Transcription
Hello and welcome to analyzing finance with Nick. This is a special episode inspired by a fan of the channel who made this website called unprole. And I will send a link to the URL, if you want to access it yourself, in a pinned comment in the description. And it's a website that maps out the problem of prole drift and action steps of how to fix it on the individual level.
I think I might make a series about how to fix prole drift more in a general sense. And there's kind of three factors to it. You have prole drift as an individual to fix. You have prole drift on the level of your local community and how you can fix it there. And then there's the societal one, like the whole country or the whole world. How do we eliminate prole drift?
I think that the one that most people want the answer is the third one. It's about society, but it's also the one that's the hardest to answer, and I don't really have something ready to discuss with you on that. But I think we can start with really how to fix prole drift on the individual level. Like, what can you do to be less prole?
A lot of people criticize me; this is an elitist sentiment about prole drift being fixed. But a lot of the behaviors that you can fix, it doesn't—you don't need any money to do it. There's not a socio-economic class that is required in order to unprole yourself. And in fact, if you do unprole yourself, it's usually a very strong correlation to positive social mobility. And it's not that people are unprole because they're elite; it's that people move up and advance the class hierarchy because they remove the prole drift type habits that may unintentionally be holding them back without even realizing it.
So, the general definition that we have for Prole Drift, which I think is a good one on this website, is the gradual sinking of tastes, standard, and skill in a society towards a common mass-market lowest common denominator. The slow flattening of distinctions between the refined and the tacky, the earned and the claimed, the built to last and the built to toss. You see this in dress, speech, work habits, cuisine (what you eat), or parenting (how you spend your time at work and home). And it's like a quiet downgrade of one's own life. It's often rationalized as like freedom, minimalism, economic necessity, or liberation in a sense.
And he goes into more detail about Paul Fussell's origin, who he was the first one who kind of came up with this term, and I got from reading his book. And the key really, which I think is important here, is the standard is not really lowered by some hostile force from either the bottom up or the top down. It's really just voluntarily from people who would be in the place to defend it, but find it cheaper and simpler and more agreeable not to fight Prole Drift. So, it's more inaction and entropy that creates this decline than like a deliberate plot.
And examples of symptoms is like the collapse agency and formality, declined standards rebranded as freedom of choice, the atrophy of skill, and the abandonment of institutions and multi-generational planning.
So, now we have a definition. Let's go to some examples. This is what he calls the catalog here. And it has like 10 examples of certain things that have been the most impacted by Prole Drift and how you can reverse.
The first one is just how people used to dress. Like in the old days, formal dressing was the default. People would go to work in suits and wear top hats and dress at a certain minimal level formality. Like, it was really rare, particularly if you're over the age of 40, to see anybody wearing a t-shirt in public. Now, like the Prole Drift is really the idea of athleisure and shifting to people wearing gym clothes not just at the gym, but just walking around every day doing everything.
Really, the way to un-prole is not necessarily just everybody going back to wearing suits like they did in the '50s, but it's just a more general is to dress intentionally. When you're not doing anything that's too physically strenuous or it's the weather's not is not too hot, wear a collared shirt. Build a higher quality wardrobe. Be more thoughtful in how you dress generally.
The second example that he gives is hobbies. And this is one I've mentioned on the channel, too, is the idea that hobbies used to be high-skilled thing. They would teach you how to do something that could be either useful or require a minimum level of practice to accomplish something. It's the acquisition of a skill, whether that's learning a musical instrument, home improvement, civic involvement, playing golf, playing tennis, sailing.
Whereas today, the Prole Drift version of hobby is consumption. It's like instead of doing something, you just passively absorb things. This could be like drinking, this could be eating, this could be just doom scrolling, or just watching content mindlessly. There's no new skill, there's no new insight. It's just trophying and just letting the time pass with distraction.
And how to unprol is to be more aware of what your hobbies are and try to do something that improves yourself. Maybe if you still want to consume content, relax, maybe play a non-fiction audiobook. I mean, a lot of you guys watch my channel, and my channel, I think, is fairly educational. So, that is a step in the right direction. It's just focusing your content consumption on things that will help you improve your life more than just mindlessly distracting yourself.
And they actually did a good grid about hobbies in general here. It's a scattergram which shows really like how a hobby is, like, if it's something that is very active and requires a high amount of skill, that's a very high agency, more high-class type of hobby. The example of this thing could be like woodworking, learning how to cook, sailing, playing golf, learning to play a musical instrument, starting a side business.
And then it goes down on the other end, which are the most prole hobbies, to the combination of no required skill and very passive. It doesn't really revolve any active energy. So, like, the bottom would be like doom scrolling, watching TV, drinking and intoxicating substances, gambling, video games, which is a little bit higher cuz some video games actually do require some sort of skill and they do teach you, whether it's vocabulary if you're younger, strategy, maybe even learn about history. I learned actually a lot of medieval history, believe it or not, from Age of Empires II. But, actually, it's a lot more positive of a hobby than some of the other lower-end consumption-based activities.
And just think about, like, for any hob—cuz this doesn't include everything—is it something that requires exerting energy and is it something that is a skill? If it's something that takes effort and is something that you can learn and improve through practice and education, that is generally a more admirable hobby.
Another one would be a marriage. The old way of relationships was marriage was kind of just the starting point of an adult life. It was not optional. It was not a capstone that you celebrate once you've made a certain amount of money and you throw a lavish wedding. It was a way to build the structure of a family and be in it for the rest of your life.
Now, the prole drift version is situationships and basically a very casual view of dating and avoiding having children. It's basically the rationalization for is that marriage is unaffordable or optional nowadays and that being married and having kids is just a burden. It's not really factoring in other things when it comes to having a family that are beyond just dollars and cents. And a lot of it is rationalization for people to simply not wanting to take on responsibility or putting something before oneself.
And then the way to unprole is to commit to a family, which is you might not—you don't need to get married right out of school like in the old days, but be intentional with who you date and commit to it for your life and every problem is solvable and build a team together with your family.
But another one that I'll go into, this last one, is about dining and the table. Like the old-fashioned way really that people ate for dinner every night was having a family dinner either at your own home or you would go to a family member's house, and you would all meet for dinner and chat about what's going on in your day and other things that are interesting to you at the moment. It's a good way to bond and catch up with your family, whether it's your immediate family or your nuclear family with your spouse and kids.
Nowadays, it's what Christian calls it is "Chipotle as aspiration," but it's the idea that people just eat separately. They go to takeout or heat up a frozen meal or meal kit. There's not—like it's aspirational now to go to a fast casual restaurant every night for dinner instead of cooking, even though it's far less healthy. And yeah, it's just more staggered. Everybody eats on their own schedule or they're on their phone doing something or not paying attention to the others in their household. And they say, "Oh, people are busy. We don't have time anymore," or "You can't calibrate everybody's schedule," but it's really just a convenience thing as more rationalization.
And how do you fix this? It's you make sure to put on the calendar, like, "Dinner is at X time." And if you don't show up at X time, you're not having dinner. That's kind of how it worked in my house growing up. Like, or if you did have dinner, you'd have to have it cold and reheat it yourself. Or sometimes all the stuff that you actually want to eat, like if it was, like for example, my mother made barbecued ribs with rice and a salad or something, maybe all the ribs would be eaten if you missed dinner. And you'd just be stuck having a little bit of salad and some leftover rice. The point being is you have to have some sort of consequence for not showing up to family dinner. And that would be the way to bring this back. And I recommend checking the other, like, seven that I didn't mention in the catalog.
So, now let's kind of go to the practical steps, which is how do we solve for prole drift? And I think that this toolkit that this website has is a very good template for it. The three things that make something prole, which I've talked about before, is the scalability factor. If everybody repeated that behavior, would the world be a better place or worse place or a tackier place? If it's a worse or a tackier place, that's a prole behavior. If it's a better place, it's an unprole behavior.
The one is long vol short vol. Basically, it's something that you put in effort now and that is unlikely to be rewarded in the short term, but if you do it enough times, you'll eventually get the right tail outcome. Or you do the opposite: you get a short-term reward now, but if you do it enough times, it will catch up to you and you'll get the bad left tail outcome.
Quick break here. Just wanted to let you guys know about our sponsor, which is not really a sponsor. It's my own firm. I'm a partner at a wealth management firm, Spearhead Advisors. I know a lot of you guys ask me about how the stuff that we talk about on this channel impacts your financial future or your investments or what are some ways if you are somebody who's rapidly growing in their wealth or needs to preserve a sizable nest egg, what's the best way to go about doing that? If you'd like to have those conversations, feel free to schedule a consultation with me, and I can talk to you about how me and my team can help you navigate the challenges in the global economy and your financial future to have a good retirement, financial freedom, or whatever goals you have for your money.
And now let's go back to the main content. Long or short vol? And then the third thing really to measure is like the agency. Like, is it something—is it something you're actually sub trying to take control or are you not?
So, we'll do these one at a time, and first one is the scalability factor. This is a fun quiz, and you could answer these questions again ideas see like your whole general sentiment is concordant with the idea of being anti-pro or divergent from the idea of being tacky anti-pro.
So, example here would be Question number one: If everybody made the same decision, the world would be better or worse? Like if everybody wore athleisure to a wedding. I think the world would be tackier in that case. And I think that's really the correct answer here.
Handing a child a iPad at every restaurant. I mean, maybe it wouldn't be as noisy when you hear kids crying, but longer term that would make the world tackier because it prevents kids from learning how to behave in crowds and it also just may create a screen addiction or socialization issues later hand.
Unless if you actually are a coach and have paid clients to do that as a practice, that's definitely in the tackier category. The same like people who label themselves as consultants and have maybe one client a year that pays them $500. Just say you're semi-retired or are between jobs.
Next one is reading one non-fiction book a month. That would make the world better. It'd make for a more educated society.
Renting indefinitely while writing a thread about how leases are freedom. This one can I guess argue both ways. Like it depends what stage of your a single person with no responsibilities and you don't really like the town that you're living in in the long run. It probably is better to rent. Or if you live in a place that the median house, the mortgage payment would be double or triple what the rent payment would be even after a down payment, then it makes more financial sense. But so I think that now I would answer neither, honestly. I would skip this, but I guess I'll just do better because I might make sure I'm not perfect with these things. I know that the right answer would be that's tacky, but I think it's not straightforward.
Choosing the more precise word over the latter one, that's definitely better. There's no point of being boorish and swearing.
Buying the cheapest particle board bookshelf again, that would be tackier. You want furniture that's quality and that lasts instead of waste.
Sitting down for a home-cooked dinner with no screens, that's definitely the better.
Treating TikTok as a primary news and information source, that's definitely tacky. You can't get a full nuanced picture of anything in 3 minutes or less.
Marrying with intent in your 20s. I generally agree with dating with your intent in your 20s and marrying with intent eventually, but sometimes for some people, including myself, it took me longer. I didn't meet my now wife, I think after this comes out, until I was in my mid-30s and got married in my late 30s. However, I was dating with intention and trying to find somebody who would be a future wife as early as my early 20s, about 23, 24 years old. So, I think you have to give some slack for people who it might take them some time cuz it's better to be discerning and maybe wait till your 30s to marry somebody who know is going to be there and be on a team with you and you're compatible with than just marrying somebody just because you're a certain age. So, it depends where you live on this one. Also, because certain cities it's easier to find people more compatible than others. There's a lot of variables here, but I would generally agree with that.
Spending Sunday at the planning commission meeting, yeah, that's community involvement. Or if I can also interpret it like spending your Sunday like with your spouse planning out your next week and how you're going to tackle the world together. Either way, the answer is better.
Wearing the slogan tee at the office, that is tackier, especially if you're the boss.
So, yeah, my answer is 11 and one. So, I'm generally concordant with the idea of unproling.
And then the other piece of the toolkit that I wanted to share with you guys is the agency quiz. This is kind of a way to show what your belief on personal agency. Do you have an external locus of control that you blame outside forces for your adversities in your life or you have internal locus of control where you believe that your behavior is what shapes your destiny?
So, question number one, my career trajectory over the next 10 years will be mostly determined by either the choices I make and the skills I'm going to build now or the economy, industry, and luck. I mean, I think this is a factor, but I think in the long run, like going through enough business cycles, definitely choice A.
Next, when something is important goes wrong, my first instinct is identify what part I controlled and what would I change or identifying the people and conditions that made it impossible. And these questions are a good framework. You should ask these like to yourself so you understand your process and try to change your mindset to be more of an internal locus of control and belief in personal agency. The answer I would answer here is A, identifying the part I controlled and I change. So, you can't really change what other people are going to do, but you can change what you're doing or you can adapt to your environment.
Whether I am in a long-term relationship for 5 years from now depends mainly on who I pursue and how I show up or whether the right person happens to come along. It is a combination of both. Like you can do your best to find somebody and they may just not show up for a while, but but 5 years is a long time. And if you put a solid consistent effort for 5 years, the answer is definitely A, who you choose to pursue and how you show up. And with enough tries and you put yourself out there long enough, you will find somebody. And if you have a good enough discernment, you'll find somebody who's a good fit for you.
My finances at 60s will reflect, more importantly, the savings and risk tolerance I held since my 20s, inflation, market styles, and the cost of living. I mean, inflation, market and cost of living might reflect how much you have, and you can invest around this either by educating yourself about the financial markets, or you can hire an advisor to help you on that. And this is close to nothing, and this is investment advice. Please do your own research, but if you do want to have a more direct conversation about investments or wealth strategies, feel free to contact me directly via the links in the description and the pinned comment. But, the answer is A. It's real—most wealth is generated through savings, and the investments or the returns compounding on your savings. Even if you have the best investment returns in the world, if you're only putting $100 a month in your account, it's not going to compound enough to be for retirement.
When I think about a skill that I would wanted for years, A, I could be 6 months from now if I committed every Tuesday and Thursday to learn it. I generally have not had the time or resources to begin. It's definitely answer A here. It's a matter of priorities, and you have to be honest with yourself. Like, what is your priority? Like, yeah, there are certain things I would like to do. Like, it would be cool maybe if I spoke more languages, or if I was better at golf, or I learned how to play piano. And I mean, there are certain things and skills I would like to learn, but the problem is I just quite frankly do not have the time. So, I mean, writing another book is an example. Yeah, I'd like to write a book one day, but I at least honest with myself, it's just not a priority right now. I have a lot of other things going on in my life that are ahead of me learning piano, and ahead of me writing another book. And a lot of people just say, "I don't have the time." And blindly like it's out of their control. People do have the time if they understand what their priorities are, and they can justify not doing something cuz maybe you have other more important things to do, but being honest about it I think is what is important.
The condition of my body at 50 will be set chiefly by sleep, lifting, what I eat, and choices I make weekly, genetics, and the kind of work my life requires of me. I think genetics do make the results of choice easier or harder, but it is generally how much you treat your health like, how well you sleep, do you go to the gym, do you eat well, do you keep your stress levels down, do you go to the doctor to check things when you're sick? So, I think that's more of the bigger actor.
If I'm unhappy where I live, I would most likely begin a deliberate plan, saving, search, deadline, move, or wait till a situation forces a change. I moved from a city that I didn't really like, and I planned it well in advance. I saved, I figured out where I was going to go and what my plan was once I was going to get there. So, it's definitely a.
The quality of my friendships in 5 years will be a function of how often I am the one who texts and shows up, who stays in town, and how busy everyone gets. I'm actually going to probably give it a little more external locus control. You can't control how other people want to be your friends or not. I used to be that guy. It was really frustrating growing up that if I wasn't the one who text first and invite everybody out all the time, nobody would ever invite me, and I felt like all of my friendships were very one-sided, and I don't care. I could have maybe kept all of my friends if I put in all the effort, but I started to grow resentful because it's that if they really cared about me, they would make more of an effort to reach out and be involved in my life. So, I actually going to take the contra take on this. But it's not—I mean, the proxy who stays in town is who makes the effort, I would say. And how busy everyone gets is are you a priority or not? So, I'm actually going to answer the opposite of the unproling answer for that one.
When I imagine telling a younger person how to build a life, my honest advice is decide what you want and then make 10 years of decisions consistent with it. Stay flexible. Most of life is responding to what happens to you. I'm definitely in the A. You need to be proactive and plan. Know where you want to be in 10 years and then work backward to get there.
When I do not act on a goal I claim to care about, the underlying reason is usually I have not committed in a way that would make me back out or cost anything. Circumstances have not lined up to make it possible yet. I would actually have a different answer than both of these. It's either I did my best and didn't work out for some reason. Like some of my goals are just hard. And I would do my best, but I just wouldn't hit them because they were just very difficult. Or it's something that has a very long time frame. And in general life, things take four times as long and cost four times as much. But my answer—my bias would be closer to this one. A lot of people who have not accomplished goals cuz deep down they haven't really maxed out the effort.
So, let's score my result. I got a nine out of 10. So, internal and pronounced. You basically have to figure out I try to build my life to go for the right tail and also to have a ex- internal locus of control and believe that like my destiny is in my hands. Maybe I take too much responsibility for everything, but in general you should try to take responsibility for your own life.
And the last one we're going to do here, and if you want to do these quizzes, I'm going to have a link to the website for this in the description, is the long ball short ball quiz. Like, are you making a long ball, which is a short-term cost, right tail upside potential, or short ball vision, something that is you get a a short-term gain, but a risk of long-term decay or pain?
Example one: asking a stranger out in person this week. Well, I'm married now, so that's not really a thing I do.
Second one: eating a donut for breakfast every weekday. I mean, there is this meeting I go to on Fridays that offers free donuts and I would say at least half the time I don't take the donut. But sometimes they have the maple bar with bacon or like a really good cronut, it's somewhat harder to resist, so maybe like every third Friday or fourth Friday I will eat a donut. So, I'm just going to not answer long or vol.
Reading a difficult non-fiction book an hour before bed. Yeah, I've done that a lot. Audible helps with this. So, it's only like 3 hours of mobile games after work. That's a short fall decision. I don't play video games as much as I used to, but I did have a problem with that in my past.
Applying for jobs two rungs above your current one. That's a long ball and that's actually a very smart decision. Your potential's usually a lot higher than you believe it is.
Skipping the seatbelt for short terms. That's a short ball decision. But I don't really do that myself. I always wear my seatbelt.
Cold emailing a person you admire. That's a long ball and I've done that before. I reach out to people. You never know what you can get from starting a conversation with somebody who you get to meet and what new insights you can gain.
Drinking four nights a week. That's definitely short ball, but I don't drink personally.
Putting 20% in the index on payday automatically. I don't think if you're above a certain net worth indexes make sense for a variety of reasons, but if you want to know my thoughts more on index versus other kinds of investing, again, that's more of a off-air type of conversation. But I generally agree with saving 20 plus percent and doing it in a consistent manner, so I'm going to agree.
Doom scrolling till you fall asleep. I've done that before, particularly when I'm stressed, but it's definitely short vol and it's It's a good thing to do.
Practicing an instrument every day for 30 minutes, that's definitely long ball, but I don't know any musical instruments, so that's not something I do.
Order delivery 5 nights a week, that's short ball. I think I maybe use DoorDash maybe twice in my entire life.
Saying the unpopular but true thing in the meeting, long. I mean, that's what my whole YouTube channel is, saying the unpopular but true thing except in front of thousand tens of thousands of people.
Treating sports betting as a weekly hobby, that's definitely short ball, but I don't really sports bet.
Asking a raise with a written case, I'm self-employed, so I don't really ask for raises anymore. I mean, but I did do that when I was working at a big company, so long ball.
Smoking, that's definitely short ball, but I don't really smoke.
Writing one essay a month and posting under your name, I long, I do that, that's my Substack. If you want to check out my Substack, it's called Nick's Present Value, and there'll be a link into the pinned comment in the description.
Watching algorithmically served until 1:00 a.m., I've done that before, and I'm not really so I but it's definitely short ball behavior.
Volunteering for the difficult invisible project, that is a long ball behavior. I mean, I have done volunteering occasionally, but it's not really something that I do very much, so I'm not going to check the box.
Driving everywhere in a 2-mile radius, I try to walk if the street isn't too busy and it's within like a 1-mile radius. But if it's 1 to 2 miles, especially cuz where I live, it's not a very walkable neighborhood, I will drive cuz there's a lot of highways and things like and very busy streets. But if I lived in a more walkable place like in my community or other city, I'd walk everywhere. But yeah, that's definitely a short ball.
Like, overall, I score—I mean, I'd—I'd eight and three. Like, I'm a 73% right tail balanced. I have some leakage. There's stuff I can improve. It might even be two to one. But, like in general I have a more of long ball orientation. And this quiz is like a good example to kind of see like where you're at like with some like everyday decisions that you may not really necessarily be thinking about.
So, overall, what do you think about unprol.com? And is this a—I think it's a good primer to kind of get yourself thinking about again, the things of prole. Are your decisions if infinitely scalable would be good for society or not? And do you have personal agency and belief that what you're doing actually will control and improve your destiny? I think those are the good starting points. If you can get that kind of mentality down, you won't really even have to think. It'll become just automatic that you'll start having a more anti-prole behaviors and up class just the way that you navigate the world.
Let me know if you have any questions. And if you'd like me to do something similar for the community or the society or make a separate video for this thesaurus of cope. I'd like to thank Christian Boyle who made this website. It's really kind of going to help people all over the world unprol. Thank you guys all for watching.