Why the World Needs More Wisdom

Hi, I'm Nov. Welcome to the Second Renaissance. >> Hi, I'm James DLur. Welcome to the Second Renaissance. >> So, today we are going to be talking about why the world needs more wisdom. And I think it's very timely considering the times that we're living in. >> Yeah, definitely. And wisdom is also one of our favorite topics. I feel like >> I think we're guilty of that for sure >> with the whole wizard thing, philosophers. >> Could we tie that together into a philosopher wizards? Colossal wizard. >> Yeah, we live in

the most informed time in human history possibly like with the abundance of information, but maybe the most starved of wisdom. >> Yeah. And actually, this is really interesting because the information age is kind of what the previous era was called. >> True. >> And now I feel like we have an overabundance of information. Information is no longer the bottleneck. We might be living in like the abundance of information age or the anxiety of information age. >> Well, what will the next age be? And I I would actually propose a candidate

that we should be stepping into the age of wisdom. What do we do with all this information? >> True. Well, we're at the age of reason now, would you say? >> Uh hopefully. >> Yeah. >> When you look at the world, it's not entirely obvious all the time. >> True. Or I mean just us personally. >> Oh, okay. Okay. >> Like uh what's the Jung quote? That's like the first 40 years of your life is gathering information and the next 40 years is like putting it to good work. >> Okay,

I like that. And that ties in with what I would consider wisdom because to me, wisdom has to have like a practical component. It's not just knowledge, but you have to actually use the knowledge to do something that results in better outcomes. >> True. And I also like glamorizing aging gracefully. So, it's it's nice to be a young man and have like unlimited energy and unlimited options potentially, but I feel like as you get older, you really embody or not wise, but you're at the age to kind of put all

your past like life experiences to good work. >> Yeah, exactly. Well, I feel like we want to cultivate wisdom as we age. That's typically what the like uh you know philosophers the the wise elders they were like the older members of society who then like guided society in a positive direction or steered it in a positive direction because they had so much accumulated experience. But now I feel like when you look at the world like who the people who are in power now or the people in positions of influence it's

like are we being guided by wisdom right now? >> I would say not so much. doesn't seem that way. Yeah. >> No, we seem to be a bit lost on our quest as like a humanity quest. >> Yeah. >> Right. So, I think that's an interesting topic like what is wisdom and what would that look like in the world? And again, just a caveat like we don't have all the answers here. We're just a couple of pretty reasonable guys. >> I would say that's true. >> And we're just exploring these

ideas in real time and like trying to figure this stuff out. >> Yeah. And as Socrates says, the only true wisdom is in knowing that you don't have all the answers or that you don't know all the answers. >> Yeah, I want to bring up Socrates later. >> Yeah, he's one of your favorites, huh? >> Uh he well, he was one of the earliest philosophers, right? I mean, he kind of defined the entire space of philosophy. I guess first though, should we kick off like why why the world needs wisdom

or like why do we feel like wisdom is important in the world right now? >> Yeah, I think that's a good intro. >> Yeah. And um I feel feel like one thing we've talked about is that the pace of wisdom needs to outpace the development of technology. >> True. Definitely. >> And right now we have this blazing fast technological development. But we haven't really like developed what is a wise way to use this technology. How how should we be using it? And uh which outcomes do we want to steer toward?

>> True. Yeah. I think we we're living through the times where we have access at our fingertips to unlimited information. Like we're drowning in it, but at the same time, we're really lacking maybe the right direction for all that information. How to put it to good use. I remember when the smartphones first came out when we were in Korea. I remember thinking like if this could be the greatest tool ever or the biggest waste of time. I remember riding on the subway where you'd have people playing like Angry Birds or

just like mindless games for hours and hours on end or you could have been like audiobooking, reading the economist, doing your Anki reps or whatever and I feel like AI is that on steroids or where the world is right now. >> Yeah, absolutely right. So the technology is just a tool that can be used in many different directions. I actually have a I have a a story or parable I think is quite fitting here. >> Oh, do tell, sir. >> Are you familiar with the sorcerer's apprentice? Yeah, >> it's from

like uh Fantasia, like like Disney. It was one of Disney's really early ones, right? Where Mickey Mouse is uh >> the there's like the wise wizard, right? And he can do all the magic and stuff and Mickey Mouse is his apprentice and the wise wizard is like clean up all these dishes or whatever, clean up the the whole studio. And the wizard leaves and Mickey Mouse is doing all the manual labor and he's like, "Why should I do this myself? I could just kind of automate this with these spells I've

learned." Right? So he casts the spell on the broom and he casts the spell on the dishes to like clean themselves and and clean up everything and he goes to sleep and then he comes back and it's gone completely out of control. Right. They've Do you remember this? Have you seen >> like everything's breaking? It's like the Charlie Chaplan scene too in that movie, right? Where he's getting like clowned by the automation belt. >> Right. Right. Yeah. Exactly. So cuz they've gone in overdrive and the water's like flooding the place

and and he can't figure out how to stop it, right? So he like takes the axe and starts chopping it apart and then it multiplies the broomstick. Then there's like a ton of mini broomsticks like >> Yeah. >> And he can't figure out how to do it. And then the wise wizard comes back and like cast the spell to shut everything down and and scolds him, right? And it's this idea of well we have this technology. We can automate all these things. We can we can cast all these really powerful

spells, but do we know how to use them wisely or we gonna end up with really bad outcomes that we don't intend? >> True. I would say right now we're at the age of discovering maybe how powerful these tools can be. So, we're definitely maybe at the early infancy of learning our wizard powers like Mickey was trying to discover there. >> Yeah, absolutely. And if we don't have the philosophical or ethical development and understanding to match pace with our technology, we could end up with these really bad outcomes, right? These

horrific like AI takes over everything and we just told it to automate some task and it does that completely out of control and humans don't know how to stop it. So I think this is like a really timely topic. >> Yeah. I was listening to an interview, I think it was by Elon Musk that's saying like if we're not scared of AI's potential, we don't understand it. Basically, like people who are saying like only this is going to be used in a good way already we can see how it's being

used in potentially like malicious ways. >> Yeah, definitely. And this >> Oh, sorry. I was just going to say if the military-industrial complex gets their hands like on unlimited AI potential, >> which they're already doing, right? >> Yeah. And this was a big topic with Anthropic where they told the the military, you can't use our tech for automated drone attacks. >> That's what they said. But then didn't it come out that they used it in Venezuela and they were using it in Iran? >> Well, yeah. And all the companies, right,

they're all facing these these moral quandies cuz Yeah. This just seems like a horrific idea. Let's let's tie automated drones to an AI brain. Like >> true. >> You can't see how that might go in some horrific direction for society. Yeah, bro. Remember the one time when I sent Noito, my bot, and I was like, "Oh, I have to introduce you to Archimedes, like your bot." And he's like, "What could possibly go wrong? Two two AIs scheming together." And he gave me like the evil grin. I was like, "Oh, wow."

>> Yeah. Absolutely. Right. So, we're facing all these like really uh interesting concerns and that's why I think the topic of wisdom or philosophy is really important. And yeah, I feel like this also ties in with us like uh we're kind of like make wisdom sexy again or make philosophy cool again, right? >> Definitely >> cuz it feels like society has kind of lost a focus on wisdom as being something that's valued if you look at young people. It's almost like um right even even in our generation I feel like

it it was like not cool to be smart, right? or there was kind of like a it wasn't like highly >> nerds. >> Yeah, I know what you mean. It's funny cuz I did feel like that when I was maybe like, you know, 13 or something like that, but then I remember thinking like, oh, I wish I would have been turned on to books earlier in my life. >> Well, yeah. And I >> and it wasn't from lack of like the right like both my parents were teachers. It's just not

something I resonated with at a younger age. I kind of discovered reading around the time when we started hanging out more where I started to really love reading a lot and I almost felt like jealous of one of my students who his mom told us one time she's like, "Oh, I'll buy any books that you want for Brian was his name." And then I remember her telling me, she's like, "Oh, he thinks this is a game." And she's like, "I tricked him." And she was very proud to tell me that

story. And I was like, "Oh, that's so awesome." >> That's really good parenting. Yeah, >> that's awesome. Because I feel like part of it is that the subjects in school aren't really interesting to young kids or it's not demonstrated why this is practical or why this is going to better your life to learn this stuff. >> It's almost a tragedy if you have a bad teacher that turns you off of a subject early. I had pretty good teachers overall, but I felt like some of them were quite dry. So subjects

that now I could read for hours or really thick books about, I wasn't interested in that in school. >> And I feel like humans are naturally curious. So if you can like use curiosity curious >> you can use curiosity to bridge someone into a topic that has like a lot of depth to it and kind of gify it. Yeah. >> Yeah. And I think a topic like philosophy or wisdom or psychology can be quite dry or intimidating, >> but I think that's why it's important to make it sexy or to

kind of gify it or make the learning process fun and enjoyable for people. And I think another thing we've talked about if you look at society and kind of how the algorithms are shaping things, right? It's they're shaped to grab attention. And then this has kind of created this feedback loop where now creators are trying to game the algorithm. So they're just trying to grab attention as quickly as possible. And when you're constantly trying to grab attention and keep attention, you can't really get to depth, right? because you have to

have something novel like every six seconds or whatever the or maybe it's every 3 seconds. >> Yeah, it's ridiculous. >> Yeah, >> I like that quote that says, "We live in the attention casino. The house wins when you lose focus." >> Okay. Yeah. >> And then that ties into that video you were showing me with Mr. Beast and Mr. Rogers. >> Oh yeah, that was a really good one. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Maybe we we we can like link this one in the description, but yeah, the the creator was essentially

the argument I just I just articulated, which is that you have Mr. Beast, who is like the biggest content creator. >> He's cornered the markup >> maybe in the world right now. Maybe he's number one. And he essentially reverse engineered YouTube's algorithm to figure out what do you need to do every second of the video to minimize drop off, so to keep attention. And this just catered him towards this well flashy giving away lots of money. There's all these cuts. There's all these like huge spectacles and colors and and flashy

brightness. And even the thumbnails, right? How do you make a thumbnail that like grabs people's attention? And then because he reverse engineered the algorithm, everyone kind of copied his formula. So now the whole algorithm, your whole feed is filled with like what's optimized to grab and keep attention, but but in what direction, right? Where are we steering that direct that attention? >> I think it's Yeah, it's highly addicting, right? So for a young kid, especially when their brain hasn't formed properly yet, it's basically like Mr. Beast is like Vegas for

kids. >> Like it's just free money, flashing lights, like, "Oh, watch this." Even they did the episode of the Squid Games. It's like they're almost tying in like, you know, gladiator, death matches, those kind of games for young kids already. >> That kind of reminds me of like the fall of Rome. >> True. >> Right. >> We're definitely living through that. >> Well, yeah. It's like just uh give the people whatever captures their attention and keeps them satiated, keeps them appeased for for another day, for another few hours. >> True.

And even how big UFC's gone, like it's gone so mainstream. They're even having one at the White House this year, which is basically Gladiators. >> Yeah, true. And I don't think there's anything inherently bad with with that stuff. But it's like uh what is the balance? And I I feel like we're kind of dumbing down content to the lowest common denominator of keeping people's attention as opposed to challenging them to grow into like the best version of themselves or >> like the pig million again. >> Yeah. Yeah. So it ties

in with what we talked about last week which is people grow into >> the expectation that other people place on them >> or what's trendy to talk about, right? Like if you think bless you if you think about all the kids at school they would be talking a lot more about very small maybe Tik Tok trends as opposed to bigger ideas >> and they're almost incentivized to put out that exact same content like Mr. Beast was doing. They kind of their young Tik Tok brains almost reverse engineer what's going viral.

So there's not even a lot of like original or novel content anymore. It's basically people recycling trends that they think the algorithm wants. >> Yeah. Yeah. And it's also people catering to get as much reach as possible, which means you need to kind of dumb things down to to reach as many people as possible. >> A race to the bottom. >> Yeah. It's a race to the bottom because then if everyone is doing that, then society at large doesn't really get content that challenges them intellectually. And I think if you

look at Donald Trump and the way he speaks, right, and he spoke in such a way that was understandable by everyone, but and I feel like that it's a short-term incentive that works because everyone can understand you, but on a long timeline that doesn't actually challenge people to increase their intellectual capacity. >> We'll have to make a note at the 3minut mark when we bring up mega, we lose all the mega audience. >> You're not an electronic dumb, are you? >> Yeah. Yeah, the the YouTube analytics drops off like >>

true. >> Um, >> now we have the freethinkers. So, welcome to the second renaissance. >> Yeah, exactly. I mean, we're kind of taking our own bet here or a pragmatist wager, you could say, which is this content probably won't be mainstream, right? This content is not going to appeal to everyone, but if we can find a a targeted audience who actually gets value. My my thesis is that there are people out there who are craving more intellectually stimulating content. >> We might be biased on that too because that's what we

like to talk about. But I also I totally agree and it ties into the mastermind stuff that we were talking about too, right, >> yesterday. Like I think a lot of people need to have some deeper level of discussion or banter cuz they're not getting that on the news or maybe at work or different places either. >> Yeah. Or on the algorithm on the feeds. I mean, you will find things where you're like, "Wow, this is really well written or a really well-made video." For me, it seems to be more

and more increasingly rare that I find content like that that I'm like, "Wow, this actually introduced a perspective that is very new to me." >> And true. And I feel like that's kind of because everyone's catering to the algorithm. >> Yeah. It's like >> it's the lowest denominator. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Why do you think you identify with the term philosopher or philosophiz? >> Yeah, that's a good question. Um, actually it makes me want to tell the the story of like the origin of the word philosopher. So, Pythagoras in ancient

Greece, I don't know if this is like 500 400 BC, very very early. And people thought Pythagoras was very wise. So when they would say, "Pythagoras, you're very wise." His response was, "Oh, only the gods are wise. I'm just a lover of wisdom." >> And >> that's really good. >> Lover of wisdom in Greek is philo. It is philosopher. Filo sophia. Sophia means wisdom and filo means love of. So that's I think that's a really interesting orientation because it's like I'm I'm not wise. I just love wisdom, right? It's like

wisdom is something you can't have. It's something you can only orient yourself toward. And um yeah, keep trying to expand in that direction. >> Yeah, I think that's really good. I love the term empiricist as well too. like someone who learns throughout their life experiences and then I think philosopher ties into that like we don't have all the answers but we're going to keep seeking after. >> Yeah. And I feel like that seeking wisdom which is the title of that that book. >> That's really good. That was >> I think

you and I both resonate with that though like seeking wisdom. Yeah. It's like it's an orientation toward life almost. >> Yeah. That was my top pick after the second renaissance for the podcast name seeking wisdom because I love the term seeking. It's like you're you're out on a quest, >> not sure where you're going, but you're always after understanding things more. >> Yeah. And it's not about like having or capturing something. It's about the orientation towards growth. Kind of >> true. A growth mindset on trying to understand the world and

better place things like deciphering through the noise to better make decisions or execute. >> Yeah. And I feel like early on I got big into stoicism and and you did as well. And yeah, it was just kind of encountering really good ideas that you could use and practice that you're like, "Oh, my life just immediately improved by applying this." >> We should shout out A Guide to the Good Life. >> Yeah, A Guide to the Good Life. >> And not to be uh read in one sitting. >> Our friend who

who kind of sped Reddit and he's like, "Yeah, I got that. I understand. >> I understand that." But that's I think that is part of wisdom is it's not just getting new information again. It's like ruminating or sitting on those ideas and then deciding like how to apply them. >> Yeah. And that for me is the differentiator of wisdom again is does it can you apply these ideas in a way that measurably increases your outcomes in life in whatever dimensions you care about. >> And I think an honest philosopher takes

the epistemic humility very seriously. So I love that term. How would you describe that term, bro? >> Yeah. So epistemic humility I'd say is it's humbleness about what we can know our own amount of knowledge right now and even the limitations of what we can know and this is another story which is which comes from Socrates because Socrates was kind of the the OG >> yeah it was >> epistemically humble kind of uncertainty >> they call it this uh the Socratic method which is just like asking questions to get deeper

understanding >> right and the story behind this so this is the wisdom of Socrates Because Socrates friend went to the oracle of Deli and asked, "Is Socrates the wisest man alive? Is there any man wiser than Socrates?" And the oracle said, "No, Socrates is the wisest man alive." >> And Socrates heard this and he said, "I know the oracle is never wrong or doesn't lie in their time. They believe that." But um >> I I believe that >> the oracle is never wrong. >> Well, I believe in that instance. >>

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But he said, "How could that be possible? I don't know anything. So, Socrates started going around Athens seeking out the wisest men and and asking people, who do you know who is wise? So, he goes to the politicians like the poets or the writers and the craftsmen and he starts asking them questions and what he finds is that everyone who other people think is wise or they think themselves wise, once he starts asking them all these questions, their ideas break down and have contradictions. >> True. So

Socrates realized if I'm the okay, I am the wisest man alive, but that's only because I realize that I know nothing. Whereas everyone else thinks they know something when they actually know nothing. >> True. Like they're jumping ahead of themselves with their conclusions. >> Yeah. So he had this epistemic humility, which is to at least acknowledge the limits of his own knowledge to be like, I'm just this philosopher. I'm just have this love of wisdom. I love learning. I love expanding, but I don't think I have the answers. >> No.

And I think Socrates was a good example because even in the current times now, I feel like people who ask open-ended questions or people who threaten maybe the establishment do become public enemy number one as well too. Well, and that's what happened. Uh this is uh Plato's apology. It's it's Socrates on trial because they accused him of corrupting the minds of the youth and going against the gods or whatever. And he tells this story where he's like, "All all I did was was seek wisdom. All I did was go and

ask questions and this upset everyone because I pointed out that I have a quote here from him. He says, "I am wiser than this man for neither of us really knows anything fine and good, but this man thinks he knows something when he does not. Whereas I, as I do not know anything, do not think I do either." >> True. True. >> He's essentially saying like, >> "Okay, I'm wiser than this man just because I realize the limits of my knowledge where he doesn't. >> I can hold uncertainty." >> Yeah.

Yeah. And I think that's why they pissed off Plato. Like a lot of people don't like Plato's Republic as much because it can be a little bit autocratic, like leaning towards that, like the philosopher king angle. But if you look at the Plato who grew up seeing his mentor like get put to death, like that's why he didn't trust people or he didn't trust like society as much. >> Okay. Interesting. >> Yeah. Because I actually agree. Ideally, we do have philosopher kings and we can argue on who is a philosopher

king in the world right now, but I think that would be polarizing. But I think there are like I like Ron Paul for example or like the founding fathers like I think they're the closest that we've had to like a true philosopher king what Plato intended. >> Yeah, definitely. But I think the the thing to acknowledge is that the world is constantly changing. So they come up with the best system they can at the time and it works if it's a good system it works ideally for a long time but

the world keeps changing and over time the system kind of needs to evolve to adapt with it. >> True. And democracy is not a perfect system but it's kind of the best that we have now or we've had in the past so far but it needs tweaks too. >> Yeah definitely actually. So on on that topic, uh there was a good quote cuz I was looking up well what is wisdom and does anyone have a good definition of it. So this guy Robert Nasik who I wasn't familiar with but he

was a libertarian philosopher. So I thought sounds up my alley. >> Thought you would be a fan but he says on wisdom he defines it as what you need to understand in order to live well and cope with the central problems and avoid the dangers in the predicaments human beings find themselves in. >> True. So, it's very practical and pragmatic. True, right? It's like what you need to know in order to live well and deal with problems and and avoid dangers. >> So, >> I like that. >> I like that

one. Yeah. >> Oh, that's a good definition for it. If you had to describe why you like wisdom personally or what's your definition of wisdom? >> Yeah. I don't know. For me, it's just uh it it's just something that's inherently rewarding. Like, I think I've always been a very curious person. >> I would say you are. Yeah. And the the brain actually releases dopamine when you like satisfy curiosity, right? So feel like it's something that's inherently self-rewarding. And I think it's the delayed gratification that's been lost like to tie it

back to what we were talking about before because I think there is a pleasure in acquiring information and being able to, you know, connect the dots and make decisions. But I think now people are almost like shortcircuited to get these dopamine hits after 5 seconds or 15-second reels. So they're not able to read anymore or kind of go through a longer form video or content or book to acquire a deeper set of tools or knowledge. And I think if I could teach people one thing, it would be the delayed gratification

and how rewarding that is. Yeah. So this is interesting because the content actually shortcircuits our dopamine loop in the brain. Dopamine is actually meant it's released in pursuit of a goal. It's people think it's when you achieve the goal, but it's actually released when you're in pursuit of or orienting towards a goal, but something about the short form content, it hijacks the dopamine, and then it's like drug addiction kind of. So, you you you need that level of of dop constant dopamine release, which makes it harder to focus on other

things. >> Yeah. I love the term doom scrolling, >> right? Right. >> Yeah. Because it does kind of suck you in as soon as you open up your app of choice. For me, it's X. I'm monitoring the situation of course, but yeah, it's like it's all it just takes you in like you almost can't put it down right away. So, I like to set limits like kind of a pomodoro where I'll like, okay, I'll set a timer for 20 minutes or else it's like, oh [ __ ] suddenly you're lost

like an hour. >> And I think that has to do with the with the amount of information density in in these apps. What's interesting for me though is since these AI tools came out, I've spent a lot less time on social media because I actually get more dopamine from engaging with the AI and asking questions and whatever I'm curious about about the world, about the universe, about science, about philosophy. Like I I feel like I I can get such dense information from the AI that that has actually become more of

my addiction. But I feel like it's a more healthy oriented one because it as long as you can focus your attention, what are you using this information toward as opposed to just accumulating more and more knowledge. >> Yeah, I agree. And it's almost like reading versus doomcrolling where when you're reading, you're actively applying yourself. And I think prompting you have to think to make a a good prompt or to ask a good question as opposed to just like this is what you're consuming right now where your brain's kind of on

autopilot just scrolling as opposed to like oh I'm curious about this how does this connect with what I read yesterday or can you make a mind feed card into this or can you reference a book where this came from. So you're constantly acquiring information and I like the term uh data compressing because we are compressing that data the more that we engage with the AIS. >> So >> yeah absolutely that's a really good point. The uh it's proactive whereas social media is kind of passive absorption of information. You don't really

need to engage with it. First of all with the AI you're proactively going out what do you want to learn? What do you want to know more about? And then it has the Socratic method kind of built into it because for me I'll have a curiosity something about science or the universe or I'll be like how does this make sense in evolution like where did this thing come from and then I'll get this really interesting answer and that will spark like two or three more questions. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then

I'm and I so I use the voice to text which I can just speak like we're speaking now. So my friend Victor called this ramble prompting. I like that >> because people are so focused on, oh, what's the best way to prompt AI? What Victor and I realized is actually you just want a ramble prompt. >> Any prompt is better than no prompt. >> Well, just do the voice to text and just speak whatever is on your mind, what you're curious about, all the connections you can make, and just dump

it in there. And the AI is really good at reading between the lines and figuring out. So, I find I get more interesting responses the more ideas I dump into it about what my thought. I don't just ask it a question. Why is this like this? I'll kind of ramble. I'll be like because to me this kind of makes more sense or why wouldn't it be this way? I'll I'll just speak for like a minute or a few minutes and then get like a really interesting response that's very relevant to

what I'm actually curious about. >> Yeah, for sure. And I think the vibe coding ramble prompting opened up coding or just engaging with AI to people who don't like typing or texting as much. So, I think it's genius. Like our friend Miguel got us onto that. >> Miselle Miselle. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. cuz he I don't think I've ever seen him type really unless he's entering a password. So we have a joke of him like he'll kind of dip out to press like, "Okay, so I want to do this." Like

he's always vibe coding with like whisper. >> That's why they called it whisper maybe cuz people are now whispering. They're whispering like at the side of Starbucks like so. Okay, so the H2 header looks good now. Can you adjust this or like >> But this is actually I feel like from an information standpoint, this is the most efficient because we can speak faster than we can type and we can read faster than we can listen and process information. So, I feel like speaking to the AI and reading its response is

actually the fastest information density loop of of it's like a bit rate of information exchange. >> True. And I love the way that we're engaging with OpenClaw on Telegram right now because a lot of people I think you're a really fast at reading, but other people might even like to listen more, right? So, you can just audio it back and forth, like voice prompt a question and then get a voice response. And I think that's the kind of engagement where I'll have fun sometimes when I'm done sitting at my computer

and I'll just be walking outside or in my house and I'll just be going back and forth like chucking ideas out there and then he'll come back. If it's very dense then I'll be like okay push that into a Google doc and we'll ideate it on it later. >> Yeah, you can do that and I think if you want to be on a walk and ideulating or something that could be good over voice but from just statistically people can read multiple times faster than they can listen and process information. What

about on double or triple speed? >> Even then, even then it's something I don't remember the exact numbers, but the number of words per second the average person can read versus the amount that they like you can process audio and um also because you can kind of skim you can see like headline headers and you're like, "Oh, I kind of know this one. I don't need right." I I feel like it's a much more efficient way to compress information as your main form of communication with the AI. This is another

interesting one though with regard to wisdom because there's this framework called the the DIKW which is like data information knowledge wisdom and the it's just a model. It's just a framework. It's not perfect. There's some criticisms but I think it's a useful one that kind of at the bottom you have data which is just raw raw data. >> Data. I just met her. >> Nice one. And then we compress data into information, right? Information is is mostly what we're consuming online. And then knowledge is kind of compressed information. So it's

information in a specific framework or model that helps you make sense of it. And a lot of society has been focused on knowledge work, right? Like what do we do with all this information? How do we make sense of it? But then wisdom is a level above that, which is kind of a higher compression of knowledge. And the difference between wisdom and knowledge again is wisdom has to be used in pursuit of something, right? Wisdom has to be used and applied for a specific purpose because you could accumulate all this

knowledge right about science, the universe, politics, like all these things. But can you actually apply that to make your life better? Like if you can't use that knowledge, then then what's the point, right? Or is kind of is this wise? True. No, it's just kind of lost information then. And and I think that's the difference between us and AI right now or way your idea of the the AI that integrates the best or the people who integrate the best with AI have a huge advantage because they can give you unlimited

like data information even knowledge to some degree but it's actually the wisdom or how to use that or leverage and execute is what gives us the advantage. >> Totally agree. Do you guys just agree with each other on everything? >> Basically, we do. No, actually, not always. I think >> not always. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. There are times when even some of our friend group might be like, "Oh, [ __ ] These guys are like going at it pretty hard." Like debating each other pretty hard on something. >>

I feel like on the pod so far though, we're like, "Oh, these are the topics we want to talk about and we've talked about the stuff so much that we mostly agree." >> Yeah. I think people could sense there's like there's certain ones where we do disagree or there's maybe more to it there, but we haven't really >> gotten into that yet. But I love the term, bro, argumentative reasoning. >> Oh, right. >> Especially because we're reasonable guys. So, if you're going back and forth, like arguing has maybe a negative

connotation, but in that capacity, it's like we're seeking a deeper understanding or really trying to, you know, get to a more depth in our conversation. So, I think it adds a lot. >> Yeah. Yeah. No, I I talked about this before. I feel like there needs to be a better word than debate because the debate kind of implies like I'm trying to win, right? True. But >> or there is a winner where there isn't like we could both win as we get to a deeper understanding. >> Well, I feel like

you and I are aligned on seeking wisdom. So, when we disagree on something, it's actually in pursuit of a better understanding and we're both trying to upgrade our own mental models. Wait, why do we disagree here? Let's dive down on this. like we must agree on some base assumptions or base facts or something and then once we flush that out, we usually come to a mutual understanding that's better than either of our perspectives at the beginning. Right. >> Definitely. And I love the idea of after you have a debate with

someone or an argumentative reasoning session where you recommend maybe a book or an idea or a term or something to research. So then the next time where you follow up, you can kind of both be at a higher level to discuss that same topic. >> Sure. Yeah. There's certain things where you're like, well, if you just don't have the requisite knowledge in this field or this area, we can't really have a productive discussion about this. >> Yeah. You need to establish like the principles like, okay, oh, we're both there or

we understand this universal truth or we accept this information, then we can go one level deeper. >> Yeah. I feel like there's like you'll identify is there a base set of of information or knowledge that is lacking in one of the perspectives and if so that person can fill in those gaps and they might still keep their opinion but right it's like you're kind of identifying where are the gaps in understanding or where are the fundamental disagreements. >> True. And I think as we get older the idea of debating with

everyone or trying to convince everyone some of my friends used to call me the prostitizer. >> Yeah. Or the debate method. the debate method, right? Because I I used to feel like, oh, if someone's reasonable, but that was my first mistake. If someone's reasonable, we could come to a mutual understanding once we kind of hash things through. But then I realized like not everyone is I won't say reasonable, but willing to kind of investigate or push or go back and forth. So, I love that quote that's like, "It took me

two years to learn how to talk and 40 years to learn how to be quiet or maybe 60 years to learn how to be quiet because there's so many times now where I'm like, "Okay, this person doesn't understand this word or this concept." So, there's no point continuing in the conversation and I've gotten better at doing graceful exits. I think especially working in Canada is I ran into so many maybe woke or like people who are very emotional or riled up on certain issues. >> Very certain in their opinions too

and and not open to finding more information or having their opinions changed. >> Exactly. And to each their own. But when it's getting forced upon you, like certain ways of talking or using certain terms at work, it's just like, okay, graceful exit as opposed to confronting someone that's holding that as part of their identity. And they're getting more riled up. And I'm like, okay, this isn't going to lead to anywhere productive. >> Yeah, you kind of need to choose your battles. And I I had this idea of like an uncertainty

handshake, which is we we cannot know anything with 100% certainty about >> I don't think Trump would like your uncertain handshake. >> Okay. Okay. But about external reality, especially about the future, especially on what is the the best way to act or behave. We're constantly taking in new information. All of our best models change at some point. So, I feel like when you have a disagreement, you should be able to have this uncertainty handshake at the beginning where it's like, do we both acknowledge uncertainty? There's a possibility I might be

wrong. If the other person cannot acknowledge that, they're unreasonable, right? They're they're just detached from how information and knowledge and wisdom works. >> Another way to do that, I like that. Another way is to say, "What could I possibly tell you or show you that could cause you to change your mind?" And if there's nothing there, >> then there's not really a debate or conversation there either. >> Yeah. And even just what would it take for you to change your mind on this issue? What evidence would you need to be

presented with that would change your opinion? >> True. And if the answer is nothing, then >> you're wasting your breath. >> You're kind of unreasonable, right? Like because I would define reason, well, I don't know. Yeah. One aspect of reason is being able to change one's mind when presented with better evidence, more better information. >> No. And I think that's one of our I won't call it a superpower because we're still developing it, but our idea of taking in new information and then trying to understand it to make better decisions

like deciphering. Oh, what was that new information that came in? Is there anything that I need to change or to update the mental models? >> Yeah. And on that topic of mental models, one I wanted to talk about was Charlie Mer's lattis work of mental models. >> Oh, that's really good. I think we could have a good visual for that. >> I I brought up the quote here or one of his quotes. This is in one of his uh speeches, but he says, "Well, the first rule is that you can't

really know anything if you just remember isolated facts and try to bang them back. If the facts don't hang together on a lattis work of theory, you don't have them in usable form. You've got to have mental models in your head and you've got to array your experience both vicarious and direct on this lattis work of models." And later he talks about you need multiple models, right? models from physics, models from uh political science, models from investing, models from mathematics, right? Because >> he was a well-rounded guy. >> Yeah. Cuz

the more of these models you have, the more patterns you see that oh, this is kind of just a universal truth or this applies across these multiple domains or it's like ways of thinking about things. And I like the way that he approached that because it did have to conform to a lot of different models. It's like, okay, if it passes through this lens, okay, that's pretty good. But if it passes through three or four lenses, okay, maybe we should invest in this idea or there's something really good here. >>

Exactly. And if you only have like one lens of looking at the world or like two lenses then >> if all you've got is a hammer, everything will look like a nail. >> Exactly. Perfect. Cuz it's like you'll just cram the world to fit in your existing mental model. Whereas, if you're able to see multiple perspectives, multiple ways of looking at things, you're like, "Well, if I look at it from this perspective, this makes sense. If I look at it from this perspective, it kind of tells a different story." And

then now you have some tension cuz now you have two competing paradoxical views. And if you hold those, you can actually find something new emerges that synthesizes both views into an even better model or understanding. >> True. It makes your opinion more robust. It's like the inversion again. Yeah. And I so I feel like >> back to the topic of wisdom. So these two elements are are very important. One is having good models of of the world and different kinds of mental models and further and further refining your models. And

then the other aspect is this uncertainty or this epistemic humility which is recognizing that your models are models. It's not the absolute truth. You do not know the absolute truth. I do not know the absolute truth. No one knows the absolute truth. And if you hold this view, it actually allows you to improve your models over time through this kind of uh argumentative reasoning or or disagree like a healthy disagreement to find more information. >> Yeah, for sure. As long as your intentions and integrity or you're on the like quest

to understand as opposed to being right. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> Bro, another one that I wrote down here was um the Thales move, wisdom is knowledge applied. So, I thought of your favorite story. >> Yeah. Yeah. This is a great one. So, Thales was the first Greek philosopher, or he's attributed as being the first Greek philosopher. >> Oh, whoops. Who put that there? >> Franklin. >> Franklin. >> What is that? A mini wine. >> Yeah, I stole it from little bro. Little bro is like wondering where her curve is and

her veno's gone. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Thales is the the first Greek philosopher at least he's considered to be and also the first person in western history to kind of take a scientific or logical view of the world to say this is not just randomness caused by the gods. We can actually try to understand this and we can make sense of it and use it to make predictions. And he was kind of mocked because he was only interested in ideas and just like pursuing philosophy all day and he didn't

have a lot of money. And so >> people are like, "What's the point?" Or they were Yeah. >> They're like, "Oh, your philosophy is kind of useless. >> Oh, you sit around and contemplate all day." >> So what Thales did is he's like, "All right, he didn't care about money, but he used his uh predictive capacity of like uh meteorology and and like the stars, astronomy to predict a good olive harvest." >> Yeah. And um what he did is he put deposits in the winter he put deposits on all of

the olive presses not only in his own city but in a neighboring city too to have the right to use those. This is actually the original options contract if you think about it. >> That's the original speculator. >> Yeah. So he put down a low deposit. If he was wrong he would lose lose some money but not a huge amount. But he was right because of his predictive capacity. So there was a huge olive harvest and he had reserved all of the olive presses in the market. He cornered the market.

So everyone had to come to Thales and rent the olive presses from him at whatever price he wanted to charge. So he charged this huge markup. So he he in one year makes this like huge for fortune and then just kind of mic drops and goes back to practicing philosophy. >> True. >> He just wanted to prove to the world like philosophy is not useless speculation. you can actually use this to apply and and get benefit in the world. But he just didn't care about doing that personally because he had

this love of wisdom. >> No, it's like wisdom can be profitable and he showed everyone that. That's really good. And it reminds me of like Taleb did some version of that as well too. >> I I feel like Yeah, I feel like there's a a very interesting Thales Taleb >> like parallel is very similar actually. Yeah, cuz I'd say most people would describe TB as a philosopher. >> And I think that's how he views himself and that's how he wants to be remembered because some of his ideas are very novel

and and kind of groundbreaking that no one else has really articulated in that way. >> And I think his idea of being a speculator, he likes that side of him, but it's just like a little chapter. He doesn't want to be remembered as like, oh, I'm the black swan guy forever. >> He's like, I'm a philosopher. I want to be remembered for my ideas, not that I predicted 2008. >> And and I know that Tv knows about Thales because he talks about the story in anti-fragile and I think he he

makes the argument that this is the original options contract that it's not that Thales was good at predicting the future, which is kind of how Aristotle recounted the story. But I think his argument is that well, Thales just understood profiting on uncertainty by making like a small bet if he loses a small amount if he's wrong, but he gains a huge amount if he's right. No, that's exactly like call options or put options. >> Yeah. So, I I wonder how much like TB was inspired by Thales because also he uh

he he made a bunch of money with his fund, but I feel like he also just kind of mic dropped. He's like, "Well, now I'm going to like write books and do philosophy." And I just wanted to prove to the world that I know what I'm talking about. Like cuz if you just write a bunch of ideas, people are like, "Yeah, this kind of makes sense." But how do we know you know what you're talking about? You kind >> it like grounding it as opposed to just being lost in the

clouds. because I do agree with some of that push back where it's like, oh, you're just sitting around around and philosophizing all day, but what's the practical use of that? So, I like that those guys came back and kind of like, well, this applied wisdom. This is how you you can also make money or start businesses or do all that stuff, too. Well, and that's the point is that the OG philosophers, that's what they were all about is wisdom has to be applied in practice. Philosophy means the love of wisdom

and wisdom is inherently useful to gain some beneficial outcomes to apply your knowledge in a way that to understand the world in a way that can help you make predictions and help you end up with the outcomes you want. >> Yeah, definitely. Oh, actually on the TB one, I like the don't tell me what you think, tell me what's in your portfolio because when I meet people too, I like thinking of that like you can talk about people's opinions indefinitely. But if you ask them quickly, oh, are you investing in

that? You seem quite passionate about what you're describing or what your thesis is. And a lot of people are not willing to invest in it, but they're willing to sit around and talk about it for hours on end. >> This is like the skin in the game idea, right? Exactly. >> Another great one from TB. >> Yeah. And I think that's why Poly Market or even like Bets, even though I don't think everyone should be doing that, I love that personally. If someone's passionate to talk about something or debate it

for a long enough time, then it's like, well, are we going to sit around and talk about it all day or are we going to get some skin in the game? >> I actually like that cuz you've kind of pushed me on that or my perspective on that because feel like another thing is that pretty much anyone can weasel word their way out of anything. It's like, you were wrong. No, I didn't say that. I said this and like slightly modify their claim. But if you get like a a bet,

like a bet on some future outcome, well, if you're confident in your views, then let's find some scenario that you think will happen as a result of this. And even a small bet could be $5, could be like, you know, whatever. >> It's some skin in the game. >> But it's just because now you have to you have to agree to some stakes or some >> Yeah. >> some terms. >> And take it from me, give yourself lots of time to be right. Don't take short-term bets. >> Yeah. >> Cuz

that is pedigroso. That's dangerous where if you set a timeline to something and then it doesn't pan out in like let's say 1 month or 6 months and then like a year later it goes up 20x or 30x you're like oh gez I should have bought leaps. Yeah. You can be directionally right but get the timing wrong. And that's I think another part of wisdom is recognizing because things are so interconnected and complex that your understanding of it is not going to be perfect ever. So >> holding more uncertainty especially

for very specific dates or directional bets >> and that's Munger as well inversion considering well what are the other outcomes that might make me wrong about this. >> Definitely >> one of Munger's mental models. >> Yeah I feel like we definitely have to do a pod on the toad. We're always talking to wisdom. >> The toad. >> The toad. Actually he says in uh his book he's like my kids used to call me like a book with legs. >> Okay. >> Cuz he would just sit around and read all day.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Like 10k reports but also biographies or I love the uh phrase make uh friends with the eminent dead. >> Yeah. Where it's like a lot of the ancient sages or this wisdom. It might not be around like people that you're talking with on a daily basis, but that doesn't mean it's lost. You can get a library pass or now you don't even need a library. Everyone has access to basically all information that's ever existed. >> Yeah. And this ties in with the idea of mentors. And

your mentors don't have to be someone living. does. It could be someone who just wrote a lot hundreds of years ago. >> True. >> Like some of my favorite sages like William James is an example of this. I've gotten a lot of wisdom from William James that has changed my views on on how to approach life kind of. And yeah, he he was writing like over a hundred years ago, right? He passed away long before I was born. >> True. Because we were talking about TB so much, I wrote down

emotional intelligence layer of wisdom where I think how much Taleb hates like the fragileistas and he talks about that stuff. He can be quite like a fragileista at times on different topics like he'll block a lot of people. >> You mean like getting emotionally riled up? >> He definitely gets emotionally charged or he'll walk out or he just won't engage with certain people. But then maybe he views that as like, oh, there's nothing to gain from this discussion. Yeah, I like this topic actually because I feel like so there's this

concept of embodied intelligence which is modern research is finding that intelligence is not just in the brain it's there there's parts aspects of the body in the nervous system that hold a deep intelligence and if you look at when someone when you get emotional about something when you get angry your your body kind of contracts and now your thinking is narrowed in one specific direction you can't see the big picture uh So, it's actually if you have poor emotional control, you're actually shutting down your thinking in that moment. >> No.

Something I really tried to teach everyone that I was working with in Korea was temperament >> cuz I could see certain people where I was like, "Oh, you've never had anyone challenge you in your whole life." Like some people will get flustered very easily, >> right? Yeah. >> And that wasn't even in my social line of work. that was just working with people that had everything going for them, but they would get so riled up that it's like then the discussion would kind of degrade or almost get personal. >> Yeah.

>> Like attacking someone's character as opposed to the ideas that are being presented. >> Well, this is interesting because psychologically there's a few frameworks around this, but people tend to fuse their identity with their beliefs or their ideology or something like that. So when someone disagrees with their with an idea or an ideology, they take it as a personal attack on themselves, like their ego actually feels threatened, like it's going to die. So it it defends itself like a life ordeath situation. It triggers the the fight orflight response. >> Yeah,

that's my DI theory of the universe. Deep insecurities. >> Insecurities. Yeah, cuz I feel like you can tell really quickly once you've triggered something in a conversation, especially when you're just talking about something and unintentionally something you said suddenly trigger someone or their neck straightens up or they bang the table is a little bit more obvious but >> Right. Right. So, context for the pod is Nolan came up with this theory of uh deep insecurities. >> Yeah. That was early actually, like way before I read Jung or the shadow or

anything like that. >> Yeah. And then and then much later I got into Carl Jung and it's essentially Carl Jung's theory of the shadow which was a very psychologically well-developed theory that is one of my favorite >> the shadow is really good >> but it was essentially what you intuited about deep insecurities which is why did that comment get that person so upset like that wasn't really that offensive or I don't think that should be that offensive. >> Yeah. And I like the idea of playing out different conversations or scenarios

let's say a hundred times. So if you were to say the exact same thing to a hundred people and let's say two of them got riled up over that, you might sense there's a little bit of a shadow or an insecurity there potentially that's why they got more animated or uh like flustered in that conversation. And then it's like, okay, why was that? And then you kind of unpack it and you're like, oh, there probably is some shadow there or some insecurity that they're like projecting upon you once a certain

word was said or a certain topic was breached. >> Yeah. And I like auditing this in myself where if I notice my myself getting fired up like my body getting tense or you know I'll feel some some heat arising the blaze I like to stop and reflect. I'm like oh that's interesting. Why am I why is my body reacting in this way to this topic or this comment or this question? Because a lot of the time it's it's actually some uncovered shadow. It's something about me personally that I haven't like

realized. So, it teaches me something about myself to kind of audit that in real time. >> No, that's a good one. It's like the positivity challenge, but it's like the insecurity challenge or the fluster challenge or whatever, too. >> Yeah. And this is something I've worked on a lot in the past few years because I kind of, you know, I want my ideas to be right. If I have an idea that I feel passionately about, I want it to be right. And then when someone disagrees with it, there's like a

challenge and, you know, I could get heated up. But um I actually found it's better for thinking to to try to control that response and then fully listen to what the other person's saying and take in the information because if you get heated up, you kind of again you constrain your thinking. You're already thinking about how you're going to disagree with what they're saying >> and then you're blocked off. >> You're not actually receiving the information. Give it like a moment to breathe. Oh, that's interesting. So in my experience Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Cuz at the end of the day, we're all just kind of people sharing our own experience. And I I feel like wisdom is compressed experience if you think about it. >> Definitely. >> Cuz everything we know about the world is through experience. Either our experience whether we acknowledge it or not. >> All human knowledge comes from experience. That's the only way we can receive information. And yeah, so it's either our experience or it's someone else's experience or it's like accumulated compressed experience over hundreds or thousands of years, but

we're constantly getting new experience in. And compression is lossy, right? Like if you think about data on a computer, if you if you compress an image, you lose some of the information. >> True. >> And that's all of our knowledge. All of our knowledge is lossy. So yeah, I think that's a really useful frame actually is is just uh viewing wisdom as compressed experience. >> What does lossy mean? >> Like you lose some information. >> Oh, just lossy like lost. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Lossy like there there is loss involved.

>> Okay. >> Because if you think about like a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy, each one gets like a little bit less imperfect because it's not a perfect copy of the original. >> Okay. And this is just the nature of experience because our our memory is lossy, right? Like if you're every memory you have, they've done studies on um eyewitness testimony where two people who witnessed a crime >> totally different stories of it and this is the nature of our memory and of our perception. So >> definitely flawed.

>> Everything we think we know is like is just a model or an approximation of what actually happened and then over time the more experience we accumulate. So then if you have this perspective, you're like, "Oh, what was this person's experience that led them to a different conclusion than me?" And then it's kind of like if I can take in that information about their experience, it only helps me improve my own models. >> Definitely. >> Because if we're only concluding based on our own experience, that's like very limited. Yeah. >>

Versus like hundreds of humans, millions of humans like sharing and aggregating experience, that's going to be a better model. >> That's the Socrates know thyself. >> Yeah. Because I think that is the whole emotional intelligence or being able to know yourself and then being able to give other people a chance to express themselves or see which environment like the product of your environment why they have that opinion. And I think most people once you do walk in their shoes even just understanding their story or perspective more I' i'd say that's

the biggest problem with conflict in the world is just lack of perspective like oh this person has a different value system than me and without trying to understand why they get there because even what's going on in the Middle East right now like we have very different versions of maybe even where those lines were drawn at the end of wars like oh this we divided these countries up and we separated maybe like the Kurds or like the Palestinians into different areas um where we need to understand their perspective and then

I think that'll help us to achieve like a lasting peace or being able to like solve bigger problems as opposed to just like yelling at each other. You're not really talking directly or seeking to understand. >> Yeah. And someone's perspective is shaped by their experiences from birth. >> Everyone. Everyone. Yeah. >> Cuz people are born in very different scenarios in the world, different cultures, different value systems. That's why I think traveling's so good. >> Oh yeah, definitely. >> Because you're literally immersed in their environments. >> If you've only lived in

one country or one environment or haven't really traveled, then you only have this one lens or perspective of viewing things, which is the people that are similar to you. Whereas the more you travel, the more you see like how diverse human experience actually is. >> Yeah. I want to put up that image here where it shows the two fish swimming in the water and the one fish says, "How's the water today?" The other fish's like, "What's water?" That one's really good because you don't know once you're only immersed in one

environment. You have no perspective of what's going on or what other people might deem or understand or interpret that situation. >> Yeah. And I like thinking of this in terms of your lens on the world because your lens, all of our lenses are distorted, right? We're not seeing things exactly as they are. We're interpreting them through our perspectives, our experience, our models. So all of us have some sort of distortion on the lens. And yeah, I feel like a lot of this work is trying to understand, you said know thyself.

Uh, a lot of that work is trying to understand yourself to be like, >> is this something about me that's causing me to view this this way or is this something about the reality or the situation and you don't know where that that boundary is. So, yeah, I think it's like it it's trying to clean your lens more more and more and you do that by comparing your lens with other people's lenses and you're like, "Oh, our lenses are different. Why is mine right?" and there's wrong. Is there right and

my wrong or is it somewhere in the middle? And it's probably somewhere in the middle. >> Yeah, definitely. >> Yeah. The more of those kind of different perspectives you take in, the more perspectives you're able to see something from, the better you're able to accurately kind of perceive reality. >> Definitely. Well, it's like standing on the shoulders of giants. I love that one, too. Like, why did I see a little bit further than someone else? Because I stood on the shoulder of giants. like I had more perspectives or I made

friends with the eminent dead faster earlier so I was able to see maybe a little bit like my vista increased. >> I love that one too because of the epistemic humility, right? It's like well I I'm not wise. It's just that I I was building on all of this wisdom that came before me and I saw a little bit further. >> And that's why I think it's important to pay homage to all the thinkers or the sages that we like because a lot Yeah. I mean ideas are always borrowed. Like

I forget who said it, but there there are no original ideas, >> right? >> Everything has been said before in some capacity, >> but we're building on it a little bit a little bit or you can have a synthesis of multiple ideas, but I I agree everything is building on what came before it. >> There's no kind of total totally novel idea out of nowhere, but there's a lot of totally wisdom. >> Yeah, bro. I wrote down wisdom is not pure cognition. It's cognition married to emotional skill. >> Okay. >>

So, it's like you can know a lot of information, but if your temperament isn't in the right place, you're not going to be able to use that wisdom or information correctly. >> Okay. Interesting. Yeah. >> Yeah. I think the emotional intelligence one is something that we don't put enough emphasis on, especially when kids are younger. like we block people into like IQ or a certain like score as opposed to developing other forms of intelligence. And this is an interesting topic because William James argued in the sentiment of rationality. We have

this idea that oh I'm rational, right? There's a rational way of thinking. But his argument was how do you know if something is rational or irrational? It it's a feeling in your body where that that feels coherent that doesn't feel right. So his argument is that there is no objective rationality. Your your sense of rationality is just based on a feeling in your body which is influenced by your predispositions, the experiences you've had, the the models of the world you've accumulated. >> Definitely. >> That's a really interesting perspective, right? Like

>> true. >> So yeah, it it's making the argument that your emotional system is actually very involved in your thinking. And I think our modern culture doesn't acknowledge that as much as it should. >> That's a good segue into how do we cultivate that wisdom? >> Yeah, definitely. Actually, there's one more that I wanted to cover on like if we're trying to define or categorize what is wisdom. Another thing I want to talk about is this idea of telos or directionality. >> So telos is a Greek word that means kind

of like north star. Like what are you orienting towards? what what is your goal or end destination? And we're not always conscious of this, but I think wisdom is also thinking very big picture on long timelines on larger amounts of people and figuring out what are we trying to orient toward, right? Because you could have a lot of knowledge and again to the sorcerers apprentice example, right? Or what we're doing with technology. We have an enormous amount of knowledge. We can do all these crazy things. We can fly to the

moon, right? We can do all these things. Not everyone agrees with that. >> Oh yeah, the and the flatearthers were pretty upset about the the recent moon launch too. >> Yeah. >> But yeah, it's like we can do all of these things. Which things are worth doing? And I think this is a big part of wisdom. Which goals are worth orienting toward? >> True. >> And that can only come from experience, too. >> True. >> Right. Because there's like the this idea of second and third order consequences, which is okay.

Well, I um you can have a positive first order consequence, but negative second or third order consequences are the opposite. So, eating sugar, it's really good consequence in the short term. Eating a lot of sugar, really bad consequence in the long term. Yeah. Like diabetes, >> weightlifting is the opposite or exercise, right? It's unpleasant in the short term, but the second or third order consequence is positive. >> Definitely like ice baths or walking on like torture spikes or fire. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Are you referencing the things I just ordered

off of Lazada? Like this the standing spike board? >> Well, I think a lot of people have Exactly. A lot of people have an association with anything that's unpleasant is negative. Like we were talking about in the previous one, right? >> Where it's like, oh, actually, you do need stress. Stress is healthy, but it's in moderation. >> Yeah. And and then there's examples of really well-intentioned actions that caused negative consequences. So, the famous one is the Cobra effect. And this was I think it was the the uh British in India.

There was an overabundance of cobras and so they wanted to get Yeah. Yeah. That's a really good one. They wanted to get rid of the cobras. So they thought what's the easiest way to do it? Let's decentralize it. We'll put a bounty on bringing in a dead cobra. Then the average people want to make money. They'll kill the cobras and then they'll clean up the problem. Right? But what smart people started doing is breeding cobras because they're like, "Well, I could kill this cobra or and then I could just keep

making more and more cobras and get a lot of money." >> True. True. >> So the British realized people were doing this and so they they canceled the bounty program. But then people had all these cobras and they had nothing to do with them, so they just let them free. So the cobra population skyrocketed, >> right? So it's like a well-intentioned, oh, this makes sense. This is a good way to solve the problem. But it made the problem way worse. >> Definitely. I can hear the toad in the background like

always look at the incentives. If you get the incentives wrong, you'll get the wrong outcome every single time. >> They didn't do the inversion. They didn't consider how might this go wrong. >> True. >> But that's part of wisdom, right? It's recognizing, okay, well, everything is insanely complex and interconnected and my model probably doesn't map this perfectly and what are the things that could go wrong, but even if I think that, there's things that I'll miss. So learning through more and more experience and then I feel like as people get

older and accumulate more experience, we should be able to use this accumulated experience to like apply to the world now. And >> should is the key word like we were riffing on before. A lot of people as they get older get locked or more rigid in their opinions and mindset and how they live their life. >> So I think it's always important to mix that up with order, but also you need chaos and diversity. >> Yeah. Yeah, there's a there's a few things here. So, one, I think, is thinking on

very long time scales because our society really incentivizes short-term thinking. All of our benefits come from short-term thinking, even in politics, right? Like a a four-year cycle and a two-year re-election or the the interims or whatever, the midterms. >> Yeah. Was it with you I was having the conversation? I think it was with you and maybe one of our buddies where we were talking about, okay, the East has actually done quite a few things, right? Where a lot of the ideas of having a five-year plan or a 10-year plan helps

you because you're able to view things for the very long term as opposed to two-year midterms and then a lot of your economic policies or your political ambitions are based around a very short-term Telos as opposed to a longer term one. So I'm not saying like the Chinese or the Russian model is perfect, but for some things maybe like energy policies or certain economic plans. Even for geopolitical things, I think having a longer term Telos is better than a shorter term one. >> Definitely. And yeah, there's an important lesson there.

And that's I think what is part of wisdom, which is you have to set the goal. You have to set the telos. And the longer term you you set that now, the more things are going to orient towards that. So now you're taking all this knowledge and applying it in how do I achieve this goal? And psychologically there's studies showing that this this improves the likelihood of actually reaching the goal if you just set one and and orient things toward it. And yeah, if if we're not doing this as a

society, if we're just hijacked by short-term attention loops, short-term incentives, right? CEOs of of companies with like quarterly bonuses right? If everything is short-term incentives, we're just going to get random outcomes. >> True. >> Or or maybe not even random, maybe predictable based on what is the incentive structure, incentivize people to do. >> So, I always look at the incentive structure and then skin in the game again. Like, does this CEO actually believe in their own company every chance? Are they exiting like selling as much as they can or are

they buying more because they believe in the long term? >> Yeah. Because it's going to align long-term incentives. And then I think as a society this is why I feel like we need to usher in the wisdom age which is people actually thinking about what do we want to do as a society as a world do we want and I would say like something rough even like increasing human flourishing right yeah we're like okay now are we trending in that direction or or not are we using our knowledge to to

improve that outcome or or are we getting the opposite of that because then you can wisdom is kind of like having this container of which outcomes are worth striving toward and now you can use knowledge in pursuit of that and have a measurable outcome. >> So like how wisdom is being passed down and how maybe we could be better parents, better teachers, better mentors. >> Yeah, exactly. I was thinking of this in terms of if you imagine humanity as one collective organism or super organism. So we have the older generations

and we have the younger generations, >> the the incoming wizards. >> Yeah. And the the younger generations have like a lot of energy, motivation. They want to build stuff and the older generations should have accumulated a lot of wisdom in their lifetime. But I think also so on the individual perspective, we said wisdom is applying your knowledge right to for your own outcomes. I think you can view the same thing as as the collective which is older people who have accumulated a lot of knowledge. How can we apply this in

the world now given that the world is different from the world they grew up in? >> Very different >> cuz your your mental models can get obsolete if it's like >> you have to update them. >> Yeah. And you have to apply them to what's happening now in the world now. And is this different from how the world was 20 years ago, 50 years ago? And it is. It's very different. So we talked about kind of older people can tend to get more rigid or fixed in their in their beliefs

or their models. >> I think so >> because they're because those models worked for them their their whole life, right? But it's also looking at okay well does this model still apply to the world now in this situation or can I take all this knowledge in these models and and mix it with what's happening now and some novel way of of applying it. >> True. >> This is more like theoretical. I don't have the answers to this, but I think it's an interesting thing to be thinking about. How do we

pass wisdom down from the older generations to the younger generations in a way that's not out of touch, right? It's like, you know, well, that's not the world we live in now, right? Like the Yeah. >> Yeah. Will Durant said something along the lines of like wisdom is only given to you after it's stolen your youth. And I think that's what we're trying to do on the podcast a lot is help people along or kind of speed up that process of wisdom being passed down. >> Could you unpack that one

a bit or what does that mean to you like has stolen your youth? >> Well, I think it's like the age of reason like I think a lot of people feel maybe around our age like okay now I understand how things are a lot. So I think if we can unpack or help people acquire information or point them in the right direction so it doesn't have to like steal your youth means like you don't have to grow old before you become wise. >> Yeah. There's another quote. It was from a

a general or a military guy. I forget his name but it wasn't even a quote. It was just an article where he's talking about you can learn from your own experience which involves making a lot of mistakes and errors or you can learn from other people's experience which is far less costly especially in military operations right where it's people's lives that are being lost. So he's talking about the importance especially when you're young of trying to like people have been living >> learn from other people's lives >> for for a

very long time. There's a lot of accumulated mistakes and what people have learned from those and yeah, it's trying to tap into that wisdom pool so you don't make the same mistakes. >> Yeah, for sure. >> So, it it kind of goes both ways, right? It's older people trying to connect to younger people's reality now which is different from their own reality and okay my accumulated knowledge and wisdom how could I unpack this in a way that's relevant to younger people and also younger people realizing even though older people lived

in a different world there is wisdom there I just have to view it as a lens or a perspective I don't have to like wholesale reject it as being wrong or or accept it as being right >> for sure no I like also thinking of like the AI brings the knowledge, the information, but humans bring the wisdom. So together we can do anything. >> We need to we need to bring the wisdom because again the wisdom is what do we point the AI at? What do we point all this knowledge

at? We have to set the direction and figure out which directions are wise and which directions because I think uh most people would agree that if you if you end up with a horrific outcome, then that wasn't a very wise decision. >> True. Even if you're super smart, you're super smart, someone's really intellectual, but they end up leading the world in a horrible direction. That was not a wise decision. >> True. And some of it isn't even based on intent like Openenheimimer or Nobel. Yeah. >> Yeah. True. Yeah, definitely. >>

Like they just stumbled upon certain technologies or discoveries not knowing how humanity would use that or execute with those, >> right? Oh, yeah. the uh >> execute isn't probably the best word. >> Was it Albert Nobel or Alfred? >> Uh Alfred, I think. >> But yeah, the Nobel Peace Prize. The the story behind that. >> Yeah, he discovered dynamite. >> He invented dynamite, right? >> Yeah, exactly. >> And I guess he was he was kind of naive or he was horrified when he saw that dynamite was then used in wars

to like kill a lot of people. >> That's exactly the same with Openheimer. >> With Oenheimer, too. Yeah, great movie, by the way. We'll pull up a poster. >> Yeah, that one's really good. It can be slow at times, but I love how they even show Einstein in it. Like he crosses paths with Einstein, and Einstein looks very solid or a little bit lost. >> Well, it's slow at times, but that's because wisdom requires patience. Earn it. You have to earn it. >> And actually, Christopher Nolan, the director of Oenheimer,

we've talked about is really wise wizard actually when you watch his movies like the Batman trilogy. >> Those are really good. Yeah. >> Yeah. So, Batman begins uh The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises. >> The There's so much wisdom. >> We watch them as kids and they're like, >> "That's Alfred." >> Yes. Yes. Alfred. So, Alfred and Fox, like Lucia's Fox, there there's so much wisdom in in all these lines in in those movies. I feel >> if you're young and haven't seen those, definitely pull up the Dark

Knight trilogy. >> And if you're older, if you're our age and you watch them when you were in your 20s, rewatch them now because you'll you'll get a totally different perspective. >> Yeah. Why do we fall, sir? >> So we can learn to pick ourselves up again. >> Yeah, that's so boss. >> Yeah, there's so much like very dense wisdom in in like really good lines or quotes in that movie. >> Yeah. Do you remember the one exercise we did on the retreat where it talks about envisioning that you had

another father >> or another mother? >> I loved your answer of like envisioning cuz you're not even if you had great parents. I think you and I struggled on that for a second cuz we're like, "Oh, our mom and dad killed it." Like we had really good upbringings. Yeah. So this just to clarify that this exercise it's called like an ideal parents uh imagination exercise especially for people who did not have >> and a lot of people there was a lot of like sadness tears like in that exercise where for

you and I maybe we struggled a little bit >> cuz I almost felt bad to my parents to imagine like different parents cuz I think my parents did a very good job at raising us. >> No I I think both my parents did amazing job so I I struggled with that too. they emphasize, but you should pick someone who's not your your birth parent. And yeah, so I think I I imagine the father from Batman Begins, cuz I I feel like the the first part of that movie does such a

great job of demonstrating like a a father who really cares about the wisdom and passing it on to his kid and raising his kid to be very capable. >> No, that's a great answer. That's why I was thinking of that with the Dark Knight. I thought of like a Ron Paul or someone like that where I was like, I've never seen his moral compass not in the right spot. Right. >> So, I was like, if I could teach my son that or my kids that, that would be amazing as well.

>> Yeah, definitely. >> Nice, bro. I think that's a good way to wrap it up on. >> Probably a good note to end on. I think we uh we got a lot of wisdom in that podcast. >> Yeah, hopefully we inspired some other people to seek more wisdom. >> Yeah, definitely. And uh yeah, I think in our future episodes um we want to talk about some of our favorite thinkers, favorite philosophers, the wisdom of different people, and what we've learned from them. >> No, that could be fun. Yeah. All right,

bro. Let's wrap it up. Good session. >> See you on the next one. >> Like and subscribe. >> Like and subscribe.