Welcome to Cloudlandia Ep159: Unlocking the Future of Learning
In this episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, we explore the shifting landscape of expertise in the digital age. Our discussion starts by examining the sheer volume of digital content and how it challenges traditional learning and expertise. With AI playing a significant role, we consider how this technology might disrupt long-established institutions like universities, allowing individuals to gain expertise in new ways.
We then take a historical journey back to the invention of the printing press, drawing parallels between past and present innovations. Using AI tools like ChatGPT, we uncover details about Gutenberg's early legal challenges, showcasing how AI can offer new insights into historical events. This approach highlights how asking the right questions can transform previously unknown areas into fields of expertise.
Next, we discuss the changing role of creativity in an AI-driven world. AI democratizes access to information, enabling more people to create and innovate without needing institutional support. We emphasize that while AI makes information readily available, the challenge of capturing attention remains. By using AI creatively, we can enhance our understanding and potentially redefine what it means to be an expert.
Finally, we consider the impact of rapid technological advancements on daily life. With AI making expertise more accessible, we reflect on its implications for traditional expert roles. From home renovation advice to navigating tech mishaps, AI is reshaping how we approach problems and solutions. Through these discussions, we gain a fresh perspective on the evolving landscape of expertise and innovation.
SHOW HIGHLIGHTS
Links:
WelcomeToCloudlandia.com
StrategicCoach.com
DeanJackson.com
ListingAgentLifestyle.com
TRANSCRIPT
(AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors)
Dean: Mr Sullivan.
Dan: But who's going to listen to all the transcriptions? That's what I want to know. Who's going to read them yeah, but what are they going to do with them? I don't know, I think it's going to confuse them actually.
Dean: They're on to us. They're on to us. They're on to us and we're on to them.
Dan: Yeah but it's a problem. You know, after a while, when you've overheard or listened to 3 million different podcasts, what are you doing with it? I know, is it going anywhere? Is it producing any results? You know, I just don't know that's really.
Dean: It's funny that you say that right. Like there's, I and you have thousands of hours of recorded content in all of the podcasts. Like between you know, podcasting is your love language. How many five or seven podcasts going on at all time. And I've got quite a few myself.
Dan: I have eight series.
Dean: You've got eight series going on regularly 160 a year times, probably 13 years. Yeah, exactly.
Dan: Let's say but there's 1,600. Let's say there's 1,600 and it adds up.
Dean: Let's call that. We each have thousands of hours of on the record, on the record, on your permanent record in there. Yeah, because so many people have said uh you know, you think about how much people uh talk, you think about how much people talk without there being any record of it. So that body of work. I've really been trying to come to terms with this mountain of content that's being added to every day. Like it was really kind of startling and I think I mentioned it a few episodes ago that the right now, even just on YouTube, 500 hours a minute uploaded to YouTube into piling onto a mountain of over a billion available hours.
Dan: It's more than you can. It's really more than you can get to.
Dean: And that's when you put it in the context of you know, a billion. I heard somebody talk about. The difference between a million and a billion is that if you had,1 a second each second, for if you ran out, if you're spending that $1 a second, you would run out if you had a million dollars in 11 and a half days, or something like that and if you had a?
billion dollars, it would be 30 be 11 000, 32 years, and so you think about if you've got a million hours of content it would take you know it's so long to consume it.
Dan: You know it's funny. I was thinking about that because you know there's a conflict between the US government and Harvard University. I don't know if you follow this at all. No, government and Harvard University. I don't know if you follow this at all. Because no? Yeah, because they get about. You know they get I don't know the exact number, but it's in the billions of dollars every year from the US government, harvard does you know? Harvard does you?
know, and and. But they, you know they've got some political, the DEI diversity, and the US basically is saying if you're, if you have a DEI program which favors one race over another, we're not going to give. We're not going to give you any more money, we're just not going to give you any more money. I mean unless it's if you favor one racial group over another, you don't get the. You don't get US tax money. So they were saying that Harvard has $53 billion endowment.
And people say, well, they can live off their endowment, but actually, when you look more closely at it, they can't, because that endowment is gifts from individuals, but it's got a specific purpose for every. It's not a general fund, it's not like you know.
We're giving you a billion dollars and you can spend it any way you want Actually it's very highly specified so they can't actually run their annual costs by taking, you know, taking a percentage, I think their annual cost is seven or eight billion dollars to run the whole place billion to run the whole place. So if the US government were to take away all their funding in eight, years they would go bankrupt.
The college would go, the university would just go bankrupt, and my sense is that Trump is up to that. The president who took down Harvard. The president who took down Harvard. It wouldn't get you on Mount Rushmore, but there's probably as many people for it as there are against it.
Dean: Well, you never know, by the end it might be Mount Trump. We've already got the gulf of america who named it?
Dan: anyway, yeah it's so, it's, yeah, it's so funny because, um you know, this was a religious college at one time.
You know, harvard, harvard college was once you know, I I'm not sure entirely which religion it was, but it was a college. But it's really interesting, these institutions who become. You say, well, you know they're just permanent, you know there will never be. But you know, if a college like a university, which probably, if you took all the universities in the world and said which is the most famous, which is the most prominent, harvard would you know, along with Cambridge and Oxford, would probably be probably be up and you know what's going to take it down.
It is not a president of the United States, but I think AI might take down these universities. I'm thinking more and more, and it has to do with being an expert. You know, like Harvard probably has a reputation because it has over, you know, 100 years, anyway has hundreds of experts, and my sense is that anybody with an AI program that goes deep with a subject and keeps using AI starts acquiring a kind of an expertise which is kind of remarkable, kind of an expertise which is kind of remarkable.
You know, like I'm, I'm beginning that expert expertise as we've known it before november of 2022 is probably an ancient artifact, and I think that that being an expert like that is going to be known as an expert, is probably going to disappear within the next 20 years. I would say 20 years from now 2045,. The whole notion of expert is going to disappear.
Dean: What do you? Think I mean you think, I think yeah, I have been thinking about this a lot.
Dan: You'll always be the expert. You'll always be the expert of the nine-word email. That's true, forever, I mean on the. Mount Rushmore of great marketing breakthroughs. Your visage will be featured prominently. That's great. I've cemented my place in this prominently.
Dean: That's great. I've cemented my place. Yeah, that's right. Part of that is, I think, dan, that what I am concerned about.
Dan: That would be the highest mountain in Florida, that's right, oh, that's right. Oh, that's funny, you'd have to look at it from above.
Dean: That's right. The thing that I see, though, is exactly that that nobody is doing the work. I think that everybody is kind of now assuming and riding on the iterations of what's already been known, because that's what that's really what AI is now the large? Language.
That's exactly it's taking everything we know so far, and it's almost like the intellectual equivalent of the guy who famously said at the patent office that everything that can be invented has been invented. Right, that's kind of that's what it feels like. Is that? Yeah, uh, that the people are not doing original work? I think it's going to become more and more rare that people are doing original thinking, because it's all iterative. It's so funny. We talk often, dan, about the difference between what I call books authorship that there's a difference between a book report and a field report is going to be perfect for creating and compiling and researching and creating work, organizing all the known knowledge into a narrative kind of thing. You can create a unique narrative out of what's already known, but the body of creating field reports where people are forging new ground or breaking new territory, that's I think it's going to be out of.
Dan: I think we're moving out of that, I'm going to give you a project. Okay, I'm going to give you a project to see if you still think this is true, and you're going to use Charlotte as a project manager. You're going to use Charlotte your. Ai project manager and you ask it a question tell me ten things about a subject, okay, and that's your, that's your baseline. It could be anything you want and then ask it ten consecutive questions that occur to you as it, and I had that by the 10th, 10th question.
Dean: You've created something brand new hmm, and Then so ask so if I say Tell me, charlie, tell me 10 things about this particular topic. Okay, let's do it, let's, let's create this life. So okay, if I say, charlotte, tell me 10 things about the 25 years after Gutenberg released the press, what were the top 10 things that you can tell me about that period of time?
Dan: Yeah. Okay, and then Charlotte gets back to you and gives you a thing, and then it occurs to you. Now here's where it gets unpredictable, because I don't know what your first question is going to be when that comes back.
Dean: Yeah, so what would the Okay?
Dan: and then Charlotte goes out and answers, charlotte gets the answer to that question and then you have another question, but I can't predict. So you're going to have 10 unpredictable questions in a row and you can't predict what those 10 questions are because you don't even know what the first one is until Charlotte gets back with information and I'm saying, by the time you've asked, you've gotten your answer to the 10th question. You've created an entirely new body of knowledge that nobody in history has ever created.
Dean: That's interesting, right? Yeah, you know. That's so funny that you know there was a comedian, george Carlin, in the 70s and 80s, I know George.
George Carlin had a very famous bit where he was talking about words and how we all use the same words and you would think that everything that people say, well, everything has already been said. But, ladies and and gentlemen, you're going to hear things tonight that have never been spoken in the history of the world. We're breaking, we're making history tonight. He said, for instance, nobody has ever said hey, mary, as soon as I finish shoving this hot poker in my eye, I'm gonna go grill up some steaks. He said you just witnessed history tonight, right here.
Dan: Yeah yeah, that's funny, right yeah yeah, yeah and uh, you have the explanation for a lot of foolish things that people do.
Dean: Exactly.
Dan: And I think that's that all the things have been created in the history of the world are a very, very small percentage of what is going to be created.
Dean: This is interesting. So while we were talking I just typed into chat GPT. We're going to create history right here on the podcast.
Dan:So I just said.
Dean: What are 10 things that happened in the first 25 years after Gutenberg released the printing press and she typed back. Here are 10 key things that happened in the first 25 years, roughly 1450 to 1475. Number one the Gutenberg Bible was printed and she describes that the 42-line Bible became the first major book printed using movable type. Two, printing spread to other cities. Within a decade. Printing presses began appearing outside mains, starting with Strasbourg, cologne and Venice. By 1475, over a dozen European cities had active presses.
Then, number three Johann First sues Gutenberg. First, who had financially backed Gutenberg sued him and won control of his equipment. Fust and Gutenberg's assistant went on to become successful printers in Mainz, the first printed Psalter, whatever, p-s-a-l-t-e-r in Latin, the first book to bear a printed date and a printer's mark. That's interesting. So the property, the first kind of copyright, I guess right. Or the first printer's mark and the first color initials. Emergence of the print Trade was another one Printed Law and Medical Texts, latin Grammar by Donatus D-O-N-A-T-U-S. Mass produced in the 1460s. The first printed Greek and Hebrew. First books using Greek were typed print in 1476. Printing in Italy begins and the rise of the Incanobula era, the Enoch group was well underway.
Dan: Yeah, Now ask a question about that number 10.
Dean: Yeah, so that's interesting. So if I said what happened with the lawsuit, yeah, what happened with the Fust lawsuit?
Dan: Yeah, now here's the thing Now, here's the thing that until you got the answers back from the first prompt from the first query. You had no idea what your next question was going to be. Right, because I didn't know, and so this is almost like a didn't know, and so this is almost like a uh and what I'm saying. If you tracked, if you were to do this, you know, after our, maybe during, maybe during our podcast, but uh, certainly after you know, let's say, by five o'clock this afternoon you would, you would ask 10 questions that's an original, that's an original body of knowledge.
That no one else previous to you has put together.
Dean: Wow, so the lawsuit? So Gutenberg? It went in detail about Gutenberg's partnership with John.
Dan: Tell me 10 things about the lawsuit.
Dean: Yeah, well, that's what essentially she's done here. Yeah, the lawsuit was filed five years later, 1450. Gutenberg needed funding to develop his movable pipe. He borrowed 1,600 guilders a significant sum a wealthy financier. The loan was formalized as a business agreement Fust would invest and Gutenberg would develop the technology and handle production. Lawsuit filed in 1455. 1455, after several years, fust sued Gutenberg, claiming misuse of funds and lack of returns. The outcome the court ruled in favor of Fust. Gutenberg lost control of his printing equipment. First, fust partnered with Gutenberg's former assistant, peter Schofer, and the two continued printing successfully. Fust and Schofer became one of the first successful commercial printing firms in Europe. Gutenberg, though innovator and inventor, died in relative obscurity and financial hardship in 1468. The lawsuit reflects the tension between innovation and commercialization. Gutenberg had the vision, but Fust had the capital and, eventually, the press. Let me know if you want a dramatized version of the court case.
It's got all the ingredients money betrayal and world changing technology oh my goodness yeah yeah, yeah, and you know, and, and so what I'm thinking here?
Dan: is that by the end of the five o'clock this afternoon, let's say you follow through on this. You're a great. You're a greater expert on this particular subject than has ever lived.
Dean: Yeah, Dan, you just that. It's almost like doing a triple play. I mean, yeah, it's three layers deep or whatever. Right, or yeah, or whatever you know, but just the layers.
Dan: But it's all original because no one could possibly duplicate separate from you. Like today somebody's out there and they're duplicating, and they're duplicating the first 10 answers, the second 10 answers, the third 10 answers. Nobody could possibly duplicate that, you know.
Dean: Because, it's up to me what the follow-up questions are.
Dan: Yeah, and it doesn't occur to you until you're presented with the say oh that's a really interesting thing, but nobody else could. Possibly. They might follow you on one thing, but they wouldn't follow you on two things. And each further step towards 10 questions, it's just impossible to know what someone else would do, and my statement is that that represents complete originality and it also, by the end of it, it represents complete um expertise that was done in a period. That was done in a period of about five or six hours yeah I mean, that's what we were doing it.
Dean: I said, yes, that would be fun. Please do that. She created this, dramatized the People vs Johannes Gutenberg, and it was called the. Trial of the Century Act.
Dan:One the Pack.
Dean: A candlelit workshop in Maine. The smell of ink and ambition fills the air I mean this is ridiculous. And then at the end, so outline the thing. And then it says, uh, would you like this adapted into a short stage play script or animated storyboard? Next I said, let's. So I think this would be funny to do it. Please do a stage play in Shakespearean pentameter or whatever. What do you call it?
Dan: What's that?
Dean: What's the style of Shakespeare in Shakespearean? How do you call that? Well, it's a play, yeah, yeah, but I mean, what's the phrasing called in Shakespearean?
Dan: Oh, you mean the language.
Dean: Yeah, yeah, yeah, the language structure.
Dan: Yeah, yeah, iambic pentameter In Shakespearean.
Dean: I'm going to say Shakespearean pentameter yeah.
Dan: Pentameter is 10 syllables Da-da, da-da, da-da, da-da, da-da. That's the Shakespearean. He didn't create it. It was just a style of the day, but he got good at it.
Dean: Damn, I am big, oh man so the opening scene is, to wit, a man of trade, johan by name, doth bring forth charge against one, johannes G, that he, with borrowed coin, did break his bond and spend the gold on ventures not agreed I mean yes, there you go completely, completely original, completely original. Oh, dan you, just now. This is the amazing thing is that we could take this script and create a video like using Shakespearean you know, costumed actors with British accents?
Dan: Oh they'd have to be British, they'd have to be. British.
Dean: Oh man, this is amazing. I think you're on to something here.
Dan: My feeling is that what we've known as expertise up until now will just fade away, that anybody who's interested in anything will be an original expert. Yeah, and that this whole topic came about because that's been the preserve of higher education, and my sense is that higher education as we've known it in 20 years will disappear. Sense is that higher education as we've known it in 20 years will disappear yeah, what we're going to have is deeper education, and it'll just be.
Individuals with a relationship with ai will go deeper and deeper and deeper, and they can go endlessly deep because of the large language models.
Dean: Oh, this is I mean, yeah, this is amazing, dan, it's really so. I look at it that where I've really been thinking a lot about this distinction that I mentioned a few episodes ago about capability and ability, episodes ago about capability and ability, that, mm-hmm, you know this is that AI is a capability that everybody has equal access to. The capability of AI yep, but it's the ability of what to how to direct that that is going to.
Dan: That's where the origins, because in the us, uh, at least over the last 40 or 50 years, higher education has been associated with the um, the political left. Uh, the um um, you know, it's the left left of the democratic party, basically in can Canada it's basically the Liberals and the NDP. And the interesting thing is that the political left, because they're not very good at earning a living in a normal way, have earned a living by taking over institutions like the university, communications media, government bureaucracies, government bureaucracies corporate bureaucracies, culture you know culture, theater, you know literature, movies they've taken over all that you know, literature, movies, they've taken over all that, but it's been based on a notion of expertise.
It's um that these are the people who know things and uh and uh and, of course, um. But my feeling is that what's happening very quickly, and it's as big a revolution as gutenberg, and I mean you can say he lost the court, but we don't remember the people who beat him. We remember Gutenberg because he was the innovator. You know, I mean, did you know those names before?
Dean: No I never heard of the two people and. I never heard of the lawsuit. You know it's interesting right, yeah, yeah.
Dan: And it probably won't go between our country. It won't go further than our right right today, but gutenberg is well known because somebody had to be known for it and he, he ended up being the person. And my sense, my sense, is that you're having a lot of really weird things happening politically. Right now I'm just watching the states. For example, this guy, who's essentially a communist, won the Democratic primary to become mayor of New York.
Dean: I saw that Ma'am Donnie.
Dan: And he's a complete idiot. I mean, he's just a total wacko idiot. But he won and the reason is that that whole way of living, that whole expertise way of living, of knowing theories and everything, is disappearing. It's going to disappear in the next 20 years. There's just going to be new things you can do with ai. That's, that's all there's going to exist. 20 years from now and uh, and nobody can be the gatekeeper to this, nobody can say well you can't do that with ai.
Anybody can do it with ai and um and you. There's going to be people who do something and it just becomes very popular. You know and there's no predicting beforehand who the someone or the something is going to be. That becomes really popular. But it's not going to be controlled by experts.
Dean: Yeah.
Dan: I think. Ai is the end of expertise as we've known it.
Dean: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that's really I mean a little bit. I think that's been a big shift. I'd never thought about it like that. That that's where the if we just look at it as a capability, it's just an accelerator, in a way. Information prior to November 22, prior to chat, gpt all of this information was available in the world. You could have done deep dive research to find what they're accessing, to uncover the lawsuit and the. You know all of that, that stuff. But it would require very specialized knowledge of how to mine the internet for all of this stuff where to find it how to summarize it.
0:32:24 - Dan:
Well, not only that, but the funding of it would have been really hard you know you'd have to fund somebody's time, somebody who would give you know their total commitment to they, would give their total attention to a subject for 10 years you know, and they'd probably have to be in some sort of institution that would have to be funded to do this and you know it would require an enormous amount of connection, patronage and everything to get somebody to do this.
And now somebody with AI can do it really really cheaply. I mean, you know, really really quickly, really cheaply. I mean you know really really quickly, really cheaply and wouldn't have to suck up.
Dean: Yeah. I mean this is wild, this is just crazy.
Dan: Yeah, that sounds like a yeah, you should take that at a level higher. That sounds like an interesting play.
Dean: I mean, it's really, it is. I've just, my eyes have been opened in a way.
Dan: Now, now. Now have somebody you know. Just ask them to do it in a Shakespearean British accent, right. Just ask someone to do it. I bet.
Dean: Yeah.
Dan: I bet it'll be really interesting. Like that's what I think now is there would be.
Dean: the thing is you could literally go to Eleven Labs and have the voice having a, you know, having British Shakespearean dramatic actors. Yeah, read, create a radio play of this.
Dan: Yeah, so I go back to my little quarterly book, the Geometry of Staying Cool and Calm, which was about a year and a half ago. And I said there's three rules Number one everything's made up. Does this check? Does that check? Everything's made up, yeah.
Dean: Did we just make that up this?
Dan: morning.
Dean: Yep.
Dan: Nobody's in charge.
Dean: Right.
Dan: Is anybody in charge?
Dean: Do we have to ask?
Dan: permission.
Dean: Yep, okay, and life's in charge. Right, is anybody in charge? Do we have to ask permission? Yep, okay.
Dan: And life's not fair.
Dean: Life's not fair.
Dan: Life's not fair, that's right. Why do we get to be able to do this and nobody else gets to be man? Life's not fair.
Dean: Uh-huh.
Dan: Wow.
Dean: It's a pretty big body of work available. I mean, that's now that you think about it. I was kind of looking at it as saying you know, I was worried that the creativity, or, you know, base creativity, is not going to be there, but this brings certainly the creativity into it. I think you're absolutely right, I've been swayed here today. Your Honor, yeah.
Dan: But you're still confronted with the basic constraint that attention is limited. We can do this, but it's enjoyable in its own. Whether anybody else thinks this is interesting or not doesn't really matter. We found it interesting yeah, yeah, in background.
Dean: Uh, you know, charlotte created a, uh, a playbill for this as well. She just kept asking follow-up would you like me to create a playbill I said. I said, can you design a cover of the play Bill? And it's like you know yeah, what's it called Well the Mainzer Stad Theater proudly presents. The Press Betrayed A Tragic History in One Act, being a True and Faithful Account of the Lawsuit that Shook the world.
Yeah, that's great I mean it's so amazing, right, that's like, that's just. Yeah, you're absolutely right, it's the creativity, I guess it's like if you think about it as a capability. It's like having a piano that's got 88 keys and your ability to tickle the ivories in a unique, unique way. Yeah, it's infinite, yeah, it's infinite yeah. And you're right that, nobody that that okay, I'm completely, I'm completely on board. That's a different perspective.
Dan: Yeah, and the. The interesting thing is the. I've just taken a look at the odds here, so you have, you start with 10 and if you did you continue down with 10, that makes it 100, that makes it a thousand, you know, it makes it 10, 000, 100, 000, a million. Uh, you know. And then it you start. And the interesting thing, those are the odds. At a certain point it's one in ten billion that anyone else could follow the trail that you just did.
You know, yeah, which makes it makes everything very unpredictable you know, it's just completely unpredictable, because yeah and original. Unpredictable and original yeah.
And I think that this becomes a huge force in the world that what are the structures that can tolerate or respond well to this level of unpredictability? I think it's. And then there's different economic systems. Some economic systems are better, some political systems are better, some cultural systems are better, and I've been thinking a lot about that. There was a big event that happened two days ago, and that is the US signed their first new trade agreement under Trump's. That is, the US signed their first new trade agreement under Trump's trade rules with Vietnam, which is really interesting, that Vietnam should be the first, and Vietnam is going to pay 20 percent tariff on everything that ships in. Everything that is shipped produced by Vietnam into the United States has a 20% tariff on it. And they signed it two days ago.
Okay.
Dean: Wow.
Dan: However, if China ships it because China maybe has a much bigger tariff than Vietnam does, but the Chinese have been sending their products to Vietnam where they're said made in Vietnam and they're shipped to the United States the US will be able to tell that in fact it's going to be 40% for Vietnam if they're shipping Chinese products through.
Dean: And this can all be tracked by AI.
Dan: Right, this can all be tracked by AI. The reason why Trump's thing with tariffs this year is radically different from anything that happened previously in history is that with AI you can track everything.
Dean: Yeah.
Dan: And it happens automatically. I mean, it's not a stack of paper on an accountant's desk, it's just electronic signals.
Oh, no, no that came from the Chinese 40% Please, please, please, send us a check for 40%, right, right, right, right, 40%. And my sense is that this is the first instance where a new set of rules have been created for the whole world. I mean, trump went to Europe two weeks ago and the Europeans have been complaining about the fact that their contribution to NATO has to be 2% of GDP, and that's been contentious. I mean, canada is doing like 1% or something like that, and they're complaining. And he came away with an agreement where they're all going to increase their contribution to NATO to 5% of NDP, and part of the reason is they had just seen what his B-2 bombers did to Iran.
The week before and I said, hey, it's up to you. I mean you can do it or not do it, but there's a reward for doing it and there's a penalty for not doing it, and we can track all this electronically. I mean we can tell what you're doing. I mean you can say one thing but, the electronics say something else. So I think we're into a new world.
Dean: I really feel like that yeah, yeah, wow.
Dan: But it's expertise in terms of an individual being an expert. There's expertise available anytime you want to do it, but an individual who's an expert, probably that individual is going to disappear.
Dean: Yeah, I agree, yeah, I can't. Yeah, I mean this is, yeah, it's pretty amazing. It's just all moving so fast, right, that we just and I don't think people really understand what, what we have. Yeah, I think there's so many people I wonder what, the, what the you know percentage or numbers of people who've never ever interacted with chat GPT.
Dan: Me, I've never.
Dean: Well, exactly, but I mean, but perplexity, I have perplexity.
Dan:Yeah, exactly.
Dean: Yeah, yeah, that's interesting.
Dan: Yeah, well, you know. I mean, there's people in the world who haven't interacted with electricity yet. Somewhere in the Amazon, you know, or somewhere, and you know I mean the whole point is life's not fair, you know, life's just not fair. Nobody's in charge and you know everything's made up but your little it was really you know extraordinary that you did it with Charlotte while we were talking, because yeah would you get two levels, two levels in or three levels in?
Dean: I went three or four, like just that. So I said, yeah, I asked her about the top 10 things and I said, oh, tell me about the lawsuit. And she laid out the things and then she suggested would you like me dramatic? Uh yeah, and she did act one, act two, act three and then yeah doing it in, uh, in shakespearean, shakespearean. And she did that and then she created the playbill and I said, can you design a cover for the playbill? And there we are and that all happened happened while we're having the conversation.
Dan: You know what's remarkable? This is about 150 years before Shakespeare.
Dean: Yeah, exactly, it's wild, right. I mean I find I was looking at, I had someone, diane, one of the runs, our Go-Go Agent team. She was happened to be at my house yesterday and I was saying how I was looking, I'm going to redo my living room area. My living room area I was asking about, like, getting a hundred inch screen. And I would say asking Charlotte, like what's the optimum viewing distance for a hundred inch screen? And she's telling the whole, like you know, here's how you calculate it roughly. You know eight to 11 feet is the optimal. And I said, well, I've got a. You know I have a 20 by 25 room, so what would be the maximum? What about 150 inches? That would be a wonderful, immersive experience that you could have. You certainly got the room for it. It was just amazing how high should you mount?
Dan: that yeah, but but can they get it in?
Dean: that's the right, exactly.
Dan: Yes, if you have to if you have, if you have to take out a wall to get it in, maybe, yeah, too expensive, yeah yeah, but anyway, that's just so.
Dean: It's amazing right to just have all of that, that she knows all the calculations, all the things.
Dan: Yeah, and I think the you know what you've just introduced is the whole thing is easy to know.
Dean: The whole thing, is easy to know. Well, that's exactly it.
Dan: This is easy to know. Whichever direction you want to go, anything you need will be easy to know.
Dean: Yeah.
Dan: And that's new in human affairs We've had to pay for expertise for that, yeah.
Dean: You'd have to pay a researcher to look into all of this stuff right, yeah. And now we've got it on top.
Dan: We were at the cottage last week and Babs has a little pouch it's sort of like a little thing that goes around her waist and it's got. You know she's got things in it, but she forgot that she put the Tesla. You know our keys for the Tesla in and she went swimming and then she came out. It doesn't work after you go swimming with the Tesla.
Dean: I don't even have a key for my Tesla anymore. It's all on my phone. Yours is on your phone.
Dan: Yeah, yeah well, maybe she. Well, that'll be an upgrade for her to do that. But anyway, she went on YouTube and she said how do you, if you go swimming with your Tesla, bob, and it doesn't work, can you repair it? And then she went on YouTube and it would be easier buying a new Tesla.
Dean: That's funny yeah, first you do this, then you do this. And interesting, uh, there's a guy uh rory sutherland, who is the uh vice chairman of ogilvy, uh advertising oh yeah and wow, and yeah, he did he had a really interesting thought he said let's just propose that we're all using electric cars, that electric cars are the norm.
And we're all charging them at home and we're all driving around and we're all. It's all. You know, everybody's doing that. And then somebody from Volkswagen comes up and says hey, I got another idea. What if, instead of this, electric engine?
or electric power. What if we created a combustion engine that would take and create these mini explosions in the vehicle, and, of course, we'd have to have a transmission and we'd have to have all of these, uh, all these things, 250 components, and you know, and you'd be asking well, is it, is it, is it faster? Uh, no, is it, is it more convenient? No, is it, is it, you know, safer?
you know none of those things. It would. There would be no way that we would make the leap from electric to gasoline if if it didn't already exist. That's an interesting thought. You and he said that kind of.
he used this kind of thinking like rational thinking and he said that rational thinking often leads to the wrong conclusions. Like he said, if you had a beverage and your job was that you were trying to unseat Coca-Cola from the thing, if you're trying to be a competitor for Coca-Cola, rational thinking would say that you would want to have a beverage that tastes better than Coke, that is a little less expensive and comes in a bigger package. And he said that's what you would bigger container, that's what you would do to unseat them. But he said the reality is that the biggest disruptor to Coca-Cola is Red Bull, which is expensive in a small can and tastes terrible.
It's like you would never come to the conclusion that that's what you're going to do. But that wasn't. It wasn't rational thinking that led to no no yeah, and the other.
Dan: The other thing is that, um, you know, um, the infrastructure for the delivery of fossil fuel is a billion times greater than the infrastructure delivery system for electricity yes. And that's the big problem is that you know it's in the DNA of the entire system that we have this infrastructure and there's millions and millions and millions and millions of different things that already work.
Dean: And you're trying to.
Dan: But the other thing is just the key. There is energy density, it's called energy density. That if you light a match to gasoline, you just get enormous energy density. And this came up. I was listening to this great guy. I'll send you the link because he's really funny. He's got a blog called Manhattan Contrarian. Really really interesting. Okay, you know, really interesting.
Dean: Okay.
Dan: You know New York City. You know he's New York City. He's a New Yorker guy and he was just explaining the insanity of the thinking about energy in New York State and New York City and he said just how weird it is and one of the things is that they've banned fracking in New York.
Dean: Oh, wow.
Dan: They have a huge deposit of natural gas underneath New York State, but they've banned it. Okay, so that's one. They could very, very easily be one of the top energy-producing states, but rather they'd rather be one of the great energy. We have to import our energy from somewhere else, Because that puts us on the side of the angels rather than the side of the devils. You know.
Dean: Oh right, yeah, Side of the angels rather than the side of the devils.
Dan: You really want to be on the side of the angels, but he was talking that they're exploring with green hydrogen. Have you ever heard of green hydrogen?
Dean: Never.
Dan: Well, it's green because it's politically correct. It's green, and then it's hydrogen, it's green and then it's hydrogen, and so what they have is in one place it's on Lake Ontario, so across the lake from Toronto, and then it's also in the St Lawrence Seaway. They have two green energy sites. And they have one of them where it's really funny they're using natural gas to produce the electricity to power the plant that's converting hydrogen into energy.
Dean: Okay.
Dan: Why don't you just use the natural gas? Oh, no, no, no, no, no. We can't use natural gas. That's evil, that's the devil. And so it's costing them 10 times as much to produce hydrogen electricity out of hydrogen. Rather, they just use the natural gas in the beginning to use it. And if they just did fracking they'd get the natural gas to do it. But but that produces no bureaucratic jobs, and this other way produces 10 times more bureaucratic jobs.
Dean: That's crazy, yeah, yeah.
Dan: But he just takes the absurdity of it, of how they're trying to think well of themselves, how much it costs to think well of yourself, rather than if you just solved a problem, it would be much easier. Mm-hmm, yeah, yeah, amazing, yeah, marvelous thing. But I'm interested in how far you're going to go. I mean, you've already written yourself a great Shakespearean play, maybe you?
don't have to go any further than that.
Dean: I mean I think it's pretty fascinating, though, right Like, just to think that literally as an afterthought or a side quest, while we're, I would say as a whim. You know, that's really what we, this is what I think, that's really what I've been reframed today, that you could really chase whims with.
Yeah, this you know that, that, that you can bring whatever creativity um you want to. It like to be able to say okay, she's suggesting a dramatic play, but the creativity would be what if we did it as a Shakespearean play? That would be.
Dan: You know, I think Trump is tapping into this or something you know, because he had two weeks when it was just phenomenal. He just had win after win, after win after win, after, uh, after two weeks, I mean nothing, nothing didn't work for him. Supreme court, dropping bomb on iran, the passage of this great new tax bill, I mean just everything worked. And I said he's doing something different, but the one you know Elon Musk to do. We have to use this Doge campaign and we have to investigate all of Elon's government contracts. And he says that's what we have to do.
Dean: We have to.
Dan: Doge, Elon, and he says you know he'll lose everything. He'll lose Tesla. He'll lose SpaceX, everything He'll have Tesla. He'll lose SpaceX, everything. He'll have to go back to South Africa.
Dean: I mean that's unbelievable.
Dan: He's such a master like reframer.
Dean: You know, I saw him turning the tables on Nancy Pelosi when she was questioning his intentions with the big beautiful bill Just tax breaks for your buddies. And he said oh, that's interesting, let's talk about the numbers. And he pulls out this thing. He says you know, you have been a public servant.
Dan: You and your husband. Yeah, you and your husband, you've been a public servant, you've had a salary of $200,000 a year $280,000 and you're worth $430 million. How'd you do that?
Dean: That's an interesting story.
Dan: There's not a person on Wall Street who's done as well as you have. How did you do that? You know Exactly.
Dean: I just think what a great reframe you know.
Dan:Yeah.
Dean: Yeah, he's a master at that. You know who I haven't heard from lately is Scott Adams. He's been off my radar. No, he's dying. He's been off my radar.
Dan: He's dying, he's dying and he's in his last month or two. He's got severe pancreatic cancer.
Dean: Oh, no, really.
Dan: And you know how you do that, how you do that. You know I'm convinced you know, I mentioned it that you die from not getting tested. I'm sure the guy hasn't gotten tested in the last you know 10 years. You know because everything else you know you got to get tested. You know that stuff is like pancreatic is the worst because it goes the fastest. It goes the fastest Steve Jobs. And even Steve Jobs didn't have the worst kind, he just fooled around with all sorts of Trying to get natural like yours, yeah.
Yeah, sort of sketchy sketchy. You know possibilities. There was no reason for him to die when he did. He could have, he could have been, you know, could have bypassed it. But two things you didn't get tested or you got tested too late.
Dean: So that's my Well, you said something one time. People say I don't want to know. He said well, you're going to find out. I said don't you?
Dan: worry, don't worry, you'll find out. When do you want to find out?
Dean: Right Exactly Good, right Exactly Good question yeah.
Dan: What do you want to do with the information Right, exactly, all right. Well, this was a different kind of podcast.
Dean: Absolutely. We created history right here, right, creativity. This is a turning point. For me, personally, this is a turning point for me personally.
Dan: I was a witness yeah fascinating okay, dan, I'll be in Chicago next week. I'll talk to you next week, okay, awesome bye, okay, bye.