Dr. Devon Price unpacks “the laziness lie,” how AI and “bullshit jobs” distort work and higher ed, and why centering human needs—not output—leads to saner lives.

Guest bio: Devon Price, PhD, is a Clinical Associate Professor of Psychology at Loyola University Chicago, a social psychologist, & writer. Prof Price is the author of Laziness Does Not Exist, Unmasking Autism, and Unlearning Shame, focusing on burnout, neurodiversity, and work culture.

Topics discussed:

• The laziness lie: origins and three core tenets
• AI’s effects on output pressure, layoffs, and disposability
• Overlap with David Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs and status hierarchies
• Adjunctification and incentives in academia
• Demographic cliff and the sales-ification of universities
• Career choices in an AI era: minimize debt and stay flexible
• Remote work’s productivity spike and boundary erosion
• Burnout as a signal to rebuild values around care and community
• Gap years, social welfare, and redefining “good jobs”
• Practicing compassion toward marginalized people labeled “lazy”

Main points:

• The laziness lie equates worth with productivity, distrusts needs/limits, and insists there’s always more to do, fueling self-neglect and stigma.
• Efficiency gains from tech and AI are converted into higher expectations rather than rest or shorter hours.
• Many high-status roles maintain hierarchy more than they create real value; resentment often targets meaningful, low-paid work.
• U.S. higher ed relies on precarious adjunct labor while admin layers swell, shifting from education to a jobs-sales funnel.
• In a volatile market, avoid debt, build broad human skills, and choose adaptable paths over brittle credentials.
• Remote work raised output but erased boundaries; creativity requires rest and unstructured time.
• Burnout is the body’s refusal of exploitation; recovery means reprioritizing relationships, art, community, and self-care.
• A humane society would channel tech gains into shorter hours and better care work and infrastructure.
• Revalue baristas, caregivers, teachers, and artists as vital contributors.
• Everyday practice: show compassion—especially to those our culture labels “lazy.”

Top three quotes:

• “What burnout really is, is the body refusing to be exploited anymore.” — Devon Price
• “Efficiency never gets rewarded; it just ratchets up the expectations.” — Devon Price
• “What is the point of AI streamlining work if we punish humans for not being needed?” — Devon Price

🎙 The Pod is hosted by Jesse Wright
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Dr. Joseph Crawford unpacks how AI is reshaping higher education - eroding student belonging, redefining assessment in a post-plagiarism era, and raising the stakes for soft skills.

Guest bio
Dr. Joseph “Joey” Crawford is a Senior Lecturer in Management at the University of Tasmania and ranks among the top 1% of most-cited researchers globally. His work centers on leadership, student belonging, and the role of AI in higher education, and he serves as Editor-in-Chief of a leading education journal.

Topics discussed

• AI in higher education and the “post-plagiarism” era
• Student belonging, loneliness, and mental health impacts
• Massification of education (8% → 30% → 50.2% participation)
• Programmatic assessment vs. essays/exams
• COVID-19’s lasting effects on campus culture and learning
• Recorded lectures, flipped learning, and in-person tradeoffs
• Soft skills, leadership education, and employability
• Academic integrity, peer review, and AI misuse by faculty
• Labor shortages, graduate readiness, and industry pathways
• Social anxiety, AI “friendship,” and GPA outcomes

Main points & takeaways

• AI substitutes human support: Heavy chatbot use can provide a sense of social support but correlates with lower belonging and reduced GPA compared to human connections.
• Belonging matters: Human social support predicts higher well-being and better academic performance; AI support does not translate into belonging.
• Post-plagiarism reality: Traditional lecture-plus-essay or multiple-choice assessment is increasingly unreliable for verifying authorship.
• Assessment is shifting: Universities are exploring programmatic assessment—fewer, higher-stakes integrity checks across a degree instead of every course.
• Massification pressures quality: Participation in Australia rose from 8% (1989) to 30% (2020) to 50.2% (2021), straining rigor and prompting curriculum simplification and grade inflation.
• COVID + ChatGPT = double shock: Online habits and interaction anxiety from the pandemic compounded with AI convenience, reducing peer-to-peer engagement.
• Less face time: Many business courses dropped live lectures; students are now ~2 hours less in-class per subject, raising the bar for workshops to build soft skills.
• Workforce mismatch: Employers want communication and leadership; graduates often lack mastery because entry-level “practice” tasks are automated.
• Faculty risks too: Using AI to draft peer reviews can embed weak scholarship into training corpora and distort future models.
• Pragmatic advice: Don’t fear AI—use it—but replace lost micro-interactions with real people and deliberately practice human skills (e.g., leadership, psychology).

Top quotes

• “We’re in a post-plagiarism world where knowing who wrote what is a real challenge.”
• “Some students are replacing librarians, peers, and support staff with bots—they’re fast, infinitely friendly, and never judge.”
• “AI social support doesn’t create belonging—and that shows up in grades.”
• “The lecture isn’t gone, but in many programs it’s recorded—and students now get less in-person time.”
• “Don’t substitute AI-created efficiency with more work—substitute it with more people.”

🎙 The Pod is hosted by Jesse Wright
💬 For guest suggestions, questions, or media inquiries, reach out at https://elpodcast.media/
📬 Never miss an episode – subscribe and follow wherever you get your podcasts.
⭐️ If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review the show. It helps others find us.

Thanks for listening!

Author Eric Weiner argues that happiness depends less on wealth or location than on relationships, meaning, trust, and realistic expectations—while tech and social media often push the other way.

Guest bio:
Eric Weiner is a bestselling author and former NPR foreign correspondent whose books include The Geography of Bliss, The Geography of Genius, The Socrates Express, and Ben and Me. He writes about place, meaning, creativity, and how to live well.

Topics discussed:

• The “where” of happiness vs. the “what/who”
• Nordic stability in the World Happiness Report
• Moldova as a control case for unhappiness
• Relationships as the core driver of well-being
• Social media, AI, and the erosion of meaning/trust
• Money, inequality, and the Easterlin paradox
• U-shaped curve and Gen Z’s flattening
• Travel as transformation (place as permission)
• Gross National Happiness (Bhutan) vs. GDP
• Expectations as the enemy of happiness

Main points:

• Relationships matter most: “other people” are the two-word secret.
• Money helps only to a modest threshold; then diminishing returns.
• Inequality alone doesn’t predict happiness; trust does.
• Tech/social media amplify envy and faux-connection, sapping meaning.
• AI optimizes “good enough,” not creative leaps; it can erode trust.
• Gen Z shows worrying dips in meaning/connection post-2015 + pandemic.
• Travel reframes perspective; you can’t outrun yourself.
• Focus on process over outcomes; detach effort from results.

Top quotes:

• “If I had to sum up the secret to happiness in two words: other people.”
• “Expectations are the enemy of happiness—invest 100% in effort, 0% in results.”
• “AI is dangerously seductive because it’s good enough—but creative leaps don’t come from averages.”
• “Social media are envy-generating machines.”
• “Trust is the hidden variable of happy societies.”
• “Technology promises time, but unstructured time doesn’t make us happier—meaning does.”

Data points mentioned:

• U-shaped happiness across life; Gen Z may be an exception (smartphone ubiquity + pandemic).
• U.S. trust reversal: ~1960s ≈ two-thirds said “most people can be trusted”; recent polls ≈ two-thirds say the opposite.
• Easterlin paradox: happiness rises with income only up to a point.
• Gen Z snapshots (Harvard/Baylor cited in convo): ~58% lack meaning; ~56% financial concern; ~45% “things falling apart”; ~34% lonely.

🎙 The Pod is hosted by Jesse Wright
💬 For guest suggestions, questions, or media inquiries, reach out at https://elpodcast.media/
📬 Never miss an episode – subscribe and follow wherever you get your podcasts.
⭐️ If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review the show. It helps others find us.

Thanks for listening!