Here, now, in the 2020s, things aren’t right. We could make a list of what’s going wrong, but it would be exhausting. We feel it, every day - that’s enough, and that’s important. Our gut - the ethical gut that tells us wrong from right without thinking - has made up its mind: we’re in danger. And so Carl and Dave are a little freaked out. We live in a house that is on fire, and every day the fire spreads to a new room. That’s a metaphor for the world, and Carl and Dave are a metaphor for everybody in it. Yes indeed … it feels like The End is nigh, and Carl and Dave are feeling the heat.
But, the gut says, doing nothing about existing and looming dangers is not an option. We can and must protect ourselves, those we love, and, when we’re feeling energetic, humanity. We’ve got to DO something. But what? And how? Big questions. We’ve got some answers.
Those answers come from the gut, but the ideas that emerge from the gut feelings have a long history, long as the years humanity has existed. People need guidepost ideas - ethics - to help them navigate the variety of dangers they face in a lifetime, and that’s as true now as it has ever been. And knowing your ethics and making them work for you takes effort. But today, who knows a thing about ethics? We don’t talk about this subject any more, at least not directly. And we all suffer for it. This has to change, so Carl & Dave are getting to work.
Yes, you can work on your ethics. You can be a better person. Nearly a hero even. It’s hard, it’s never perfect, there are lots of failures along the way, and it’s probably the only thing that will save us.
And by us we mean all of us, together. We believe a majority of people have ethical guts - it’s how we get along - but most of us don’t have the language to express our ethical feelings and most of us don’t have a conscious understanding of how important positive ethics - virtues - are to a good life and to a functional society. So we want to talk about it, and talk to others about it, and develop a commitment to developing virtues that help us out of the nightmare we’re living in and also help us live what we consider to be good lives.
Living good lives takes effort, and it’s a never-ending struggle, so we can already hear the grumbling: why does any of this matter? The con men who crowd our consciousness today through the media have the opposite message: life is about money, power, and fame. They’re the loudest voices out there because they must keep us off balance with their stream of lies, which have to be constant or they’ll be discovered as the pathetic, unethical people they have always been. It’s understandable that they - plus the wild and weird things they do - keep us constantly distracted, but this has to come to an end, and soon.
Moving into the next, better phase of life - personally and as a society - takes courage. Courage is the virtue that unlocks all the others, because it supports gut-driven change, getting us out of the habits that got us stuck in the first place. So the first thing is to develop courage in all parts of our lives. We’ll be talking tons about it, because like everybody else, courage comes intermittently - we ain’t full-time heroes, just part-time, sometimes-courageous people who know courage is worth developing. It can be scary, but the joy in overcoming internal and external fears is very real, and is the first step toward a good adult life.
There are plenty of other benefits to developing positive virtues - ask Ben Franklin, he pitched using daylight hours to be successful better than anybody, and he did alright for himself. Yes, a little bit of wealth and power is part of being human, and pursuing an ethical life can help us get there. But there are other gains: self-respect, love and admiration from people we care about, a feeling that our lives have meaning. Not a bad list.
In the end, though, we all die, or so I’m told, so isn’t purpose really an illusion? And so why ‘spend’ life on trying to live a good one, versus just consuming and drifting from moment to moment? Our answer - flawed as it is, and all the answers are flawed - is that since we do have the ability to make a choice on how to live, why not choose a path that is specific, benefits us in the ways listed above, and potentially benefits people around us along with the next generation? That’s where the Hero part comes in: a hero is a person who goes through a set of struggles to discover something needed in his or her community, and they bring that boon back home after many set-backs, surprises, and revelations. It’s nothing if not interesting! And our gut tells us it’s right too.
So we would love you to join us, in whatever way makes sense for your journey. We will be working through the most difficult questions facing us today, and coming up with some possible solutions and actions that we’ll be looking to habituate on our road to living a virtuous life. Weakness and failure are definite, and in the end we’ll grow older and be unable to meet our own standards. But if we’re able to bring a boon or two back during our time on this Earth, and maybe pass a few good ideas on to the next generation, that sounds like a good life to us.
So with the approach of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Carl and Dave are hunkering down in their off-the-grid pod bunker to figure out a plan. Each week they discuss one of the many nightmares depriving us all of sleep – from the climate crisis, to Ai, to the end of American Democracy. Drawing on their smorgasbord of half-baked wisdom and scraps of knowledge about law, religion, science, history, and bad action movies, these two former altar boys are breaking the Seventh Seal to stop Armageddon – or at least put it on pause.
Join Carl and Dave in their quest to manage the crises of modern times, try out subzero workouts with an oversupply of nutritional supplements, and become … Nearly Heroes!