Carter

Yeah, I mean, I can be. I'm close. We're, like, sort of seeing each other.

I couldn't tell.

So at that party, when we met three years ago, Eric and you met, but I also met you that day. And ever since then, every time I see you, I want to hang out with you and be with you. And I just got so excited that this might be my opportunity and I'm scared that I screwed it up, but maybe we can go on one date and see if I can't put this back together.

Well, it kind of pisses me off about the Rick thing.

Yeah, yeah, I can do that.

Yeah, what kind of friend is Rick to Eric asking her out like immediately? I waited at least a day.

I feel really guilty, honestly. Oh, even. Yeah. Even doing this. But it's like it's something that's eaten, eaten away at me. And I hope you guys can help.

It gets better. OK, so have any of you ever had like a crush on your friend's significant other?

no I thought one was attracted to me but I never ever had I don't know about friends if you say co-workers you might have a weird answer from Brooke I do not have a crush on you Jeffrey okay that's a messy situation though yeah I mean I have a friend Eric you know we're not like best friends okay you know we don't really we don't hang out one-on-one we've known each other for a long time we dapped last week if that means anything what did you do

Yeah, you know, you have like, we have a handshake. Handshake.

Yeah, yeah. He's one of the groups. Yeah, yeah. Gotcha.

His girlfriend, Maya... I'm head over heels for her.

Yeah, it's crazy.

Well, it's the crazy part is we all met. Like, I met her at the same party the same time three years ago, and he beat me to the punch, basically. Oh. And it was just like, oh, my God. So then I have to see her whenever the friends get together and stuff. Brutal.

Way deepened. Yeah. Oh. I am smitten. Oh, man. Those are strong words. And here we are a few weeks ago. Guess what?

No, they broke up.

I know. I know. It's great news, but it's also terrifying news because this is why I'm calling you guys. I don't know. I mean, I'm going to try to do something, but I wanted to know what you guys think about what I was thinking I should do is talk to Maya first and just see if there's interest because maybe we don't even have to get Eric involved. I'm kind of... I don't like confrontation.

And, you know, I'm not great talking to females or males.

I don't know much about it. I know that happened. That's a good question, actually. Does that make a difference?

That's what I was thinking. That's exactly what my thoughts were. If there's no reason to get Eric involved, if this 100% isn't going to happen, then that'd be good to know.

Yeah, that's the thing that's crazy is that there's been so many group settings where we've ended up just in a corner talking to each other. Anything more than that?

No, no, no, no. We've never done anything. But I tell you, like, Eric will be off doing a cake stand or something, and we're off talking together. So it's like, it seems like there's some flirtation.

Romantic dapping?

I've never dapped with Maya. Nope. No? No dap. It's probably good.

You're right. Yeah.

You want me to answer that honestly? No, please. Oh, gosh. Not while he was sleeping. Oh, okay.

Hello? Hey, Maya. Hey, it's Carter. Hey, what's up?

I'm good. Yeah, how are you doing?

I don't know. Hey, you remember, it was a long time ago. You remember that party, that party we all went to? I think it was about three years ago. We were by the plants. We talked for a while.

Uh, it was, it was, uh, it was the one at the, the, at the girl, the girl's house. Uh, what was the name? Um, uh, Emily, Natalie, Katie, Katie. Uh, it was something like really basic name. Um, you know what I'm talking about? So three years ago.

I, that was too, I mean, it was, I was, I was just, I was just thinking about you a lot after that party. Um, you know, cause I remember that, that night you were wearing that dress and you look great. You look so great that night. And, um, I don't know, you know, I don't know if I ever told you that I was thinking, I didn't, I didn't tell you that. I didn't tell you that. Thank you. Anyway.

I mean, yeah. So, You know, I guess I heard about you and Eric. I'm sorry. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it just means you're single now, right?

Cool. I mean, it's not cool, too. There's some cool stuff and some not cool stuff about it. Yeah. This might sound sort of, I don't know, like, quick. Maybe it's not. Maybe it's not that quick. Maybe it's out of the blue or something. I don't know. I'm just trying to gauge, like, okay, so how much, I don't know, how much is there? Maybe there's some interest. Maybe there's not interest.

But, like, is there interest going on, you know, here?

Like, I'm just feeling things out with my antennas.

I don't know. That's a good question.

No, I wouldn't. No, I wouldn't say we're good friends. I mean, I, you know, I kind of hate him, too. Like, you probably hate him now, too. I mean, we both kind of hate him, you know?

Yeah, me neither. I feel exactly the same way you do about him. I mean, probably, like, you know, like, medium, like, not super hate, but, like, it's like, I don't know, it kind of goes up and down sometimes. I'm like, oh, man, I hate that guy. Hold on, hold on, hold on.

I mean, I could get single pretty quickly.

I will say there's certain socialization issues that come with people that are in prison that come from the social system at which they inhabit. But also I think it comes from a deprivement of material conditions that leads prisoners to act the way they do. But hold on.

But you're containing movement. You're containing movement. You're containing actions. You're not allowing true independence.

Can everyone hear me okay? All right. My name is Carter. It's a pleasure to speak with you, Charlie. Just a baseline question before I get into the real thing. You take a very libertarian take on the political economy, correct? So no government intervention in the economy at all? No. Okay. That's not my view. What are your critiques of nationalization?

I think it's just as flawed a system as anyone. Then tell me what you are. I want to take more of a mixed market approach here, specifically for necessities. I think when you're dealing with necessities in the private market, it creates perverse incentives to make worse quality commodities than under a nationalized system. It can. So give me an example of the best example you have for that.

So food, I think RFK has recently said we're having a health crisis. I think that's largely due to the profit motive, motivating companies to put poor quality ingredients into our food, which is leading to the crisis we're having right now.

Yeah, so even under a purely capitalist system where we have multiple competitors, how do you prevent without government intervention the cartelization of corporations? That's a good question.

Does that make sense? Yeah, but I wouldn't necessarily say that it's – I think the fact that we are subsidizing private companies is the issue in itself, and because we are subsidizing private companies, it allows us to extract more value out of the government than if we just nationalize the system.

If you look at Scandinavian countries, they have a largely nationalized medical system, and the government pays less for drugs as well as citizens living in that country, and they have higher quality of life. Yeah, so... Wait times are also comparable to America.

But yeah, I mean, I'm just saying from my perspective.

So I think – we know from studies on babies that greed is largely a learned trait. When you give two children the same toy, one will eventually like – or if you give two children this – basically there's a study on babies. I'm blanking on the exact procedure. But basically it kind of showed that greed is a learned trait within children. And I think that stems under capitalism that –

Greed necessarily creates the negative self-interested idea that we have of humanity where if we nationalize a system that removes the profit motive, we do not have those perverse incentives.