emotional? That's probably a conversation to have. You don't know. I don't quite know. It's been very emotional. I will say, but one of the reasons I think is that it's one of the few places where I have felt this kind of coming home.

28:55Demetri Kofinas:When I was a kid and we would go to church, this was shortly after my grandfather had passed away. My grandfather passed away when I was three, I think, my mom's father. And when we would go to church, my mom would always say, we're going to light a candle for grandpa. And we would light a candle. And I feel that when I go now. And actually, I will light a candle for my grandmother, for my mom's mom who passed away in 2009 or 2010. Anyway, and unfortunately, when you're an immigrant family, everyone's away. So she passed away and I couldn't be there. But I remember what that was like, being a little boy, holding my mother's hand, going to church.

29:33Demetri Kofinas:And it feels like a kind of homecoming. And the liturgies, I know them, even though it's been so many years since I sang them. And I also, I think there's something especially comforting about the ritualistic nature of the Orthodox tradition because of all the chanting and the rituals. And I see all these people, a lot of people that have been going for the last 20 years since I dropped off, that are still there or 25 years are still there. And so there's a kind of community element, but I kind of went off. So I asked you a couple of questions, Roger, and then I went off describing my experience.

30:06Let me answer that because I remember your questions and I think you said something there, which I think is the answer. And it starts with a financial or business symptom. In my view, one of the great business opportunities in 2025, and it has been for 10 years if not more is actually doing poor customer service for anything now basically the pitch would be you call a number a human will answer you within 30 seconds you could be anything but I think that is a winning business at any service at all and now you say why are older people angry or why are even you angry I'll tell you the answer is because you can't speak to a anymore and this is a symptom of the roll-up play of private equity you get all these little smaller niche operators you put them together you save costs you make a process where it's all outsourced everybody laughs and says yeah that's a bit of a trope but I'm telling you it's true because older people who by definition maybe are a little bit lonelier now they want to speak to a human and like when they do speak to a human you hear them and they start talking about the most absurd conversations because they've just got a need to speak to a human being.

31:20It's the same with everything that we have to do in the prime of our life of having to get something done, achieve something, get a new driver like Dyson, whatever it is, we know the pain before we start because we won't get to speak to a human. Guess what? You go into a church or a synagogue or a mosque, I can only speak for a church. You feel that you're speaking to somebody. Somebody is there for you. I would say even more than that, they were waiting for you. You know, I don't want to get too holy woly and all of this, but it doesn't happen very often. But sometimes when I go into a church, it doesn't happen very often at all, especially when it's empty and you've gone because you've missed it or something like that.

32:05You just feel, ah, you're here. Welcome back. you know and that just washes everything else away forget the spiritual side I'm saying humans are basically social animals and when a phone has made that nobody even has eye contact on an underground train anymore and on the other side where call centers and bots and automatic things don't allow you to just have 30 seconds of small talk with a stranger which makes you feel a wee better and part of a human community, you get lost because you're in your little cocoon and we are we are being ripped away. What is our basic nature, which is social? You know, that's why sport is so important because you go to that stadium, you're in the main surrounded by strangers, but you will strike up a conversation because that's what you do.

32:57And that's why I think two business things, the invent of the smartphone that has done everything that it's done and the The other side, the invent of destruction of human customer service has made us all secularly, utterly depressed.

33:14Demetri Kofinas:I mean, I'll let Grant go, but for the audience to have some context, before we got on this call, I was ranting. And actually I felt bad about it afterwards because I was like, this is not the energy that I want to use to start this call. But I'd been recently, and our genius members know this because I posted some videos to the community about it. The last couple of weeks I've been dealing with this health thing. No big deal. Everything's fine. but it required me to interface with the healthcare system meaningfully for the first time in a long time. And while, of course, I've had this customer service nightmare experience in every other facet of my life because it's pervasive, I've had it in the healthcare area where you can't even get the doctor's staff on the phone.

33:49Demetri Kofinas:Now you have to get the call center on the phone, and they could care less about you. They hand off one thing to the next, you get just sent. And I am one of those people, and it's really fascinating to hear you say this. I am one of those people that once I get on one, first of all, you're 100 % right. I get on the call. I know what I'm in for. I'm already prepared. And I've learned to stop buying into the bullshit of accepting the prompt structure because I know I'm just going to go through hell. So I just go immediately to representative. And when I don't get what I want, I'll curse into the phone line because I've discovered, or at least it used to work, that if you cursed, they kind of realize they have an angry customer.

34:22Demetri Kofinas:They kind of expedite the call. Their AI figures it out. I don't even - That's exactly right. Yeah. And it's such a universal problem. But to your point, the god is money. Money, efficiency, how do we increase profits at the expense of the customer experience? Everything is about increasing profits. And you see this in every form of automation, even at the checkout line in supermarkets. I'm the kind of guy, believe it or not, that my wife makes fun of me because she actually likes the self-checkout. She's like, I'd rather just not talk to somebody. I actually like going to the person to check out like a normal, what seems to be like a normal human experience.

34:57Demetri Kofinas:And all of those things are being done not to make the customer experience better. In some cases, the automation could make it better, but they're being done to increase profits for the corporation at the expense of the customer by putting more decision-making burdens on the people who are already exhausted from the number of decisions they have to make in their daily lives. Well, I want to ask this question to both of you, and I'm curious as to what you absolutely fascinating. And, you know, this Boomer Blues, Rog, of yours, which was so beautifully identified in the piece, and again, to anybody listening that wants to read that piece, the compendium that Rog's essay was a part of, just let me know.

35:36Dimitri, I'll give it to you so you can include it in the show notes or whatever. And if people want to get it from me, they can just email me and I'll happily send it out to you. But part of the problem, it seems to me, Rog, is that the older you are, the more experience you have, or the more likely you are to have had experience of a time when things were much, much better, right? You've lived through. So you've felt and you've seen and you've lived and you've experienced the deterioration. So you just feel things are getting better. The younger you are, this is the water you swim in, right?

36:08So you are, all you've known, press one for this, press two for that. You don't know, you're not used to speaking to a human being on the other end of the phone. You just, you've grown up with it. So I'm curious as to, if there is a circular nature to this, that we get to the point where we go back to the beginning again, I can see how that return can be driven by the boomer generation and to some extent, Gen Xers like me, because I'm also old enough to have witnessed the decline. But is this just part of the fact that these people, the boomers are going to die off before the X's. The X's going to die off before the millennials.

36:46So the change has to happen now because we know what we're fighting for. We know what we're trying to get back to. And other generations maybe don't have that. They have to be somehow have this value set inculcated within them, within a time limit here. Because at what stage do you lose the anchor, lose the thing you're trying to get back to because all the stories have died and all the people that remember them have died. I'm curious as to what you think about that, both of you. Well, let me start first then, because there is a risk here of generalization. Let's talk a little bit about Gen Z, the way I see them and I perceive them.

37:27And then we can talk about millennials differently, because I think it's significantly different. Yeah. Well, you've got Gen Z kids. I've got millennial kids. Right. So I believe millennial kids are a lighter version of who we were. they're not significantly different we would say they're not as go-getting they didn't come up in the 80s and deregulation and go for it they were more the 90s and it was already getting a little bit into a changed world for a million different reasons they included dot-com bust and included Twin Towers and everything like that so I just think they are a lighter version of us and like everything they've got good members and they've got average members Gen Z, I think, is different.

38:11I think the best versions of Gen Z are an extraordinary generation. And I'm not just biased by my kids. I see it elsewhere as well. They have, I believe they're more mature because you would expect them to be more mature when they had the world of knowledge at their phone since when they've been born, really. They find stuff out. They fact check in real time. and if they've got a brain and they're curious and they're good people, they're ahead of the curve of the head of where the boomers were, certainly where the millennials were, and they're strong. And the tragedy is, guys, they've already come up with some conclusions.

38:48They won't be able to buy a house. They probably won't get what they deserve for their effort because they use phrases like nepo baby. And that's not a phrase that we ever had, but they do. I mean, they immediately will say that because they know the reality of this world of ours now where certain people will get ahead and certain won't. And they also have given up, I believe, even the good ones on the idea of savings because they're saying, why bother? Why bother? All of this, the welfare state, the Medicare entitlements, all of that, it's all going to be gone by the time that we are ready for it.

39:29so they've got into this situation I think of just living for the moment and that doesn't mean they're they're wasters don't get me wrong I'm saying they understand that they're never going to be able to create wealth they will never be able to save and the way that we did by putting away everything some month or getting a mortgage and in 20 years you actually own your house they know that's not on the cards so they go day after day and day after day is the opposite of having a project. The old project used to be you would get married sometime in your late 20s. It was always getting a little bit older, but that was the plan.

40:07You know, and your dating history and the way you behaved changed as you got near that year. You were starting to look at potential project partners as opposed to just dates. That now isn't what they do because there isn't any bloody project. The project is where are we going this weekend to have some fun because the day-to-day is not great and we're not, the social contract is not the way it was for our parents. So that's why I think Gen Z is at the sharp end. They're resigned. Sadly, mobile phones and everything that we know and bots and algorithms has taken the usual average, which is across all generations you've got a bit you've got to say that my mother was a teacher the bulk of people are pretty stupid you've got to say that otherwise all this talk is just philosophy so I believe there's a certain percentage call what it is 20 30 25 15 who will make difference in civilization and life and everything they are the achievers the other ones they in the past had the ability to have what I call is a decent life, have a decent job, get a family, have children, watch them play Little League.

41:24And it was a fine life. Now these people, they're not having that family life. They are just consumed in their little algorithm. And that's dramatic. So that's how I see Gen Z. And neither of these versions are optimistic. D, I'd be curious on your thoughts on that.

41:43Demetri Kofinas:Well, first of all, I do think that North Star is what Roger has written about. And I look forward to him enunciating that in this conversation. Let me tell you what, let me just say a little bit about what my experience, because I completely agree with you. I was born in 1981 and my experience also, we were an immigrant family. The first five years of my life, I spent in a one bedroom on Dittmar's Avenue in Queens, and we progressively moved up the socioeconomic ladder. So I had that experience of also seeing a very hardworking immigrant father and the benefits that accrued from that work. And that's sort of how I understood the American dream.

42:23Demetri Kofinas:I also remember what it was like to live in the world as opposed to what it increasingly feels like today, which is that you're sort of interfacing with reality or with people because of the reaches of the digital experience. Yeah. That's a great way to put it. Yeah. It is. It is. And to face it. I long for that world. Again, I don't want to indulge in nostalgia, but at the same time, I don't agree with people who immediately discard notions of nostalgia as being a kind of trite fixation with the past. And you got to just get over it. Because I do think nostalgia, which is the longing for home, points to something meaningful.

43:08Demetri Kofinas:It points to what has been lost. And I'm not suggesting that everything about the past was great. Of course, that's ridiculous. But for me, the real change, and I've talked about this with Grant, I mean, there were three important change points. One was the 2001, 2003 period, which was the security paradigm changed in America with 9-11, and you could feel that. I mean, the extent to which America has become a security state since the 9-11 attacks cannot be understated. You come to America now and you feel like you're in a police state, you're afraid. And this is particularly scary for immigrants.

43:42Demetri Kofinas:You see what happened recently to these skilled workers down in Louisiana or Georgia, where was this? These South Korean workers who were here on visas to help the United States reskill. And they got rounded up by ICE employees. So it's particularly scary for immigrants, but it's scary in general. The last thing you want to get done is get pulled over by some cop with a gazillion red lights or coming out and treating like a criminal. So there's that, the security state, the loss of freedoms. There's 2008 and all the ways in which the response to the crisis caused the cascading and never-ending series of challenges known as secular stagnation.

44:18Demetri Kofinas:And then you have that 2012, 2014 period, a few years after the App Store was launched and social networking technologies went mobile and that ubiquitous mobile connectivity through social media, something really changed. And the world is, especially for me, unrecognizable since that. It's like the security state, it's for sure, but you can wrap your head around that. You can say, okay, well, yeah, I'm in the TSA line. I feel like Simon Mikhailovich said, like I'm back in the Soviet Union and not in the Beatles sense of the fun back in the USSR, but really. But there's something that undermines our sense of reality that has happened since that 2012, 2014 period with the algorithms, with the way that we interface with the world, the decline in the institutional trust of media, and the collective sense of losing our mind so that even the people within the media have themselves lost the plot.

45:18Demetri Kofinas:And now you see with the introduction of large language models, and this speaks directly, I think, to something that Roger said about Generation Z and the bifurcation, the bipolarity of the really great smart kids at one extreme and the rest. This is a very dangerous mix because if you're intelligent, then you can really benefit from these technologies because you're questions-based, you're inquiry-based. You know what to ask. You're not looking for answers. You're looking for, in the case of LLMs, let's say you're looking for a thought partner, but you have your own capacity to think critically.

45:53Demetri Kofinas:Most people don't have that capacity and they're going to default to treating these LLMs as oracles. And one thing that's particularly concerning is these systems train on a corpus of independent data. Now, that data that they've been trained on thus far was not polluted by AI. But now, as you see, people increasingly take the answers that these systems provide and they incorporate them into their work and increasingly do less and less editing. And so the data starts to become polluted on which these systems become trained. And this is one reason, for example, that I take pride in the physical library that I've built over the course of my life.

46:30Demetri Kofinas:And I think it's a great inheritance. And I think that books written before 2023 or 2022 will trade at a premium because we are entering a world where it's becoming increasingly difficult to trust what you read. And so I think in addition to there being a moral collapse in America, which has been ongoing for a while, I think we are also living through an epistemic collapse. And we're not really aware of it. It's not like the fire at the Library of Alexandria where you could see the flames over the building. There is a fire raging through the base of knowledge in the West, and we're not aware of it.

47:12Demetri Kofinas:And we don't quite know how to deal with it. It is affecting our politics. It's affecting our capacity to build political consensus. And this to me, in addition to the moral collapse, which I think can be addressed with many of the things that Roger has talked about and with, again, people use, what is that phrase of truth? There's one truth, but the sages speak of it by many names. I think that God can provide answers to the moral questions. I think when it comes to this epistemic problem, which has to do with how do we actually live in the world, I don't have an easy answer. Let me just comment on that.

47:49And then, Roger, there's something Dimitri said there that I want to throw to you because I think you can offer some really interesting entitlements. Because, you know, Dee, the problem with this collapse in knowledge and this constant reinforcement of easy solutions to complex problems, which we're constantly being thrown, you know, ChatGPT, its most common usage is for homework, right? I don't know if you've seen the chart of the usage of ChatGPT. It fell 80 % when the schools went on recess, right? It's just, it's a cheat. And until we have a genuine desire to make hard choices and do hard work in order to achieve outcomes or do hard work to really understand things.

48:32The story, I was talking to someone yesterday on the podcast I recorded. So anyone listening to this is going to hear the story again, but this is a different audience, so it's worth repeating. You know, Charlie Munger was asked at a Berkshire Hathaway AGM. He mentioned in one of his answers about knowledge and understanding and the difference between the two. And someone put their hand up and asked the question, can you explain the difference between knowledge and understanding? And Charlie told this great story about Max Planck, the German physicist who in the early 1920s, I guess, or late 1920s, was doing a lecture tour around Germany.

49:04and he had a chauffeur who was driving him from one town to another. This was back in the day when a physicist giving a lecture would pack out auditoriums all around the country. That's the kind of world that they had back then. And they were driving between towns and the chauffeur was having a conversation. The chauffeur says, you know, Mr. Plank, I've heard you give your speech so many times now, I could deliver the speech myself. I know it off by heart. And Max Plank said, well, why don't we do that in the next town? We'll do that. You can go and give the speech. So they get to the next speech.

49:33They swap uniforms. The chauffeur puts on Max Planck's, I presume, white tie and tails. And Max Planck dresses the chauffeur and sits in the front row. The guy delivers the speech word perfect. Huge round of applause at the end. Opens it up to questions. And the first question is a very, very complicated question about physics. And the chauffeur doesn't miss a beat. He says, well, that's such a basic question. I dare say even my chauffeur could answer it. And he brings the chauffeur up to answer the question, right? He said that was the difference between knowledge and understanding. And so until we have that hunger that humans have always had for understanding and not just knowledge, it's really difficult to get back to these places.

50:14And these fires raging, which I think you're absolutely correct about, these fires raging through this library of knowledge that's been built up, no one really cares because they just want the knowledge. They don't want the understanding anymore. And until we find a way to reinvigorate people's search for understanding, not at the pointy end that Rod spoke about, because that's always there. There are always people that strive for understanding. But generally speaking, if you give human beings a shortcut to anything, they're going to take it. The whole history of human progress is trying to make our lives easier.

50:46No matter what it is, it's a shortcut to do less work and have more time to do nothing. So I just wanted to comment on that before I address something you said there.

50:55Demetri Kofinas:By the way, Roger, I think there's a story in the Bible that speaks directly to the dangers of looking for shortcuts to the tree of knowledge, isn't there? No, listen, I'm not a theologian. I'm certainly not a chapter and verse guy, but absolutely the shortcut is not the right way. Right. But let me, you know, Dimitri, you've talked often about America and this collapse of all this stuff in America. And that's understandable because you are an American, first and foremost, and you spend your time there. For me, this collapse is, you know, I'm here in the UK at the moment. I've been all over the place in Australia, Canada.

51:25I've seen this collapse everywhere. This is not an American thing per se. But the interesting thing, Roger, which I want to come to you, there is one seemingly outlying country in the West at the moment, and that is Italy. The president of Italy, Giorgia Maloney, who was, you know, we were all warned that she was this dangerous, far-right lunatic who, if she ever got anywhere near the levers of power, would be il duche to the return and would, you know, send Italy back to the Dark Ages. What's actually happened is she is the president of a deeply religious Catholic country, and she has gone back to value.

52:05So campaign planks are actually traditional value, the family and church and God and all these things that are wrapped up in the religious center of Italian life, Rog. So I'd be curious to get your thoughts on that, because it does seem as though Maloney is different and she's different at the head of a country that is different in terms of where it places religion on the framework of everyday life. Right. Okay. I think you're slightly generous with her. She's a very, very intelligent woman that has adjusted her pitch to make it more mainstream. But don't all politicians do that when they get into office?

52:49I just don't think there's many smart ones anymore. She's a very smart one. You know, she came from a party which was the descendants of fascism. And they've kind of evolved a little bit. I'm not saying they're wolves in sheep's clothing, but I think she's been very intelligent. And when you say Italy's a religious country, I'm not sure it is anymore. and the stats would back that up in terms of attendance at church and everything like that. What Italy is is a country of tradition and culture, a little bit like Greece or even if you want Russia. They are both orthodox, but it's the same thing.

53:32The role of the church isn't necessarily about deeply believing and venerating the Virgin Mary. it's about the role of the church in your routine every single day so the center is not the church in Italy in my view anymore it's the family it's the old family Italy has always been much more about individual families that together create a nation and the family story is the one Meloni is playing into what happens in Italian families certain moments in times church is very important The sacraments, you get baptised, first communion, confirmation, first confession, marriage, the last rites. All of that is put in a beautiful cornice, a beautiful frame of beauty, of churches, of ceremony, of hymns, of everything like that.

54:27And it's extremely comfortable. The church bells ring on a Sunday morning. She's just played into that. she's basically just said they all talk about gender here none of you people understand that because you know that the boy of the good family down the street marries the girl of the good family at the other end of the street they have their own family and they go through the same process of the kids go to school they'll go to church on a Sunday after that they'll go out to the football field that is linked to the church and that's where they learn their football skills And so she is tapping into nostalgia more than the idea that we believe, you know, whatever version of Christianity in this case that's there.

55:14That's my version of it. I've lived, Grant, all of my life as a Catholic, as a Christian, ever more in a minority by going to church on a Sunday. So there's no way I can say that Italy is a God-fearing, God-abiding church. In fact, Italy very much is a perfect Catholic country because we, different to our Protestant brothers, we've got confession. They don't. So the Italians are the great sinners, Grant. The great sinners. This is Machiavelli. This is, you know, sleeping with 20 different women. And, you know, Gianni Agnelli has the family over here and the mistress is over there and they never meet, but everybody knows.

56:00And then you've got this confessional thing that gives you the cleansing, right? Absolutely. I'm being flippant to make the point. But the point is the correct one that you're saying. She's tapping into something, but it's family more than religion. Religion just strengthens what everybody feels is right, which is a traditional family. And that's my main issue with everything that's been around. You know that my head was blown by what I saw in the Paris Olympics. That's why all these people on the left, regardless of what's right and wrong, are tactically and strategically stupid to not see that.

56:41They are part of a generation that is in the minority in this, and they'll never get elected. It's an election loser because there is still most of the people living on this earth in the West that believe in the values of the traditional family and how that is the right way to live your moral life. You look after your kids, you look after your parents.

57:04Demetri Kofinas:Can I ask you guys something? This is a question for both of you. So, and two of these insights I want to attribute to two different people. I think one of them is Paul Kingsnorth and the other is Shoshana Zuboff. So I think Paul is the one who says that the West began the project of colonization as an endeavor that was projected outwards and that what has effectively occurred in recent years is that we have turned those energies of colonization inwards onto ourselves, that we've effectively colonized ourselves. And you can see this, I think, most visibly in America, which is really the epicenter of consumer capitalism.

57:43Demetri Kofinas:And as the role of religion and the family has declined, and as the focal point around which people have oriented and found meaning, consumer capitalism has gone from being a way to satisfy one's physical wants and needs and make one's life easier, to now becoming a source of meaning making where the creation of consumer experiences has taken precedence. And what is a better example of this than Apple under Steve Jobs and the cult that formed around those product releases? I mean, that company was essentially a church under Jobs and he was its pastor. And I don't think that it's a coincidence that this transformation occurred first in the United States.

58:25Demetri Kofinas:I mean, look, I used to work and live in Italy. I don't know if this is still true, but when I worked there, there wasn't a Starbucks in sight. And why is that? Because Italians know they do coffee better than anyone. And coffee culture is a core part of their identity. But I think over time, this force of colonization, if you want to use this term, has made inroads. I'm sure it's made inroads in Italy, but certainly also in other countries. For example, I've seen this happen in Greece beginning in the 1990s as interest rates declined and domestic industries and companies began to become replaced by foreign products and services.

59:08Demetri Kofinas:And I don't mean to suggest that foreign competition isn't something that we want or that we don't want foreign goods to enter our markets. Those are all great things. But I think if you don't have a strong enough culture and a set of traditions that provide you with a sense of collective identity, then consumerism begins to fill that hole. So that's one observation I wanted to make about what Paul had said. And there's another observation that Shoshana Zuboff made in her book, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, which compares the initial period of Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 16th century with social media, where we have welcomed these companies and their platforms into our lives, into our nations, into our communities, treating them in some cases as though they were gods, and not realizing that we are welcoming our own annihilation and the destruction of our cultures and our traditions.

1:00:07Demetri Kofinas:And what we've actually done is adopt the values of hyper-consumer capitalism and machine-like efficiency in place of what were previously more ancient traditions informed by religion and family. And now we live increasingly in a cacophony of anger, competition, and conflict. And then we wonder why we're all depressed all the time. And maybe it's because we've built a world in which human beings aren't meant to live, in which they can't live or they can't live meaningfully. So that's sort of my take on it. And I'm curious if any of that resonates with you guys. That's my summary as well. It's about meaning regardless of every individual's answer to that.

1:00:52You know, when you go really far back, really high, really macro, which you have to do, especially if you're thinking about things like the fourth turning and you're talking in 100 year cycles, what was the big macro thing? The big macro thing is that we have spent more money than we should have certainly since coming off the gold standard and that's fed into all kinds of distortions that have major effects. And one of them has been you have these crisis, you drop the cost of interest, housing is the main thing goes up, people can't afford a house, they don't get married, they don't get kids. The second one, which one could think is completely unrelated, I've just told you that it is related.

1:01:39The birth rates in the West are unbelievably low, less so in America because you've got, I think the Hispanics are doing their thing there. But in Europe, it's a disaster. So if you were the grand planner in this kind of idea of the new world order that some people say is there, you know, World Economic Forum, United Nations, EU, all this kind of stuff. And you were saying, what are our big problems, folks? The big problems are we can't deal with this debt that we've accumulated since 1971. and the West doesn't have enough people to pay for the systems that they've put in place, entitlements, pensions, etc, etc.

1:02:23What's the answer you would come up with probably within the first two or three hours? Immigration. And that's a good answer. You and I, Dimitri, both come from immigrant families. Immigration is a good thing. I just wonder, and this does become high philosophy, I just wonder if at some point there are these people, these grand new world order leaders, the strong powers behind in the shadows that are saying, damn it, why are these immigrants that we're bringing in so bloody truculent? If they were just nice people, this might solve itself. But the issue is they're not. And this is another thing that you need to say.

1:03:04And it's not Islamophobic or anything like that. history is always past is always the prologue history is where you learn things the battle of lepanto and all this and and this isn't a new thing islam's coming in and there've been issues that has always been the case especially in europe in spain and sicily and all of that there've been major battles fought i believe the fact that this hasn't been addressed is now one of the parts that's not allowing what could have been a possible solution. Let Europe be filled by Africans and other nations that are still with a strong birth rate and we can still keep going.

1:03:45And that's another reason for the depression. It's one of the reasons for my depression, Dimitri, because I know that whatever we forced or planned truculent or at peace with one another, within 50 years, the Europe that I know, the Europe of the Enlightenment, the Europe of Greek and Roman heritage, is gone, Dimitri. You can't hold Poseidon-like back demographics. Demographics is destiny. They're having more babies than we have. They have got a different culture. They will change the culture of Europe that has been here for 2 ,000 years. That's the main reason for my Boomer Blues. So, Ross, let me jump in and ask you a question there, because it's interesting.

1:04:28And these are the kind of big sweeping themes, as you say. And, you know, sadly, they've become really difficult things to talk about, because people are incredibly sensitive about them, and they immediately jump to conclusions about what you're saying. But what I find interesting is that, you know, we've put forward religion and a return to the divine as a potential solution to the problems facing the world, right? And there is a sense that people are seeing religion as a solution. But at the same time, because of the nature of religion and how fervent people are about it from every angle to every religion, it's also, from what you're saying there, a potential accelerant for the problem, right?

1:05:11And that's the interesting dichotomy for me about religion. What we're talking about as a potential solution is a return of traditionally Judeo-Christian societies to Judeo-Christian religion. And if that is some form of solution, if there is some sort of place where generations can go to find an anchor, to find a center that they need in order to kind of reconstitute society around the principles taught in those gospels, at the same time, religion could be the thing that stops that happening, from what you said there. Oh, for sure. Right. So whichever way you come at this, you know, there is a religious component to it, whether you like it or not, whether you feel it or not, whether you think it's important or not, it's there.

1:06:04And so when you look at the problems that we're facing, Dmitry, early on in this conversation, you talked about, you said you didn't understand. I think it was when you were talking about Facebook and you were told prostitutes, you can't say that, you've got to say a sex worker. And you said, and now I understand, it's the destruction of language. Along with the destruction of language comes the destruction of honest, peaceful, thoughtful debate. And without that, without being able to look at these tough issues or issues that are real issues but have become tough because of the way language has been weaponized and because of the way conclusions are made when you bring up subjects like this, Again, it's another obstacle to having a measured conversation about these things and trying to come up with solutions.

1:06:53Because we've seen the polling, we've seen the results, we've seen the kind of poll results that suggest that right the way across Europe, there is a sweep towards people who are going to address the very issues that you just highlighted there, Rog. and it's not you know i've spent a lot of time in the uk this past year and the conflict going on around the english flag and the union flag is extraordinary i mean it's truly truly extraordinary and the symbolism that is inherent in flags and the conflict that it's causing is extraordinary to me because when i was young one of the things i loved about being in america was that you'd see people flying their American flag everywhere.

1:07:39You know, every garden had an American flag in it. It was a really cool thing to see. And I remember thinking back then, I wonder why Brits don't fly the British flag or the English flag or the Welsh flag. It's just not a thing over here. And my stepmother's Danish, and they proudly fly the Danish flag in gardens all around the country. It's a peculiar thing, but it's been weaponized. Again, you know, if you fly a British flag, you are a racist, period. End of conversation. Grant, all of these are symptoms. All of these are symptoms. I agree, Roger. Okay, so take that. Those symptoms are wrong with it.

1:08:14Right. So you said something there that I think is very fundamental about religion, could be a problem and a solution. One of the great things I love as a European coming through the Enlightenment is the separation of church and state. I have no good memory or fond memory of when the Vatican had power, some of the most horrendous thing happens from the Spanish Inquisition to what happened in South America things you saw in the film like the mission the separation of church and state for me is incredibly important so when I talk about religion it's a bad word for me it should be faith it should be faith in many ways it's a personal thing it's your code it's what you believe in it's what gives you instruction to behave well and I believe a lot of people were getting drawn to that for the reasons that we said at the start of the show.

1:09:08Other religions have not got the separation with them and their theologies, you know, theocrats or whatever you call it. That for me is extremely dangerous because that shouldn't be the way it is. And one of the things that has happened that I said as soon as it happened, and I'm sure I'll be right on this the assassination of Charlie Kirk is a major major moment because sure all the stats showed that were people were going back to God anyway they were going back to get baptized that moment institutionalized it in the political movement of what is MAGA you know they now are making statements and things talking about basically linking the Christian creed to what their policies are.

1:10:03You know, you can see that's wrong. You know, that's wrong. So sadly, this is the tragedy of that moment. This man, Charlie Kirk, not a Catholic, but a Christian, was a guy that was debating, that would go out and speak and talk about what he thought and why he wanted to be other people. That didn't go down with a lot of people and ultimately he was removed because of that. So whilst some people may say, oh, Charlie Kirk has energized the rebirth of Christianity and this is a great thing, I don't actually think it is because he's brought it into the politics. Whereas if he hadn't died, his debates would have naturally brought individuals to the place I'd liked him to get to that where so many people are coming to now, people like now Ferguson and so many intellectuals saying, I've come back to God because that's my meaning in life, the way you said it earlier.

1:11:06Sadly, what happened to Kirk is going to do exactly what you've said. It's going to make religion more of a problem than a solution, I think.

1:11:15Demetri Kofinas:Yeah. So Roger, I love what you said. And I kind of feel like, first of all, I also feel that there is a lot of dark energy around some of the influencers in the MAGA movement who talk about God and religion. Sure. And for me, the tell is always whether or not you talk about love. Where is love in your message? And what I hear a lot from some of these influencer types or these media types is this kind of stern daddy energy, Christianity. but the loving, mothering energy that is so core to my understanding of God, and what has drawn me in particular to this particular church that I'm so lucky is right by our home, is that the priest speaks about love.

1:12:05Demetri Kofinas:Love is a core part of that message. And this is really an observation. I'm very concerned about the way in which Christianity and what it means to be a Christian is being explained to so many young people who never really stepped inside of a church or didn't really have an opportunity to learn about Christianity or Christ for themselves and are now learning about it in mass within this larger political construct. What do you think - Correct. Or what are you concerned some of the political consequences of that could be? for me this is the one of the core core questions you know i go to church every sunday and you hear a lot of messages especially about the tragedies in gaza and if the priest is good they will talk about the link to the parables about the good samaritan and and everything you're meant to do about love and everything like that that's a difficult moment for me because as i kind of like everybody's got their politics everybody thinks what needs to get done in the world how good needs to win over evil and everything like that it's a it's very very nuanced what i think will happen it's what i said a little bit earlier it's the weaponization of christianity in the old days the beatry that was called the crusades when i mentioned history before we've seen this before Islam expands Christianity gets its shit together puts on the Red Cross and pushes them back you know so this is history rhyming you will get I believe I'm not a geopolitical person like Pippa or so a load of other people but I can smell stuff you will get people unhappy afraid Dearborn Michigan when they're hearing the Islamic chants five times a day and you see that in social media those people are going to vote for only one side of the political divide and it's going to be the one that says I'm going to stop that those people are going to be covered in Christianity as a brand that's going to be the same in Hungary it's going to be the same in Serbia it's already here in Italy as Grant alluded earlier, France and Germany and Spain, the three and UK, the three kind of like ones that are not buying this, they're going to get forced out.

1:14:30And I believe that sadly, unbelievably, we'll be in a situation where the West will be a Christian West, where before every state of the nation, we will say the Lord's Prayer and all this kind of stuff. And everybody will be kneeling at football grounds and all elements of our culture will go back to something like you say that most people don't understand, but it will be a natural Newton's third law reaction to what's happening over there. And it will be battle lines drawn. And where will God be in all of that? Nowhere. Nowhere. Right. So this is how it's so bloody difficult because, Dimitri, I'll be honest, if I have to choose between one or the other, I know which one I'm choosing because it's what I said earlier Greek Roman heritage is the one I want if there has to be something to happen to protect that sometimes that needs to happen I don't want it to happen but if it has to happen I know what side I'm on and then I go to church on a Sunday and I hear things like every day every choose any parable you want but I'll give you the ones of the the crucifixion right two things happened at the crucifixion the first one he says is forgive them for they know not what they do.

1:15:45In his last breath, he was forgiving somebody. The other one is the guy on his left, the thief, who chastises the other thief and says, look, we deserve what we got. We've been bad guys all our life. And he doesn't deserve it. He's somebody different. And he says, you'll be with me. So forgiveness at the last moment is still possible. It's always possible, always. all of these messages in Christianity are utterly beautiful. There is nobody of good heart of any background, atheist, Buddhist, whatever, that can say this isn't exactly what goodness and love represents. And to see that weaponized is a bit tough.

1:16:30It's going back to when the Vatican had the Spanish Inquisition or when Protestants and Catholics were killing each other in the 17th century. Nothing to do with the methods of the parables, but that's where we're going to be. Maybe that's the way it has to be, Dimitri. I don't know the answer to that. Let me ask you, let me dig into this, because this was always... That's all very heavy. Sorry about that, but I mean, I think that's what you wanted. No, no, no, it's important. No, no, no, listen, it's important. It's really important, because as I said when I asked you to write this piece back in February, and as I said to Dimitri when we started this conversation around the same time, you know, I've never considered myself a religious person.

1:17:06I've never considered myself a man of faith, as you would call it, probably more correctly. And I said at the time, though, you know, I feel this moral vacuum and I feel that I'm looking for something to organize my thoughts around. And more and more, this subject has come up. But what you just said there is, and always has been, my problem with religion is that it has always been used as a cloak to wrap in something else. Because around religion - Grant, just ignore that. Ignore that. It's personal. It's personal. Fine, fine. But everybody has to make that personal decision. And for me going forward, you know, when I, on the one hand, I see the hope, and I've just got questions here.

1:17:55You know, all of this is me questioning out loud because I don't have any answer to any of this, right? But when I see this, when I feel that longing for something bigger to organize my thoughts around, to maybe that we can use as a central pole of some kind of tent of principle and character and integrity and faith and all the teachings you've talked about, which we all understand are how the West has always kind of organized itself. I then hear what you say there. It resonates deeply with me because that's what I've always felt about religion, is that it's just been used as an excuse for violence, religion upon religion, for centuries.

1:18:39And so you would hope that there is this beautiful piece in the middle where people organize around religion and it does bring all the good parts of religion. It brings the peace and it brings the love and it brings the goodness and it brings all those things. And maybe there's a part there before we get to the part you're talking about there, which is religion against religion and my religion, my God's better than your God and we're going to fight over it. And I don't know how this path looks, right? I don't know if I should be cheering a return to religion because I want all those good things or I should be fearful of it.

1:19:19because maybe we skip those and we go straight to the violence. One you can influence, Grant. The other one you can't. You can influence the personal one. You can say, I need this meaning. I found it in this person. And by the way, this is the smart play for all the philosophers out there. If you're a good person, just cloak that in faith if you can. And if it was wrong, the faith, you've lost nothing because you were always going to be a good person anyway. And if it does exist, you're ahead of the queue. I always joke like that is the smart play, is the smart play. But seriously, religion should be a personal thing.

1:20:00And when it's used for something more than that, you can't do much about that, Grant. What are you going to do about that? You know, I just see the forces, you know, what's that thing from the usual suspects, the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to say that he didn't exist. Well, the rise of Islam, and in some cases, not all cases, it's funny that the more westernized Arab countries, if that's the right phrase, are equally scared about some of their fractions of Islam as we are. Yeah, the radical, yeah. Yeah, right. They are. You can hear so many Saudis and Emirates people talking very, very much about this.

1:20:39so if this islam radicalism rises and causes the rise of christianity which was by the way probably dying and has been dying for i don't know how long the curve is down the way maybe that's destiny you know like one of the things about being very solid in personal faith is you do believe in the greater thing that the mysterious ways that you can never understand apart from being sad about the fact about how demographics are going to work i don't really spend a lot of time thinking about the grand things about whether the protestant anglican should come back into the catholics or whether where does buddhism sit and you know all of that i don't because i can't influence any of that i'm not a politician i've no intention of being a politician i just find it very natural that my values and principles are absolutely those in the parables of the gospel.

1:21:39I find that very natural and I feel that when I go to the church, the house of those parables, I feel very welcome. Sometimes particularly strongly, most times not, but it feels like that's my meaning. It's my moment on a Sunday to reset, to have a pit stop, to think about some of the things I've done wrong, some of the things I've done. Because life puts you in a frame of mind that you get your armor on. Sunday is a moment where you're allowed to just take it off and say, I'm assured I'm still on the right track. I think that's good for everybody, regardless of what the macro, all that means.

1:22:18You can't influence that, Grant. That will be what it will be. That's my answer.

1:22:23Demetri Kofinas:Can I add something to Grant's question, Roger, and have you answer it? Because there's a lot of what Grant said there that resonates with me. And I might be a little bit over my skis here because I, again, am a bit younger, but even you guys didn't, you guys were born during the counterculture. So you kind of grew up in the afterglow of it. But it seems that the counterculture was a healthy reaction to the overbearing nature of religion in society during that time. Would you agree with that, Roger, or no? That's stern daddy energy Christianity. No, no. I think that if you call it counterculture, the 60s, that thing that's in the article about Bob Dylan and the Times.

1:23:07Yeah. I don't know where that comes from, but I don't think it's religion reaction. It's a reaction to a certain way of growing up. It's, like I said before about Maloney. It's not religion, it's about family. Americans in the 40s and the 50s, what do they call it, the greatest generation, the silent generation, they had a certain way of doing things. It came with stuff that wasn't great, like the role of women and everything like that. But it was their way of doing it. And then none of these things are living in a little island. They're all interconnected. When America starts doing things like Vietnam and everything like that, people start saying, well, what are you doing?

1:23:46Demetri Kofinas:Look, I mean, yeah. No, I'm not talking about that. But look, I see the darkness that I see among some of the folks that I sort of alluded to earlier. There's a kind of heavy handedness with which these new self-anointed splainers of Jesus and the Bible seem to be going about this new political project that they're engaged in that they call Christianity. And what I hear, what I see is the polluting and the corrupting of the word of God, as I understand it. And again, this is why I think that love has to be at the core of your message. And so here's the follow-up for you, Roger, the follow-up question, which is, don't we have a responsibility, those of us who feel, as you and I do, that love is the essence of this thing that we imperfectly describe with words like God, don't we have a responsibility to try and send a different message and push back against those trying to pollute that message and turn it into something that you and I would not recognize as Christian or as God?

1:24:55Well, first of all, listen, I'm not Yoda and all of this stuff, right? You know, like I've got a purse Yoda. I'm not the oracle and all of this stuff I'm not Yoda all I've got is a view and sometimes it's a selfish view and I'm very aware that I'm quite happy to have been an outlier an outsider a contrarian when everybody was abandoning Jesus I was quite happy with that because I thought that was my superpower that's me I've always been a little bit away from the pack the pack doesn't really interest me but your point is an important one Dimitri you know where do you draw the line you know if I'm going to take a passage out of the gospels that says the one about turn the other cheek so he can slap you both times right that's one of the messages so when they burn down a thousand churches in France should I just say why don't you burn down the other two thousand or 3 ,000.

1:25:51At some moment, there's got to be no. It's so big, the issue that you're attacking the fundamental stuff that I believe in, because I know that if you do what you do in Lebanon, and there's no Christians in Lebanon anymore, and other countries, that will be the same in Italy. And I don't want that, and I'm going to dig my heels in. The language of how you do that, as you say sometimes it is completely wrong is insidious it's done in a nasty way but at some point you've got to stand up for what you believe in and then you'd nick pick it and say no I'm not going to turn the other cheek I'm not but there's some bad politician or some preacher in America that's raising money and screwing everybody out and his tax situation I can't stop that that's been going on for years you know these people fraudulently using the work i can't do anything about that but if you tell me am i happy that somebody is standing up to what is represented by this unholy triumvirate of communism anti-semitism and gender and fluidity yes i am i mean that's not politically correct to say that but yes i am that somebody should be doing that Now, they should be doing it correctly, but sadly, like I said earlier, most people are in the middle.

1:27:18Most people aren't smart enough to get nuanced messages. You have to give them something that is easy for them to understand, which is, we are the good guys. They are the bad guys. It's inevitable, Dimitri. You're not going to change that, I don't think.

1:27:31Demetri Kofinas:Well, I would just say this, and then please, Greg, go ahead. Because I feel like what you're saying almost kind of parallels the argument, not to turn it to a geopolitical metaphor, the argument of we need to defeat China at all costs, even if it means we have to turn our own society into China as a surveillance state sort of thing. The reason that I asked this to you, Roger, is because I think that what you wrote in Grant's newsletter was one of the most beautiful things I have read in a very long time. Thank you. It was so deeply authentic. It resonated in such a deep way that I think isn't just true for me.

1:28:06Demetri Kofinas:it's obviously something that other people felt. And the part of that piece that moved me more than anything else was when you quoted Tim Rice's, Don't Cry For Me, Argentina. And you talked about, there's that passage where he says, and as for fortune and as for fame, I never invited them in, they are illusions. I think that speaks to what you spoke about earlier, that people, your generation, you got educated, you got the job, you made the money, you had the family, You climb the mountain and you get up to the top and you realize there's nothing there. What was it that I was climbing for? And then that song ends with, that I still need your love after all that I've done.

1:28:50That's all I've done this one.

1:28:51Demetri Kofinas:I mean, talk about beautiful. And you ask, who's love? And I think there's a lot of suffering and a lot of darkness in the world today. And the reason I asked if we have a responsibility is because I think in these times, people are looking for answers and for someone to show them the way. And I think your essay does exactly that. Well, Dimitri, listen Thank you for your emotion Because that's very powerful for a writer of a piece To see that emotion I don't know whether this goes out on video Or just on audio But Dimitri, of all the people Out there just now That are maybe like my background I would have think I would have been the most vocal In promoting The parables of Jesus More than anybody against all the people that over these years have said, oh, there's the God Squad, there's somebody, one of these people, Kumbaya, you know, the guitars in the church, where it was massively uncool.

1:30:02I would have think I would have been one of those people. And in the last five years when we've had these culture wars, so my point is, what more can I do? What more can I do? I'm on the steps of the church saying, he's the guy. I can't change Trump or Vance or all these people. I can't do anything about that, but I can point to where the guy is. And that's me. That's my answer to you, man. That's it. That's all I can do. But isn't that, I mean, Demetrius is saying that you need the shepherd, right? You need the guy to point to the guy. But sadly, the shepherds are other people. They wear robes in all religions and everything like that.

1:30:46But Grant's right. You're doing that.

1:30:47Demetri Kofinas:Yeah, Roger, you did this with this piece. And I guess maybe I sort of answered my own question, which is that I think we all have a responsibility, those of us that see that, that feel that, to express it. Because there's so many young, especially young people that don't know where to turn, and they can be easily pulled in by the darkness. I think that's it. What is financial nihilism if it's not just complete and utter darkness? That's what it is. And so those essays and this conversation and every other podcast you and I have done in this 100-Year Pivot series is nothing more than a chance to talk ideas through with people about what all this means.

1:31:24And everyone's going to find their own light, and everyone's going to find their own path through the darkness, and some will fall by the wayside. But all you can do is at least have the conversation and try and understand a multitude of different answers to where is the light, and where is the path, and where are we returning to, and what do I need to try and do. There's no one answer. There's no one person who can give us the blueprint for how to do this. And that's why I think for you and I, you know, to talk to Eddie Chancellor and then Roger Mitchell about the same subject is in some ways on paper preposterous.

1:32:04And yet you cannot help but find the common threads in them if you're listening closely enough. And ultimately, whether it's faith in money or faith in the powers that be or faith in a higher power, there is an issue of faith there. There is an issue in trust. You've talked about the post-trust society, this core of trust upon which every civilization is built. Ultimately, trust is the ultimate foundation stone. And faith and trust, horses of a different color, that's all. You trust in a higher power. You have faith in your leaders to make decisions that are better for everybody. You have trust that we will find a way through this.

1:32:45You have faith that the times that are to come are going to be better than the times we're in now. Without faith slash trust, whatever you want to call it, however you want to frame it, it's hard for me to see a path through this. So you have to find your own definition of it. You have to find the right way to frame it for you. and then hang on to it and live that life, as Raj says, for yourself. And maybe you can be a shepherd for other people simply by being honest and having the conversations. Guys, all I can say is that I'm sure if people listen back to this, there'll be a million contradictions on what I've said.

1:33:23By definition, you cannot, this isn't science. This is way, way above science. And there's loads of contradictions in the Gospels, as I said. forget the old testament even in the simple gospels all i would say is this and this doesn't you don't have to be a believer or believe or not but it's a great way to live life and it's a way i everybody that you meet every day you just need to transfix their face to if it's a woman mary and if it's a man jesus and you see how your behavior changes you know that's what i try and do because that's what it says in there. Anything you do to the lowest of mine, you do to me.

1:34:08You know, that's just a great way to live your life. And that's what I try and do. And, oh, by the way, you know, my kids probably don't believe, you know. So it's not as if there's such a household that there's no thought that my daughter, she's not a believer at all. my son who is a hardcore physicist is on the line because he says I've seen no evidence that the universe could have been created any other way so he's still in the frame so like he's right on the line my daughter who isn't she says no dad I don't believe in that so it's not as if I come in from absolute certainty my mother who is getting close to the end now been to church all of her life she raised me she started saying things like I don't know I'm not sure you know so anybody who's given it he's there and I'm he and I see him it's nonsense just go to what the parables say and learn your life live your life that way and that works for me at least and I think it works for most other people if you do it and some people do without even knowing I mean that's the beauty of But some people do it without even knowing that they're just following what's in the parables.

1:35:21Demetri Kofinas:I get emails a lot from listeners, and I try to answer as many of them as I can. I was recently sent one by someone who lost his wife recently of 23 years. And of course, he's in the midst of grieving. And he expressed in the email this, because he had heard my recent episode with Paul Kingsnorth. and he expressed, among other things, this difficulty of trying to understand. I don't want to go into the details of his email, but what I would describe as think his way to God. And what I learned at some point in my life, and I try to share this message with people that reach out to me, have reached out to me over the years with emails like this, is that I think that's a trap.

1:36:05Demetri Kofinas:That I don't think we can know God through our minds or what we call God. I think we learn, we come to know God through our hearts. And there's an author named Dan Millman who wrote this book called The Way of the Peaceful Warrior. And I've mentioned this a few times in the past. There was a line in the book that I put on my Facebook page the night before my brain surgery in 2013. And the particular part of the passage is that a peaceful warrior's sword is love. love. Where it cuts, it gives life, not death. And I think that we are in the midst of a spiritual battle. And it's important also besides understanding that we come to know God through our hearts and God and love is a core essence of what...

1:36:51Demetri Kofinas:For me, love isn't something that happens in our minds. I know it might sound weird if you come from a materialist framing, but I don't think it's a chemical thing. I think love is something that exists in the world. But I think that it's hard to conceptualize battling or fighting from a place of love. But Dan Millman's words have always really resonated with me because there's something really powerful about this idea of being a warrior, but your sword is love. Yep. I would say to lighten that a little bit, that's absolutely correct. But if you look at the story of everything that is written down, the fall of lucifer and all of that there's two major warriors one major one major one archangel michael he wasn't messing around to be three he was going down there and he was kicking some and so what i would say is again you know i'm not a student of the bible and there's a lot of stuff in the bible that i haven't read for myself but i've heard recounted that to me doesn't resonate and of course the bible wasn't written by god it was written by men and men attempting to convey the word of God.

1:37:58Demetri Kofinas:Some people might think they literally conveyed it. And again, I ascribe, I am someone who does not believe that the Christian Bible is the be all and end all. And nor do I believe that Christianity is necessarily the one true message. I think that there is a core essence that passes through all the great religions and perhaps all movements of spirituality over the world that speaks to this thing that our language cannot capture, which is so totalizing and great that it supersedes anything that our minds can absorb. Because I do think that life is in some sense a dream. I don't believe that science can give us an understanding of the world ontologically.

1:38:40Demetri Kofinas:I think that that is something that is revealed to us. It's something that we understand through revelation. And I think Christianity is one flavor of that attempt to convey those things but that's just my opinion and i know i kind of harped on about love i'm a total gush romantic emotional person no but you find it's interesting right because you both identified that in different ways you know roger your yours is a message of love as well and how you treat people you treat them with kindness and respect and generosity that's the thing that's that's my challenge on a good day you know because the other side i've got that whole thing about I'm going to win in the game of life and whoever's in my way is going to get hammered.

1:39:21But over here, and I'd look at this, Dimitri, as the little challenge I was given. How far are you going to go over this way and forget all this bit here?

1:39:32Demetri Kofinas:But also, isn't that the challenge of being a human being in the world of flesh and blood? That's right. That's right. Have you guys seen The Thin Red Line? Yeah. I mean, that was one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen. And I feel like that movie, wasn't the main character Wit? Wasn't his name Wit? I mean, I feel like that was the line that this protagonist was sort of walking. He was in the midst of the Battle of Guadalcanal, and they're all, including him, killing people. And yet God is somewhere in that. There's the Colonel played by Nick Nolte who sees the world and nature as this sort of fierce battle of the jungle swallowing itself, and life is just pain and suffering until you're dead.

1:40:13Demetri Kofinas:And then And out of that comes the beaming sunlight through the world. And I just feel like, anyway, whatever, I've said enough. I probably have. But Dimitri, all I would say in all of this to kind of like close off a little bit from my point of view, and I think you guys have been on this for a while. In a world since the war, certainly, where the God has been money, undoubtedly money, when that game is up, which is clearly up now, macro and micro level, macro level that the debt is there at micro level the social contract is gone when that game is up people need meaning and one of the main candidates for that meaning has to be spiritual it has to be you know and that's where we are and that's very clear to me you know everything beyond that which you're obviously very deep and like all of that stuff everything beyond that is is philosophy and And I just don't feel I'm qualified and good enough to give the answers that you're looking for.

1:41:16Because smarter people than me have tried great theologians, you know, Hume and Isaac Newton and all of these people. All I know is that when it's coming back to religion for the reasons in the article and what we've discussed here. And ideally, you don't let it get weaponized. For me, that's where we are.

1:41:35Demetri Kofinas:Yeah, but your article, as I said, Roger, it was one of the most beautiful things I've read in so long. Thank you. You can say that you're not a philosopher, but you nailed it. You nailed it. I mean, the whole piece spoke to my heart. I listened to that song before I got on here, by the way. I took some time to put myself in the right frame of mind and reread the article. So I really appreciate what you did there. Thank you. And thank you for inviting me on. I'm not sure I deserve to be on this thing. Well, it's been a pleasure, as it always is. And look, the beautiful thing about this particular podcast is Dimitri and I have no idea where we're going next to this.

1:42:12We don't know who we're going to talk to. We don't know what we're going to talk about. We've got a whole list of names kind of in a jumble that we're going to work our way through. But there's so many components of it. And just getting the chance to talk about any one of them with someone who's thought about it, as you have, and has an opinion, right or wrong. We don't know if any of us are right or any of us are wrong. None of us do. But the first step is having the conversation, right? And so I want to thank you for doing this, for writing that piece initially and for coming on here and talking with us about it and i don't know that we reached any conclusions to be honest with you but it's been you know i find dimitri about you but each one of these conversations in particular all the stuff happens to me it'll happen to me in the next three days right before we publish this when i go away and i think about what we've talked about and it settles and bits of it come up again and parts of it resonate with me and parts of it i think actually you know what i'm not sure i either understand that i'm not sure I agree with it.

1:43:06But I guess that's the point, right? Because there aren't answers, is to keep questioning. All right, Rog. My man, it's been great to see you, as always. I will see you again soon for a much lighter subject when you're in our next talk, no doubt. But in the meantime, give my love to all the family. And again, thanks for doing this. Thanks, lads. Take care. Keep up the good work. Thank you, Roger. Take care. Well, there you have it, folks. Again, Dee, I don't know if we've got any answers from this, but I sure enjoyed the conversation, and I've certainly got a lot more questions. And I guess in some ways that's the point, right?

1:43:36If you don't keep finding questions, what's the point of any of it?

1:43:40Demetri Kofinas:Yeah. I'm slightly embarrassed of how emotional I get. My wife actually walked in on me before this interview when I was playing the song that I was playing, Don't Cry From the Argentina. And she was like, oh my God. She's like, you and I could not be more different. She's like, you walk into me in my office and I'm watching videos on how to solve some kind of spreadsheet problem. And I come into your office and you're kind of teary-eyed listening to Evita. But I feel so grateful for the good fortune that I've had in my life, Grant. And whatever word you want to use, let's use the word God. I feel so grateful to God for the life that I have, for the people in my life, for you.

1:44:22Demetri Kofinas:We've become such good friends. You're such a wonderful friend. When you had me on your show so many years ago and gave voice to my framework on financial nihilism, you were so generous and it was so wonderful to have someone highlight that contribution. And I just feel really grateful. And so I feel like those feelings come up a lot for me. And I feel like a lot of people are suffering the world and Roger's words really resonate with me. And I hope that people can take that in and more people can hear it. Yeah, no, I mean, I appreciate that. And I appreciate the kind words. I'm every bit as emotional as you.

1:44:59It's funny. I'm what the Australians would call a big sook. I'm far more sort of tearing up at the weirdest things. It's funny, this particular subject carries very different emotions for me because I find every question I ask anybody, and I've been fortunate to speak to people who are far more understanding of this dynamic than I am. Every question begets another question for me. And I'm fascinated by the journey. And I guess I'm still searching for something conclusive that I can pin that emotion on, you know, because I feel it emotionally. It's something within me that I'm trying to understand.

1:45:40But I haven't found a solution. It still feels like one part of this journey you know there are so many things i'm trying to understand but the faith component of it and importantly my relationship with that is still very much a work in progress and i'm i'm inspired by people like roger and stephen wilkinson who wrote another one of those essays who is another man of great faith and you know hopefully we're going to have stephen on here in the not too distant future to talk about his views and this which are even though they come from a similar place are so different in the essay that he wrote in that compendium so i you know i'm i'm grateful to all the people that are helping us on this journey.

1:46:16I'm grateful to you for doing this with me and agreeing to just go off into the bush and see what the hell we end up talking about. Because I know it's so out of your comfort zone. It's so out of your wheelhouse because you are the most prepared, most meticulous podcast host anywhere in the world. And I love that you've had the faith to say, you know what, screw it. I'm going to fly by the seat of my pants and I'll do this your way and we'll go down this road together and I'll do it out of my comfort zone. So I'm hugely grateful for you doing that because honestly, I wouldn't want to do this particular show on my own.

1:46:47I wouldn't want to do it without you. So without you, there wouldn't be a 100-year pivot. So here's to you and the guests we've had and the guests still to come.

1:46:55Demetri Kofinas:Totally. And, you know, like so many of my episodes are so rigorously intellectual. And this one is so the opposite of that, you know. And yet, what could be more important than this? Nothing. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. All right, my friend. Well, listen, we'll do this again soon. In the meantime, as always, thank you, everyone out there for listening. You know how to get in touch with either of us. If you want to pick this apart and debate it and push back or agree with it, it's entirely up to you. We're agnostic either way, but we do enjoy the engagement. And we've had some phenomenal emails about this series, and we look forward to receiving many more.

1:47:30So, Dimitri, thank you. Roger, thank you, my friend. And we'll be back soon. Take care, everybody.

1:47:36Demetri Kofinas:If you want to listen in on the rest of today's conversation, head over to hiddenforces.io slash subscribe and join our premium feed. If you want to join in on the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community, you can also do that through our subscriber page. Today's episode was produced by me and edited by Stigliano Nicolaou. For more episodes, you can check out our website at hiddenforces.io. You can follow me on Twitter at Kofinas, and you can email me at info at hiddenforces.io. As always, thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.