Here’s Why Everyone Is Manipulating You

The year is 1665, and Isaac Newton is looking out his window at an apple tree standing tall in his orchard in Lincolnshire, England. All of a sudden, a ripe and lonely apple falls from the tree and makes its way to the ground. While most people would consider this a mundane event, Newton followed its trajectory with great interest. What young Isaac didn't know at the time was that this apple would become the most famous piece of fruit in human history, as its natural attraction to the ground would spark a moment of genius, leading him to create the laws of motion that revolutionized modern physics.

Newton wasn't conducting an experiment when he discovered the laws of gravity. He wasn't overloading his brain with information, trying to figure it out. He was simply looking aimlessly outside his window. He was bored. But that was in the 17th century; times have changed a lot since then. These days, we hardly ever allow ourselves to just stare out a window or sit in our backyards, doing nothing but staring at the sky. We never pause for a moment and just let our minds wander into deep, unexplored territories. Turns out that diving deep into our own thoughts is something that we don't really like to do. We find it boring and will do anything to alleviate boredom, even if it means subjecting ourselves to self-inflicted electric shocks. This, sadly, is not an exaggeration.

In a study conducted at the University of Virginia, a social psychologist named Timothy Wilson recruited hundreds of student volunteers to take part in what he called "thinking periods." Individuals were placed in small rooms with blank walls and no personal belongings. They were asked to entertain themselves with nothing but their thoughts for just 6 to 15 minutes. When asked to rate their experience afterwards, about 50% of the volunteers did not like being alone with their thoughts, citing it was boring.

Then, researchers left the volunteers in the room for another 15 minutes. This time, though, they introduced a button that participants could press to shock themselves if they wanted to. Around 67% of men and 25% of women chose to voluntarily inflict pain on themselves rather than just sit and do nothing. This research suggests that, sadly, a lot of us would rather experience physical pain than sit in our own thoughts. When left with nothing else to do, most of us immediately grab our phones, switching from one app to the other as the algorithms of the internet feed us with the exact content that'll keep us from being bored.

One of the biggest problems with AI is that it's really difficult to understand what's going on. It's as if we're at the mercy of a few Silicon Valley companies to explain to us how the thing they've created works, and you can bet they'll only explain it in a way that favors them. But this doesn't have to be the case anymore. You don't have to have a 4-year degree or work in Silicon Valley to understand how AI tools like ChatGPT work. Thanks to Brilliant.org, the sponsor of today's episode, I recently took "Brilliance: How Large Language Models Work," and it taught me everything about how generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Google's Gemini work. Although it's a very complex subject, Brilliant made it super easy for me to understand, thanks to the fun and interactive features the course has.

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In the spring and summer of 1665, an outbreak of bubonic plague spread through London, and by July, it had claimed more than 177,000 lives. Almost at once, people throughout the city began fleeing to the countryside, isolating themselves in fear for their lives. Among those who fled was none other than Sir Isaac Newton. Of course, at that time, Newton had not yet been knighted. In fact, he had not yet even witnessed the famous apple falling. Interestingly, though, his two years spent in isolation away from the bells, whistles, and distractions of the city was the time when Newton's genius came to life, and he was able to invent calculus, create the science of motion, and develop a framework for gravity.

These two years spent in quarantine were Newton's own 15 minutes isolated in a room with nothing to do. Newton, however, didn't seek external stimuli to prevent his mind from wandering. Instead, he welcomed the boredom that often comes with deep thinking and stared out the window, which has, without a doubt, paid dividends for all of humanity. During this isolation in the countryside, Newton also invented calculus. Throughout his life, he also made major discoveries in optics, proposing that white light is actually a combination of light from all of the color spectrum. Most famously, following his apple incident, he developed the three laws of motion.

In all fairness, attributing Newton's greatest accomplishments to him being quarantined in the countryside is a bit misleading. The truth is, the incident of the apple falling wasn't an isolated moment of genius. Newton's various contributions to science were the product of years of hard work and dedication, tediously working towards these moments of revelation. However, it is still helpful to recognize the importance of solitude and boredom in creating that particular Eureka moment. According to psychologist Dr. Sandy Mann of the University of Central Lancashire, once we start daydreaming and allow our brains to wander, like Newton did when he looked out the window, we start thinking beyond the conscious and into the subconscious, which allows for all sorts of connections to take place.

This is called the default mode. When you're bored or performing mundane tasks, like doing the dishes or folding the laundry, your body may be on autopilot. But your brain is actually pretty busy. When in the default mode, your mind gets the chance to connect to different ideas, try and solve some of your most pressing problems, and even create personal narratives or set goals. This is why programmers often tell you that they figured out their problem with their code just as they were jumping into bed, ready to get some shut-eye, or why you feel like your best ideas come when you jump in the shower.

The problem is that today, those are the very rare moments that we allow ourselves to be bored. Every other time, we almost always choose the electric shock method. Living in a society where we have the entire world of entertainment at our fingertips has led to our immediate dissatisfaction with even seconds of boredom. On average, Americans reach for their phones 344 times a day. That's once every 4 minutes. From quick email checks to diving down the rabbit hole of reels and memes, Americans spend an average of 2 hours and 54 minutes on their phones each day, with some people clocking up to 10 hours a day on their phones.

Without a doubt, technology has definitely made the world a better place, but this unhealthy dependent relationship we have with our phones is robbing us of our most creative selves. German psychologist Theodore Lips proposed one of the first definitions of boredom in 1903, saying boredom is a feeling of displeasure arising out of conflict between a need for intense mental activity and lack of excitement to it or inability to be incited. In other words, it's an underwhelming state where none of the options available to us seem appealing. Instead of letting this feeling run its course, we overstimulate our brain and prevent it from taking advantage of the true power of this downtime.

Our first instinct when we experience boredom is to just endlessly scroll through feeds, switching through social media apps, even when we're walking from one room to the next or waiting for the cashier to bag our groceries. We've become conditioned to constantly seek out novelty and deliver a hit of dopamine to our brain. Sadly, once that sense of novelty fades, it leaves behind a stronger feeling of boredom, which we then try to get rid of with even more stimulation. It's a vicious cycle that keeps our brains occupied with mindless entertainment, designed to capture our attention for the longest time possible.

Studies have shown that when given tasks that require minimum mental capacity, participants often contemplated their future and their plans for it. On the other hand, if your brain is constantly consumed by stimuli, it'll rarely have the time to think of the bigger picture and is less likely to set goals for the future or to be more creative. A 2017 study from Georgia Institute of Technology measured the brain patterns of more than 100 people. Participants were asked to focus on a stationary point while they lay in an MRI machine. The goal was to figure out which areas of the brain worked together during an awake but resting state. The team compared the data with questionnaires that the participants filled out about how much their minds wandered in daily life.

It turns out participants who had reported more frequent daydreaming scored higher on intellectual and creative ability and had more efficient brain systems recorded on the MRI. These findings are supported by a lot of artists when discussing their creative process. In his book Creative Quest, music producer and drummer for The Roots, Questlove, wrote about his battle against the many distractions available to us in today's world. On the face of it, it doesn't make any sense. Boredom seems like the least creative feeling, but it's actually a way of clearing space for a new idea to spring back up.

Similarly, JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, formulated all the ideas for her book in a 4-hour train ride from Manchester to London. If she had an iPad and binge-watched her favorite Netflix show instead, she probably wouldn't have brought Harry and his magical world to life. In his book Daily Rituals, Mason Curry studied the routines of hundreds of other artists, writers, and creatives and concluded that boredom is a recurring theme that leads to the mind wandering and having a kind of diffused focus, which allows for creative production. This diffused state is when the mind enters its default mode and comes up with its best work.

Perhaps the best proof of this truth is none other than Albert Einstein himself. Einstein took over where Newton left off and gave us a more advanced definition of gravity with a notion of a curved spacetime. Einstein was known for his extremely vivid imagination and inspired thought experiments that allowed him to define time as the fourth dimension and to change our understanding of the mechanics of the universe itself. Many people believe that the seeds of his genius were planted during the year he took off from high school in the 1890s when he simply wandered without purpose and contemplated the world free from any external pressures. Throughout his life, Einstein would take regular walks to clear his mind, and in a letter he wrote to his friends while sailing in 1932, he said, "A cruise in the sea is an excellent opportunity for maximum calm and reflection on ideas from a different perspective." It was clear that he knew the importance of sitting still and letting the mind wander.

Our history is full of many great thinkers who have been conscious enough to take advantage of their downtime and utilize it in the name of creative production. Psychologists today encourage parents to allow their children to be bored instead of occupying all their time watching YouTube on their tablets. The idea is to give the young minds the time and space needed to discover, create, and find their own genius. Teaching people, especially kids, how to use technology to improve their lives while also self-regulating their exposure to it should be a crucial part of digital literacy.

There's a saying used in tech: when the product is free, you are the product. Our attention is being fought for by a magnitude of applications, and at the end of the day, we're left with no time to just sit and contemplate our own life and experiences. But that shouldn't be the case. Next time you find yourself reaching for your phone when you're bored, remember: you're choosing to voluntarily shock yourself instead of looking out the window and contemplating your own metaphorical apple falling from the tree. You'd be surprised what your mind can achieve when you just allow it to wander for a moment.

People controlling the world—these names come to mind. But the truth is, while these people have a significant influence over our lives, four companies secretly control the world, and only a handful of people hold significant power in those companies. These are the people who have the potential to change your life for better or worse without you ever realizing what's happening. I made a video talking about how BlackRock controls the world, and unsurprisingly, they are one of the four companies we'll discuss today.

Altogether, these four companies manage almost $24 trillion worth of assets. They have the most influence over the United States’ monetary policy and operate with very little oversight, which means they’re free to do almost anything they want. And their power doesn't end in the United States; these companies also own a significant stake in the vast majority of European companies that are listed on the US Stock Exchange. Now, you might think this is an exaggeration. How can four companies control so much wealth? But it is true, and the information is available once you just look for it. From the largest retail stores like Walmart and Home Depot to transportation companies like GMC and Boeing, pharmaceutical companies like Merck, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and media companies like Disney, Viacom, News Corp, NBC, CBS, Time Warner, and AT&T, they influence the banking system as they're involved in every decision made at the largest financial institutions like Bank of America, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and CitiGroup in the United States.

The US Federal Reserve, the country's central banking institution, has board members who represent these four investment firms. Global financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are influenced heavily by these companies. So who exactly are these four companies? Before I answer that question, when researching this topic, I was bombarded with a lot of data. The largest of the four companies, BlackRock, was founded in 1988 by Larry Fink. Like the other three firms, BlackRock is a fiduciary, which means that a person has placed trust in them to act in their best financial interest.

BlackRock does this primarily through mutual funds, a collection of assets that invest in stocks, bonds, and other securities like real estate. BlackRock currently has 70 offices in 30 countries around the globe and holds $10 trillion in assets. The company is currently worth $20 trillion, which is half of the US's yearly gross domestic product or GDP. This is the measure of value created by a country by producing goods and services.

The other three companies are Vanguard, State Street, and Fidelity Investments. Vanguard manages $7.6 trillion in assets and is the world's largest issuer of mutual funds. At the end of 2022, it had 203 US funds and 227 international funds, which served its 50 million investors. Vanguard's founder, John Bogle, created the index investment fund in 1976, now known as the Vanguard 500 Index Fund. You might be wondering about the difference between an index and a mutual fund. An index fund is a type of mutual fund that is passively managed, as opposed to other mutual funds, which are actively managed. So when Bogle invented this index fund, he created a formula to track returns on the market and invest accordingly.

State Street is owned by Vanguard now but is the second oldest continually operating US bank. Its predecessor, Union Bank, was founded in 1792. State Street manages $3.9 trillion in investment assets. Along with Vanguard and BlackRock, it is one of the prominent three index fund managers that dominate corporate America. Fidelity Investments manages $4.3 trillion in assets. It was founded by Edward Johnson the second in 1946 and has remained a family-owned and operated business ever since. Fidelity was the first major American finance firm to market mutual funds to everyone via mail and door-to-door sales. Before they opened their doors, the mere idea of investing had been reserved for wealthy individuals.

Hearing that alone, you might be wondering what exactly is wrong with these companies. They all sound like industry pioneers who have done incredible work to stay in business for so long, and while that is entirely right, it's only half the story. To figure out the other half, let's start with what these companies tell us they do. Each of these firms helps everyday people invest their money, and whether you’re a multimillionaire or an hourly worker looking to create a small investment fund for your family, they've helped democratize investing. Often, investing with them can seem like a good idea, especially lately, because in today's world, we're not just worried about making money; we're concerned about making money and helping move society forward.

That's where ESG investing comes in. ESG, which stands for environmental, social, and governance, is a type of investing that considers social and environmental factors. So basically, what is the company you're investing in doing about environmental issues like climate change? All four of these firms advertised their commitment to ESG. As you would expect, some people have mocked these firms' stance on ESG, calling it woke investing. In response, companies like BlackRock have responded by saying it's not woke; it's capitalist. The way they see it, climate change poses a risk. So investing in companies that further the effects of climate change is also a risk. On the flip side, investing in companies trying to mitigate that risk is good business.

To give them all the credit, they've put their money where their mouths are. In 2021, Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street successfully shook up the board of ExxonMobil by installing new members who promised to take on climate change. And BlackRock let the state of West Virginia, a huge coal producer, pull out of the investment firm due to their pledge to invest in net zero companies. But when you peel back the curtain, it's not as wholesome as these firms would like to make it sound, especially when it comes to ESG investing. Every single one of these companies is about as hypocritical as they get.

Vanguard specifically praises its own ESG investing while also owning $86 billion in coal companies, making it the world’s largest investor in the industry. BlackRock is the top investor in fossil fuels and deforestation, war profiteering, and doing business with human rights violators. Look no further than BlackRock's deal with the Chinese government—the firm became the first company to have access to China's vast mutual fund market, followed by Fidelity. This left many skeptics wondering, what did they promise President Xi Jinping with this deal? These two companies will be pouring more and more money into the Chinese companies, which are primarily controlled by the Chinese government, a growing adversary of Western democracies.

Even more controversial are the firms' investments in Russia. All of these companies had assets invested in Russian companies, and once the war broke out in Ukraine, they all responded, at least publicly, by freezing those investments or pulling out of them altogether. Whether or not those assets will stay out of Russia long-term is questionable. Regardless, years and years of investments from these four companies undoubtedly helped fund Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. No matter how you slice it, these companies are riddled with conflicts of interest. In Ukraine, BlackRock is one of the leaders trying to advise the country on rebuilding once the conflict is resolved.

This might seem benevolent, but not all that glitters is in reality. BlackRock is simply capitalizing on a war that their funds helped finance so they can make more money closer to home than the others. The Johnson family, which founded and runs Fidelity, also runs a venture capital arm that competes with Fidelity's investments. This means the family benefits while Fidelity investors get a crappy deal. For example, from 2011 to 2012, F-Prime Capital, the family's venture capital arm, invested $1 million in Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical Incorporated before it went public. This investment prevented Fidelity’s mutual funds from making the same play because if it did, it would have violated US securities laws. So the family-owned fund got the better stock value while the public funds, which invested in the company at a higher rate, kind of got screwed.

Essentially, these companies, which have immense power and control in our world, tell us a manicured PR statement about what they're doing, but in reality, the story is much more complicated and problematic. None of their success would have been possible without the various proprietary technologies they developed to help their investing strategies. The prime example is BlackRock's Aladdin technology, which began the trend of using technology to minimize the risk of investing. It manages $20 trillion in assets and predicts the outcome of every single investment while getting information and personal data on everyone who has knowingly or unknowingly given BlackRock their money. This technology, and others like it, are perfect for investors. They've helped to lower the cost of managing the investment while improving returns.

This type of technology is what makes companies like BlackRock and others grow. It gives them an edge; it allows them to apply their investing strategy company-wide. It’ll enable investors to diversify their portfolios more effectively. Technologies like this democratize investing, allowing anyone of any level of wealth to benefit from a sound investment strategy. This is why over 80% of all assets invested over the last decade have gone to these four companies. But at what cost? And if these companies continue to revolutionize and advance their technology to control more and more investor assets, then what is the risk of ownership concentration? If BlackRock, Vanguard, Fidelity, and State Street continue increasing their influence over the biggest companies across every industry, competition is just going to decrease.

They'll be competing with themselves, which isn't competing at all. This leads to less consumer choice and higher prices, and we can see this already happening in the airline industry. Over the last 14 years, airfares have increased by as much as 7% because there's less pressure to compete. BlackRock and Vanguard are among the five largest shareholders of the biggest three operators. But this isn't just about the companies; it's about the people who run and own them— the people who make the decisions, pull the levers, and hold so much power you can't imagine. Starting with Larry Fink, the founder, chairman, and CEO of BlackRock, he started out at a New York-based investment bank, where he rose to manage the firm's bond department. Unfortunately, his career there ended when he lost his department $100 million after an incorrect prediction about interest rates.

This led him to focus his next venture on investing in risk management, and BlackRock was born. He founded the firm in 1988 and grew it from $5 million to $8 billion in just 5 years. Abigail Johnson, CEO of Fidelity Investments, didn't grow the company she leads from the ground up; she's the granddaughter of Fidelity's founder, Edward Johnson II. She started as an analyst and portfolio manager at the company before being promoted to the president of Fidelity's Asset Management division. In this position, in the early 2000s, like an episode of Succession, Johnson unsuccessfully attempted to remove her father as CEO over disagreements about how to lead the company. It wouldn't take too long for her time to come, though, as in 2014, she was named CEO.

State Street CEO Ron O'Hanley has ties to Fidelity, having previously served as the president of asset management and corporate services there before entering his current role. The world of finance is a lot smaller than you think. At Vanguard, uniquely, is owned by its clients, instead of by the funds they invest in. Its president and CEO, Mortimer J. Buckley, started his career as an assistant to the company's founder, John Bogle. Bogle, the guy who essentially invented the index fund, may not like the direction his business is going in. He's warned of ownership concentration, saying that too much money is in too few hands.

Undoubtedly, asset management has made Mr. Fink a very wealthy man, but perhaps he sees beyond that. Maybe he understands the power he and others like him have over every industry they invest in and every investor who entrusts them. He may be issuing a warning to us all, but it's not one we're likely to be able to do anything about because these four companies are just too influential. A global financial system meant to empower individual investors has empowered a select few instead. So while we get distracted by celebrities' faces on the front of magazines or flashing by in our social media posts, these company leaders are behind the scenes, pulling the levers and secretly deciding the financial future of our world, whether we like it or not.

The worst of them all is BlackRock. Watch this video next to understand why. As of 2019, 96% of deep fakes on the internet were sexual in nature, and virtually all of those were of non-consenting women. With the release of AI tools like DALL-E and MidJourney, making these deep fakes has become easier than ever before, and the repercussions for the women involved are much more devastating. Recently, a teacher in a small town in the United States was fired after her likeness appeared in an adult video. Parents of her students found the video and made it clear they didn't want this woman teaching their kids. She was immediately dismissed from her position, but this woman never actually filmed an explicit video. Generative AI created a likeness of her and deep faked it onto the body of an adult film actress. She pleaded her innocence, but the parents of the students couldn't wrap their heads around how a video like this could be faked. They refused to believe her, and honestly, it's hard to blame them.

We've all seen just how good generative AI can be. This incident and many others just like it prove how dangerous AI adult content is, and if left unchecked, it could be so, so much worse. The truth is, the technology itself isn't the problem; it's the way people are using it and the lack of regulation surrounding its use. At first glance, AI pornography might seem harmless. If we can generate other forms of content without human actors, why not this one? Surely it may reduce work in the field, but it could also curb more problematic issues in the industry. If the AI was used to create artificial people, it wouldn't be so bad. But the problem is that generative AI has been mainly used with deep fakes to convince viewers that the person they're watching is a specific real person—someone who never consented to be in the video.

Speaking of consent, by convincingly portraying women in suggestive situations, the perpetrators commit sexual acts or behaviors without the victim's permission, and that, by definition, is sexual assault. But does using generative AI to produce these videos cause any actual harm? Beyond being defined as assault for the victims involved, there are numerous consequences to being portrayed in these videos. This is what it looks like to see yourself naked against your will, being spread all over the internet. QTCinderella is a Twitch streamer who built a massive following for her gaming, baking, and lifestyle content. She also created the Streamer Awards that honor her fellow content creators, one of whom was Brandon Ying, aka Atrioc.

In January of 2023, Atrioc was live streaming when his viewers saw a tab open on his browser for a deep fake website. After getting screenshotted and posted on Reddit, users found that the site address featured deep fake videos of streamers like QTCinderella doing explicit sexual acts. Cinderella began getting harassed by these images and videos, and after seeing them, she said, "The amount of body dysmorphia I've experienced seeing those photos has ruined me." It's not as simple as just being violated; it's so much more than that. For months afterwards, QTCinderella was constantly harassed with these reminders of these images and videos. Some horrible people sent the photos to her 17-year-old cousin.

And this isn't a one-off case—perpetrators of deep fakes are known to send these videos to family members of the victims, especially if they don't like what the victim is doing publicly. The founder of Not Your Porn, a group dedicated to removing non-consensual porn from the internet, was targeted by internet trolls using AI-generated videos depicting her in explicit acts. Then, somebody sent these videos to her family members. Just imagine how terrible that must feel for her and her relatives. The sad truth is that even when a victim can discredit the videos, the harm might already be done. A deep fake can hurt someone's career at a pivotal moment. Cinderella was able to get back on her feet and retain her following, but the school teacher who lost her livelihood wasn't so lucky.

Imagine someone running for office and leading in the polls, only to be targeted with a deep fake video 24 hours before election night. Imagine how much damage could be done before their team could prove that the video was doctored. Unfortunately, there's very little legislation on deep fakes, and so far, only three states in the US have passed laws to address them directly. Even with these laws, the technology makes it difficult to track down the people who create them. Also, because most of them post on their personal websites rather than social media, there's no regulations or content moderation limits on what they can share. Since tracking and prosecuting the individuals who make this kind of content is so challenging, the onus should be on the companies that make these tools to prevent them from being used for evil.

And in fairness, some of them are trying. Platforms like DALL-E and MidJourney have taken steps to prevent people from creating the likeness of a living person. Reddit is also working to improve its AI detection system and has already made considerable strides in prohibiting this content on its platform. These efforts are important, but I'm not sure they completely eliminate the threat of deep fakes. More generative AI tools are coming on the scene and will require new moderation efforts, and eventually, some of these platforms won't care, especially if that gives them an edge over well-established platforms.

And then there's the sheer influx of uploaded content. In 2022, Pornhub received over 2 million video uploads to its site. That number will likely increase with new AI tools that can generate content without needing a physical camera. How can any moderation system keep up with that insane volume? The worst thing about these deep fakes is that the victims can't just log off of the internet either. Almost all of our livelihoods depend on the internet, so logging off would be an enormous disadvantage in their careers and personal lives. Expecting anyone to leave the internet to protect themselves isn't a reasonable ask.

The onus isn't on the victim to change; it's on the platforms and the government to create tools that prevent these things from happening so easily. If all the women who are being harassed went offline, the trolls would win, and this tactic of theirs would be incredibly successful. They could effectively silence critics and whoever they felt like attacking. There's another problem with generative AI tools producing so much adult content: it introduces strong biases to the algorithms and how women should be presented.

Many women have reported that they're often over-sexualized when they try to create an image of themselves using AI tools. These biases are introduced by the source of the AI training data—the internet. Although nudes and explicit images have been filtered out for some generative AI platforms, these biases still persist. These platforms have to do more than just let the open internet train their AI if they want to prevent the overt sexualization of women from being their normal output. Deep fakes may be making headlines now, but the truth is they've been around in spirit for a very long time. Before generative AI, people used tools like Photoshop and video editing software to superimpose celebrities' heads on the bodies of adult film actors.

Broadly, these doctored videos weren't compelling, but things are now very different with AI. We're nearing dangerously close to a point where we can no longer discern the real from the fake. French postmodern philosopher Baudrillard warned of a moment when we can no longer distinguish between reality and simulation. Humans use technology to navigate a complex reality. We invented maps to guide us through an intricate mass of land. Eventually, we created mass media to understand the world around us and help simplify its complexity. But there will be a point where we lose track of reality—a point when we're spending more time looking at a simulation of the world on our phones than we will be participating in the real world around us.

And we're almost there now. With generative AI, our connection to reality is even further disconnected. Because technology can convincingly replicate reality on our devices, we're less inclined to go outside and see what's real for ourselves. This inability of human consciousness to distinguish what is real and what is simulation is what Baudrillard called hyper-reality—a state that leaves us vulnerable to malicious manipulation, from things like deep fakes to people getting fired to propaganda leading to the loss of millions of lives. You might remember that a couple of years ago, there were numerous PSAs, often from celebrities, warning us to keep an eye out for deep fakes. They were annoying, but ultimately, they succeeded in making the public hyper-aware of fake videos, but not so much with the deep fake adult content.

Maybe it's because the PSAs about deep fakes didn't mention pornography. They addressed fake speeches by presidents and famous people instead. Or maybe it's because those who consume this content don't care whether it's real or fake; they're okay with the illusion. One thing is true, though: if the general public was trained to recognize deep fake pornography, the potential for harm would be limited. By being more critical as information consumers and reporting these harmful videos when we see them, we might be able to curb the effects of this dangerous new medium.

It's not like we're strangers to being critical of what we see and read online. When Wikipedia was first introduced, the idea that it could be a legitimate source of information was laughable. It was mocked on sitcoms and late-night television. It symbolized the absurdity of believing what you read on the internet. That perception changed with time, deservedly so for Wikipedia, but we had a healthy skepticism towards user-generated internet platforms for a while. The question is, can we be critical and discerning towards deep fakes while acknowledging that some content is real? Will we lose track of what's simulation and what's reality, and just distrust whatever we see online? Or worse, will manipulators succeed in making deep fake inflicted suffering an everyday occurrence and we end up accepting that as the cost of existing online?

And is there any hope of regulation stopping the constant assault of generative AI on our well-being? One thing's become clear since ChatGPT and DALL-E started making headlines last year, and it's that AI will inevitably replace a lot of what humans currently do. They can already convincingly replicate human communication and human design, and our inability to distinguish between human output and AI output has created a laundry list of problems that will be challenging to address. Already, businesses are using ChatGPT's writing capabilities in their marketing and sales departments. It's even possible that we'll be watching AI-written TV shows soon. For writers, that's your dream job and your day job both vanishing overnight.

And then there will be all the opportunities for deception using AI. Imagine what phishing scams they'll be in a year when scammers can easily fabricate videos and audio of anyone? People with ill intent can create content to cause others real harm, and right now, that's AI-generated adult videos inflicting pain against women. If we're unable to tell what's real and what's an AI-generated fake, humanity has a tough road ahead, and I'm not sure any of us are ready for it.

In 1994, the CEO of the tobacco company RJ Reynolds, James W. Johnson, told the United States Congress that cigarette smoking is no more addictive than coffee, tea, or Twinkies. Sure, there might be some out there who might have a steady stream of Twinkies entering their stomach, but I feel like we can all agree that, despite the stomach ache and probably risk for diabetes, this sugar-happy habit isn't nearly as dangerous as smoking cigarettes. For years, the tobacco industry assured customers that cigarettes weren't unhealthy or addictive, and they made billions doing it. But in reality, about 418,000 Americans die every year from cigarettes, to say nothing of the global death rate.

Four years after Johnson made his famously false comparison, the four largest tobacco companies reached a settlement with 46 US states to pay $206 billion over 25 years to help cover medical costs of smoking-related illnesses. They lied, and now we all know why they did. While the corporate lie about cigarettes feels particularly egregious, companies, governments, and even well-intentioned people lie to us in more subtle ways every single day.

Think back to job interviews you might have had; you might have heard the phrase, "Our employees are our most valuable asset," and it probably feels good to hear that. You want to work at a place that values you. Yet layoffs happen all the time. Sure, they're usually veiled as reorgs or some other corporate jargon to tell you that you're just no longer needed. It's not personal; it's just business. And even when you get to keep your job, salaries remain stagnant, and sometimes they even drop with the ups and downs of the economy.

Look no further than the wave of strikes around the globe this summer, with labor unions like the United Auto Workers proclaiming: no, employees clearly aren't a company's most valuable asset. The statements by corporations are meant to make employees feel heard and respected. They're similar to statements like "Your responses will be confidential," when you're being asked to take a survey about the company's performance or your team. It might seem suspect— is it really anonymous? Probably not, because companies aren't legally bound to respect statements of confidentiality. They tend to scuttle laws that force them to keep employee information private. Management, at whatever level, is most likely looking at whatever confidential statements you make on a survey or otherwise.

Or what about meritocracy? How many times have you heard that your company or team is a meritocracy, where the most talented, the smartest, the hardest-working individuals rise to the top? It's nice to believe this because it makes us feel like if we work our butts off and develop our skills, then we'll get promoted, get raises, and advance in the way we always hoped we would. But being real, whatever industry you're working in, those promotions and raises often have to do more with networking and connections than actual hard work. Sometimes the best candidates get rewarded, but in many cases, it's all about who you know—relationships you built on the job or the ones you came into the job with.

So work hard, but also get connected. These kinds of corporate lies are general things companies say to keep workers happy. But then there's more specific lies—lies that are meant to persuade employees of a certain position. Companies like to make us think that our jobs are dependent on low corporate tax rates. And it's true that corporate tax rates around the globe tend to be high, but even in the United States, we're at 35%. It's actually lower than a lot of other countries around the world. Corporations have developed systems of tax credits and subsidies to avoid paying that amount or even close to it. The claim that a low corporate tax rate leads to more jobs for workers is mostly just a farce, just like the claim that unions force jobs overseas.

Yes, unions do lead to increased labor costs, but millions of non-union jobs are also sent overseas, so the problem doesn't really lie in unionization— it lies in the power of globalization. Computer programmers were never unionized, but most tech firms have moved their operations to India and China. The reality is that unions create a shift in power away from management. In some cases, unions do create problems: corruption, among other things. But when working properly, they limit and hold management accountable for the decisions that impact their employees.

To demonize unions and tie it to the decline of domestic jobs is a tactic not to keep jobs on home soil but to stop workers from unionizing in the first place. When we commit to a job or to working with a certain company on a project, we're usually informed of the company's core values. We get a long list of vague words like "loyalty" and "sustainability," but what are any company's true core values? Money. In the best of workplaces, other values might follow, but money, no matter what, usually tops them all. Companies might give to charitable causes, but mostly because it improves their branding and helps with tax deductions. They'll limit their environmental impact when it improves their costs, but probably not just because they love Mother Earth so much.

The use of core values is an example of the law of inverse relevancy, which tells us that the less someone plans on doing something, the more they talk about it. We all have the friend who can't stop talking about the exercise plan that they're about to start. But the question always remains: when? The fact that companies lie ultimately isn't really surprising, but seeing it in action can be a pretty wild experience.

Just before we see this in action, the best way to combat misinformation is to learn how the world works—for example, by learning how AI works. We can understand when companies are hiding under that term to carry out their shady business practices. In 2020, the leaders of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google testified in front of an antitrust panel at the US House of Representatives. The goal of the panel was to poke holes in big tech’s argument that they’re not monopolies. The titans of the tech industry told lie after lie that we either just ignore as consumers or decide that we want to believe, like the lie that users are in control of their data.

Google's CEO, Sundar Pichai, said that the company has simplified its settings for users. And this is true; they offer many privacy options. But simple isn't really a word to describe them. Just because an airplane has a lot of controls doesn't mean that anyone can fly it. The reality is that most of us have little to no understanding of what companies do with our data. They want us to think that their having access to our data creates a better experience for us. And sure, it's nice when Instagram feeds you an ad for those sneakers you've been searching for, but the data collection isn't about getting you new shoes; it's about giving companies power to make money, specifically by selling those ads. Advertising helps big tech grow, and we can all agree that they have grown.

One of the claims made in this hearing was that these massive companies aren't even that big. Amazon claimed it holds less than 1% of the global retail market and less than 4% of retail in the United States, but that's counting all retail, including gas stations. I don't know about you, but I don't really consider that shopping. Similarly, Facebook claimed that it competes with all products that connect people, not just social media companies. And Apple insisted that it doesn't have a dominant share in any market or product category. But if you have an iPhone, you know you have to go through Apple to buy apps or services on the device.

Of course, it's not like the government, who was listening to these claims, doesn't do its fair share of lying to us as well. The US government has repeatedly lied to citizens to justify war. In 1998, the Clinton Administration bombed what it told the public was a chemical weapons factory in Sudan that turned out to be a pharmaceutical factory. Then famously, the Bush Administration cooked up a web of false information to convince us all that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction—the basis for the Iraq War. The most famous incident of the American government lying to perpetuate war came during Vietnam. In 1971, the Pentagon Papers were leaked and published. They showed that the government had systematically lied to cover up the fact that the United States was losing ground in Vietnam in the 1960s.

While the war was still going on, US officials insisted that the Viet Cong were dying in record numbers and that there was a light at the end of the tunnel. They called for more force, even though, as the Pentagon Papers told us, they knew the reality of what was happening—that the US was losing the war. There is, of course, a certain amount of government secrecy that’s pretty much necessary for national security. False assurances aren't just for the public; they're meant to mislead adversaries and to cover up mistakes and failures that might make a country seem weak or incapable. So your government might be lying to protect you, but at what point are we supposed to believe what they say? Are we meant to think that every lie is in service of our own protection?

Let's face it, a lot of the time, it's about ego. Governments are filled with people, and people have too much pride to admit that they're wrong. One notable exception was in 1962 when French President Charles de Gaulle withdrew his forces from the Algerian War, understanding that France had lost the fight. But it's not just overseas that our governments have proven untrustworthy. The empty promises of political campaigns can easily convince voters to show support, but they're rarely delivered on. Politicians make promises they can't fulfill all the time.

During his campaign in 1988, George H.W. Bush made the promise that he would never, ever, under any circumstances, raise taxes. And then, in 1990, he admitted that fixing the economy would require tax increases. He made the promise of no new taxes but failed to deliver. Was he lying? Probably. But that's because making that kind of sweeping assertion is almost impossible to follow through on. But these are the kind of things that help candidates win. The other thing that can help candidates win is an environment of division. Politicians use our perceived division to stoke anger, fear, and passion. Right now, we're seeing a global wave of divisive rhetoric from America to Argentina to Italy.

But are we really that divided? The government and the media keep telling us that we are, but there might be a widening gap between our reality and what we're told. Members of the government might adopt extreme positions, but often average voters don't, especially now, as younger generations are resistant to supporting a political party. So is the future actually going to be as divided as many want us to think?

It's easy to point fingers at the government or a large corporation for lying to us, but it gets harder when we talk about lies coming from people whose entire brands depend on helping others. But that certainly doesn't mean that lies aren't rampant throughout the self-help industry. They oversell personal empowerment, hyping up hope and creating a false sense of self-confidence among so many of us. You've probably heard the phrase "toxic positivity." It's when we tell ourselves or listen to encouraging statements that are meant to minimize or eliminate painful emotions. This leads to pressure to be unrealistically optimistic without considering the reality of a situation.

And the truth is that sadness, disappointment, and anger can all be pretty helpful emotions to experience. Positive thinking isn't necessarily bad, but if we believe that walking around thinking everything is great all the time is going to help us grow, we're probably kidding ourselves to some extent. Self-help guru Tony Robbins says that there's no such thing as failure, only results. This concept of "there's no such thing as failure" hits us on podcasts and books and social media posts, pushing us to ignore when we come up short.

But why is failure framed as such a bad thing? Why do we have to rename or ignore it altogether? Can't failure just be failure, and can't it be okay to be disappointed when you experience it? A lot of self-help guides try to sell us on financial freedom as our ultimate goal, as if working is such a horrible thing. Of course, financial stress isn't pleasant, but why is being free of any sort of pressure to work such a desirable thing? The world has convinced us that we need to be living on passive income, enjoying every second of every day by the time we're 30.

Success, financial or otherwise, takes time, and the journey, while difficult, doesn't have to be miserable. Don't let some online expert convince you that it will be. Often, these goals or ways of viewing the world set by gurus and experts are an attempt to make us feel that who we are and what we have isn't enough. These days, we're bred on a sense of inadequacy, always striving for something different. If we don't feel we're good enough, we'll buy products that promise to make us better, healthier, prettier, and happier. It all comes back to money.

But the lies from the world are frankly nothing compared to the lies we tell ourselves. "I have to be perfect." "Maybe I'll never be happy." "If I could just fix that one thing, my life would be amazing." "And if I could get married, find a better job, buy a new car, or floss every day." But no one single thing is the solution to happiness. "If I ignore that bad feeling, it'll go away." "I don't have a choice in how I spend my time, and if I had more time, I would exercise, socialize, or learn to crochet."

The truth is, either we want to do something, or we don't. It might sound fun to become a piano player, but after spending three hours learning beginner chords, you might think otherwise. "I can change other people." No, no you can't. We can, if we're lucky, help them change themselves. However, we shouldn't sign up for that either. There's no point in lying to ourselves here; people are just who they are, including us, you and me.

So no matter what your employer or your president is promising you, or what that famous podcast host or financial expert is trying to convince you of, you know who you are and you know what you need. And you can trust yourself to root out the lies, especially the ones very deep inside. In 2010, around 40,000 people died from drug overdoses in the United States. Quantifying the importance and meaning of individual human life in a single statistic is impossible, but that number might already seem high, especially if you knew one of those people.

But it gets worse—so, so much worse. In 2021, more than 100,000 people died from drug overdose, and that number seems to continue to increase each year. Pinpointing an exact reason behind these rising numbers is complicated, but it all starts with these five words: fentanyl and the dark web. According to a UCLA study, fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that's 50 times stronger than heroin, was responsible for around 10% of drug overdose deaths in 2010. In 2015, the first spike of deaths as a result of fentanyl overdose happened.

It remained localized in the eastern United States for several years until 2019, when it made its way across the country. Suddenly, everyone was exposed, and death rates skyrocketed. As of 2021, a staggering 66% of drug overdoses were as a result of fentanyl, and that number keeps rising. Now you might say, "What's the problem? If people take drugs, they should be willing to face the consequences." And while you may be right, the problem is that most people who are dying from fentanyl overdose aren't even aware they're consuming it, and it's all because of one group of people: the fentanyl kings of the dark web.

Criminal gangs have figured out how to manufacture and distribute fentanyl illegally. Because fentanyl is much cheaper to produce than other drugs, they've begun lacing it with those other drugs and selling them to unsuspecting users. This is the true cause of the fentanyl crisis. Between 2010 and 2021, the amount of drugs used didn't double, nor did the number of users. In fact, drug use hasn't increased very much; it's just become much more lethal.

There is a solution, but it's a rather radical one that requires an open mind to even consider. What if we control the supply itself instead of trying to control the suppliers? If you can't beat them, join them, if you will. It could be that the only way to truly protect people from tainted drugs is to start right at the source—by controlling the supply itself and having it produced and distributed legally.

The approach isn't all that crazy when you think about how the opioid crisis exploded. Gone are the days of drugs being distributed on street corners or from corrupt doctors. Many now come from a much more sinister place: the dark web. Drug buyers no longer need a back alley to sell drugs; people don't need to steal from stores or doctor's offices to get pills. They can sit at their computer or on their phone and purchase their drug of choice and have it delivered to their home using special browsers and software that conceals their IP addresses. Users are hard, if not almost impossible, to trace on the dark web. This makes it the perfect place for secret shops to sell illegal substances.

Unsurprisingly, this poses a massive challenge for law enforcement, which is trying to crack down on the illegal drug trade. The dark web leads investigators and police on a never-ending game of whack-a-mole as they try and stamp out anonymous markets, only to see new ones pop up. One software called Tor routes user data through servers worldwide, disguising the user's IP address. This means that communications between the buyer and seller end up scrambled, for lack of a better term. Then you add crypto as a means of monetary exchange, and you can see why it's almost impossible to regulate our way out of this mess.

All of this has helped fuel the fentanyl crisis. The dark web offers an accessible vehicle to buy drugs and opens up the sellers to a market that wasn't there before. The people who are curious but not about to commit a crime out in the open? Now they can do it from their couch. Yes, the dark web has benefits. Whistleblowers who work in government or other industries can alert journalists to important facts without being identified. People in authoritarian regimes might use the dark web to avoid detection or having their internet tracked. But the same features that make the dark web appealing for people who are trying to stay safe lower in drug traffickers to avoid police surveillance.

By now, the dark web is so global that even municipal police officers have to look globally to track down shipments and transactions of illegal drugs. If one site gets shut down, another one inevitably will take its place. But before it even makes it onto the dark web, dealers have to decide to use it—fentanyl doesn't end up in shipments of cocaine by mistake. So why lace it in there if the chance for fatality is so high? Some dealers think they can mitigate the risk by measuring fentanyl carefully. If done correctly, fentanyl can help create a stream of returned customers because it's so addictive. This explains why it's so often found in cocaine or in counterfeit Xanax and Adderall.

It's more addictive than those drugs themselves, so it keeps people coming back for more. Also, there's the capitalist argument: it's cheaper than the other opioids. A small fraction of fentanyl can mimic the high of larger doses of other opioids like heroin or painkillers. Dealers will use simple binding agents and a small amount of fentanyl when they make counterfeit opioid pills because it helps their bottom line. The potency of fentanyl also makes it a really easy drug to traffic. A formerly incarcerated dealer claimed that he could make over 10 times the amount of counterfeit pills when he used fentanyl instead of other drugs on their own.

Even though fentanyl is heavily regulated in hospitals or other medical settings, it's not regulated at all on the internet, much less the dark web. So, small mistakes by uneducated, malicious, or ignorant dealers could be fatal. The big question is, can we stop it? Of course! To do that, we need to know who the people behind these dark websites are—the operations just like the infamous drug lords like Pablo Escobar or El Chapo.

There are kingpins running the dark web trade as well. It all started with a site called Silk Road, the first large-scale dark web drug market, which began in 2011. It received a lot of media attention, and eventually, law enforcement was able to step in and shut it down in 2013. But more sites took its place. AlphaBay popped up and was shut down in 2017 but has recently been clawing its way back to the top. Dream Market was also a popular market until it was shuttered in 2019.

Its inner workings can tell us a lot about how these sites function. Dream Market had around 100,000 listings and at the time was the biggest dark web shopping center for drugs. More than half its listings were for illicit substances, although it also sold things like designer clothes, counterfeit money, and stolen online banking information. The shopping experience is similar to what most of us experience when we need a new yoga mat or that random piece that broke off your fridge. Buyers can go to any of these sites, search the inventory, and pay in crypto, and the drugs will arrive on their doorstep.

And like the typical online shopping experience, buyers can leave reviews for vendors and products. Let's say you're buying a new TV. You might go online and read some reviews, look for the best deal, or see which retailers are the most reputable for what you're looking for. The worst-case scenario is you might buy a shoddy TV. But on the dark web drug markets, the worst-case scenario is you buy drugs that are laced with something like fentanyl that could kill you. The reviews might read like an old product on Amazon, but they are as consequential as it gets. One review on Dream Market of 100 μg of the drug carfentanil said, "It took forever to find a new carfentanil supplier. Finally found a good vendor. It's great." It reads innocent enough, but carfentanil is a synthetic opioid used to sedate large animals that is even more potent than fentanyl. 100 μg is enough to kill dozens of people.

With all the difficulty around taking down sites and kingpins that operate them, there have been some high-profile success stories in curbing the dark web drug market. A 40-year-old Indian British man named Bonny Singh ran an international drug ring from his home in the UK. He was charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and to distribute and possess with intent to distribute controlled substances. In April 2024, he admitted that from 2012 to 2017, he was active on the dark web's drug market distributing heroin, cocaine, fentanyl, ecstasy, LSD, ketamine, Xanax, and plenty of other drugs. He had to surrender more than 4,000 Bitcoin, which was valued at more than $245 million, and was given the same priority level of threat as El Chapo.

Then there was Operation Spectre, an enforcement operation from the US Department of Justice that ended in May 2023. It was meant to target opioid and fentanyl trafficking on the dark web. The operation resulted in 288 arrests, the most ever for this type of operation, and the seizure of 117 firearms and 850 kg of drugs, which also included 64 kg of fentanyl or fentanyl-laced narcotics. On top of all that, they also seized $53 million in cash and crypto. This international effort spanned three continents to disrupt fentanyl and opioid trafficking and was accompanied by a public awareness campaign to promote resources for those struggling with substance abuse. The operation's message to criminals on the dark web is, "You can try and hide in the furthest reaches of the internet, but the Justice Department will find you and hold you accountable for your crimes." This only furthered the Drug Enforcement Administration's commitment to shutting down the fentanyl and opioid supply chain from beginning to end.

They may be committed now, but the dark web keeps growing and growing, and inevitably another kingpin will pop up. And no matter how successful they've been in the past, authorities will just need to start over again. So, is it more effective to try and shut it all down or just control the supply instead? In the 1920s, the US banned alcohol. The people didn't stop drinking; they went underground and illegal traffickers operated similarly to how those on the dark web operate now. Illegal activity increased. There was no regulation, and alcohol that was much stronger and more dangerous than what had previously been for sale became widely available. Are we in this era with the drug trade? If so, is it time to rethink our approach?

The goal is, by whatever means necessary, to save lives. People simply empty out their bodies with fearful and obedient minds. The color leaves the eye. The voice becomes ugly. The body, the hair, the fingernails, the shoes—everything does. Does this sound familiar? A long day looking in front of the computer screen causes an aching feeling behind the eyes. Your legs turn to jelly after spending a long shift behind the cash register. Your skin becomes pale and gray with too much time under fluorescent warehouse lights. The 9 to 5 continues to diminish our morale and humanity. Why are we doomed to this unsustainable way of life?

These were the same questions posed by writer Charles Bukowski in a famous letter to his friend John Martin. Born in Germany and raised in 1930s Los Angeles, Charles Bukowski faced a rough childhood marked by abuse, poverty, and bullying. His hardships fostered an early dependency on alcohol. Bukowski attempted to pursue a career in writing in New York after high school, but financial forces returned him to LA, where he reluctantly spent almost a decade as a postal clerk. His detest for the 9 to 5 lifestyle became a barrier to his creative aspirations.

After his career with the Postal Service, Bukowski wrote an autobiographical novel about his working years, aptly titled Post Office. Its publication launched his career, and he became a literary sensation at age 51. Fifteen years later, in his famous letter, Bukowski wrote of how 9 to 5 work empties the body and trains the worker of any essential life. It's hard to believe that the 8-hour working day came to be through activism.

Between the late 17 and mid-1800s, the Industrial Revolution transformed the working world. Instead of working in the home and sustaining their family off of small trade loops within their community, people started selling their labor to companies. Let’s use the textile industry as an example: mechanization meant clothing was now a good to be bought and sold instead of made in the home, and laborers were required to work the factory floor. They would then use their work money to buy the required goods and services. Working outside the home for a company was a massive economic shift, and it resonates in the modern day. Income and population rose as this chain significantly increased global living standards.

But an average working day this time could range from 10 to 16 hours, and children were not exempt from the labor force. Rumblings of dissent reverberated among workers as fatigue, sickness, and injury were common in the workplace. So in the early 19th century, activist Robert Owen proposed standardizing a 10-hour workday. By 1817, an even better proposal of an 8-hour workday gained popularity. Labor activists believe that 8 hours of the day should be dedicated to work, 8 hours to rest, and 8 hours to recreation.

This revolution improved working conditions and also productivity. Foremen and managers realized that happy, healthy workers were more productive. But how much of your time off each day, or supposed recreation time, is used to prepare yourself for the next day? This tidy division of time doesn't work in reality. The 8 hours for recreation per day quickly dissolves when you add meal prep, commuting, laundry, housework, child care, and errands into the mix. And at the end of all that, do you even have quality recreation time? Each day, you spend your evenings in front of the TV, doom scrolling, or playing video games, which is okay in moderation. But the demands of your work life and the activities that require you to be an optimal worker tire you out.

You feel too drained to partake in hobbies or activities that would otherwise fulfill you. Also, with the dawn of smartphones and wireless file sharing, it's easy for your workday to extend into the night. You're expected to be on the clock, checking emails, and finalizing presentations even in your pajamas on the couch. Your work time bleeds over into your rest until you can't see where one role ends and the other begins. Worse, the extra time you've put in at home doesn't exempt you from clocking back in the following day at 9:00.

Even the self-help movement disguises its motives to sneak its way into making you a better participant in capitalism. You're only creating a more productive worker by molding a better you. Things like atomic habits, overcoming supposed laziness, and manifestation promise to lead you to your professional goals while creating a happy, healthier you. Self-help gurus teach you how to do more with less instead of reassessing the root of why the system has left you broken.

Writer and cultural critic Gia Tolentino takes this further in her essay "Always Be Optimizing." According to her, every aspect of modern life is geared towards creating a more efficient you. From workout praises to salad bars, you never have a moment where you are off the clock. In a world that strives to produce the best workers, if you're interested, I have a video about self-improvement where I talk about this further. But if you spend most of your life working or preparing to work for a job you resent or don't enjoy, how can you expect to be happy? Yes, it might be hard to get out of bed in the morning or find motivation. But for some, discontent in the workplace leads to violent outbursts.

Ever wonder where the phrase "going postal" comes from? Well, in the late '80s and early '90s, there were a series of workplace shootings in US Postal offices across America, killing at least 35 people. The gunmen associated with these murders are classified as workplace avengers. They were often middle-aged white men facing economic anxiety, obsolescence, or possible termination from their job at the peak of their earning potential. They become resentful when they feel like they aren't making what they should be at work. Their coworkers become symbolic of their fury, which results in violent behavior. Often, these homicides were caused by people diagnosed with mental illness or antisocial behavior. Most of the time, they were triggered by wanting to take revenge on a boss or the institution after a firing or reprimand.

It's called murder by proxy, where you transfer the identity of your intended victim onto anyone slightly associated with it. The shooters wanted vengeance on their workplace, and their colleagues were sadly representative of that place. The Postal Service conducted an internal review to try and find the root cause of this discontent. Of course, there's not one specific reason that links all of these instances of workplace violence. The nature of the work is a common denominator. There are many structural problems with the US Postal Service that are too tedious to get into here, but one of the findings revealed that rural postal workers are happier than urban ones. Rural workers create their schedules and are in charge of how they carry out their work each day. If they get all the mail delivered by the end of the day, that's a job well done.

Urban workers, however, negotiate their workload each day with management. In urban centers, the Postal Service must squeeze the maximum efficiency out of each worker. They'd rather hand out overtime and overrun the workers they have than hire more. And that one difference—choosing how you will complete your work for the day—is a determining factor of overall happiness at work. Work is whittled down to its most essential parts in industries with dwindling resources. When profit is king, there's no room to innovate your work structure to support workers better.

Something happens when workers become starkly aware of their place as a cog in the machine. While most people don't retaliate against the system in a homicidal rage, we spend so much of our lives working that it has an evident influence on our emotional health. Busting your butt to keep a job that you might want is taxing. In this situation, you must maintain cognitive dissonance or disassociation from yourself for 40 hours a week because what's the alternative? To exist in modern society, you must generate an income. In his letter, Bukowski likened work to slavery for this reason. Unless you come from immense generational wealth or you're at peace with a monkish existence, work is inevitable—work that is isolating and repetitive, like in a warehouse or factory—causes your mind to wander, and without proper outlets, you can foster pent-up rage.

Your body becomes like a machine, repeatedly fulfilling the same task—an instrument to generate money. Your work denies you your humanity, yet you're doomed to live most of your life in this state. How can most people genuinely claim that they're happy with this system? The vast majority of us won't be as lucky as Charles Bukowski. Bukowski got a ticket out of his grueling manual labor job.

Remember John Martin, the friend to whom Bukowski wrote his letter outlining his problems with the 9 to 5? Well, in 1969, Martin offered to pay Bukowski to quit his job at the Postal Service and commit himself full-time to writing. At the time, Bukowski wrote, "I have one of two choices: stay in the Postal Service and go crazy or stay out here and play at writer and starve. And I've decided to starve." Within his first month as a full-time writer, he finished his debut novel. Martin owned a small press, and as a token of gratitude, Bukowski published with him.

Throughout his illustrious career, how rare is that? Imagine someone approaches you and offers to fund your passionate project for the rest of your life. You would probably quit your day job on the spot. Such an opportunity won't arise for most people, so how do we find a way to cope with this unfulfilling work structure? You can't really opt out, but is there a way to lessen the burden of your 9 to 5? One thing you can do is say no to work when you can. Maintaining a proper work-life balance is crucial to overall health and happiness. But setting those boundaries takes practice. You have to know your worth as a worker and be willing to stand up for yourself.

You must take your entitled lunch and break times and refuse to work after your contracted hours without any overtime pay. While Bukowski was cynical about the sanctity of your free time during your workday, you are entitled to it as a worker. The more workers unite to enforce these rights properly, the less likely employers will abuse them. Hence the importance of unions. If you're a union member, ensure you're fully informed about what your union can do for you. Participate in union votes and strikes and make sure your voice is heard. It's one of the only ways to push change forward in the workplace.

Some companies have taken the initiative to change their structure. After all, our world looks a lot different than it did during the Industrial Revolution. The 40-hour work week now seems absurd. Shorter, less demanding work weeks prove this arbitrary time designation is obsolete. In an experiment, companies in New Zealand dropped to a 4-day work week, which resulted in greater workplace happiness without sacrificing that much productivity. Also, working from home, if your industry allows, frees up commuting time and enables you to sneak in some housework between meetings. Workers feel most empowered when they have some say over how their day is spent. Companies that allow their employees to make themselves as happy as possible during the workweek help pave the way for a better work-life balance.

It is also essential to reclaim your free time. Free time means just that—moments that you deliberately dedicate to absolutely nothing. Nothing in this context entails anything where you aren't making or spending money. Walking, picnics with friends, reading a book, or even just staring off into space—those alone moments allow you to cultivate a sense of self outside of work. It's unhealthy to lead your life with a sense of doom, but escaping the doom loop is difficult. Your time is precious and sacred, and the time you spend not working is even more so. Use it to reclaim your humanity and remind yourself you weren't put on Earth to work; you are here to live the best life you can.

Then you owe it to yourself to create the best life for yourself, regardless of the constraints of the 9 to 5. You've just graduated college and worked your first month at your new job. You've worked extremely hard to get this position, and getting that first paycheck feels like such a triumphant moment. The possibilities of what you can do with your income are exciting. This is the first time you've had a sense of freedom over the money you've earned, but the sad truth is you don't have any freedom. And that reality becomes clear when you open a letter you receive in the mail a few days later. It's from a student loan program, informing you of your repayment schedule.

This paycheck never really was yours. You owe money. You're in debt and will be in debt for a very long time, and once the realization sets in, every coffee purchased or drink with a friend suddenly starts to feel like you're splurging with someone else's money. It makes you feel guilty and sometimes even depressed. This is the story of around one in five American adults who have student loan debt. But in reality, this isn't your fault; it's just one of the ways that governments and banks might be keeping you poor.

The truth is, debt can lead you down a pretty dark road, especially if you're not concerned about falling deeper into it. Household debt in the US just hit a record high of $1.9 trillion—that's 16 with 15 zeros behind it. Even making six figures, you're more likely to be living paycheck to paycheck than thriving. College-educated people with high-paying jobs are struggling to cover basic rent and car payments. Add in the losses on 401ks and investment accounts, and you can see why money managers are adjusting how they protect and grow their clients' wealth.

Before continuing, I should clarify that not all debt is bad. It can give people opportunities that they might not have had otherwise. It allows startups to get off the ground without using personal capital, and it allows people to make big purchases that can be paid off in smaller chunks spread over a long period of time. But too much debt and lousy interest rates can cause severe problems. Studies suggest that being in debt can make you more anxious, depressed, and cause many people to experience suicidal thoughts. You might feel okay with how much you owe right now, but these mental health issues can grow bigger as your debt gets higher.

Debt also makes your future feel limited. Your ability to travel, make big purchases, and move on to another phase of life is greatly challenged by the amount of money you owe. For instance, you can't get a mortgage if you have too much student debt. Debt can impact your relationships and health, and there are studies linking bad debt ratios to high blood pressure and higher rates of divorce. It goes back to that feeling of splurging on something using someone else's money. This feeling puts a spotlight on spending habits within a relationship, causing stress, arguments, and separation.

You don't need to be a gambling addict to have fights over money. You might think it's okay to incur debt because when you die, it dies with you. But this isn't always the truth. A lot of different debts can be inherited by your loved ones, especially debts you've taken on with another person, like a mortgage. Being in debt isn't great, but don't be too hard on yourself, because it's not necessarily your fault.

We live in a society that has institutionalized debt and has made borrowing a living commonplace. Think about it: we're encouraging young kids, barely old enough to vote, to take on thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars of loans just to get an education. We all know how terrible these loans can be, but one effect we don't really talk about is how they tend to normalize the idea of taking on debt to people who are just entering adulthood. This creates a mindset about money that takes a very long time to shake, even if it's possible to shake at all.

A student who has a lot of loans to repay may also experience debt fatalism, a state where being in debt seems inescapable. If you're accustomed to existing in debt, it's difficult to picture what it's like to exist without it. And as a result, you're more likely to continue drowning in it. When people think of debt, there's often the stigma that it's the individual's fault. You hear finance gurus telling you about wasteful people who splurge on the latest iPhone and buy Starbucks every day instead of making coffee at home.

While there are certainly people who are irresponsible with credit, the reality is that most people who are in debt are there out of necessity. For one, people with children are far more likely to incur debt from the cost of taking care of a child. The same goes for people who have to take care of a parent. These two factors introduce a variety of necessary expenses that no amount of penny-pinching will mitigate. Most people's financial literacy is also very poor. It's a subject that's seldom taught in schools, so we're often at the mercy of the lenders and the fine print that we don't bother to read.

Even if we did take the time to read the terms and conditions while applying for a new credit card, would we even understand them all? All of this without even talking about the system whose entire existence depends on debt—banks. Let's take a moment to look at how banks work. You give them money. 90% of that money is lent to someone else. The person taking the loan puts it in their account and 90% of that amount is loaned to someone else, and so on. The bank charges interest on all those loans that were made possible thanks to your money.

Debt is how they make money; it's the core of their business model. To make matters worse, banks are profit-driven and often use predatory practices to try and get you to incur more debt because their favorite clients aren't the ones who pay off their debt as quickly as possible, but the ones they refer to as "revolvers." People who are perpetually in debt. Banks know your income, and they know what you can't afford, but that doesn't seem to stop them from issuing you multiple credit cards or locking you into a high-interest