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NET Society is unraveling the latest in digital art, crypto, AI, and tech. Join us for fresh insights and bold perspectives as we tap into wild, thought-provoking conversations. By: Derek Edwards (glitch marfa / collab+currency), Chris Furlong (starholder, LAO + Flamingo DAO), and Aaaron Wright & Priyanka Desai (Tribute Labs)
00;00;00;00 - 00;00;16;17
Aaron
Are we talking tokens?
00;00;16;19 - 00;00;19;17
Pri
What? What kind of tokens are we talking? We talking.
00;00;19;19 - 00;00;20;29
Aaron
All tokens.
00;00;21;02 - 00;00;25;28
Pri
Crypto. I compute, there's a lot of tokens out there.
00;00;26;00 - 00;00;28;09
Chris
Subway tokens? Yeah.
00;00;28;11 - 00;00;28;27
Pri
Kids, we're.
00;00;28;27 - 00;00;33;01
Aaron
Going to talk about subway tokens. Chris.
00;00;33;03 - 00;00;34;10
Chris
So we.
00;00;34;13 - 00;00;35;20
Pri
Use tokens.
00;00;35;22 - 00;00;51;05
Aaron
Honestly, I just think the game's changing and the game is now just get your hands on as many tokens as possible. Use as many tokens as possible. Build things to generate and consume as many tokens as possible. It just tokens all the way down.
00;00;51;07 - 00;00;56;28
Pri
Is there a way to know how many you know what people are consuming the most? Tokens like a token leaderboard?
00;00;57;00 - 00;00;59;10
Aaron
I don't know, sounds like a good product idea.
00;00;59;12 - 00;01;16;28
Chris
I think before we go too deep off, the tokens rule everything around me. Fred, why don't we just describe what a token is? I mean, obviously, our listeners all know what New York 20 and the 7-Eleven and, like, crypto tokens are. But, on the AI side, what's the token?
00;01;17;00 - 00;01;18;27
Aaron
You tell us, professor Chris.
00;01;19;00 - 00;01;28;28
Chris
All right, I, I look at it like, this way. And just for our listeners, Aaron, a few other people, even a little token crazy this week. Well, look, this has been going on in the background.
00;01;29;00 - 00;01;30;10
Aaron
We like tokens.
00;01;30;12 - 00;01;31;07
Chris
Yeah.
00;01;31;09 - 00;01;33;01
Pri
We like a joke, and.
00;01;33;04 - 00;01;35;11
Chris
We're high key. This week.
00;01;35;13 - 00;01;38;20
Aaron
Super high token.
00;01;38;22 - 00;02;05;29
Chris
All right, but a token right in I. It represents a couple things I think one is the token. Is the payload getting passed back and forth. Right. It's the actual information broken down into bits packaged up and delivered from machine to machine or from, you know, your your laptop into the machine so it can do some work. Right.
00;02;05;29 - 00;02;33;29
Chris
And so like think of it as like token as payload. But then you know, it also has a second property to it in which token is the unit of account. And so it's how all these service providers, these models measure their usage in terms of like billing or context. Windows. Right. Like they need they need to quantify what's actually coming in and out.
00;02;34;01 - 00;02;39;16
Chris
And so that's the other side of tokens. Tokens. Do anything else or do we feel like we got that one?
00;02;39;19 - 00;02;44;28
Aaron
I think you did a great job at that. Yeah. You think that covers also crypto tokens? Crescer.
00;02;45;00 - 00;03;07;01
Chris
Yeah. I mean in some ways, right. Like an NFT definitely has that two sided property. I mean, Erc20 do two, right, where you have a front facing thing and you have a unit of account. So like Erc20 is it just might be governance rights or rights are the front facing thing. You know, and obviously we know with NFT is you have to put a Jpeg on your token.
00;03;07;01 - 00;03;12;00
Chris
If you don't have a header to an A.W. file storage system, you don't have an NFT.
00;03;12;02 - 00;03;32;13
Pri
I think in both ways they're kind of I think about it and like, this is like the smooth brain, but they're just like bits of compute. And just like a token kind of is compute on a blockchain. I feel like I tokens are kind of like a unit of data that's processed by an algorithm, kind of like a piece of software compute processed by algorithm.
00;03;32;16 - 00;03;38;25
Pri
So I mean that's again a smooth bread take. But I feel like that's where they both are similar to me. Definitionally.
00;03;38;27 - 00;03;41;21
Chris
Yeah. All right. We know what tokens are guys.
00;03;41;23 - 00;03;42;20
Pri
Yeah.
00;03;42;22 - 00;03;47;22
Aaron
All right. Let's go to the next step. Why are tokens important Chris. What what is the meta trend?
00;03;47;24 - 00;04;08;08
Chris
What is the matter trend I mean, well, if AI is doing more and more, if AI is getting more powerful, if AI is consuming the world than it's consuming the world in token size batches. And so the more tokens you got, the more powerful you are. Is is it that simple an equation?
00;04;08;10 - 00;04;28;21
Aaron
It kind of feels like that to me. You know, I was talking to some folks just like separately and they I think there's there's a good question here. I be curious what other folks think, but like is is the demand for tokens just going to continue to go up and up and up and up. Right. Like, or is there like a token overproduction with all this investment in AI?
00;04;28;23 - 00;04;51;19
Aaron
And it feels like to me the demand is like is not really even touched yet. And I feel like that glib stuff from a week or so ago kind of highlighted that, like one simple use case of AI, just like melted servers for OpenAI. Right? So I just feel like there's just a ton of demand for tokens. Like there's almost like infinite demand for tokens.
00;04;51;22 - 00;05;24;20
Aaron
I think the like the price that people are going to be willing to pay for tokens is going to it's going to be a little inelastic, right? Like people are just going to want and pay for more and more tokens. And so if that's the case like that, that is the game, right? Like just get as many tokens as possible, build services that aggregate and expand as many tokens as possible, like invest in projects that enable people to use and consume and or wield as many tokens as possible, which is a bit different than how we operate today.
00;05;24;20 - 00;05;28;13
Aaron
Right? It's like more like, how can we get the most clicks or likes or attention, right?
00;05;28;19 - 00;05;59;24
Derek
That's spot on. I think by the thing I'll add to that is just like a, you know, the way I've been thinking about it and I think you can use this interchangeably with tokens. I think tokens are like the to use your framing like the unit of account or like the lowest common denominator of object. But like the way I've been thinking about it is just like, is just is a, an interchangeable with just intelligence, like the demand for intelligence is going to inflect up and like intelligence in creating, you know, a Ghibli like output is just one form of intelligence.
00;06;00;03 - 00;06;20;05
Derek
But like the intelligence required to kind of solve a complex health care problem or the intelligence required to, you know, do some segmentation or positioning analysis for your marketing team or the intelligence that's required to learn how to cook, at night or have, you know, or have a, you know, a, a piece of hardware cook for you.
00;06;20;08 - 00;06;42;02
Derek
These things are just, I mean, quantified through this type of intelligence is just quantified through tokens. And so like you, there's the input tokens, which is just like, you know, the, the cost to kind of inference and process these models. And then there's like the output tokens, which are just like these generated responses that I think are AI across every dimension and every modality, just continuing to get more and more interesting.
00;06;42;08 - 00;07;13;27
Derek
And the demand for these things is just going to outpace the available compute to be able to kind of support that type of that, that type of kind of demand. And so I think we're already starting to see I think the, the, the Ghibli gate was a great example of that. It's such a silly use case, but like, so clearly like a demand to kind of like perform that type of intelligence and yeah, as you kind of like look out through the, you know, the sea of opportunity where it just feels like compute really is the bottleneck to supporting, a lot of these outcomes and different forms of intelligence.
00;07;13;29 - 00;07;34;04
Chris
Yeah. I mean, when we were talking, you know, during the week here. Right, we kind of had this little light bulb moment where, like tokens, tokens is a great label right now. But to your point, right. Like there's inputs, there's outputs. Those are all packages. Right. And so we kind of were saying like the input side are really like reactants.
00;07;34;10 - 00;08;15;22
Chris
You know, it's a payload of information. It's a model you know GPU horsepower. It will change in the future. Right. So you have this package on one side and then on the other side your output is reasoning. Right. And so the reasoning also exists in the form of tokens. But it's a transformation of that reactant pass package. You know, combined with what the user is asking and combined with the work the models are doing, you know, all jammed together and then pushed out is reasoning, which can exist also along a whole range of spectrums, from something as simple as turning a picture of me to Ghibli to, you know, optimize this algorithm, you know, to
00;08;15;22 - 00;08;18;04
Chris
give me a 10% improvement in performance.
00;08;18;07 - 00;08;40;13
Aaron
Yeah. And then I think where I kind of went from that, Chris, is like, if you begin to like look at successful, like quote unquote, like Modi AI projects, like what they do is enable you to to do that faster, right? So like if I like a cursor as just like one example there, it enables me to just use a tremendous number of tokens.
00;08;40;15 - 00;09;04;21
Aaron
Right. And like the more tokens that I could use to be a cursor, the happier I am and the more like I'm willing to like spend time there, the more I'm willing to develop like a customer relationship with cursor, the more I'm willing to, you know, pay. I feel like if you start to like, even think about if you separate like OpenAI, the, the LLM from ChatGPT, the web interface like it's it's a similar story there.
00;09;04;22 - 00;09;21;23
Aaron
Right. Like the more tokens they let me use, the happier I am. And it feels like if you thought about a lot of the breakout projects like that's what they're actually enabling, enabling you to do, like at the core of it. And that feels like a huge insight.
00;09;21;26 - 00;09;36;19
Pri
That's interesting. But I feel like tokens are actually just a form of attention. Then like, you know, assuming you can leverage more tokens on Curser and there's nothing preventing you from doing so, you want to stay on the platform in a way, the tokens are the attention.
00;09;36;22 - 00;09;42;08
Aaron
I think attention just the byproduct of effectively and efficiently wielding more tokens.
00;09;42;10 - 00;09;43;26
Pri
Okay, yeah, I see.
00;09;43;26 - 00;10;19;09
Aaron
That. Like if your goal is to actually use and consume and output as much stuff using tokens, I think that you will probably generate more attention. And I think I think that that feels like that's like that's increasingly going to be the case, like even Chris and some of the AI creative stuff that you're generating, like when you're able to like layer in, you know, the outputs from tokens that are doing audio, post the outputs of tokens that are doing video, you know, plus the outputs of tokens that are, you know, doing a script and packaging that all up and making one click so you can more easily consume and use more tokens like that.
00;10;19;09 - 00;10;23;05
Aaron
That feels more mody than, you know, just generating the video.
00;10;23;07 - 00;10;49;07
Chris
Yeah, the construction certainly has a greater, I don't know, holding power than the actual output. Right. Like when this gets to a point where I can one shot these things and it's no longer an active creative construction, it's going to lose its appeal. And it's also going to be harder and harder for that thing to gain attention, because there's going to be a whole sea of them swimming around right.
00;10;49;12 - 00;11;12;29
Chris
And that's something like I'm hyper aware of as I'm doing this. It's like, you know, I might actually get through all 22 tracks, you know, let's just say somewhere in the summer and then a product's going to come out and it's going to just make that super simple all in one and like, completely wipe out the creative practice, the construction, like all the fun puzzle making of it.
00;11;13;02 - 00;11;34;04
Chris
I mean, never do another video again, right? Like that just might be it. And so much of like, I think how we're confronting these AI tools is no ng. Our exploration of them is momentary, and the maybe what we're using them for now is going to be completely rendered. You know, it's going to do it even more effectively.
00;11;34;04 - 00;11;56;23
Chris
But why we do it or why people want to look at it, you know, it's just going to get pushed to the wayside as we keep marching forward. And and that leads to like an interesting thing where attention is kind of cocked right now. And I don't mean that like attention isn't important. I mean, it's become like it's the beta.
00;11;56;25 - 00;12;04;23
Chris
It is. It is. It's such a beta LinkedIn thing to say nowadays. That's a great attention, man. You know, like tension.
00;12;04;26 - 00;12;05;26
Aaron
It had a good run.
00;12;05;29 - 00;12;25;11
Pri
I do wonder though, is like sure I think the you know, we're moving away from the attention economy and maybe it's about token consumption, which I think is actually a really early unique insight in a way, especially if you're using these tools, you can see where your own attention is being spent, and it's basically the consumption of tokens.
00;12;25;11 - 00;12;37;08
Pri
But what about like distribution? Like, isn't the attention economy still valuable for distribution? Like how do you or is it the token, since I'm talking is so high, that distribution kind of takes care of itself?
00;12;37;14 - 00;12;38;23
Chris
I think if you wielded enough.
00;12;38;23 - 00;13;02;15
Aaron
Tokens, you probably would be able to just build distribution channels to. That's a distribution I think is distinct from attention. Distribution is like a way to get, you know, to get attention. But my gut tells me if you're able to, like, wield a ton of tokens, then you're you're going to be able to get distribution. And I think that phenomena that we just saw last week kind of showed that, right.
00;13;02;21 - 00;13;10;13
Aaron
Like OpenAI wielded a ton of tokens and they they gained more distribution from that, that exercise.
00;13;10;16 - 00;13;37;04
Derek
Yeah. I think like, man, I really like this. The the core insight here around around just around tokens and like maybe the behaviorally behaviorally like demand for tokens as like a KPI that is like worth focusing on in the end, kind of this new leg in this new era of, of I don't know how we want to call it GDP, just like something more broad, just very broad in terms of just, consumer spending and consumer value.
00;13;37;07 - 00;14;16;25
Derek
I will say price point still resonates with me, which is even in that world, there is still going to be this hyper focus on on cultivating attention, which to me, like distribution is just downstream of your ability to generate attention. And even in the Ghibli case, it's like the the product merits and that that tokens spend to be able to create a compelling product like that to me, it was the attention generating event of that 24 hour cycle that led to this like distribution exercise that they got to enjoy, and it's almost like the way I would like qualify this just early.
00;14;16;25 - 00;14;52;21
Derek
And I have given this a grand total of like five minutes of thought. So I'm willing to change my opinion here. But but the way I qualify this is like I agree with the core insight around tokens. I'll also say attention and distribution downstream of attention still feels just as, if not more important in that worlds given like the the ability to create homogenous types of product value or consumer value is now getting easier and easier, you will still need to stand out and bring attention to to be able to create like distribution modes.
00;14;52;21 - 00;15;02;26
Derek
And, I just it's hard for me to see that going away. In fact, I feel like the game gets harder to play, but it doesn't go away. I don't know, that's that's how I'm thinking about this early.
00;15;02;29 - 00;15;28;03
Chris
You're right. And to this is a good point. To clarify, I look at this from a perspective of like someone out on the digital frontier, someone who is looking for, let's just say, every positive activity or looking to get somewhere where other people haven't been first, because there are a lot of advantages to finding that edge and exploiting it.
00;15;28;06 - 00;15;57;05
Chris
And so I look at this from the perspective of, like, I did a lot of search marketing back in the day, and I went through the period where, paid search keywords went from being the cheapest, most like also, giving thing you could do to, oh my god, like, this shit cost so much money and I better have a really good understanding of my, expected ROI prior to engaging in this activity.
00;15;57;05 - 00;16;19;06
Chris
And so, you know, to me, this is like attention is going to become like fighting Rome. Like you can beat Rome, but you better show up prepared to play. And with a whole goddamn army to do so. And so that's how I'm looking at it, where, like, you're bang for the buck in terms of attention is going to become a lot more costly.
00;16;19;06 - 00;16;46;22
Chris
And so you better be able to get it back. And so then I'm thinking, well, what does that mean? And where where does one go? And when you drop down a level and we start talking about distribution, distribution now expands. Right. Like distribution as a frontier keeps getting wider and wider, where we have quote unquote new audiences in the forms form of computation and all these tokens whizzing around.
00;16;46;22 - 00;16;49;10
Chris
And then that becomes an interesting field.
00;16;49;12 - 00;16;57;25
Aaron
Yeah, I think that's a good point, too, Chris. It's interesting. It almost makes me feel like we should have like a gross token production and consumption metric instead of like GDP.
00;16;57;27 - 00;17;18;26
Pri
It's kind of what I was thinking is what this leaderboard is like in order to kind of actually give attention to the token consumption so that there is distribution, you kind of need some metric, like right now with attention, it's just followers, which feels archaic, but like maybe there's some other metric that exists that accounts for this kind of new unit, not necessarily of attention, but like consumption.
00;17;19;04 - 00;17;22;21
Pri
I don't know what that looks like, but there could be something there.
00;17;22;23 - 00;17;25;15
Chris
How high is your key that follows that?
00;17;25;17 - 00;17;27;05
Pri
Yeah, exactly.
00;17;27;07 - 00;17;51;29
Chris
It is wild. Like, you know, one of the things around this that I got really geeked out on was this idea of like a new product category or a new, a new form of product design, and which is more parametric, meaning that, like the product itself is, it's an inciting event. It's an invitation to compute where you put out just enough to show what it can do.
00;17;52;02 - 00;18;13;29
Chris
And then, you know, you create incentives around it such that you're drawing in compute, right? You're pulling T into this product to improve upon it. And then, you know, can you create a flywheel that way? And what sort of, you know, existing categories can this really benefit? But also like what sort of like new categories does this allow for.
00;18;13;29 - 00;18;37;00
Chris
And so this is like a simple example of something, you know, we already have today. It would be like optimizing code, right. Like people have code bases. People have algorithms. There's like a gazillion, you know, processes out on the net that just do huge amounts of volume and any incremental improvements to how they go about doing that offers massive gains.
00;18;37;00 - 00;19;00;22
Chris
And so could you put out, you know, something as simple as, like, hey, this is my search algorithm. And, you know, this is, this is how it processes. This is the rate it works out is it's costs like make this better, faster. And I can reward you for doing that because I'm benefiting and so, like, you know, you're changing this thing around to my product is now an invitation to compute.
00;19;00;25 - 00;19;02;28
Chris
It is thirsty for tokens.
00;19;03;00 - 00;19;06;09
Aaron
Yeah. And I think that's the key. Like how do you create the.
00;19;06;11 - 00;19;07;22
Chris
The token thirst trap.
00;19;07;26 - 00;19;30;19
Aaron
The token thirst trap man. That's a that's but I mean honestly, like if I think it even applies to crypto because I think if you think about even like successful crypto projects, like they, they enable you to get or consume or root more tokens. And I think almost every successful crypto project that's had some staying power has kind of done that.
00;19;30;21 - 00;19;46;07
Aaron
Actually. It's one way to actually view what we just went through in crypto land, which is Solana generated more tokens than Eath this last cycle. And that's why people were excited. Like Solana was the token thirst trap, Chris, and thus got more attention.
00;19;46;10 - 00;19;49;24
Pri
Yeah, you're right, tokens are attention.
00;19;49;27 - 00;20;03;25
Aaron
And then it's also at the same time the bull case for Ethereum, because the EVM L2 distribution strategy will, in the long run, generate more tokens than the momentary thirst trap of Solana.
00;20;03;27 - 00;20;07;17
Chris
The global settlement layer is just a call to tokens.
00;20;07;20 - 00;20;28;16
Aaron
Yeah. I mean, but honestly, if I think if you start to to get into this mindset, like a lot of stuff makes sense. Like why was like OpenSea successful? Because it enabled you to to, you know, get more tokens more efficiently. Like why is Uniswap successful? Because it enables you to get tokens more effectively. Like why is Fantom like gaining market share against MetaMask?
00;20;28;16 - 00;20;49;14
Aaron
Because it's easier for you to get more tokens using Fantom than MetaMask. And like people just want tokens because we are now in a token economy. And if you do that, the the exhaust of that is attention. So like Solana made it super easy to generate tokens, made it easier for more people to get tokens. And therefore and only because of that got more attention.
00;20;49;17 - 00;21;21;23
Derek
I mean, like I, I wrote an essay about attention and, and networked objects and storing value and these things a couple of years back, and I had this one section in the essay where it was titled More Objects, More Attention. It was on this exact point, and like the the examples I used were like the pioneering gen media projects like Punks and Squiggles to illustrate that, you know, like a single collection of iterative works like would create these compounding network effects, which is why, you know, like these, these, these collections of 10,000 or 15,000 or 20,000 outputs.
00;21;21;23 - 00;21;41;02
Derek
In the case of me, that's like these things were actually quite networked and charged with attention, just given the fact that there was more ownership dimensions for for more people to come in to. Yeah, I think that's like a, I, we've seen we've seen this play out. I think the I hadn't considered that I in the sense of just like the, the meme tokens.
00;21;41;02 - 00;22;01;22
Derek
But if you think about it from like pure holder base, like it's quite true. I mean, some of these top meme tokens, or meme token economies on Solana, they have hundreds of thousands of unique holders, not all of them, but but certain ones for sure. And there's power there, like there's real power in, in creating like ownership profile that instantiates like a network to form around a single idea.
00;22;01;22 - 00;22;03;18
Derek
So I tend to agree with you on.
00;22;03;21 - 00;22;26;15
Chris
All right, Derek, let's try pushing a little further because you're probably the one person on here most uncomfortable with the idea of, Aaron's throwaway statement there where he said, attention is the exhaust of tokens. Can you throw attention away that much, or can you put a token, attention downstream of computation at that level? And what does it mean?
00;22;26;17 - 00;22;30;07
Derek
Yeah, I mean, maybe I would ask, Aaron, can you unpack that a bit more? Okay.
00;22;30;07 - 00;23;08;16
Aaron
Well, I was thinking about this, right? So, like, let's say in two quarters it's going to be super easy to create, you know, something that's on par with what, human can, create creatively. Right? So it's creative reasoning, and I can just plow like billions upon billions of tokens. Related. Related to that, there is no way that I would not be able to generate more attention than if I tried, if I tried to do that, like singular away, like it is the ability for me to push through like as many tokens to those systems as possible that will, like, it's not really like a per unit basis, but like on a
00;23;08;16 - 00;23;14;05
Aaron
per effort basis, just attract more attention. And I just think that that's going to be the game more tokens.
00;23;14;05 - 00;23;19;00
Derek
So tokens and attention scale linearly is what I'm hearing you say is that right?
00;23;19;06 - 00;23;37;26
Aaron
Yeah. It's kind of like it's just like content, right? Like so, you know, if I built a system where I could consume on a like a permanent basis, billions upon billions of tokens, like I can just consume them and wield them and have the output related to it. There's no way that that would get more. Let's pick a metric like impressions or views or or clicks.
00;23;37;26 - 00;23;42;17
Aaron
Then than any other system. So it just it makes attention just kind of downstream of.
00;23;42;17 - 00;24;10;15
Chris
It to a point though, right? Because you're competing with evermore objects and there's a fixed amount of human attention. And so we do need to, like in your scenario, expand the number of attention consumers into the, you know, synthetic machine world. But yeah, so that's like a second order effect. Like you simply can't just blast the world with if there are a million errands doing the same thing, right, you're not going to get more impressions.
00;24;10;20 - 00;24;13;21
Chris
But those million are and collectively are.
00;24;13;27 - 00;24;35;25
Aaron
Yeah, it's a great point, Chris. I think I think what happens is you just flood the zone. So much with your token generated media that you basically just start shaping the whole media landscape, and that's how you can just increasingly capture more and more attention. And I think that's what's going to happen with these AI systems. They're just going to completely dominate the media landscape until they're just shaping attention.
00;24;35;27 - 00;24;44;06
Pri
I agree, but if there are multiple actors doing that, doesn't it become more difficult and noisy to cut through, even if you are consuming a tremendous amount of tokens?
00;24;44;08 - 00;24;52;22
Aaron
Yeah. So let's say that happens. What are you going to have to do then? You're going to have to like expend more tokens to outcompete the other token producers. So that just it just goes.
00;24;52;25 - 00;25;17;21
Chris
Which means the opportunity is to jump downstream into that distribution creation cycle. And because that's where it's going to be growing. Right. Like the absolute human attention is capped. But the fight for that absolute human attention is just begun. And in in doing that, the machines are also creating a market for their own attention.
00;25;17;24 - 00;25;20;14
Pri
So we need to appeal to the the computers then.
00;25;20;19 - 00;25;28;02
Aaron
Yeah. Just like you need to again, like the more tokens you can control, like the more you're going to be able to play in that game. What do you think, Chris.
00;25;28;04 - 00;25;30;24
Chris
I don't know. I mean, can I please.
00;25;30;27 - 00;25;53;06
Derek
Now, this is such an interesting conversation. I have never thought about it in this way, but it's fun to kind of go through. I mean, like, this is not a clean analog, but I think the argument that I'm hearing is just like, if you control more compute, which then informs your ability to scale the amount of tokens that you can create and and proliferate around, then you are able to capture more attention.
00;25;53;06 - 00;26;24;12
Derek
I think it was like if I was going to, you know, collate the argument into that single sentence, that's probably how I would do it. I think my, my one, I there's no question that more compute gives you a structural advantage. But at the end of the day, like there are still consumers are of it of attention, are very savvy like they they are unwilling to to kind of like waste this precious resource on things that are not creatively interesting, that are not innovative, that are not actually meaningful from a product or service payload.
00;26;24;14 - 00;27;00;17
Derek
And I still I still maintain that, you know, the of course, there's, you know, comparative advantages to like, you know, like wielding more compute and more tokens in market. But there is also, you know, all sorts of other dimensions by which attention can get, you know, like created or informed and I guess, like what? You know, it's so funny, when we were talking about this, I was like, what's like an analog that like kind of illustrates this point and the it's not great, but the, the example I kept thinking of is, do you remember, like in the late 90s and early 2000, like the AOL CDs that they just fucking blanketed everywhere, like you couldn't
00;27;00;17 - 00;27;09;19
Derek
walk into, like a Best Buy or a, you know, a computer store without get it like being handed 100 of the CDs they were shipped to your house. You guys remember what I'm talking about? Like that?
00;27;09;26 - 00;27;14;19
Chris
Yeah. Like we we used to pick them up and fling them at each other totally.
00;27;14;22 - 00;27;36;14
Derek
Like, as kids. Like you would make, like, you know, structures out of them and, like, break them down. And of course, like the walled garden approach of AOL ended up losing to kind of like this open internet. And I would argue that, like, yes, there was massive distribution and attention benefits that AOL had in a very specific period of time, and they even had a like a very compelling product that could maintain attention around it.
00;27;36;16 - 00;27;55;21
Derek
But at the end of the day, like startups were able to eat away from that, being very creative on much smaller resources by appealing to kind of like all sorts of different product and service payloads that like eat away at that market share as time went on. And, you know, we're 25 years later and I my gut tells me it's going to be the same.
00;27;55;21 - 00;28;29;23
Derek
Like there, of course, like I think when we're dealing with just, you know, the hazy fields of like a new industry and like there are clear market leaders that are, you know, at the edges of, of this tech that are, you know, that are, you know, building up these, these walled approaches that faster than anyone else. And they're able to kind of like, you know, direct behavior very quickly through these very viral moments, whether it's that the Jubilee stuff or it's a, you know, a great version around your product, I have to believe that, like, there is still pockets of innovation that are going to kind of unbundle this, this landscape a little bit.
00;28;29;23 - 00;28;49;13
Derek
And yeah, I guess I guess my only piece of feedback that I want to throw in here is that, like I would I will always say that like attention can also be downstream of really great innovation and product and on on much scarcer resources. So anyway, I don't even know where I'm going with this anymore. But that's, that's I think you're right.
00;28;49;20 - 00;29;10;21
Aaron
Yeah. It's a great point. I just think, you know, it's it's not I don't think these things are mutually exclusive. I think you're still going to be able to get attention in different ways. They can they'll be authentic ways to get attention. But you're just going to be competing in like a media landscape where you're just you're just going to have to face this firehose of, you know, token generated media and content.
00;29;10;21 - 00;29;35;03
Aaron
And I just think, you know, it just becomes less predictable. What's going to get attention. It's going to be harder to, to build businesses related to that. And I don't know, it just it feels like that's the landscape that's changing. And I think what you want to measure, if you want to compete in that landscape, is different from like impressions, clicks, users to like, just raw, like unadulterated high tea token consumption.
00;29;35;05 - 00;30;03;08
Chris
Here, let's let's try framing exercise. HBO right? When does tokens make HBO crumble? And like, I can see HBO going in two directions, right? HBO never goes away. It becomes a criterion collection of new human made golden age TV. Right? There was only only one host left standing. And so HBO gets all the great human talent and and beats the tokens.
00;30;03;10 - 00;30;23;08
Chris
The other version, right, is the new, new head of, Time Warner. They're the discovery guy. He is pretty ruthless with the ax. HBO has it made, like, really great TV in ten years. Let's be real. And it just it dies by, like, death to a thousand cuts and the brand totally deteriorates. And there's no prestige TV anymore.
00;30;23;08 - 00;30;27;13
Chris
There's only tokens. Which version? You see.
00;30;27;16 - 00;30;29;19
Aaron
It's a good one. What do you. What do you guys think?
00;30;29;21 - 00;30;33;28
Pri
Are we talking about? Like, an alternative media landscape that consumes the most tokens?
00;30;34;05 - 00;30;38;04
Chris
I'm saying, how long is HBO still relevant?
00;30;38;06 - 00;30;39;18
Pri
Five years.
00;30;39;21 - 00;30;43;04
Chris
Not very encouraging for HBO. Derek, do you believe in HBO any more than that?
00;30;43;08 - 00;30;47;17
Derek
It's it's a it's a good it's a good question and a good exercise. And like I.
00;30;47;17 - 00;30;54;16
Aaron
Just felt like runway six, right. Like, isn't runway six going to do that Chris. Like doesn't that blow HBO at the water? I mean, what do you think there.
00;30;54;19 - 00;31;18;22
Derek
Well, yeah, I mean like it really so much of this depends on you know, I've had a chance to talk to some of these, you know, some of my, some of my LPs are folks who, who are involved in, in consumer media and, and in part running some of these companies and I think like the I think the question that I always have for them is just like this, this is an unstoppable train, right?
00;31;18;22 - 00;31;49;29
Derek
Like this technology, like the the fact that even asking this question, Chris, and we're not being like, that's never going to happen is like such evidence that, like, this stuff is happening regardless of whether we like it or not. And I think my question for like the, the, the folks of HBO who are so good at very specific things which are like storytelling and, you know, creating like very compelling consumer grade media products that meet the moment at any given time, whether it's a documentary or a really great series or a time piece that's set in some kind of like, whatever fantasy.
00;31;49;29 - 00;31;50;11
Chris
Dragon.
00;31;50;11 - 00;32;15;16
Derek
World. Exactly. Fantasy Dragon world that people are excited about. Again, they're, they're very good at like, market mapping. They're very good at the actual, you know, making profitable productions of very good storytelling. They they have all of these, these, these value props. My question is just like, can you package this stuff and configure it in a way that matches this new technology where it's best served and like if they fail to do that?
00;32;15;18 - 00;32;39;20
Derek
Yeah, I think that five year mark feels right to me. It's like that. What that will become when this technology becomes a weighing machine and people will start voting with their dollars and it will become very like clear that like the the value provision at these things, have served it for many years is starting to get eroded by folks with 1/100 the budget, just because that's what this technology allows for.
00;32;39;20 - 00;33;02;14
Derek
And it no longer becomes a profitable venture to to have the cost structure to support what they've been doing for the last 50, 60 years. But if they are able to say, like, okay, here's how we take everything that we've done, including our library of IP and we bring it into this world that's so obviously happening. I, you know, like crazier pivots have happened.
00;33;02;16 - 00;33;24;03
Derek
The the question that you have to ask yourself is just like, can they make the can they make the jump? Can video game studios make the jump? Can content studios make the jump? Can the the cost structures that have supported how people consume these products get completely eliminated or tailored to match the real meat of what this technology allows for?
00;33;24;08 - 00;33;43;20
Derek
And those are really hard decisions when you're a CEO because you do it too soon, you lose market share, you do it too late. Your, you know, you become, a forgotten product. And so I don't envy that job. I don't envy the job of of HBO and Fox and, and some of these media conglomerates because this is going to be very difficult for them to get right.
00;33;43;23 - 00;33;52;22
Aaron
I think the better question is like, what does what does the next HBO look like? Right. Like and I don't think it is just like a large, like a runway.
00;33;52;28 - 00;33;53;28
Chris
To me it's a world.
00;33;54;05 - 00;34;18;20
Aaron
Yeah. Like but I think that that's like the like the question is like what? What can like an HBO or like a big media platform do to to compete. I mean, they probably it's probably like just dramatically increasing the amount of like high quality content that that they can steward, create and push through. Right. Because that's really what what HBO is differentiator is.
00;34;18;20 - 00;34;41;25
Aaron
It's not just that you get media, you get like this high quality, differentiated media. And so they probably should be thinking about how can I wield as many tokens as possible to like, expand the number of, you know, media objects that we can output so we can compete in this flood of synthetic media that's coming. Maybe, maybe that's the right way to think about it.
00;34;41;27 - 00;34;56;13
Chris
So HBO needs to build the Reese Witherspoon metaverse, the Game of Thrones metaverse, which is the, entourage metaverse. And it's got to land like 20,000 people in each of them. And hold on that way maybe.
00;34;56;13 - 00;35;09;01
Aaron
Yeah. Or, you know, maybe that's where, like, some of the early experiments around, like, tokenized media that like UGA and other folks were pointing towards, maybe they were a little bit too early, but maybe directionally they were. Right.
00;35;09;04 - 00;35;34;02
Chris
Yeah. I just I can't see a future in which, like, entertainment is not immersive, leading, multimodal and transformable to like your needs as you want to access it. You like to me in a future the Game of Thrones story world. Yes. If I want like a one hour dramatization, I can sit down and pull that up on demand.
00;35;34;05 - 00;35;53;18
Chris
But I can also, you know, if I'm at the gym, I can just initiate a conversation with the AI and just say, hey, I'm really geeked out on, I don't know, like the mechanics of recruiting people to, to man the wall. And I would like you to generate a 30 minute podcast around that concept. Well, I, you know, hit the treadmill.
00;35;53;21 - 00;36;15;28
Chris
Like, why not just, you know, a be able to travel to any depth or height within the show but or within the world the focus, the attention on particular topics, characters, moment but then see package that in any way the consumer wants given how they're actually moving to meatspace.
00;36;16;01 - 00;36;16;29
Aaron
Yeah, it's super interesting.
00;36;16;29 - 00;36;20;09
Chris
Chris, but what if the only thing that can do it is tokens?
00;36;20;11 - 00;36;22;06
Aaron
It's tokens all the way down?
00;36;22;09 - 00;36;48;01
Pri
Oh, you guys, what about like this? Like, I mean, I'm using this in the media context, but a lot of media, part of the reason, you know, media is successful is like it's like a shared experience amongst the consumers enjoying the media. I don't care what kind of media it is. It could be physical, digital, video, whatever. And I mean, for example, White Lotus, you see after the show airs, there's like collective memes, people with the recaps reading it and, you know, there's some bonding, there's podcast recaps are the same thing.
00;36;48;01 - 00;37;01;15
Pri
Like, don't you think, like bifurcating that experience to do this, like hyper customized token, token rich I guess curated media would take away from that, like collective consciousness around it.
00;37;01;18 - 00;37;27;16
Chris
Yes. And that's a problem. A it's a problem tokens need to overcome because it might be where it can't supplant humans attention. Right. That like that might be the moat. Right there is our collective cultural solidarity or tokens might continue to break down solidarity. Right. Like, you know, sort of a societal uniformity, solidarity like culture monoculture.
00;37;27;18 - 00;37;27;28
Pri
Yeah.
00;37;27;28 - 00;37;39;05
Chris
You know, it's been chipped away at for decades and decades and decades. And maybe we don't get that. Maybe we get something in between these two things. I don't know. It's totally wide open. Right?
00;37;39;07 - 00;37;59;29
Pri
That's true. And and to your point, monoculture has been like there's so many subcultures now that people might find their own corner. And that's completely fine. There isn't a monoculture is dying with the exception of like, you know, you have your Taylor Swifts that attract like the wide group. So maybe that's not really necessary. And it's actually like complementary to where things are going anyway.
00;38;00;07 - 00;38;03;05
Pri
It just feels like a little bit sad to me to some extent.
00;38;03;07 - 00;38;15;24
Chris
It's totally sad. But it's also a Thunderdome. And two men enter one men lives. I mean, we've got tokens on one side. How many how many people are going to come in in before, you know, tokens after exit Thunderdome?
00;38;15;27 - 00;38;34;21
Pri
Yeah. So interesting to think about, like, the consumer experience over the next, like five, ten years, I guess. Actually, the question I want to ask you guys is like, unless, you know, in the hypothetical dirt, you know, Derrick was owning if they can if executives in Hollywood can time this right, which is difficult to do, it's also hard to be like an incumbent in general.
00;38;34;21 - 00;39;02;01
Pri
Like if there is a HBO competitor that comes in that's able to create high t media that's curated for everyone, it's just kind of impossible to to compete with that. If it actually catches a wave. How how quickly do you think that comes? Like, I know you were asking the time frame, but I said five years. But I'm curious, like, how quickly does this potential media landscape, for example, in the context of media, actually happen in your guys's view, three years?
00;39;02;03 - 00;39;04;24
Pri
Okay, assume, but.
00;39;04;26 - 00;39;24;08
Chris
No, I think that's when it starts hitting right. The problem is, right now you can only generate like 10s of video. Now you can keep like stitching and like so they're going to solve this really soon is what I'm saying. Want it solved? Then we get into that point of like the adoption curve and distribution and who can actually cut through.
00;39;24;08 - 00;39;48;19
Chris
And so, you know, we went through this with web shorts, right. Like there was a moment in time where like if you had like a goofy idea and, you know, like look at yacht Rock, right? Like yacht Rock was like one of the first web shorts to, like, completely break out and surprise, surprise, like, I watched a documentary on HBO about yacht rock a couple months ago, which was running clips from that YouTube web short.
00;39;48;19 - 00;39;51;08
Chris
Right. So, like, we've seen this once before.
00;39;51;11 - 00;39;54;01
Pri
Yeah, feels more extreme this time now.
00;39;54;08 - 00;40;09;10
Aaron
And that may be like what it looks like, right? Where maybe you are spending more time generating like a high, like high quality, maybe more human centric media. And then the edges are just all this synthetic media that's just generating, consuming so many tokens.
00;40;09;13 - 00;40;34;20
Pri
Do you think that there will be a premium on. I've seen this commentary quite a bit on my timeline, and even just in random subsets and stuff I've read, but do you feel like there's going to be like a premium to human generated content, like people will crave and want that, and it will. That actually will be premium TV as opposed to, you know, HBO trying to be premium TV to cable is the real premium TV all human generated?
00;40;34;20 - 00;40;39;22
Pri
I personally don't think so, but I'd be curious because like, that's a take. I've read quite a bit.
00;40;39;25 - 00;40;45;12
Chris
We've got organic milk in my house. Yeah. People buy heirloom tomatoes from the farmers market. Yes.
00;40;45;13 - 00;40;55;11
Aaron
Are overrated dude. Come on. Overrated. All right. Shorting the air. I'm shorting the heirloom tomato. I like the little, the, like, sweet mini cherry ones.
00;40;55;11 - 00;41;01;03
Pri
A do you ever try those? Like those? Like strawberries from Japan. What are they called again?
00;41;01;04 - 00;41;06;27
Aaron
Those are sick. Yeah, those like those, high end strawberries. Oh, yeah. I'll pay for that stuff.
00;41;06;28 - 00;41;14;19
Chris
Well, you got to pay up for something on HBO. Same way you pay for those strawberries. You might not like the tomatoes, but that doesn't mean HBO doesn't have strawberries.
00;41;14;19 - 00;41;32;23
Aaron
Company. It's true. I'm like, not where I do think. Like, if you know how to produce, like high quality stuff and you get into this like, right mental model, like that's how you survive. But I just think it's, I think what we just have been describing is like a really good mental model for just thinking about how this stuff is going to get distributed and where value kind of accrues.
00;41;32;23 - 00;42;05;25
Aaron
And I, I think that I think that the like it's almost like a token aggregation theory. It seems to have like some legs or at least is like a helpful framework to think through things and like why some projects may projects companies, you know, DAOs, protocols, whatever it is, you know, just may have some staying power. I think the other thing that I was thinking about, like Chris, is just like this, like marketplace analysis and like the, the way like I probably won't solve like coordination problems, you know, thinking about this like nobody's really worried that like Bitcoin or Ethereum won't exist in the world of AI.
00;42;05;27 - 00;42;23;17
Aaron
Right? And it's like, why is that the case? Well, because if you think about eath in particular, like it's coordinating a huge marketplace, right. Like all these different stakeholders and use cases. And I think that that's why nobody really has in their consciousness like, oh, I'm really worried post AI, there's not going to be like a blockchain network of some sort.
00;42;23;22 - 00;42;33;00
Aaron
And I think if you start miniaturizing that down and thinking about other ecosystems and industries like that's probably where the moodiness is going to, it's going to exist.
00;42;33;07 - 00;42;35;24
Chris
Yeah. Humans still control the purse range, right?
00;42;35;26 - 00;42;56;17
Aaron
Yeah. Or even like agents. Right. Like there's just going to be like the more activity you can kind of coordinate like in a, in your network, just the better. Right. So like the theorem is just an example. Creates a ton of activity. Right. Tons of humans soon will be bots and agents. Right. But that's going to mean that it's going to probably not get quote unquote disrupted in the future.
00;42;56;25 - 00;43;16;26
Aaron
Like you're going to need that service to do that coordination, like that trusted coordination layer. I was thinking about Web2, like a lot of Web2 is like 3 to 5 sided marketplaces that built network effects, and it seems like the AI stuff will enable us to coordinate like seven, eight, nine, ten sided marketplaces. And that's probably where the successful businesses kind of come from.
00;43;16;28 - 00;43;31;04
Aaron
I think that's why we're seeing so many folks like geeking out about an organization. Like as an organization, you can view it as just like a entity or kind of a marketplace for labor, you know, 50 different labor sources, right? Or 100 different labor sources. So like hundred sided markets.
00;43;31;12 - 00;43;42;10
Chris
So marketplaces and token thirst traps, that's what we're and by the way, MicroStrategy is that like the most successful token thirst trap ever created?
00;43;42;12 - 00;43;44;09
Aaron
It's it's a good one. Yeah.
00;43;44;12 - 00;43;45;10
Pri
Truly.
00;43;45;12 - 00;43;49;24
Aaron
And does have good, attention grabbing, token powered content.
00;43;49;26 - 00;43;56;15
Chris
The more tokens you cram into it, the more attention it can carry. Your thesis right there.
00;43;56;18 - 00;44;04;25
Pri
The irony is, like micro sellers, Twitter is just like I generated images of him. Like with Bitcoin paraphernalia. So he's he's.
00;44;04;27 - 00;44;07;00
Aaron
He's he's already seeing the future.
00;44;07;03 - 00;44;10;14
Pri
Yeah he's token. There's trap like in both senses.
00;44;10;17 - 00;44;20;14
Chris
The man's space I guess he got hold of like an idea. I need tokens right. He couldn't sleep at night. News is like I need more tokens. And then he built his persona around it. And one.
00;44;20;21 - 00;44;39;06
Pri
Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you, everyone. Welcome to Net Society. It's me, Chris and Aaron. And today this podcast is about exploring the world, digital art, crypto, AI and tech. We're bringing you deep insights, fresh perspectives, and hitting on some themes that are explored in some of the deals. We tend to have wild and fun conversations on a weekly basis.
00;44;39;06 - 00;44;47;28
Pri
So great to have you just as a quick disclaimer, these opinions are our own and not of our employer. Sorry about that. I just realized that I didn't do.
00;44;47;28 - 00;44;51;11
Aaron
That I am I am proud that we didn't talk about Terzo.
00;44;51;13 - 00;44;55;02
Derek
Meta, and so this was my nice little reprieve for the week.
00;44;55;05 - 00;45;05;25
Pri
I feel like again, maybe I'm like smooth bringing it once again, but I still don't understand what the impact of these tariffs are going to be like. I haven't made up my mind. I think it.
00;45;05;25 - 00;45;24;24
Aaron
Said nobody knows. And that's just creating uncertainty, right. So like there's an argument on the one hand like it's going to be good. You know like you get fair trade. That's good for the American worker. You know the American worker has leverage. And you know it's kind of like America exercising its pricing power. And then you have the economists who are just like it's it's a tax.
00;45;24;24 - 00;45;41;06
Aaron
It's a barrier on free trade. You know, it's going to create all these, you know, different weird feedback loops and, and disincentives to make investments and, and transfer products and all this other stuff. So I think to me it's just like the uncertainty related to it, isn't it.
00;45;41;08 - 00;45;52;20
Pri
Not for the American worker if like, you know, the market cap of these companies go down so much that they're just going to not hire and or fire, and then on top of that, you have like AI tailwinds that are going to oh yeah.
00;45;52;22 - 00;46;02;20
Derek
I'll say one thing to that pre, which is like we just spent the entire episode talking about how this labor class is fucked anyway. Yeah. And like taxable revenues are going to zero as a result of that.
00;46;02;20 - 00;46;21;24
Aaron
I think there's going to be a transition period. But I really I don't know I don't think people are actually screwed. I think the more I think about it, the more I actually think that AI is just really bad for the hyper educated class I was actually thinking about. It's almost like the, the, the geeks which have been in control.
00;46;21;26 - 00;46;46;07
Aaron
They're probably like overexpressed now even in like politics, like they're almost they're eliminating their differentiating benefit. And that people who may have gaps, what they know may not have experienced what they know, if they have the right focus, we'll just be able to to kind of level themselves up and be better than the geeks are today. And I just think that that's really what's going to happen.
00;46;46;10 - 00;47;03;02
Aaron
And I think it's a little bit like when computers came into offices, like it took a couple probably a couple decades, you know, for the majority of the workers to kind of get up to speed on that. But then they did, and I think things have been kind of fine. I just I just think that there's a lot of work that needs to be done.
00;47;03;02 - 00;47;22;15
Aaron
And even at like what we were describing before in like this new super or like high tech media landscape where like tokens are getting wielded, you know, there's just going to be like a battle that happens, that people are going to manage and try to compete in and and like and figure out how to improve or reduce the noise and entropy related to it.
00;47;22;22 - 00;47;40;18
Aaron
I just think it's all the same, the same stuff. Like, I'm not I'm not as bearish on that point. I think there's like an assumption that these AI systems will be so efficient, which is true, but they also at the same time are just going to create chaos and it's entrails. And that's like a basic like Claude Shannon information theory.
00;47;40;20 - 00;47;55;11
Aaron
And so I just don't see anything that indicates that the world is going to get less complex because these systems is more complex, and more complexity means that there's work to be done. I know, I know that there's a lot of AI Duma ism. It just doesn't it doesn't sit right for me. I think for that reason.
00;47;55;13 - 00;48;12;26
Derek
I'll give one counterargument, which is like I agree with, I agree with with a good chunk of what you're saying here. And I think my counterargument is like, if you're following some of like, the humanoid robots, that's like, we probably have about 24 to 36 months before we've reached the scale where we can turn these things out at a very cost efficient way.
00;48;12;26 - 00;48;35;00
Derek
I mean, right now, the ones rolling off the assembly line are like $25,000 for low lift physical activities and like more like 75 to 100,000 for more complex like cognitive activities. I mean, these things largely replicate like the number one, you know, the two most popular jobs in America right now are like retail worker and truck driver. It's like the most common jobs.
00;48;35;00 - 00;49;02;10
Derek
And like the vast majority of our states, that this stuff is just like, I mean, you can amortize the cost of these robots, you know, over ten years and pay them fractions of what you're paying retail workers, right now. I actually think the the chaos is going to happen much sooner than people think. Like these things are, the game theoretically, it's just like, you're you're at a structural advantage when you start ripping away labor costs and replacing them with way more efficient.
00;49;02;12 - 00;49;06;12
Derek
Yeah. For that. So the vast majority of jobs that this country already supports.
00;49;06;12 - 00;49;24;15
Aaron
So let me push back on your pushback. So I think you're I think you're right. But like, why are those folks like, working in retail or have those jobs? I'm sure some people, that's what they want to do, right? They really enjoy it. I think for a lot of folks, maybe they didn't do as well in like high school didn't have the means to go to college.
00;49;24;15 - 00;49;42;04
Aaron
They couldn't really do like knowledge work, but now they can write if all they need to do is learn how to how to use these systems. All they need in their mind is to like, use them as full tilt as possible. And now they can compete with with other folks. And I think that that just means they can do more.
00;49;42;06 - 00;50;00;12
Aaron
Right. And there's the world is not like perfect. There's so many problems related to it. So I think what you get net net is really like, the elite suffer here, but your everyday person now has the ability to level up and become elite if they choose to do that. And I think that many of those folks will.
00;50;00;15 - 00;50;18;05
Aaron
Right. Like it stinks if you grew up like, poor or had a tough household and, you know, couldn't afford to, you know, to go to college and now you actually have the ability to compete if you choose it. And I don't know, I, I think it may look a little bit different than the doom prism to match millennial doom or some guys.
00;50;18;07 - 00;50;19;18
Aaron
We got it. Yeah.
00;50;19;20 - 00;50;21;14
Pri
I think that's wishful thinking. Aaron. Dude, do you.
00;50;21;14 - 00;50;34;08
Chris
Think that like, you're talking about, like selling jobs at T 250 K a year getting wiped out and people who are making 50 grand a year stepping up? Well, they're only going to step up into a 75 K role.
00;50;34;10 - 00;50;36;02
Aaron
Yeah, but that's great for them.
00;50;36;05 - 00;50;39;16
Pri
I also think you're like assuming they can step up into that role.
00;50;39;23 - 00;51;01;28
Aaron
I don't see why. I mean, a lot of folks work super hard, right? They just don't necessarily have the training skills or ability to do that. And this is tools that enable you to do that. I mean, I think we've seen the glimmers of that with the internet, right, where you get these Vitalik like characters that really full tilted themselves into into the internet to like not having like, any question or, you know, issue that they have unanswered.
00;51;01;28 - 00;51;28;14
Aaron
And he did the work to do that. But now the cost of leveling yourself up is just lower. So I think some people will and I think that's just the net benefit. And that I think then goes to the other concern. I do think that the process of doing that and the demand from a country's workforce to wield those tokens so such that they can level themselves up will start to get territorial, and it's really going to be which country is wielding the most tokens.
00;51;28;17 - 00;51;31;11
Chris
Kind of if you have a chip fab, your people are.
00;51;31;14 - 00;51;55;11
Aaron
Kind of right, you know, because then everybody's like really useful, right? Or at least has the ability to make themselves useful. But I think what what's a bummer and why there's so much doom or ism is like, what's really getting devalued is your, you know, fancy pants college, you know, masters and PhD level degrees. Like, there's going to definitely be compression from those folks and their wage earning potential.
00;51;55;13 - 00;51;59;28
Aaron
And that's why they're so bearish on everything. And they dominate. You know the thought landscape.
00;52;00;03 - 00;52;05;03
Chris
By the way I just check the markets and holy shit. Right is on.
00;52;05;06 - 00;52;08;08
Pri
Wait what is it? I haven't even checked.
00;52;08;10 - 00;52;10;29
Chris
S&P Nasdaq are down 5%.
00;52;11;02 - 00;52;11;12
Pri
I'm good.
00;52;11;14 - 00;52;16;17
Aaron
But the bitcoin Bitcoin is up 1.5%. Goes up.
00;52;16;20 - 00;52;19;04
Derek
I love how Bitcoin is behaving right now.
00;52;19;06 - 00;52;20;14
Aaron
It is an ether.
00;52;20;14 - 00;52;22;16
Derek
It's fucking awesome. Yeah I'm just.
00;52;22;16 - 00;52;24;01
Aaron
Saying let's go.
00;52;24;04 - 00;52;36;00
Derek
It's pretty amazing. We'll see if it holds. But like I'm very optimistic right now just watching crypto pay and and in light of, kind of global uncertainty like this, it's pretty heartwarming.
00;52;36;07 - 00;52;41;06
Aaron
It's like acquiring more tokens. Was the winning strategy.
00;52;41;08 - 00;52;42;01
Derek
There you go.
00;52;42;03 - 00;52;43;09
Aaron
All right. So we ended on that.
00;52;43;09 - 00;53;04;25
Chris
Guys start thinking in their straps. Yeah, yeah.