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This Video Is Actually Three Videos

2022-02-01 · letter vlog · John · 4:00 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Economics (also: Everyday life, Personal life) · mode: Personal essay · tags: heavy topic

John approaches costs and benefits three ways: a Kenneth Koch poem on life's trade-offs, the US penny as a rare cost with no benefit that makes hating it easy, and his OCD medication, which works but has cost him the ability to cry; a cost does not negate a benefit, and treating life like pennies doesn't work.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Poetic: Kenneth Koch's poem on trade-offs; choices are a fact of being alive, for individuals and societies

  • ★★ John recalls a Kenneth Koch poem, introduced to him over 20 years ago by his late friend Amy Krouse Rosenthal, saying that of a social life, love and hard work you may have only two. — 00:00:00
  • ★★★ John used to think considering such trade-offs was laziness, but time with family is time not spent working; for the fortunate, these choices are not laziness but a fact of being alive. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ John says society makes such choices too: the 40-hour work week and a school year with eight weeks of summer vacation each have costs and benefits. — 00:00:37

00:01:07 — Political: the US penny as a cost with no benefit, and why important issues are never that simple

  • ★★★ John says that if he thinks he transcends cost-benefit analysis by doing it all, he is still making choices, just unconscious ones. — 00:01:07
  • ★★★ John still very much hates the US penny, as in his video eleven years ago: money exists to store value and facilitate exchange, and pennies do neither. — 00:01:07 · United States
  • ★★★ John says each penny costs the US Mint almost two cents to make, so pennies are worth much less than nothing. — 00:01:07 · United States
  • ★★ John calls arguments that ending the penny would raise inflation provably false: many countries dropped similar coins without problems, including the US, which dropped the half-cent when worth almost 30 of today's cents. — 00:01:36 · United States
  • ★★★ John says one reason he hates pennies is that it is simple: the penny is a rare cost with little or no benefit, and part of him craves such straightforward outrages, which flourish online in memes and short videos. — 00:01:36
  • ★★★ John says the most important issues, from monetary policy to expanding healthcare access, cannot be boiled down to a lot of benefit at no cost; pennies are ridiculous but easy, important things are neither. — 00:02:05

00:02:34 — Personal: pandemic cost-benefit, John's OCD medication and losing the ability to cry; summary

  • ★★ John has been thinking about cost-benefit analyses partly because the pandemic demands a constant, exhausting stream of personal and societal ones. — 00:02:34 · COVID-19 pandemic
  • ★★★ Several months ago John started a new medication for his OCD that has been very effective: he no longer loses hours to obsessive worry or compulsions or feels gripped by dread. — 00:02:34
  • ★★★ A downside: John, a lifelong crier for whom crying is part of who he is, has completely lost the ability to cry in recent months, which he dislikes because he values the full range of emotions. — 00:03:09
  • ★★ John says that for him the medication's benefits far outweigh its costs, but he has to acknowledge the costs. — 00:03:09

  • ★★★ John concludes that a cost does not negate a benefit: pennies are simple, life is complicated, and treating life like pennies doesn't work, for him personally and, he thinks, for society. — 00:03:38

    “pennies are simple, and life is complicated, and treating life like pennies doesn't work”

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: Abolish the US penny · cost-benefit analysis · obsessive-compulsive disorder · opportunity cost · You Want a Social Life with Friends

Also: Amy Krouse Rosenthal · COVID-19 pandemic · inflation · Monetary policy · United States · United States Mint · universal health care

Only in the description or credits: Kenneth Koch

Also centred on Abolish the US penny: The End of The Penny (and of Congress??)

Also centred on obsessive-compulsive disorder: On Mental Illness (and the end of Pizzamas) · What OCD Is Like (for Me) · The Rax Guy · Not Doing That Great · I've Been Pooping All Wrong

Also centred on opportunity cost: A Video about Videos · Why Can't America Have a Grown-Up Healthcare Conversation? · How to Make Goals, Not Resolutions · Let's Try Radiation Therapy!

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