Digital Life and Analogue Thought

Dean: Welcome to Cloudlandia.

Dan: Welcome to Cloudlandia.

Dean: This is what we're accustomed to right here.

Dan: Yeah, I was thinking of something. I drew a diagram. Oh, I love a bunch of circles. It's a bunch of circles. So it's like a target, you know, bullseye in the middle. And then it's got circles.

Dean: Okay.

Dan: Circles going out. And in the middle is value, V, A, L, P. And then the next circle is simplicity. And then the. So I'm thinking this through. My third circle is just trying to think marketplace. I'm gonna say marketplace.

Dean: Okay.

Dan: And then the fourth circle is complexity.

Dean: I do love a good set of concentric circles.

Dan: And the fifth circle, the outer circle, is fraud.

Dean: Okay. So fraud, complexity.

Dan: F, R, A, U, D. Yeah, fraud. And what it strikes me is in the marketplace, marketplace is considered the place where this happens. There's new things that happen. There's new things, new ideas, new products, new services, new possibilities. And the ones that ultimately win are the ones that simplify what's going on, and they create value in the center. But there's a lot of different people in the marketplace. And since when something new happens, it's not entirely clear what's going on, what the possibilities are. There are other people who use complexity to keep people sort of not knowing what's going on, and they move into the area of fraud. Okay, now, my whole point about this fraud, it may not be criminally liable fraud. It's just what. It's. It's sort of creating something that large amounts of money are devoted to. They don't really actually create any value.

Dean: So this is a lot of the. Give me an example of some these in the world here then.

Dan: Well, one was just announced this week. It's called the Metaverse.

Dean: I was. This is my big, like, meta topic for today because literally we just sat down before I came on here. We started watching Mark Zuckerberg's keynote address about the Metaverse and the Twitter. I was on my list for us to talk about today. So Metaverse. Walk me through then, your thinking here.

Dan: Well, it's the marketplace. At any time, the marketplace is, you know, the marketplace. All the goody stuff that's in the marketplace, and then there's constant new stuff that's being introduced into the marketplace and. And, you know, to excite interest and to excite, you know, people's, you know, commitment and their cash and. Yeah, all sorts of images are given to them of what's possible in the future.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: You know, if they will invest today, then much, much bigger results will Be theirs in the future.

Dean: Okay.

Dan: But if it's given in a way that I don't really know what this actually is. And it's. It's kind of complex. It's kind of. Plus, my feeling is you have to be very much on the outlook for fraud.

Dean: Mm. So this is part of your levels of vigilance when you're exploring something, you're looking for how to simplify it, how to. Yeah. Where the complexity is. This is an observation.

Dan: My sense is that nothing new really gets useful, really useful until it's simple, you know, And I'll give you an example. When the, you know, when the personal computer first came, came in, talk about 1977, 78, the word was that only those who learn programming and learn programming language will be able to use this new. You know, you'll be able to use this new thing.

Dean: Okay.

Dan: And then there was. Then there were universities and schools and colleges and, you know, private. Private sector consultants and private sector schools that were teaching people how to program and that. And then, you know, first at Xerox, at parc P A, R C, Palo Alto Research center, they came up with an idea that instead of symbols, you would just have. You would just have a device where you just click the device on a particular plane. Moved it. We now know that as a mouse. And Steve Jobs saw it and immediately saw the breakthrough there. And then, you know, Bill Gates saw it and they built that. So the big thing was is that the real value of the personal computer couldn't really be enhanced until it had been enormously simplified away from learning an entirely new kind of programming language. Almost like you going to first grade and learning the Alphabet. Yes. Sort of what I'm talking about now.

Dean: Boy, this is interesting because you look at this now, I've been watching over the last couple of years, I've shared with you all these sort of, you know, the history of things, you know, all the major developments over the last 200 years.

Dan: And

Dean: there is. There's always that the evolution of the actual thing becoming viable or mainstream. And then there's a cascading of people who, with this new capability now are able to create simple ways to, you know, like when you think about the. When the railroad was put all in place, that opened up a distribution for the catalog business, for instance. You know, all the things that were built on top of the. I was thinking about my role. My. Where I tend to think and be is not in that undergirding like the pairing of something, but where it becomes practically useful in mainstream by Simple. I'm a simplifier in those. Finding the capabilities of making something simple. Yeah.

Dan: Yeah, we. And we share that.

Dean: Yeah, I mean.

Dan: I mean, that's my deal too.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: It's my joy. It's my. Yeah, it's what I'm interested in and why, you know, as an entrepreneur I've become more and more successful over the years is because I have a knack for taking complicated things and making them simpler for.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: People who appreciate that and check writers. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. So I was just looking at it because we got in. I got into this on a podcast. I won't say which one. It was another podcast, and somebody wanted to tell me that this was a fundamental breakthrough that Mr. Zuckerberg was introducing. And this was the next thing. And I said, well, you know, the thing he's got on his head when he's doing this has been around for 10 years, and he didn't create it. He bought it from somebody else. So this is something new on his part. And I've tried it and took me about 25 minutes to even get it to work. And it just seemed really complicated.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: I'd have to learn all sorts of new habits. And then when I got in it, it looked. Yeah, I said, looked like, you know, it looked like a return really early kind of cartoons around. Television in the 1950s didn't have, you know, didn't have real great high resolution and high quality. So. But I'm being told that this is the next. Next great, great breakthrough. And. And it seems really complicated. First of all, as my complication sensors went off, my complication alarms went off. When. And that means don't buy anything, but there's a chance here to simplify and sell something. Right.

Dean: Right.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: And that's. I mean, when you start to think about the. You know, certainly is not just Mark Zuckerberg, but seems like all the electronic and digital movers are going in that direction. And there are many different ways for. It's a more immersive experience. Like whether it's the glasses. Like Facebook just launched with Ray Ban glasses that look like real glasses, but they actually take video and photos. That's one step of it, you know, and then moving towards. I think that will probably be. I think glasses is probably a much more likely thing that we will do as opposed to headgear, you know, seems like for math.

Dan: Can I ask. Can I ask you. Can I ask you a question? Why I've been. Why so enthusiastic about Zoom over the last two years is because you can get all sorts of really great things done a lot faster and a lot easier than I could prior to its widespread use. In other words, we were using it, let's say, seven years ago, and, you know, it's better now technologically than it was, but it was really good seven years ago. And it was really good for us because we have three main headquarters in the United States, Canada, and the U.K. and it was much better than any of the previous virtual counsel conferencing platforms. You know, it was a lot easier to get on and everything like that. So. And so it was really useful. And then when the COVID pandemic and the lockdown prevented travel from doing our business with travel, either our going someplace or other people coming to us, it was our solution, you know, needed solution. I mean, it bailed us out. And. But what I noticed, even though it allowed us to continue business, it actually gave us all sorts of new ideas on how to do even better business. Okay. Yeah, we're within two months of having our best sales here in 15 years. And, I mean, everything is just clicking right now. And Zoom is. Zoom is. Yes, sir. So the thing I'm saying is that if I use my circle diagram, there's the marketplace, and there was a disruption. And it seemed to me that Zoom was a great simplification, which created enormous value that went to the center of the circle. And now that I think of the other way of doing it, it seems very complicated, you know, the, you know, traveling and having to do all sorts of things by travel and airplane. Yeah. You know, going any place, it seems very complicated. And I almost feel like I'm being taken advantage by the airlines, because they're not. They really haven't. They had two years to think about creating some sort of new value for me, and they didn't.

Dean: Right.

Dan: Actually, yeah. They actually introduced a whole bunch of complications into my life. So I'm just using that to compare that. Unless something that I really want that's now complicated gets simplified and I get some new value out of it, I don't care what. What kind of promises for the future are being made, I ain't going for it.

Dean: Yeah. What did you decide about your. About the jet, the situation?

Dan: Well, I mean, we have, you know, we have a. The jet. Or are you talking just normal airline here?

Dean: No, I'm talking about your. The jet experience that you had in Boston and finding.

Dan: Oh, yeah, well, that's. I mean, that wouldn't solve our problem because. No, it's a small jet. It's a. Carries four passengers. But I'm talking about, you know, I mean, we are going to resume normal, in person workshops in January, Toronto, Chicago, L.A. london, and people will have a choice whether they want to do that or they can resume, you know, the. Continue on with the virtual Zoom workshop.

Dean: Yes, exactly.

Dan: Yeah. The two will not be combined. We will not have hybrid process where some of what's taking place on a day.

Dean: Right, that makes sense.

Dan: I. I can't stand the hybrid. You know, you're either 1 or 100%.

Dean: Yeah, yeah.

Dan: So. So that. That's it. But I was just thinking about this, that as we talk more and more about the movement from. And the difference between the mainland and crowd Landia.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: That first of all, there's fraud in the mainland, but there's also fraud in Codlandia.

Dean: And what do you mean by that? So that's an interesting.

Dan: Well, they're making promises and yeah. In some cases asking for money with the promises. But essentially what they're saying is going to happen is in fact not going to happen. Right. They don't have the means to make it happen. Or you know, you know what I feel that way about when I say fraud.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: There's a criminal definition of fraud, which can send you to jail, but there's another kind of a fraud that, you know, watch out for that person because whatever he says, I've never turned out.

Dean: I feel that way about Tesla's full autonomous driving package. Oh, yeah.

Dan: That.

Dean: That I paid $8,000 for almost, you know, two years ago now and still have not. It's not thinking. Paid it then thinking it could be by the end of the year, any minute. You know, that was. There was a level of expectation that they were setting and was really the, the main reason that I bought that vehicle was to be in that. To embrace that at the, you know, the beginning. And what we have now is I've had to reframe it for myself to be. If you. What it really is, it is a really super advanced autopilot or a cruise control. That's really what it is. It's better to think about it as super advanced cruise control than it is to think about it as disappointing. Fully autonomous driving.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: Because it's a long way from.

Dan: Well, first of all, it's the. It's not a Cloudlandia. It's. It's not a Cloudlandia experience. You're actually in the mainland. Right. I mean, when you're driving, when you're driving, you. You better make sure, you know, you're. Which you're In.

Dean: Yeah, yeah, right.

Dan: I said, well, I never had actually had a driving experience in Quadlandia. All my experience. Right, yeah. You know, and the whole point is that there are forces and governing bodies inlandia, which don't care what some technological innovator is promising. It's against the law. And they have things like insurance and liabilities. So if you give up control of your car to a technological system and there's an accident, where's the liability of it?

Dean: Right.

Dan: Well, I think it's the driver. Okay. I think it's the driver. I think the driver has liability. I think that's how it would come down. And. But you're being asked to give up control, but you still have 100% liability. And I don't think that's a good selling point. Right, yeah, yeah. And I can understand it. You know, it's like I was watching a couple of the documentaries. There's about five or six of them on YouTube about Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos. Okay. And the reason why I think she was so successful is because it was a solution that everybody really wanted.

Dean: Yeah. And it's believable that at some point we would get there. Right.

Dan: Yeah. And she played on the fact that people really, really, really wanted this, you know.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: And, and, but she could never produce the good. She could never set up a situation that was independent of her controlling it, where a independent third party lab could actually do a complete test and everything else and validate that. She would avoid that, you know, completely. And there are science and technology writers, one of them for John Carryou from the Wall Street Journal, who said, well, this is the first thing you look for in any claim of a technological breakthrough is you have to have that independent third party testing arena where the innovator cannot control the circumstances and can't control the outcome. And that would never happen. So that's why he started digging me, said I, my nose is twitching here. My nose is twitching. Something's not quite right, you know, so that's what happened. And I think that there's the other factor, more and more as I watch the progress of Silicon Valley, that it seems to me that the money is not made in the breakthrough, the money is made in the bet,

Dean: In that you're betting that this is gonna happen. You mean. Or that the.

Dan: Yeah. So, you know, let's say, you know, Mr. Zigger comes on and he says, by the way, if you really want to be first on board here, all we're going to ask you for is 10,000 up front. And you're going to be out of the line when we come out with our new stuff, you know, and, you know, and in his world, he could get a million people who gave 10,000, you know, so it's, you know, that would be, you know, that, you know, that would be a lot of upfront money and there would be people who, you know, it's Ponzi. Like, the first investors get paid as the later investors can come on. Well, it's fraud. You know, it's fraud. And if he were in a real strong position, here's what I say. If Mark Zuckerberg was really in a very strong position, so you would have to have about five things going for him that I would think made him in a strong position. First of all, he's likable, and he's not. He's not a likable person at all. And he has become less and less likable, I would say, for the last 10 years. The other thing is that he had a really solid, excited, motivated corporation working with me, and he doesn't. He's got. He's got civil war going on inside of this corporation. There's leaks. They're having to.

Dean: Right.

Dan: You know, they're having to have meetings. He's got whistleblowers inside. And the other thing is that what he was doing and technologically what he was doing was just seen as a force of good in society. Like, social media has just been the most wonderful thing. I mean, you know, you know, human people are. People have paralyzed and they're being healed. People are hopelessly lost and they. They're saved and everything else. That. That has not been the impact of social media. It's been increasingly seen as a cerebral negative. And then it's been seen as being very, what I would say, biased in the political realm, where it's being used to favor one side of the political spectrum and the other. And now there's real complaints that they're bookkeeping on what they're claiming as their. The number of ad clicks that they're getting a lot of. There's deep investigations. Knowing that what he's claiming for his. The power of his advertising, which is essentially what his business is, his advertising.

Dean: Well, that's what creates revenue.

Dan: The results are getting there fraudulent. And that's not true. The results are getting. And then he just got hit technologically by Apple because Apple is a huge player and Apple is just empowered its users to say whether or not they want to receive ads from a third party. You know, they already have Ads and that's hurting. And, and yeah, the other thing is that he really hasn't created anything new in the last 10 years that I can. Has created. Has he created anything new in the last 10 years?

Dean: Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook Well, I guess they've bought everything that they saw as a. Yeah. Thing, you know, buying WhatsApp and buying Instagram and buying, you know, seeing where things certainly made good choices in terms of where. Yeah. What people were enthralled.

Dan: You know, I'm just comparing that like to the Apple run, you know.

Dean: Yeah. I mean then, you know, that was an interesting you. And I've talked about that, that what Apple really did brilliantly was just ride. They rode those, you know, exponential rise up the cascading asymptotic curves of audio video as they became, you know, viable. That they created all the things. But when you could argue that about. Apple hasn't really invented anything since the iPhone. I mean, you know, because on the heels of the, you know, the. On the heels of the.

Dan: But what I would say since Apple is a hardware maker, they clearly improved their hardware over time. Yeah, they've had some glitches. They've had some glitches. But I mean somebody showed the late. The latest iPhone. I said, boy, oh boy. I mean, you know, what's packed into this and how do you. Yeah, exactly. Everything like that. You know, and so. So anyway. But my sense is that since he never had hardware, he never had anything that could be put out there as beautiful and he couldn't have stores because he had nothing to sell. You know, it's, it's all, you know, basically getting people to be on and allowing him to use their attention to, you know, to sell stuff. Yeah, Sell their attention. And so my sense is that from a visible standpoint, he kind of looks old. You know what he does kind of looks old. I mean, I'm saying this just to support that his sudden introduction of this entirely new universe. It seems to me that his motivation is that he's quickly receding into a very weak, weak position. And that would tell me that he's doing this for distraction purposes or, you know, I can't imagine him having cash problems, but you never know.

Dean: Right? No, they've got. Forget how much cash all those companies have. Just so much cash, crazy amounts of cash that. Yeah, you look at the. I wonder, you know, if you do think about like going forward, if you're thinking as this. I think I shared with you last week the idea of the insufficiently bullish mindset for NFTs and blockchain in 2030 that if you and I. I mentioned several months ago the word. The buzzword that is starting to gain traction was Metaverse. I remember sharing that with you a few months ago, and that was something that we both started kind of looking into. And now that certainly has gained momentum. And so the idea of this.

Dan: Well, it's gained momentum based on what? Based on the actual reality or based momentum on increasing height?

Dean: Well, I think that.

Dan: I mean, is there any new capabilities out there that weren't there a year ago? I mean, actual capabilities?

Dean: Yeah, there are, and. But they're in worlds that you and I wouldn't be exposed to. For instance, Fortnite and gaming worlds. Like, what's happened over the last little while is they've been playing out where, you know, Fortnite had a concert, like a, you know, VR virtual world metaverse concert that had 10 million people live in the concert. And that's kind of a. Kind of a big thing, you know, in terms of what they've done, in terms of the. The world that they've created that everybody can kind of gather in and all converge at this one location where the. Where the concert was. Another one is the real estate company EXP has created a whole virtual training at, like, a campus for. They don't have any offices. They're all. They have a Cloudlandia campus where you go and everything. They've got auditoriums where you go, and you kind of sit down in the. In a seat like you were in a theater. Right beside you. I could look right at you and have the things. You're an avatar, of course, but you're. I can talk to you. We're sitting right beside each other. We're looking at. On the stage, and somebody is on stage speaking. So in the early days of this, I mean, we're certainly like a. The foundational things are advancing pretty quickly. That's why I think it's gaining momentum. You know, it's kind of like those. It's like those things where the. The moss that doubles every day and, you know, it's only in the last day, it is half of the pond, you know, but up until that two days before, it's completely absorbed the space on the pond. It's only 25% of it, you know, so it doesn't. It's almost like unnoticeable still. It still feels. Yeah.

Dan: I think my basic question is that good for anything?

Dean: Yeah. Well, I can imagine, Dan, that we're. We may be judging. We may be Judging the potential of. Of some of these advancements based on that Zoom is good enough, for instance. But if you think about things that you've seen, like the door, there's a movie, the Kingsman, where they.

Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dean: Remember the holographic boardroom where they would holographically come out if that was simplified and reasonably easy to. To engage? That feels like that would be pretty good experience, right? If it was feasible, if it was possible. Yeah, yeah.

Dan: I'm just saying, you know, at the idea level, are any important ideas being developed couldn't be developed by two people sitting and drawing something on the back of a napkin. I'm not being sarcastic here. I'm just saying, sarcastic, that when you're doing. When you're doing Breakthrough Blueprint and you have 12 individuals and they are engaging step by step through their eight levels of profit activator, is it possible that Metaverse conference on the planet is more valuable than what you're doing with 12 people?

Dean: No, and I don't. I look at that as just a way of doing it. Like, if we say the two options right now are the polls of this are live in celebration with 12 people in a mainland boardroom, and the other option is 12 people on screen in Zoom, which is valid and equal and good. It is the next best thing that we have viable to us. But if there were a way that it could be enhanced to be more like the version.

Dan: Can I tell you what is the actual essence of the experience?

Dean: Oh, yeah, no, absolutely. I agree with you that it's the.

Dan: I mean, the essence of the experiences is that fundamental creative communication is taking place. New ideas are being created, and I'm not. I'm just asking.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Everything that Mark Zuckerberg has anything to do with an activity that two people who are really smart and listening to each other can knock off, you know, they can do it on Zoom or they can do it. You know, first of all, I think you can do it with Zoom better than you can do it on the phone. Okay. I'm absolutely convinced of that. Okay. And the other thing is that over the last two or three weeks, I've had the experience of meeting one on one with individuals for the first time and, you know, in 20 months. And I have developed a sense that if I'm meeting one on one with something, it's got very definitely advantages over meeting that person one on one with Zoom.

Dean: Okay.

Dan: But if there's five of us, the Zoom has advantages over five of us meeting in person. So if you and I Table 10. Our meeting has got it way over. You and I meeting on Zoom.

Dean: Yes, absolutely. Yeah.

Dan: But if there were five people at the table, the Zoom has it way over the five people at the table. I'm just giving you my. You're throwing that out there. Yeah. Just experience there, huh? Yeah.

Dean: Why do you think that is?

Dan: So what I. So what I'm doing is that. Is that Mark Zuckerberg believed, I think, 10 years ago that just getting them, you know, basically on their iPhone, iPhone or whatever they were doing, that he could use their attention and sell it really easily, and they never get bored of him grabbing their attention and selling it, because that's what he does. I mean, he's not doing this for any other reason than to get you experience for free and sell it for advertising dollars. I'm just putting that as a proposal. He has no higher purpose. Higher purpose than find a. Finding a way to grab your attention. What he's worried about is. Is that it's wearing out what he's been doing for 10 years, and he's got to come up with a new way of grabbing people. So I'm saying it seems to me that he's trying to get people to buy into a new form of distraction because this old form of distraction isn't working as well. Yes, but distraction is not creativity. Distraction is not creativity.

Dean: That's true.

Dan: Yeah. Yeah. So I'm just trying to see what is being created here that's better than what already exists from a productive standpoint, from a creative standpoint, from a breakthrough standpoint. And I'm not getting that yet. I'm not getting it.

Dean: Yeah. I think we're starting to see. I just. I think some of these things, like the Alexa and whatever Facebook's version of that is, I start to see about things that we're using. Like, they kind of sneak up on us, you know, like, you can imagine where, with the glasses and voice, to be able to remember when we were at Abundance, one of the early years, there was a gentleman who had a technology where these glasses could track your attention, track what you were actually looking at, and you could click a button with just your eyes by focusing on something. And I thought, you know, so you couple that, and it's an interesting thing to be walking anywhere and to look at something and click on it. And in a group or in anything, you come up and there's everything you need to know about Dan Sullivan kind of thing, or whatever the facial recognition tells you, the name, stuff that you know or you're in, you See a book and you could just say, alexa, order me this book. And I think a lot of these there's. I think there's a lot of opportunity in there once everybody.

Dan: The Chinese are better betting the future of their country on that possibility. Yeah. With their surveillance. Yeah. I mean with their surveillance that they can actually know. But it's a bet, you know, it's a guess and that. And I don't know. I'm playing with this because I've been in a lab for the past two years called the COVID lab. And the COVID lab has given me a lot of time to sit back and think about things. And what I've noticed is that the people who've done well in Covid are the people who don't need to be entertained.

Dean: Uh huh. But the practical users. Practical. No.

Dan: That if given more time back. The people who've done best with COVID use the time to create new things and create new relationships and create new solutions. And the people who've done badly during COVID were the ones who were entertained by having. You know, they could go anywhere they wanted any night. They could go and see any kind of movie, they could go to any kind of restaurant that go on it. But they were passive. There was nothing creative about what these people do. They're being entertained. And where Covid severely restrict people's ability to be distracted and entertained and. But I never wanted that in the first place. All I want is. So my sense is that insofar as the vast majority of human beings are going to need new forms of distraction. Distraction and so that they can remain passive to their daily experience. I suspect that. I suspect the metaverse is probably a big thing, but I don't think it's going to create anything useful.

Dean: No, I think you're right. It's going to be the gathering place for the.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: I was saying to Philip, this is introducing the concept to him of makers and takers. And that's really. This is going to be the place where you go to passively consume and take dopamine. That's where it's all going to be as conveniently all packaged.

Dan: The largest gathering of takers ever assembled.

Dean: That's it. The largest gathering of somnambulant consumers. You know, all you have to do is look at something.

Dan: Yeah. I mean it's interesting. I'm not pro or comment. I just right. Wanted this and where I do know that the essence of being able to create these virtual worlds has been phenomenal in the area of military training

Dean: and

Dan: They've been using this for years. I mean, yeah, military training has been using like the, you know, when they killed Obama bin Laden.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: They have complete 3D map walk through. They knew, you know, they knew where he was living better than he knew where he was. Let me know. And they came right in. They knew which stairs to go up. They knew who. They knew. They actually knew who the people were that they were going to meet. The ones you shoot on site and the ones you go right up. And then he tried to hide behind his wife and children and they shot him in the head, you know. Yeah, they had already done that. So there, here's where I see real uses. I see real uses. You know, I think it's already being done like the metaverse he talks about for, you know, consumers. This metaphor, this metaverse already exists and has existed for 25, 30 years. And, you know, and. But it's being used for very practical purposes, for dangerous purposes, for can't see it otherwise purposes. You know, we can see something and we can see it. So personally, I have no need for any of those things.

Dean: Well, you live a very, you know, you're among the people. I know that you definitely live the most analog of digital lives of the people. I mean, honestly. Right.

Dan: Like, can I get a T shirt with that on it? I mean, I, I think, yeah, I'm kind of proud of that, actually.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: I mean, I haven't examined it deeply, but what I've heard about it, what you just said, I kind of like the feeling of it.

Dean: Yeah. And it's really like you have not been, you have. You've escaped kind of the gravitational pull of the digital undercurrent. You know, that you've been avoided that digital, the riptide that pulls you in to the dopamine drip requirement. Right. Like, you ticked yourself off of television and off of the, you know, just the constant taking of it. And that in that space you've, you know, you look at your last five years has been, you could argue, your most creative and, you know, thinking productive five years. Yeah. And I think that everybody. You would definitely be. We would definitely be better off if. But I find that even not awareness, like, even knowing it, it's still very difficult. You've got to fight against that undercurrent every day to not get sucked into it.

Dan: Yeah. Here's. I think it comes down. I've been trying to get down to, you know, where there's, there's kind of a way of looking at, first of all, the world we lived in up until now, but the world going forward. And my feeling is that there's part of the world that is kind of negative towards humanity. They really don't, I mean, first of all, they don't really like the part of humanity that they actually walk around in, inside each. In other words, they don't really like themselves as individuals. But then they've got all sorts of angsty ideas about all the rest of us, you know, and, and so they're trying to come up with a solution that's better than humanity. Okay. And they say, you know, one way of approaching it is to make us let every year let's use technology to make us less and less human and kind of like more like technology, you know, And I see it, you know, and, and I say, well, you know, I don't know. I mean, first of all, I said, I mean, you're making a bet, you know, that if you become less human, technology is going to make you better. I said, it seems to me that's a bet. And I said, nurse the other people who kind of believe that we have humans have absolutely nothing in common with technology. I accept the fact that, that we've created it. You know, in other words, every piece of its technology is something that humans created for some human purpose. We've created that. But where the misunderstanding is and chemist, I've been zeroing it in and I've been tracking it down to one little. You either believe this or you believe that. And the thing is that humans process information, computers process information. If the computer is faster, that means computers will be faster information processors than humans and therefore computers will be superior to humans. That's it. And I said, well, if humans process information and that's it, then I think you're onto something big there. But I don't think humans process information. I think, right. Humans first of all take in very little information. Take in very little information. But what they do is they immediately use it to create meaning. And humans are meaning creating creatures.

Dan: And technology doesn't create any meaning, has no ability to create meaning whatsoever.

Dean: Right. Data is an information, right? Yeah, yeah.

Dan: And so we actually don't even use that amount of much information that comes in. I mean, site wise, our brain only picks up about 10% what it thinks it's seeing. And the brain itself is just supplying, is just going to the files and says we can just fill in the background here kind of looks like something. So my sense is that the technology is powerful enough right now that we can have a showdown with it. Okay, that we're at. You showed. I get a feeling we're in period right now, politically, economically, militarily and everything culturally, we're kind of in a showdown, period. And part of the reason is that technology has got fast enough to fool us with the idea that in some ways it can replace the human world with a technology world that we're going to find much more enjoyable, much more interesting. And I said, well, it's, you know, it's a guess and it's a bed. And I said, but it's premise that somehow computers and humans are the same except that computers will be better. Yeah, yeah. And I mean that's what's going on right now. And I think that's why it's kind of scary right now, you know.

Dean: And if you're lying, how much of your life is analog? Let's say like normal, a day in the life kind of thing. I know you do, you go to a lot of news sites and you do the year online. Is it still a couple hours a day?

Dan: Well, I would say, you know, I do use digital. I mean I do use digital to, to improve my analog experiences. In other words, it's, I'm a big reader and it's just a lot, lot easier these days with the Internet and the, well, Kindle is great. And then you know, the Internet itself with you know, the various

Dean: news sites. Yeah.

Dan: New news sites and news platforms. So it's a huge jump. I mean, it's a huge jump. And then there are lots of things which are, you can get a better grasp of the context of things with a 15 minute YouTube video than you can reading a five hour, you know, a five hour article, you know, and everything. So what I do is, you know, I use the digital one. That seems to move me further ahead, you know. You know, and I'm on Pandora all the time. I love Pandora and you know, just for entertainment purposes and everything else. But television has disappeared. I mean I am, I mean I'm looking at my computer screen. I mean, what am I missing? What about television am I missing when I can just look at a two minute news clip on the video? I don't have to turn the television on. Yeah. And everything else. So, you know, I don't know. You know.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: But I do, I do spend more time every day actually creating new things than I do taking in input from other things.

Dean: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I look at that like your, you know, the main things, the sort of, I call them reactive activators that stop us from focusing on certain things. Like your, you know, you're not, you're not texting and in a bunch of, you know, you don't have demands like that. You're not. What's. What about email for you? I know you have your.

Dan: Not just work related, work related, project updates and yeah. You know, coordination projects.

Dean: But yeah, not on your phone. You have to go for social.

Dan: Not really. Does it socialize? You know, and I don't use the phone to socialize. I mean, until I got happy, you know, Scott, Donald's happy.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: Which, you know, requires my cell phone to be charged up. Never had a good reason to keep my cell phone charged up and. Right, right, right. Every, you know, twice a day I make sure that my cell phone is charged up so I can use my happy device.

Dean: That's great. I love that. Yeah, very funny. Yeah.

Dan: This is just, I mean, it's really interesting because, you know, you know, you know, my five hero, you know, my big historic heroes. Well, Euclid was, Euclid was back in the year 300 B.C. and yeah, you know, Shakespeare was in the end of the 1500s. You know, Bach was at the beginning of the 1700s and then Madison the end of the 1700s and Edison at, you know, at the end of the 1800s. And.

Dean: Yeah.

Dan: You know, and these, you know, and I ponder what they did. You know, they kind of started these big massive platforms that helped other people be better at what they did.

Dean: And.

Dan: Yeah, I aspired to that. I mean, I aspire to being a platform builder whose platform helps other people get their own platforms. Yeah. Yeah. So

Dean: I like it.

Dan: Yeah.

Dean: Well, this is. We just keep, we just keep observing, keep playing.

Dan: I think you and I may be crossing paths on Thursday and Friday because we are going to Phoenix and we are going to be by that genius. And I don't know if you are or not.

Dean: No, I'm gonna be. I'm gonna be in the metaverse. I guess I will be. So we'll see each other virtually.

Dan: We'll see each other. Yes, yes.

Dean: And then. Yeah, And. But I will be there on, on Thursday. Friday. Yeah. Tuesday.

Dan: Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Dean: And then we'll be. I imagine you'll be traveling then on next Sunday.

Dan: Yeah, we're doing the weekend. We're doing a week at Canyon Ranch. So we're going.

Dean: Okay.

Dan: And I think they're in their last years. I think they're.

Dean: You do?

Dan: Yeah, they, you know, it's. I just get a feeling that probably their time, their golden time in the sun was a decade or two ago. And, you know, there's so many different ways that people can engage with fitness and health now that doesn't require them. That doesn't require them being at a particular location.

Dean: Right.

Dan: Yeah. Anyway, but, you know, life goes on, you know, and. And everything. So it's really great. Oh, by the way, our gaping game book on Tuesday was number one in the world for a period of time for all nonfiction books. All non world. Yeah. And, you know, it may have been 15 minutes, but I said, you know, it felt good.

Dean: It's fantastic, by the way.

Dan: Yeah, yeah. And then you get to say that on Amazon. That's one of the benefits being number one on their system that they will account for because then you can actually use it in your marketing that you

Dean: were number one in the world.

Dan: Yeah. Yeah. Overall, it's me, the old analog guy, who enjoyed that experience. So that was good.

Dean: I love that. So happy for you. That's amazing.

Dan: Yeah. Good. Okay, Dean, awesome.