Hello. My name is Jesan Sorrells, and this is the Leadership
Lessons from the Great Books podcast, bonus.
There's no book reading on these bonus
episodes, or at least there's no usually no book reading, although we've been breaking that
rule lately. These are typically interviews,
rants, raves, insights, and other audio musings and conversations
about leadership. Because listening to me and an
interesting guest talk about leadership for at least a couple of hours, is
still better than reading and trying to understand yet another
business book, even that business book that's been sitting on your
shelf for the last six months that you got for Christmas, even though that was,
like, two months ago. Our guest
today, Brian Morgan, is a founder who has
a system. Quoting directly from his website,
Brian Morgan built the think deeply, write clearly system to address the
gap between the requirements of the college education system even at
excellent schools and the depth of thinking and writing needed in business.
The system grew out of his 15 experience as managing editor at one of New
York City's premier environmental planning and engineering firms and also from his
teaching work at the New Jersey Institute of Technology among other
New York City area schools.
But having a website that is touting a system is
not the reason we are talking with him today on the show. It's a
nice little extra thing, but it's not the real reason we're talking
with him on the show. That would violate one of our core principles.
We're talking with Brian on the show today because he thinks deeply about
writing, education, reading technology, and that the
and how all those areas intersect with, well, leadership.
And he writes clearly about all of those areas.
And in a world of algorithmic and I'm gonna use a term here. So if
you're got kids in the car, mute me here. But, in a
world of algorithmic, quote, unquote, instidification, to borrow a term
from Cory Doctorow, which describes the gradual deterioration of
online platforms, but increasingly can be applied to the deterioration of
communication in general, understanding in particular, and
critical thinking most narrowly, Morgan's
approach to deepening human thinking through writing
might just be the revolution we need right
now. And I haven't even gotten into the
impact that the large language models are going to have on
human cognition. We're already starting to see the
signs, and we may talk about that today. But Brian
has thought about all of this and more, and we're gonna talk with him, like
I said, about all of it here on the podcast today. So welcome to the
podcast, Brian. How are you doing? Good. Thank you for the opportunity,
my friend. Appreciate appreciate your time today as well. Absolutely.
So tell all our listeners who you are and what do you do
and all that. Well, I mean, I think you've done a nice you've
done a nice introduction. If if people hang out on
LinkedIn, they probably, know me for the
business that I run, which is,
both a a a corporate training and also
marketing and sales company.
But those two bend together in one specific
space, which is which is really, I I would say, I
help people put language to their
thinking. And that begs
the question, of course, because that that's not particularly new
or revolutionary in and of itself. That it begs the
question really, what is the quality of the thought that is being
expressed? And and that maybe that maybe
shouldn't be as quite as revolutionary as it is.
Right? Maybe we should think about the quality of the
thoughts that we want to express, and and that but that really
goes into both directions. Right? Like, if you work for an
institution where where people make decisions based you work for
the United States Federal Reserve or you you work for a consulting company so that
people are gonna make decisions based on your language, then
then they need to know the quality of the thinking behind that language. They
can make accurate decisions. And it's sort of the same
thing, not not sort of, in the marketing and sales space. If we were
to indicate to somebody that this is our view of the world and
and that because of this view in the world, the services that we provide
are accurate reflections of what we see the world to be, then
then we want the quality of that thinking to be to be good. And,
unfortunately, we live in a in a world both on
the institutional, let's just say corporate side, as well as the
entrepreneurial sales, marketing,
podcast e side, where we care a lot
about getting behind the microphone and we care maybe
not as much as we should about what is the quality of
the thought that is reflected in the speech that we use
or we say behind that microphone. And I think that's probably
that's that's where those two things meet together, if that makes sense to you.
Yeah. That makes sense. Matter of fact, that makes a lot of
sense, And it particularly aligns with the work
that I'm trying to do on this podcast by reading novels and
essays and nonfiction and fiction and trying to pull
leadership lessons, from spaces that
have not been watered down by,
business book jargon, or by
logos or by a lack of quality, and I did say logos, yes, or
by a lack of quality of thought.
So let's start off with that sticky area
because listeners are going to are going to hear this and they're gonna go quality
of thought. All my thoughts are quality. All of my thoughts
deserve to be spat out on the Internet or on social
media or all of my thoughts deserve to be tweeted. I mean, we have an
entire platform, Twitter, that is
devoted to the
it is devoted to shortening the distance between my
thought and expression. And I am algorithmically
rewarded for the hot take, and I am not
algorithmically rewarded for the slow burn. So how do
we I guess maybe the core question here is this.
What does quality of thought mean in a time such
as this? Yeah. Well okay. I I
love this question because because it implies so many,
I think, stunningly important things that we don't we just don't get enough
of a chance to discuss in the world. And and
so the first thing is everyone
has a right to their own thinking. Right? No. That
and and we should. This is this is not a thing that I would
even if I don't agree with someone's thinking or I think it's shallow or I
think it's stupid or whatever, I would I would still say, please continue
thinking. Like, you should do that, and the world should do
that. And and, like, don't stop now just because
just because some idiot on on your lovely podcast, you
know, is is is gonna indicate that that the quality of thinking out
there on social media platforms or whatever is not particularly useful.
But but it begs the next purpose of the question, which is why
would why would we want to share that thinking?
Right? That that could be the fact that I have the thought and the fact
that I have the right to share it doesn't necessarily answer the
question, what is the purpose of sharing it? And and this
is, to me, where we get screwed up. And
and so and so if I had to put my my initial thoughts together on
that, it would go something like this. Most people
want to share their thoughts because
some very unthoughtful marketing adviser or
something told them that if they were top of mind and they had a
personal brand, that other people would see them
as credible and amazing, and they would make money, and they'd
get better jobs, and they'd be promoted. And it's all bullshit, of course. Like, no.
None none of that actually happens, but unless your name's Kardashian. And and
and but it but it but it but but the Kardashians are sort of interesting
here. Right? Because to me, this is sort of this is sort of the
point that that the Kardashians
do that, and I know who they are, but I
wouldn't hire them to do anything. Right? That that and
so and so the only thing the Kardashians actually have
accomplished is is that people know who they are and
advertisers are halfway decent at making money from them.
But certainly, no one benefits from, from
from the wisdom that they share or don't share. We don't we don't see it.
And and so if your if your business or
if your approach to your business or your job or whatever is based on how
well you make sense of the world, then it begs the question, is
a constant litany of all of the thoughts that you
have the best way to display the credibility that you bring to your
thinking? And and the answer is almost certainly not. And and
so and so the minute the minute we we have this conversation, we end
up saying, well, if the purpose of my writing
is now no longer if is now no
longer to build my personal brand, which is
the dumb way of looking at it, but it is to help other
people, meaning meaning my my job now is is to put
language into the world that helps other people live better lives. And
from that, I also make money, have have a better brand, be
seen as an expert in a space. Then then it begs the
question, what is the quality of my thinking that is
necessary to actually help somebody? At which point you realize,
well, it's very rare that we live in that
language space inside our own heads. It's very easy to
say, I don't like what's happening with the government. It's very hard to
say, I've been thinking about why I don't
like about what's happening with the government and what
I'd prefer to see different and
why. And and the outcomes that I think the government wants, which is
different than the outcomes that I might want, and this is the
quality of thinking that I'm bringing to this discussion. And so you can build a
personal brand with your complaints, but you won't build any
trust for your thinking. But the minute we get to to discussing
not what I think, but why and how I think
it, you can gain a lot of intimate trust with our
thinking. And that and if language is tied immediately to that depth of
thought, then then all of a sudden the world moves in your direction pretty quickly.
But I think we begin to see that without that reflection of why
do I think that and and and what is a process that I've that I've
gone through to to to think why that's important to other people,
then what we have is a whole bunch of noise on social media
among other places. And it's not that people don't have the right to that noise.
They have the right. It's just not particularly useful to them or to
anybody else. But does that make sense, or how do you hear that?
No. That that that makes that makes a lot of sense.
If we begin with what is the
purpose of sharing my thought. Right? What is
the thing that I want people to do? Which, by the way, good
marketing. And I'm a fan of the writer Seth Godin. He's also a
marketer. He does write deceptively
simple sentences that have deep thoughts in them. I don't know that I
agree with all of those sentences, but the thought is
definitely there. Mhmm. And you can tell in the nature of his
writing versus the writing of a person
like I'm gonna throw him under the bus because what
the heck? Why not? He's not listening to the show. Gary Vaynerchuk. Right?
Like, that guy is monetizing everything
to the nth degree. He would even monetize his facial
hair if he could get away with it. Right? And he's sort of an
exaggeration of sort of the worst examples. You mentioned the Kardashians. Sort of the
worst examples of of of fame culture, or the outcomes
of fame culture, in a a fragmented media environment
where it seems as though shouting your your
purposeless thoughts louder in order to get
attention in the public square seems to be the mode for most marketers.
And there is a growing
category of people because I do believe there's a tension here. There's a growing category
of people, and this is why I have you on the show. I put myself
in that category. There's a growing category of people who
are tired of
garbage thinking and garbage writing.
Now they don't know where to go because the systems haven't been built out
for them over the last twenty years. Maybe they'll start being built out over the
next twenty years.
And so because they have nowhere to go, they're listening to podcasts
or they're writing on Substack or they're, you know, they're they're they're in those
spaces where long form, I hate this term, but long
form content is is the thing. Right?
And then the other thought that I have these were all half formed thoughts, but
probably this is maybe the the most
controversial thought that I have.
This is the most controversial thought that I have.
What you're talking about is gatekeeping myself, and why would I wanna do that?
I'm being rewarded for not gatekeeping myself. Yeah.
And the gatekeepers who used to stop
me, and I'll use a perfect example for this.
When there used to be newspapers and people used to write letters to the
editor, there was always a crank file. Mhmm.
Mhmm. And and the editor
of the newspaper, managing or otherwise,
acted as a stop on that person's crank thinking.
So you mentioned the government. I have a problem with the government, and it's the
alien's fault. Mhmm. And
the newspaper editor looked at that thought,
which might have been fully thought out on mimeograph paper,
and and said we're not publishing that. Mhmm. We're acting as a
backstop on that. It seems as though, from
my perspective, when you're asking people to gatekeep themselves and yet they
are being rewarded for not doing that and there's no external gatekeepers
on them, it seems as though you've selected amount to Everest of a
problem to solve. Or am I looking at it incorrectly?
I think you're looking at it the way the platforms would
love for you to look at it, but it wouldn't be the way I would
look at it Okay. If I was a person who wanted
to, for instance, display the credibility of
of my thinking for my business or something.
And and so, I'll give you a good example of this.
I was in, yeah, I'm
pretty sure this is accurate. I think I was in Germany
when, a
yeah. Yeah. I was in Italy. I was in Italy. Same trip. Different different time
period. When
Bridgewater, the largest
hedge fund in the world, put out, an essay
called, we're all mercantilists now, which
we're recording this on
02/24/2025, and that was
probably December 15. Pretty good job, Bridgewater.
Right? Pretty good job. So
so so you would think that that
essay written by Ray Dalio's replacement,
I can't imagine that that thing did not go viral.
Right? They paid. They've sponsored it. I've seen
that ad. They've paid to put that in
front of me. Facebook didn't give it to them that they've
paid to put that in front of me.
We're talking about it right now. How
many tens of
thousands of pieces of content have crossed
both your life and mine since
12/15/2024,
and we're talking about that content. And it's
like, that wasn't up to the algorithm. That was somebody
somebody wrote something amazing and useful
and helpful, and then they paid to put
it in front of them. And we're talking about it now because
it was useful and helpful and brilliant. And and I imagine
they're gonna keep doing that, and their hedge fund will continue to grow
and grow and grow. And they seem to be some of the wisest
people in the space. And so and
so and so if if you're the platform,
you say, hey. What's the stuff that I've gotta
do for the free stuff? Like,
the free what's the free stuff that I have to
do to keep the people who are gonna see a
lot of stuff on the platform. And then it's
gonna be angry stuff, shallow stuff,
stupid stuff. Right? It's gonna be all of that. And
and so the platform will look at it and say,
I want the shallowest, angriest, most unthoughtful
stuff all of the time because it keeps other shallow,
angry, unthoughtful people on the platform, and I can sell, you
know, shoes to them or something. Right? Okay. And then
there's the layer. It's like, you and I are on there. We're looking at pictures
of our friends' kids or something. Right? We're we're we're looking at each other's
stuff probably. And and we go, this is a great
essay. And the algorithm didn't give it to
us. The the ad space gave it to us.
And so and so we get that out of that experience, and they know
how to target it to us. And so the question
becomes, who are you aiming at, and then how do you
get that material in front of the other in in front of that person?
And the difficulty we have in the marketing space is that everybody
says, in order to market, you have to understand the algorithm.
Bullshit. In order to market, you have to understand
human comprehension. And so if we were to
say somebody has to comprehend this about something that really
matters to them, then the only question is how do
we get that piece of information in front of that person. And
it doesn't actually matter if there's only, let's just
say, 10,000 people an hour who who who are
that person versus the millions of people on there. All you have
to do is get that in front of the right 10,000. And so on
LinkedIn, there are ways to do that. On Facebook, there are ways to do that.
We do a lot of it in relationship building on LinkedIn around
people that we really that's how you and I met, that on on people
that we really think are interesting and thoughtful people. And so and
so and so I think if we start looking at it like, who is it
that we need to speak to, and who is it that
that this piece of content is going to be beneficial for,
and how do I get this in front of them? That's
an equation that makes sense to us, and it removes the question,
what does the algorithm sponsor make easy,
go viral? That all all of that doesn't matter. That's their problem, not
mine. My question is, how do I use that service to get
the right information in front of you? And and if as long
as I'm in control of that, I could give a I could give a shit
what they do. Right? Let let let let them make pictures of banana
goes go go viral. I don't care. Right? I I just want
my stuff in front of you so that we can have this relationship. And I
think if we started looking at it that way, we'd we'd stop looking at it
like, oh, I understand if I put this and that in there, I'm gonna
go viral. And I'm like, why the fuck would you wanna go viral? Say
thoughtful things and get it in front of thoughtful people, and your world gets
really simple and and much more lucrative really quickly. So does that make sense,
or how do you hear that? Yeah. No. That that makes that makes a lot
of sense. And I hear the
core challenge in there of
understanding human comprehension. So let's let's
wander down that road a little bit. How do you understand how do we,
how do I right? I I've written I'll use myself as an example. So just
yeah. I've written three books. I'm getting ready to write a fourth one. I do
this podcast. I do training and development, kind of
the same that you do. I work with clients. I'm consulting and and coaching in
the leadership and in the organizational behavior space. You
know, I'm I'm trying to give people and I
try to push clients towards meat, not milk.
You know, one of the greatest sort of compliments I've ever gotten from a
client is that, you know, Hasan, you offer pragmatic
solutions. Mhmm. Because things have to work.
Because that's really what people care about. People care about things working. Right? So
this this essay that you were referring to, we're all mercantilists now.
If that's going to make me invest better as a member of that hedge
fund or as a part of that hedge fund or as a person who's giving
advice from that hedge fund to the hedge fund I'm running,
great. It's been pragmatic. It's it's worked. Right?
But the the rise of pragmatism, which I think, by the way, is is the
only escape hatch you have from the algorithm, or at least it's the escape
hatch I found. The rise of pragmatism as a countervailing
force or a counterbalancing force
does require not only an understanding, I think, of human comprehension,
but an understanding of human attitude and behavior. And
so how does how does how does comprehension
and behavior link together if I'm if I'm
writing my fourth book? Right? Which I am, by the way. I'm writing my fourth
book. So if you were advising me, in writing my fourth book,
which is not a business book, it's a cultural commentary book, little bit of a
polemic small book, you know, only a 50 pages.
It's a book I feel compelled to write. That's why I'm writing it. I spent
two years working on the ideas in it. Partially, the podcast
has influenced it. Other things are the conversations I have with people. And
by the way, I write because I want to inflict my ideas on other people
because I think they're worth inflicting on other people. And I think that my
page should have them in a book form because I'm I'm obsessed with books.
Right? I'm drunk on ideas as Richard Dawkins would
would say. Right? So how do I, as a
person, writing a book, putting an idea out in the world that I thought deeply
about, how do I understand the link between comprehension and behavior in order
to get somebody, not not necessarily to pick up the book, but just to read
my deep thoughts. Mhmm. So,
I just wanna make sure I understand the question. Sure. I understand the comprehension
part. Yeah. And I think you're you're asking,
what what if what if people don't
have the right attitudes or behaviors to be open
for the type of writing that you're discussing? And and,
therefore, how do we how do we access Yeah. And I think that that's a
huge problem for a lot of a lot of folks because in a
fragmented communication milieu,
where well, when we just saw this, you know, we're in
2025. Right? We just saw this with the last election. Right?
There are many, many people who don't know people who voted for the opposite
candidate on their social media plat platforms. Right? Because the platform does the thing
that the platform does, which I loved your description of that. But in real
life, they don't know. Forget the platforms. In real life, which is
another area we can talk about, they don't know anybody because we're self
selecting. Right? Mhmm. COVID really sort of,
accelerated this process, you know, as people literally physically got up and moved around the
country. Right? Because they could. Right? It was a it was a
unique opportunity to be able to do that. I'm gonna I know because I was
one of those people. People self selected into into or
out of groups. Right? Behavior groups that they wanted to be a part of. But
when you do that, the group of people you're targeting with your ideas, if you're
a business, does not expand. It becomes smaller.
So how do we link, like I said, how do we link behavior and comprehension
together? How do we how do we do that? Mhmm.
I think I think the if the the the best answer I could give you
is we accept that we can't, but but we
can invite people to our own comprehension.
And so, if you don't mind a slightly longer
answer to the two question, this is a very common
thing that I do in my workshops. But Mhmm. You'll
see, this coffee cup here. If anybody's on YouTube, you can
see this. And it says, this is not a coffee cup on it. And and
what that means is is that we don't think of
it, but but we we learned language
as an act of manipulation. So a a a
teacher held up a pen in a fourth grade
classroom and said, this is a pen. And what is this? And the class
went, it's a pen. What is it? It's a pen. What is it? It's a
pen. And went, okay. Great. You can identify in this in the world. You
have power. And to be very clear, in in
love and adoration to all fourth grade teachers, they needed to do that
because the kids have to function in the world. That's your
vegetables. You have to eat them. Right? Like like, kids
have to function. But we never actually fix
that underlying assumption, which is which is that
identification is power, and I can't think of anything less
actually accurate than that. So so if we take the
coffee cup that that we we don't we don't
say, you know, if if I
tell you that, that that this is a coffee cup, that
this is an act of manipulation. Right? If you're at my house and
I say, is it alright with you if I put my your coffee in
this coffee cup? We don't say that's an act of manipulation. We we
don't we don't say, I'm commanding you to see this as
a coffee cup because I have learned it to be a coffee cup, and I
demand that you see this as a coffee cup because it's a coffee cup
and you probably do. But there's a reason
that this is effective to hold coffee. It's ceramic. It's got a
handle. It's got a decent size to it. The ceramic
structure is different than metal or glass, which would burn my hand if I put
something warm in it. And so I could say, while you're at
my house, do you mind if I put this in this cup that
is ceramic and it's got a handle on it and it's got looser molecules in
it than, say, metal or glass, it won't burn your hand. And for the duration
of this conversation, is it alright with you? If if I if
I call this a coffee cup and put it in there and you say, that
was completely useless, I call that a coffee cup too. That's ridiculous.
Of course, you can do that. But what I've really done is invited you into
my frame of the world. I haven't commanded you to take my own.
And that's a very different thing than this is a coffee
cup. Right? Like, that's a very different thing. This is my
understanding of the structure of this thing, and I think it's gonna be useful
for you. And do you mind if I put your coffee in it? Is a
very different thing than this is a coffee cup. And no one
says this matters. No one says we need to do this. This is just
semantic philosophical bullshit Until someone says democrats are
assholes, and you go, where the hell did you get that from? That's
really mean. That's, like, you're saying, jerk. Like, where did that come from? And
it's like, wait a minute. If I can command you to see
reality as I do with this, then I've
learned that my view of reality is real, and it's not.
It's a lie. It's bullshit. And so what I have to
do is say, my understanding is
that this functions in a way that is useful to
hold coffee. And if it's alright with you, I'd like to put
your coffee in it because I think that's what's best for you. And you'll say,
I agree with that. And I'll say, I have concerns
about how the Democratic Party is messaging. And I think some of that
messaging and and so what I'm doing is sharing my frame for
information, and then you volunteer whether or
not that frame for information is an accurate place to make the decision.
Yes. Put coffee there. Yes. I think that's where
Democratic party party messaging needs to go, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
So all I can do is is command my
own frame of understanding, and I can invite you
to my frame of understanding, and you have every right to say, that guy's
an asshole. I'm not gonna take that frame. You have every right, and I can't
and I can't demand that you do. I can only say,
these are the things that I'm noticing in the world. This is this is
why I think things are working this way, and these are
my suggestions because of this understanding that that I
think the world will be better if if if because of these
understandings. And so how do you hear that? And then you get a
choice, and and I have to give you that choice.
I cannot command it of you. I have to give you that
choice. And so are certain people going
to be more open to your frame than other people? Yes.
And the people who aren't, fuck them. It's not it's not for them, and
that's okay. Right. Move on. Right? And and and so and so
you're not gonna and and and that's a powerful thing. Right? Because I because I
think I think a lot of times people go, like, well, you
know, my my my neighbor down the street would would never would would never
like, that person, I've really just gotta say, this is the world and you better
take it. And it's like, how many people are you not speaking
to in order to speak that way to the most unthoughtful person on your
street? And and and how many people how many people
are you are you losing and and not inviting into
the thoughtful observations of the world that that you have? And
so I think we go through this. I think we go through it every day.
We just don't discuss it. And not for nothing. You and I both have an
academic background. Schools are the basis of
this, that we we are terrible. Like,
this conversation does not happen in freshman
English, and it should. It's it's the core
of what of what freshman English should be. But but it
doesn't happen in freshman English, and they say, well, you have an opinion. Write your
opinion. Find 15 sources that roughly put it in
MLA, and, we'll give you an a. And and then and then
we never fix this misunderstanding that I can
command someone to see reality versus I can invite
someone to see my own, and that's a huge change in the world. But does
that make sense, or how do you hear that? Oh, yeah. I mean, that makes
it makes sense. I don't
necessarily agree with all parts of it, but I understand how you got to the
end of the road with the with the cul de sac. Absolutely makes sense how
you got there. And I would
say that you are talking about well, first
off, you're right. It's not a coffee cup. It is a collection of atoms that
just holds another collection of atoms. Oh, really? Just as Now we're
closer. Well, you know yeah. Well, I was so in
in first year art history class, we look at, you know,
the Magritte painting that your cup comes from. You know? We look at the treachery
of images, and we seek to understand. And I know this because I was a
bachelor of fine arts major as an undergraduate in college. And
so we understand how yes. We understand
how we understand how and why
even philosophers like Plato had a problem with the artists. Mhmm.
Because that manipulation in a
sophistic way can be used, yes, for understanding and for breaking frames
and for joining people together, but it can also be used
for creating frames and and blocking people off and creating,
creating, what do you call it? Fake what I call fake conflict, pretend
conflict around things that don't really matter. This is what this is all what Plato
was yelling about with the sophists. This is why he was yelling at those guys
all the time. And sophistry has been raised to a high art and then given
a platform and an algorithm, these days.
The other thing that I think
is that if we're inviting people into our thinking,
right, We are
social animals. Right? So, you know, we wanna
invite as many people into our tribe as we possibly can. We know from
Dunbar's number that once we get to about a hundred, we're basically done. We can't
keep track of that many. We those that's the max limit on relationships.
Right? And you even see this on those algorithmic
platforms. You know? I'm only interacting with five or six people because that's all that's
all all the things that I can, like, handle and I can't. You know? And
if somebody pops out with something or whatever and by the way, just use my
own example, post election,
in The United States, one of the things
that I've done is I've taken to snoozing people,
because just you you gotta be snoozed for thirty days. Like, you need to go
to sleep. Like, my wife's just like, just get off Facebook period. Like, no. Just
just just you go to sleep.
And and, you know, I snooze and then I delete.
Right? Because I wanna give people an opportunity to still, you to your point, think
their thoughts and and bring those thoughts into my frame,
because two things can be true at the same time. I don't wanna be assaulted
inside of my frame by your thinking. I don't wanna be and I think you're
getting to this as well. This is when I'm hearing the core idea. I don't
wanna be assaulted into compliance. Right. I don't wanna be
forced to comply with your thinking. I want to be invited for
sure. But if you invite me and then I've
taken the invitation and I've said, no. I don't want it. I want to
leave. I should be allowed to leave.
This isn't
Facebook post is not a suicide pact.
A marketing post on LinkedIn is not a suicide pact with a brand.
Like, I don't have to ride or die with you. You
invited me in. I looked around. I saw what was going
on. It's not for me.
Mhmm. I think people, because they
are seeking for connection, you use the term connection several times in relationship because
that's the the larger thing that we're going to. I think people are seeking the
connection and relationship that comes from purposeful communication,
but they don't know how to ask for it. They don't know how to ask
for that purposeful connection. And I don't know if that starts in the family. You
you talk about being in the fourth grade, you know, holding up a pen. I
think it starts way earlier than that. I think it starts when you're two one
and two years old in your house. It's way earlier than that. I think
the the educational system, and both my wife and I are
educators. The educational system comes along way after a lot of that's already
hardwired in and then just doubles down and reinforces, you
know, all the way through twelfth grade or, you know, if you're
so blessed, college. You know? And
it is all about compliance. We will get you
to comply. The question, I guess,
is who does that work for, which gets us into some very Marxist territory.
You know, does it work for the capitalist? Does it work for the people in
power? Who has the power? And I don't wanna go down that. I don't wanna
go down that road. That's a that's a different kind of road than what I
wanna go down. I want to focus on the
writing piece of this because I think you've hit on something,
and the decline in writing among the k through
12 cohort is something I think we have to we
have to talk about. And so
who do who does it benefit if kids can't write
and if kids can't comprehend? What kind of adults do they become?
Mhmm. Yeah. This is this is interesting, and and
we may or may not have have the same point of view on this. I
I know that that there's there's
a, maybe a theory out there
that that the education system
has conspired, to make
kids ineffectual and and
soldier on for the for the powers that
be. And I could see that argument. Like like, certainly,
there's a there's a there's a frame of
understanding there that that is credible enough to
consider at any rate, that that that it's not it's not it's
not outright dismissible. But I I've done enough work
in government and and other places. I love I think I heard this on a
Sunday show at one point. This is, you know, the thing about conspiracy theories is
is that you're making the assumption that the government is, wise
enough, smart enough, and, committed enough to
actually pull through on any of these things. It's not any of them. And
I know that that is more roughly
my experience of the and so but
but and so and so and so I don't think it's the answer you might
be leaning for, but I'll answer your question. Go ahead and give no. Give me
give me the give me the answer that is the answer. I'm I'll work with
my own leaning for that. I don't know. But but but if someone were asking
me that question, I would say the person that it benefits is the
school teacher and the professor and the
person who does not have to take on the obligation of
what it takes to be successful in life. Oh. And
and so and so by by being a person this
is this is absolutely true. Like, I'll I'll just share this with you. Last week,
I shared with my students, freshmen. I do not teach at
a predominantly white institution. I did a lot of first generation
college kids, lots of and so and
so we and and so I went through, and I was
and it's like, I don't care
if you get wealthy in this country. Like like
like, that's up to you. I very much care that you
know how. Like, I want you to know how to do
it. And and it's important to me that you understand the difference
between working for someone and having your own business and understand that is a
choice. And it's very it's under like, let's talk
about investing money, and and and that is a choice. Like,
there are all of these choices that are available to you, and
it's and it's like, well, why are we having that discussion in an English
in an English classroom? Because it isn't happening anywhere else. It isn't happening anywhere else.
Yeah. And and so and and so and so the
people who have it, and I don't think this is a conspiracy, I think this
is just life, are the peoples whose parents had
it. And and their parents had it, and their parents and so and and so
and so someone's childhood so someone's
educational outcome is essentially predetermined
by the family that they're brought into and the quality of conversations
at their dinner table, and school tries not to get in the way and to
help the rest of the people more or less the best
they can. And what that does is alleviate the
responsibility of the teachers of actually understanding the
world very deeply and being able to explain the world in a very
deep way as a matter of character, as a matter as a matter of finance,
as a matter of economy, as a matter of geopolitics, as a matter
of everything. It's it it alleviates that responsibility. And so I think
the person who benefits from kids not knowing that is the person who
doesn't have to take on the responsibility of, I have to now go
investigate the world really, really well. And
and listen, let's face it. If you make $65,000 a
year, maybe we're not paying or finding the right people to do
that. Like like, if someone were to say, Brian, fix the world in
in a generation or less, I'd say everybody who might
go into law Mhmm. Pay them enough to go into
teaching. Bring bring all of the smartest educated
people in the world, pay them all a hundred and $50 a year to go
teach and and and get that thinking, that
wide, broad, thoughtful, amazing geopolitical,
economic, etcetera, thinking into the classroom and do it from
k to k to the time they graduate, but but we don't have those
teachers there. And so so to me, the system is built not by
conspiracy, but just by default to to to make
it easy to pass kids through. And the net effect of
that is they're not they're they're not good in the world, but the only person
who really benefits there are the professors. I wouldn't say it's necessarily the
rich people or whatever. I think it's probably the professors that get more benefit than
that. But how do you hear that? So it's interesting that you bring this up
because I I don't, again, I don't fully agree with you,
and these two things can be true at once. And I have seen in
my experience when I was working as an adjunct, at a
business school and making significantly less than
$65,000 a year. Let's be real. I understand. Okay. I would have made more
babysitting. And
and some days, that's what I feel like they expected me to do.
Because of the nature of how I'm wired, and, yes, this does go to
upbringing and all of that, I categorically refuse to
play that play that game. Right? And, intentionally, this is a word I use with
leadership, and this is a word I use in organizational behavior. We have to lead
with our brains on. We have to if we're talking about teaching, we have to
teach with our brains on. We have to write with our brains on. Right?
Intentionality for me is huge. Right? Are you doing things on purpose,
or are you just reactively responding by accident?
Okay. When I
was, you know, that adjunct, I would always do a
lecture in my business class, and it would come usually
spring semester. Actually, probably right about now. And it was a
lecture about globalism because very few
students in business schools who are going to go work
60% of them are gonna go work for some multinational corporation
that is not fully to care about them and is gonna burn them out in
four years. Mhmm. And then they're gonna be clamoring around
trying to find a smaller place or whatever
They don't understand why it's cheaper for a
hedge fund, going back to a hedge fund for just a minute, to send them
to Malaysia to live out of a laptop than it is for head and and
look at an Excel spreadsheet and fire a bunch of people that they never met
than it is for a hedge fund to keep them at home in a neighborhood
actually engaging with people that they may be firing at a local plant. It's
cheaper to send them to Malaysia because of globalism.
But business school students do not understand this. They don't to
your point about it not being explained, at no point in high school,
and I thought I taught probably a thousand students
in the course of five years, right, that I was an adjunct. I can't
remember one student coming up to me and saying, oh, yeah. This was all explored
in, like, high school. The vast majority of folks
came up to me and said, I never actually heard that explained. And by the
way, I started globalism off with Bretton Woods and what happened after World War
two, and then just a cascade of, you know, down in Nixon and everything else.
Right? Okay. And I draw the line for them. And I say, if you
want to make this decision, this is the system you're engaging in. I don't care
if you engage in the system. I am agnostic on your life decisions.
That's right. And and I I don't care. But I don't
want you to be able to say that no one ever told you Yes. That
this was the thing that was going to happen. And so Yes. I have seen
what you're talking about when as an instructor, as a
teacher, I chose to, regardless of what I was getting
paid, go to the system with a different
idea. That was an active choice.
And because I'm psychologically wired to be high in
personal agency and I'm I have a a high
internal locus of control rather than an external one,
I'm not really too concerned about whether or not the system likes me. That doesn't
really Right. Like, concern me. Right? Right. What concerns me
is, are the people who are going into any system, are they
adequately prepared to operate and know what the rules are because no one
is explaining it to them as a failure of leadership, which is the point of
actually this podcast as well. K. And the failures of leadership are all over the
place. You know? And so I think those
thoughts at the same time, I also think of this as where I maybe disagree
with you a little bit. I don't think it's a conspiracy so much as it
is the inertia of things moving
beneficially forward. Right? And by the way,
benefiting to your point, maybe teachers or or
principals or k through 12 administrators. Sure. Okay.
I always ask the question, at what point does the benefit run out? Which I
think the benefit is starting to run out now. My father always used to tell
me you're gonna pay the piper one way or another, and the the bill always
comes due. I agree. You know? I agree. And so I think we're paying the
piper now. Yeah. And I think we're going to be paying the piper in the
future, particularly as we outsource more and more of
our cognition to these large language models and these
more of the algorithmic in publication, to
paraphrase from Cory Doctor, Doctorow, an AI
slop that's just gonna be laying around the Internet. Yep. And it'll
be our own fault. We will have done it to ourselves, but, of course, we
will search for a leader who we can blame or who will save us,
and we will never have realized that
that saving piece was in our own hands the whole
time. So I
have a bunch of a bunch of different thoughts in my head. I'm gonna have
to go through this a little bit. I'm gonna have to cascade this and think
about this a little bit because
it's not necessarily agree on that, by the way. I I don't I I I'll
I'll take I'll take inertia as as,
as as the as the process of
of false or or or umbrellaed,
or umbrellaed conspiracy. I I would take that word. I think I think that's an
accurate ish. Well and I'm not willing to go full Marxist. I think
Marxists don't.
The the Marxist left and the anarchist right both share something in common. They're both
looking for boogeyman under the bed. Yes. When in reality More than
that. But yes.
When when in reality, the boogeyman is themselves the whole time. And they're both, by
the way, underneath the same bed. They're both hiding out in the same bed looking
for each other. Isn't that funny? So It it's oh, it's hilarious.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Let's turn the corner a little bit because
we've talked about frames. We've talked about comprehension and a little bit about
commission and the purpose of sharing thoughts, the education system, free
stuff versus paid stuff, getting our language, making sure
the the quality of our language is is high when we are
expressing it, and that we are careful thinkers
thinkers and speakers.
For leaders, for people who have been
positionally placed in charge and by the way, I'm not thinking
about a leader of a major corporation. So I don't this
is not where I'm framing this this question. I'm thinking of a leader in
a small company, employees maybe 500
people, maybe. Maybe his dad,
or his granddad founded that company. Mhmm. And
he grew up in it, and and he just always assumed that he was gonna
be the leader, and he got into the leadership position. And now we live
in times like these where,
he may not prioritize writing clearly. He
may not prioritize writing at all. He may outsource it to somebody else.
Mhmm. What do you say? What advice do you have? What thought name
and advice. What information, that's a better word, do you have
for that individual, around agency, even
around his own thoughts and putting them out there into, into the
world? Yeah. So so
so this is interesting. My
my I'll I'll answer it in two ways just just because one's gonna make
me laugh. That person, I never try
to convince them of anything. Right? If somebody says, I'm gonna
let AI do all my writing, and, I don't need writing,
and I've been writing since the fourth grade. I know what I do. I say,
I wish you luck. Right. Right. Like, I actually don't try to
convince that person of anything. But but but I think what you're hinting at
at is is is what is it that that writing is
inferring about leadership Mhmm. Or quality of
thinking or whatever that we don't say out loud. And and and and so taking
that frame, here's here's the here here's
my understanding of it. The the first thing is we
David Eagleman writes about this in his neuroscience book, which I which I absolutely love.
I don't know if you've you've discussed his books here on your podcast or not,
but but, he's got a couple which are which are great, but incognito is
the kind of the one that that gets the most press, and it's worth
it. He talks about the human being is not
a successful animal because we are more
cognitive than other than other animals because we
think better. That that's a mistake. That the human
being is not a successful animal because
we have fewer instincts and more cognition, which is the
story we tell ourselves. The human being is a successful
animal because we have more instincts and
better instincts honed by our cognition,
which is which is a fundamentally different
thing. And so and so now we'll start with that when it comes to
writing. So for instance, somebody says,
we we do this on on Thursdays. If any one of your people wanna join
us at at some point, they're welcome to. Where we look at an essay
from The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times or something. And we simply
say, do we trust this author as being credible? Would we make
decisions based on the information that's and the answer is almost always
no in part because I try to find the worst essay that day. But Of
course. But Put my thumb on the scale a little bit
there. Exactly. But but but
but but it when we listen to, like, when we listen to those conversations on
Thursday, what generally speaking is somebody raise some somebody says
something in the first ten words.
And I'm gonna pair it. I'm gonna I'm I'm just gonna make one up. But
but to give people an an example, it might say something like
the Trump administration is obviously incorrect
on policy x. Right? And and so
and and so even there are people in that room who
would politically agree with that statement, but they
would still say that undercuts the writer's credibility.
And that's a feeling. It's a feeling. We
go, oh, why like, why am I having that feeling toward that
frame of information? Why am I having that feeling? And
so and so what I would say to the person who's interested
to how writing what language is gonna do is say, I've had an
instinct, and the instinct is this is wrong. Mhmm. And now
I wanna go through the process of saying, why am
I having that instinct? Does does does that reflect
the presentation of somebody's information? Mhmm.
Does that reflect my own biases? Does that does that reflect
something that triggered me from when I was a kid? And and so and so
that's coming up. Like, I have to now ask the question and be
willing to answer the question, why am I having this instinct, this
reaction, this feeling? And the minute I have that and so
take your your average piece of, let's just
say, email around, I don't know. You we
gotta we're we're we're gonna come back to the office. We're no longer gonna work
from home. Mhmm. And so and so a leader
now is forced to present that information. And this well,
the easiest thing is just write an email that said Mhmm. Come back to the
office. We're no longer gonna work from home, and then people are gonna get really
angry. If you don't like it, quit. Right? That's Yep. So so
so that's one way of handling it. Right? And and people
go, man, the way this is presented has really concerned me.
That says something. Right? And so and so then we say, well, why are people
having that instinct? Can we anticipate that instinct? And
can we say, I suspect that
that there are gonna be people who have difficulty with this, so I wanna be
very transparent about why we're doing what we're doing. I wanna show you exactly our
observations of the world and how we're making sense of those observations
so that you can understand the decisions we've come in we've come to. And those
observations are, and those decisions are, and the reasons are.
And people go, oh, okay. Now I see how you make
that decision, not just the decision that you've made.
Take the essay in the Wall Street Journal. Trump administration is
obviously wrong. It's not necessarily incorrect. It's just
inferred. Right? And as opposed to explained or explored, it's
an abstraction that infers concrete information
versus details concrete information. And so if we
own the difference between what concrete
information are people going to agree on, this is a coffee cup,
versus what concrete information do we need to state the
inferences so they can agree on it or at least understand
it. That's the benefit of writing well. Does that make sense? This is
the continuing battle of the enlightenment. Right? I mean, this is the battle going all
the way back to the seventeenth century in the West. This is why our
greatest fights, I've come to this conclusion in the last couple of
years, are over who owns the
dictionary and what words get to be in. That's where
our greatest fights are. And it's not really
about politics. It's about,
the struggle in Western culture, and it is most notable in
Western culture. The struggle in Western culture to ascend
to the heights of reason without feelings. This is what all
the technologists promise us. Right?
And, you know, look, I so I'm also an amateur historian
because I think history matters a whole lot in these kinds of con a whole
lot in these kinds of conversations, I think, actually, history probably
matters more than which generational cohort you happen to be in,
because the historical events that are surrounding you
mold your thinking even if you are not aware of them,
because they molded your parents' thinking. And then your parents behaved a certain way, and
there we go. That's the the the falling domino. Right?
So I think the height
of enlightenment reason was the atomic bomb,
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That was the height of enlightenment reasoning. And I think
we've been pulling back in the West in horror from that over the
last eighty years. And what you're talking about is a triumph of
at least what I'm hearing. And maybe I'm I'm incorrect. Correct me if I'm wrong.
And I have not read Ekeland's book. I wrote it down. I'll go ahead and
take a look at that. I read some neuroscience stuff.
Okay. Sounds good. Yeah. Probably. Because There's some other
things that happened to me in my life, relatives and my family and and whatnot.
I had to figure out what's going on with them. But, but what I'm
seeing over the last eighty years is that the triumph
of or the, I mean, not the triumph of. I think of it like Star
Wars. Right? The Empire Strikes Back. It's it's feeling strike
back. Right? And and if I'm
incorrect in thinking about this or analyzing this this way, let me know.
I I I think I think the continuing
struggle will be the tension between feelings and reason, but this is the enlightenment
struggle. And the lie is that we
can write our way out of it or we can reason our way out of
it because writing feels,
well, for lack of a better term, reasonable.
But I even just said it there. It feels
reasonable. There's no rationality or logic to that. Right? And
so this this this tension, I don't think is going
to be is gonna be going anywhere anytime soon.
And our technology, of course, serves to wind up that tension to a higher and
higher level because it it benefits people, right, and benefits
advertisers and whatever. Yeah. I
oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. No. Go ahead. You're
I I know at one point you wanted to bring up LLMs and and and
this this this Yeah. I'm I'm wandering in that direction. Right? Yeah. This kind of
this kind of loose there. But but,
I I do not see
feelings and reason as,
in a war. Mhmm. Okay. I
so so if if this makes sense to you,
there is no entity
out there
rationalizing for you and me. You
rationalize for you and I rationalize for me. And
and so and so and
so I am going to be a
experiential mix of the things that I
have observed, how they have affected me,
and and given me instincts for reaction, let's call that emotion,
and my ability to reflect on
that and try to make the most sense of it as possible
before I create any behavior. So
so that that's of one piece to me. That's all
one thing that I have experiences,
and then they are mine to emote about, and they are mine to
reflect on. On. And so I get to question why am I having that
emotional response or why am I not having that emotional response.
But but the mechanism of of of
rationality is is me. And
and so so so so that so then we sort of go,
well, does the world function where we have,
whatever, 8,000,000,000 individual
mechanisms of of comprehension
and and not a rational reality,
yes. Right? Like like, that's
like like, that that or at least that is our experience
of the world. I would concede that there is a reality,
but but I wouldn't concede that I know it. That but but
I can I can have my own reflections on it
and then make my own assumptions
of, and and be curious about it and try to and
try to understand that reality as much as possible and then align my
life to the way where I think that that that I can
have the most productive and meaningful life inside of that reality? But
the sense maker there is me. It's not my church. It's
not my university. It's not the sense
maker there. It's me. And and so to me, they're not really
divorced from each other. They're of the same piece because they're internal to
us, and they inform each other. But we may see that differently.
Yeah. We do. I'm gonna sidestep that because that's that we would unwind into,
like, a four hour conversation. I don't think we have that kind of time. And
I would I would love to challenge the the
lack of a god inside of the machine. Let's let's frame it that way.
Idea that's inherent in that, but not right now. Maybe we'll have you on.
Yeah. I mean, that that would be another section. That'd be that's a different kind
of conversation. Yeah. But the but I and I and I will say
this. I
I am of the thought that we can actually know
reality, but, here's the but, it's hard and it requires
effort from us Yeah. Which
we filter that effort through our
experiences and through our feelings and through our reason.
But the effort is the thing that matters.
This is why, the term Israel means we
who wrestle with or struggle with god. Right?
And I think that that is an appropriate
motto for our time. I tend to I tend
to I'm just I'll just sort of partially lay my cards out.
I tend to not think that Nietzsche was that brilliant. He got a
couple of things correct, but he was
just calling the end of the Kantian enlightenment project,
and saying that it had reached its logical conclusion. But a lot of
people, a lot of philosophers in particular and also
writers, have leveraged his thoughts, I
think, incorrectly, throughout the twentieth century and and and
caused a lot of damage, actually. Mhmm. So and and I think that
there's some talk about the neuroscience. I think there's some neuroscience
and some research that shows that,
yeah, maybe we might we might have missed the mark a little bit on that.
So Mhmm. But, again, that's that's way beyond that's way beyond where we
are. Listen. I don't think that's that that's controversial. I don't think you should be
worried. I I'm like, hey. Say it. Like like, I
you know? Like No. No. It's not the controversy. Oh, I'm not worried about the
controversy piece. It's the it's I wanna be cognizant of your time. It's the only
thing that we yeah. Let let us all live in a world where a hundred
years from now, people are looking back on these talks, and they go, you know,
they got some things right about the world, but not everything. I'm not gonna be
a person. I'll sign up for that, man. There you go. That's right.
Okay. So we've talked about well, okay. So this
leads into one of the things that sort of I'm obsessed with on this show.
Okay? I'm obsessed with with the transference of wisdom.
How do we get wisdom from one generation to another? The
best vehicles we've had for that have been stories. Stories, the
oral narrative. There's an essayist named Walter
Benjamin, who wrote an essay called The Storyteller.
It was on the writings his critique of the writings of, Nikolai
Leskoff, back in the nineteen thirties. And we actually covered that on the podcast.
You should go listen to that episode. And his
critique, right, of the technology of the novel
was that it killed the ability to transfer wisdom.
Instead, it took wisdom that was in an oral narrative and turned it
into mere information. Mhmm. Okay.
And and he was approaching it from a Marxian dialectic as well. So there's there's
some other things underneath there. But also you're going? Yeah.
Yeah. But also a Judaic mystic frame and a German German
Prussian sort of framing as he was writing in the nineteen thirties, you
know, in Germany, and and trying to figure out what was
going on in the Intergerum, you know, in that in that country. Right?
Why wasn't why wasn't the wisdom of avoiding
authoritarianism filtering down into people? Why were they going in the
particular direction that they were going?
And I think that's a relevant question for our time as well.
So how does writing help us
transfer wisdom? Does it, or do we need the oral narrative? Is it better to
just do that through conversation?
I think I think writing is, generally
speaking, more effective than oral,
But but the type of oral tradition you're referring to is
is a a type of oral tradition
that functions as a piece of writing. Okay. And and
so and and so to me. And and
so if we think of writing, this is and this is
not all writing to our to our Mhmm. Social media conversation earlier.
Yeah. But if we think of writing as the
written expression of a thought that has
been, reflected upon enough
to be worthy of someone else's time,
then writing is certainly a very useful
mechanism of sharing wisdom if if that's
if that's the definition of it. And I think, you know, that's
really what what traditional oral history
is is is is is that. Right? It is a
it it is the process of language applied to a reflection
that that, informs the listener of
the world. And so, I think Benjamin
is is onto something about do all novels do that?
No. Do even most novels do that? Probably not.
The and then if you wanna get controversial,
did novels in
1995 do
that better than novels
in 2015? Yes.
That that that I I would say the same difficulties we
have on social media, name your publishing house. They've
had those difficulties too that how, you
know, the the the the loudest people, not necessarily the most
thoughtful, not necessarily the most reflective, the ones who make the
most noise out there with the biggest platforms are the ones who are getting the
book deals. And and it's like, well, what is that doing
to the, wisdom of the of the, of
of the culture? You know, it's not particularly adding to it. So so
but but but do I think that writing as as the
if we look at it as in in the same way we would in a
in a strong oral tradition, is is the is the
verbalization or the written verbalization of of
a reflection that is worthy of consideration of
someone else? And does writing function that way? And
can it function that way and create wisdom
for other people to grow and make decisions and add their own
understandings of it to that? I do think writing is highly effective and probably the
most effective tool we have for that still. Yeah. I mean, I
agree with Benjamin about the novel,
disintermediating, which is a word he did not know.
The and the printing press, actually, is where he really goes back to it, disintermediating
the oral narrative. And yet, there are books
that seem to resist the disintermediation
of the printing press, or they went along with it.
Stories that were then translated and became
parts of or transliterated, not translated, transliterated into
other forms in novels, movies,
film, of course, in the West.
And, of course, in these books, I'm I'm in front of, like, in this thought.
Those books also seem to defy the algorithm. I
mean, if I am and the example that
I'll use is Homer. Like, Christopher Nolan, who just directed Oppenheimer,
is directing The Odyssey. Mhmm.
Make of that whatever you will. Okay? And I'm I'm
gonna be here. Lots of cool things happen. I'm a I'm a huge
fan of Christopher Nolan as a director. I've I've I've I've
here's here's what I was and Nolan, I trust, and I just leave it at
that. There you go. Okay. You know? He's he's made a few duds. Don't get
me wrong. Interstellar was not great. Chris, we should have a conversation about that. That
movie was trash, and tenant tenant was self referential
garbage. Stop it, sir. But Yes. The vast majority of the rest of it has
been has been has been excellent. I guess. A plus
stuff. But this is a person who, again, understands how storytelling applies
to that medium, how ancient stories, again, Homer,
apply to that medium, how they, again, they defy the algorithm. And I think our
most ancient stories that come out of an oral tradition, like the Bible,
like Greek mythology, are gonna just continue on
regardless of what the technology is that seeks to disintermediate them.
And that gets us to our last go around here. It gets us to the
LLMs.
Mhmm. So
as a person who writes, I'm not worried. Weirdly
enough, I'm not worried about large language models. I'm really
not. A, because
I personally, as an individual, can
outthink them no matter what they spew out. Right? I can find
the gaps and all of that. Number two, I don't
anthropomorphize them. I don't call them intelligence because they're
not, and I refuse to play that,
word game with them. But then I also and this
is the third thing. Just like any technology, I am
expecting it to expose human failures,
but also to create human successes. Right?
And so I don't buy into the hype of LLMs. I do see their
usefulness in certain situations or for certain
projects. But I think the challenge
that they provide is one of, and it's kind of
one we're we've kind of been lazy at, at least in America over the last
twenty years, curation and aggregation.
And the people who figure out how to use these models and
then curated aggregate the best of these models are
going to be fine. Other people are just
gonna continue to use Microsoft Copilot to write a crappy email that they don't wanna
send so they could twirl around at their desk and eat a Snickers bar. And
that's fine. That's that's fine. I mean, I guess.
Thoughts on LLMs? Thoughts on anything. I believe
that was a commercial, by the way. I was trying to say I believe that
was a commercial during the Super Bowl that I might have missed or might have
heard about later on. Thoughts on thoughts
on on the the the hype around LLMs versus
the reality of of human cognition? I I
think I couldn't agree with you more. I I I think it's it's
a but, like, so so let's let's give LLMs
their their their due Their due. Yeah. At
first. And and so,
are there tens of
thousands of photos of rare cancers
on the Internet? Probably. Yeah.
Could someone, in the foreseeable future or now,
take a photo of a spot on their arm,
which the doctor said it's probably nothing,
And the artificial intelligence engine could say there's
a eighty two percent chance that it's one of these
rare cancers. Possible.
And it might take the doctor six weeks to
test and whatever. And now that
process is accelerated by this
person going and saying, I'd like to be tested for these cancers, and
this is why. And I guess this part of the mole
looking this way is roughly approximating this rare
cancer, and I'd like to look for it. And now you've you've accelerated the
process six weeks. So Mhmm. So do I think that that is a
foreseeable and a useful and an amazing
achievement? I do, and we should use it, and God
bless humanity. And then the
question becomes, is it actually
intelligent? Because that isn't actually intelligence. That
is that is something closer to
a massively high functioning
database. Mhmm. And and but it doesn't
actually require new information. And
the minute the minute we go, well,
what's the what what's the what what is
the next level of understanding that
humans do not have about something? Mhmm.
Can we ask the the computers to do
it? There's two difficulties I have with that just as a
matter of structure. One is, to our point earlier,
we falsely think humans are are
intelligent because we have
data. It's not true. Humans
are intelligent because we have instincts
based on reflections of data. And so
and so that begs the question,
what instincts does this have? None. Mhmm.
And what reflective ability does it have?
None. So it's highly limited in its
ability to create actual intelligence, and
you and I are not. Right? It's actually a fairly it's a
fairly simple process, right, that that, you know,
if my wife were to come in here right now and start yelling
at me, we we would we would say, oh, jeez. Brian looks upset. And
then and then we'd be able to determine within a couple
of minutes, probably, why she's upset.
Yeah. And and it would be really hard for an LLM
to do that. Right? Like like, you could feed it
my whole life, and it and it probably couldn't do that. But you and
I could do it in about forty seconds. And so and
so and so and so it's very like, it's it and and so and so
we make the assumption that data is equal
to assessment of data and reflection on data, and they're
not the same thing. And and and it's not codable.
And and and it then begs the question, does
it that it who who is the thinker? Not
not what is the not what is the data to be
thought about, but who is the thinker.
And and and do these things actually have enough personality
and, therefore, the instincts, etcetera, to be thinking?
And my sense is we're very far from from from
that right right now, and I don't know that we will ever get
there. And I'll and I'll share with you
this. I I was gonna ask this question. This I was at the Wall Street
Journal Future of Everything conference, and I went to the the guy who
runs DeepMind, went to his thing. Yeah. And so I'm sure this is
gonna end up on the Internet, and go ahead and feel free to clip this
and make me look like an asshole. But I was gonna ask him this question.
And number one, he didn't take any questions. The guy who ran DeepMind was
was was number one, he didn't ask any questions. Oh, no. It was it was
Google's sorry. I should say this right because because the DeepMind guy was there as
well. It was Google's, like, like, head
of, like, moonshot projects or something. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mhmm.
And and and I was gonna ask this question, but
his presentation was
so pedestrian. It was so simple. It
was so, hey. Human beings have been replaced by technology for
forever, and I know you're upset about it. But, like, it was so I was
like, I can't ask. I'm not sure he could answer it.
Like like like, if if this is the guy
doing moonshots, we're nowhere like,
they're driving. They're not this is not even the right highway. They're they're they're going
the wrong direction. Like like, this person can't
comprehend that question. Right. That right? And and
so and and so, like, I was like, this is so frustrating. Like like because
because these are interesting things if they actually bring it up, but but that
was awful. Right? It was like talk about the
the the quality of somebody's, reflections on on the
experiences they've had. I'm like, if that's the quality of
reflection based on the experiences of the people who run
Google moonshots, sell your stock. Right? Like
like, that that ain't gonna go well for people. And so
and and so my sense is that that we have this promise of
the thing. We think data and processing power is the way to
get through the promise of this thing, and we're missing the
question, who is the thinker and how is the thinker
creating the instincts of the instincts of of
creation? And I don't think we're anywhere near there, and I don't think Yeah. I
don't think we're it's it's just not a threat to writers. No. No. I
I agree. I think
human beings can do everything an LLM can't do. Right? Which is a lot of
things. And these two
things can be true at the same time. LLMs can do a lot of things
that human beings don't want to do when they are
employed to do those things that human beings don't wanna do.
And the sad tragedy is the things that human beings don't
wanna do. Say, for instance, I've got
to I do my laundry because I live in a house with other
people, so I get to do my laundry once a month.
That's the only time that I can get in. Yes. I do have enough clean
clothes. Thank you for asking.
I make sure I do everything once a month, and then I just dominate. And
then I'm done, and I irritate everybody, and it's fine. I don't
want an LLM to send my email
to somebody. That's not a problem. I want the
LLM to do my laundry. Yes. Yes.
To paraphrase Peter Thiel, you know, I don't
wanna I don't wanna be promised moonshots and
get emails. And don't don't don't overpromise
and then and then specifically don't don't
under deliver. Yeah. Yeah.
Alright, Brian. I think we've reached the end of our time together. This has been
a fascinating conversation. We've opened up doors in the floor, in
the floor of my head. Hopefully, I've opened up some doors in the floor of
your head. Appreciate it. Hopefully, this has been a this has been a an an
enlightening and engaging conversation for our our listeners as well, something to think
about. We haven't really come to any conclusions, and I think that's good, because these
are all still open questions. What would you like to
promote today, if anything? I'll give you the last word here.
Well, first of all, if anybody's interested in learning more about us,
think deeply, write clearly Com. There's a little
button on there for a fifteen minute call if anybody's interested
in in in chatting. In a in
a very nonspecific way, the things that a lot of
people find interesting to to start with my company if if this
conversation is is is of interest to you and how to
write from more deeply and observed,
way in the world is is of interest to you. We have a
a program that's $99 per quarter, and it's about ten
minutes a week. People tend to love that, and I'd be happy to give anybody,
you know, a couple of months free into that and see if they like it.
So just email me or or, you know, hook up on that
somehow on that site, and I'd be happy to chat with you. Great. We will
have links to Brian Morgan's site
at think deeply, write clearly. I would encourage
you to check that out and to click on all those links and get in
contact with Brian Morgan and, of course, follow him around in all the places on
social media where you may be able to follow him, follow him
around and, and make sure to connect with him widely
and clearly. Alright. I'd like to thank Brian
Morgan for coming on leadership lessons from the Great Books podcast today. And
with that, well, we're out. Thank you,
Fred.
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