My reading list for next Phileas Club

As you can imagine, the next episode of The Phileas Club is likely to be… interesting. I’ve been thinking a lot about the result of the US election, and here are some of the articles I think are the most interesting. I hope they’ll be informative and of value to you as well.

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[Added Nov 18]

The episode should be out very soon, and maybe I can finally sleep again.

Comments

  1. I have recently finished listening the “Boycott Boycott Boycott” episode and have just read this article. I have to admit Patrick that I have some concerns about how you covered and dealt with the US presidential elections.
    I won’t discuss on the content and the ideas you wanted to express (and I have to say that I agreed with 90 to 95% of what you said).
    But what stroke me the most is the way you expressed them and dealt with this serious topic.

    I understand that now that your are a professional podcaster, you don’t want to disappoint those who listen to your shows and those who support them financially. But it’s been several times you seem _(to me, maybe it’s just a false impression)_ to take too personally the current events. I can tell that from :
    – the last sentence of this article and your tweet about not sleeping well, having concerns about making the best Phileas Club episode possible
    – the last Patreon video update when you told us that you sometimes had hard times “disconnecting” from work and let it impinge your private life and leisure time
    – how your editorial line on your twitter account has shifted for some months
    …and maybe some other indicators.

    What I want to say is that no matter how important this matter is, you are not responsible for what is happening in the world, neither in the UK in June, nor in the US last week. And I sometimes feel that you are like Bruce Wayne making plans in his manor wondering how to make Gotham City a better place.
    I’m not asking you to stop talking about politics, but just to step back and relax about it. The matter is important, but you won’t be able to do it alone.

    Once again it’s just my own view and opinion on the subject, and I hope you won’t take badly what I am expressing now. I really don’t want to be critical in a negative way, only to be benevolent.
    All I want to say is that I listen and support you and your shows mostly because you and your co-hosts entertain me and give me some perspective on many subjects, but not on someone burning-out in a couple of months and not being able to produce any more content.
    I have myself been through a burnout because I let negative emotions from work interfere in my private life. I wish you won’t have to live that.

    Continue to entertain me and inform me in a light atmosphere and relaxed mood. Please continue to tease Turki and let him tease you as you two have always done.

    Keep Calm and Carry On.
    Take a deep breath, have a nice tea, put on some chill music and relax.

    When I turn on Twitter when I wake up, I’d rather have some stupid funny gifs of cats from Reddit than a 10-tweet-long very serious laïus about how the world is burning into flames.

    I will however continue to be happy to download and listen to your shows as I have done for 7 years now.

    • Hey man, thanks for your very kind message. You’re not wrong; I do feel a deep sense of responsibility, not necessarily towards making sure the world doesn’t burn (although that would be nice as well), but rather about making sure that I fulfill the promise of the show, which as you know is very important to me. I think these are especially trying times, not only because of the impact recent events are having on the world, but also because of the way they are forcing me to constantly reevaluate how I perceive things. It’s the whole point of this exercice, and I wouldn’t want to trivialize it with just jokes about Turki’s character (although I also would not want to forget about those, they’re a key part of the show!).
      So all in all, what I’m hoping is that once I have my thoughts out of my head with this next episode I can start focusing a bit less about this and a bit more about myself. But you’re right that it has been hard over the past two weeks… That being said, if it’s not hard now, it will never be: I do the show because I’m very interested in these things, in politics and the world and the relationships we build. A shockwave like that one is bound to affect me, whether I do the show or not. I just think that doing the show is forcing me to take a much deeper and more honest (and maybe more painful) look at what it means, including for myself, but my hope is that ultimately I’ll get out of it a better person, and I hope I can help others on that path as well.

      I guess we’ll see what happens when we record… 🙂

      Anyway, thanks again for your concern and your support, it really really really does mean a lot. Probably more than I can express.

  2. Sylvain St Pierre says:

    I been running a thought experiment for the last 3 years about a new world building scenario. Starting with a blank slate, how does one setup a better society. The pertinent aspect of this I want to share with you is this. What if every ballot came with this binding option of none of the above. and if the none of above win the majority, all the candidates are disqualified and new candidates must be presented thus forcing the politicians to actually listen to the voters.

    This is not the only thoughts I had of a better form of democracy but I’m well aware that this one is the most easily to get implemented.

    • It’s an interesting idea, but could you imagine if the whole campaign had to start again for 6 month with new candidates if the original ones were rejected? Not sure it would be very practical… 🙂

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