WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.279 Welcome to the Deep Dive. We're really glad you're 00:00:03.279 --> 00:00:05.219 here with us today. Yeah, absolutely welcome. 00:00:05.459 --> 00:00:07.139 If you're tuning in, we kind of know exactly 00:00:07.139 --> 00:00:11.220 the kind of person you are. You have this relentless 00:00:11.220 --> 00:00:14.359 curiosity about the world, and you want to be 00:00:14.359 --> 00:00:17.219 well -informed. Right. You're looking for those 00:00:17.219 --> 00:00:19.940 genuine aha moments. Exactly. But you also don't 00:00:19.940 --> 00:00:23.199 want to feel buried under just an absolute avalanche 00:00:23.199 --> 00:00:25.679 of information overload. Oh, yeah. Nobody wants 00:00:25.679 --> 00:00:27.620 that. You want to look at things from multiple 00:00:27.620 --> 00:00:29.780 perspectives, understand the core of an issue 00:00:29.780 --> 00:00:32.380 quickly, and ideally walk away with a shifted 00:00:32.380 --> 00:00:35.359 paradigm. And that is exactly our mission today. 00:00:35.460 --> 00:00:38.219 It's a fun one today, too. It really is. We're 00:00:38.219 --> 00:00:40.820 taking a brilliant concept from a piece titled 00:00:40.820 --> 00:00:43.679 Business and Politics Are Not Teaching and Learning. 00:00:43.979 --> 00:00:47.140 It's a post found over at hackscience .education 00:00:47.140 --> 00:00:50.579 by Dr. Gary L. Ackerman. And we are going to 00:00:50.579 --> 00:00:52.859 fundamentally rethink how we measure success 00:00:52.859 --> 00:00:55.380 in education. Which is huge. Yeah, because to 00:00:55.380 --> 00:00:57.659 understand why our educational metrics are so 00:00:57.659 --> 00:00:59.280 flawed, we actually have to take a hard look 00:00:59.280 --> 00:01:01.740 at how we measure success literally everywhere 00:01:01.740 --> 00:01:04.939 else in our lives. It's a profound shift in perspective. 00:01:05.620 --> 00:01:07.659 We spend so much time trying to optimize how 00:01:07.659 --> 00:01:12.319 we learn or how we teach without ever really 00:01:12.319 --> 00:01:14.920 questioning the very rulers we're using to measure 00:01:14.920 --> 00:01:17.400 that progress. If rulers are broken. Exactly. 00:01:17.879 --> 00:01:20.519 The premise we are exploring today forces us 00:01:20.519 --> 00:01:22.879 to step back and look at the dominant frameworks 00:01:22.879 --> 00:01:25.629 of our society. We have these massive overarching 00:01:25.629 --> 00:01:27.870 structures that dictate our daily lives, and 00:01:27.870 --> 00:01:29.890 we have just sort of blindly taken the measurement 00:01:29.890 --> 00:01:32.209 tools from those structures and tried to apply 00:01:32.209 --> 00:01:34.170 them to the human brain. Okay, let's unpack this, 00:01:34.209 --> 00:01:36.689 because to see the mismatch, we first have to 00:01:36.689 --> 00:01:38.870 establish a baseline of what those dominant structures 00:01:38.870 --> 00:01:41.409 actually are. Right, the big two. The big two. 00:01:42.090 --> 00:01:45.370 The core argument here points out two major human 00:01:45.370 --> 00:01:47.670 endeavors that essentially run our modern world. 00:01:48.120 --> 00:01:50.840 business and politics. Yeah. And the defining 00:01:50.840 --> 00:01:53.140 characteristic of both of these arenas is that 00:01:53.140 --> 00:01:55.480 they are built to be measured easily. They are 00:01:55.480 --> 00:01:57.640 designed around outcomes that are, for the most 00:01:57.640 --> 00:02:00.439 part, objective and unequivocal. Think about 00:02:00.439 --> 00:02:03.439 the psychological comfort of that word. Unequivocal. 00:02:03.560 --> 00:02:06.519 Leaving no doubt. Leaving absolutely no doubt. 00:02:07.180 --> 00:02:10.439 As human beings, we are deeply, deeply uncomfortable 00:02:10.439 --> 00:02:12.939 with ambiguity. We want to know where we stand. 00:02:13.340 --> 00:02:15.479 We want to know who is winning and you know who 00:02:15.479 --> 00:02:18.189 is losing. Give us the scoreboard. Right. Give 00:02:18.189 --> 00:02:20.909 us the scoreboard. Business and politics have 00:02:20.909 --> 00:02:24.150 become the dominant forces in our society precisely 00:02:24.150 --> 00:02:27.530 because they provide us with the illusion of 00:02:27.530 --> 00:02:30.030 definitive answers. They give us that scoreboard. 00:02:30.150 --> 00:02:32.449 And we are completely addicted to that scoreboard. 00:02:32.629 --> 00:02:35.449 Let's look at the business metric first. In the 00:02:35.449 --> 00:02:38.990 commercial realm, success equals profits. It 00:02:38.990 --> 00:02:41.909 is an incredibly clean equation. Very clean. 00:02:42.110 --> 00:02:44.189 If the profits are sufficient for the owner or 00:02:44.189 --> 00:02:47.099 the shareholders, The business is deemed a success. 00:02:47.599 --> 00:02:49.560 You don't have to debate the philosophical merits 00:02:49.560 --> 00:02:51.939 of the company. You just look at the bottom line. 00:02:52.099 --> 00:02:54.240 Did the line go up? Did the number go up enough 00:02:54.240 --> 00:02:55.860 to keep the people holding the purse strings 00:02:55.860 --> 00:02:58.879 happy? That's it. And notice the underlying simplicity 00:02:58.879 --> 00:03:01.960 of that standard. It isn't about human flourishing 00:03:01.960 --> 00:03:05.259 or some cosmic truth. It is simply about an agreed 00:03:05.259 --> 00:03:07.960 upon financial target. It's a mutually accepted 00:03:07.960 --> 00:03:10.530 reality. Exactly. You hit the margin, you succeed. 00:03:10.629 --> 00:03:12.830 You miss the margin, you fail. It provides an 00:03:12.830 --> 00:03:15.229 immediate, universally understood state of affairs 00:03:15.229 --> 00:03:16.750 that you could just put on a spreadsheet and 00:03:16.750 --> 00:03:19.389 hand to a board of directors. Then we pivot to 00:03:19.389 --> 00:03:21.650 the second major endeavor, which is politics. 00:03:22.530 --> 00:03:24.189 Now, the currency is entirely different, but 00:03:24.189 --> 00:03:28.150 the metric is just as clean. In politics, success 00:03:28.150 --> 00:03:31.530 equals votes. The winner is the individual who 00:03:31.530 --> 00:03:34.150 gets more votes. But there's a catch. There is 00:03:34.150 --> 00:03:36.550 a catch, a very deliberate nuance here that we 00:03:36.550 --> 00:03:38.909 need to highlight from the source. The true metric 00:03:38.909 --> 00:03:41.930 isn't just the raw math of the ballots. The actual 00:03:41.930 --> 00:03:44.729 definitive measure of success is being the individual 00:03:44.729 --> 00:03:47.069 judged by the certifying officials to have received 00:03:47.069 --> 00:03:50.129 more votes. What's fascinating here is that even 00:03:50.129 --> 00:03:52.530 within systems, we desperately want to be purely 00:03:52.530 --> 00:03:55.509 objective. There is a distinctly human mechanism 00:03:55.509 --> 00:03:58.129 required to finalize the reality. The raw count 00:03:58.129 --> 00:04:01.159 of votes is data, sure. Right, it's data. But 00:04:01.159 --> 00:04:03.280 the certification by designated officials is 00:04:03.280 --> 00:04:05.719 the actual finish line. That certification process 00:04:05.719 --> 00:04:08.680 is what transforms a pile of paper ballots into 00:04:08.680 --> 00:04:11.979 an unequivocal societal outcome. We rely on that 00:04:11.979 --> 00:04:14.419 official stamp to tell us who won, so we can 00:04:14.419 --> 00:04:16.589 all just move forward. But of course, as much 00:04:16.589 --> 00:04:19.769 as we love these clean generalizations, business 00:04:19.769 --> 00:04:22.709 equals pure profit politics, equals certified 00:04:22.709 --> 00:04:25.209 votes. They aren't absolute laws of physics. 00:04:25.269 --> 00:04:28.189 No, not at all. There are nuances and there are 00:04:28.189 --> 00:04:30.850 incredibly revealing exceptions that prove just 00:04:30.850 --> 00:04:33.529 how desperate we are to maintain the illusion 00:04:33.529 --> 00:04:36.250 of perfect measurement. Let's examine the political 00:04:36.250 --> 00:04:38.689 exception first, because it perfectly illustrates 00:04:38.689 --> 00:04:42.209 the tension between messy reality and our need 00:04:42.209 --> 00:04:45.129 for a definitive metric. The historical example 00:04:45.129 --> 00:04:47.990 the text highlights is the 2000 presidential 00:04:47.990 --> 00:04:50.389 election in the United States. And looking at 00:04:50.389 --> 00:04:52.589 that strictly through the lens of systems and 00:04:52.589 --> 00:04:54.850 measurement, it's such a crucial example. The 00:04:54.850 --> 00:04:57.269 year 2000 election demonstrated to the entire 00:04:57.269 --> 00:04:59.750 world that the process of official certifying 00:04:59.750 --> 00:05:02.170 election results is not always a frictionless, 00:05:02.189 --> 00:05:05.009 perfectly objective metric. Far from it. It revealed 00:05:05.009 --> 00:05:07.170 that the very mechanism of certification, which 00:05:07.170 --> 00:05:09.209 is the ultimate metric of political success, 00:05:09.310 --> 00:05:11.990 can become extraordinarily convoluted. It pulls 00:05:11.990 --> 00:05:15.250 back the curtain on the machinery. We treat political 00:05:15.250 --> 00:05:18.850 victory as a simple math problem, but that specific 00:05:18.850 --> 00:05:21.410 moment in history showed us that when the margins 00:05:21.410 --> 00:05:24.769 are razor thin, the human element of judging 00:05:24.769 --> 00:05:26.850 and certifying those results comes under immense 00:05:26.850 --> 00:05:29.829 stress. Yeah, the system gets pushed to its absolute 00:05:29.829 --> 00:05:32.449 limit. Right. It proves that even in a system 00:05:32.449 --> 00:05:34.889 meticulously designed to produce an unequivocal 00:05:34.889 --> 00:05:38.029 winner, the path to reaching that certified metric 00:05:38.029 --> 00:05:41.860 can be chaotic. Yet the system still ultimately 00:05:41.860 --> 00:05:44.860 relied on that final certification to establish 00:05:44.860 --> 00:05:47.589 the objective reality of the outcome. We see 00:05:47.589 --> 00:05:49.870 a similar tension in the business world, too. 00:05:50.089 --> 00:05:52.810 Pure profit is the undisputed king of metrics. 00:05:53.269 --> 00:05:55.649 But we are increasingly seeing the rise of socially 00:05:55.649 --> 00:05:58.050 responsible business practices. Which is a really 00:05:58.050 --> 00:05:59.990 interesting shift. It's a fascinating exception 00:05:59.990 --> 00:06:02.290 because it shows human beings actively trying 00:06:02.290 --> 00:06:04.449 to rebel against the absolute tyranny of the 00:06:04.449 --> 00:06:07.110 spreadsheet. A company might willingly choose 00:06:07.110 --> 00:06:09.850 to sacrifice a fraction of their maximum potential 00:06:09.850 --> 00:06:12.230 profit to ensure they are sourcing materials 00:06:12.230 --> 00:06:14.889 sustainably or treating their supply chain ethically. 00:06:15.120 --> 00:06:17.319 Which complicates the traditional scoreboard 00:06:17.319 --> 00:06:20.379 immensely. When a business introduces social 00:06:20.379 --> 00:06:24.180 responsibility, pure profit is no longer the 00:06:24.180 --> 00:06:26.560 sole indicator of how that enterprise judges 00:06:26.560 --> 00:06:29.060 its own success. They're trying to weigh morals 00:06:29.060 --> 00:06:31.480 against money. They are attempting to quantify 00:06:31.480 --> 00:06:34.939 morals and ethics alongside revenue. But even 00:06:34.939 --> 00:06:37.560 with these notable exceptions, the complexities 00:06:37.560 --> 00:06:39.959 of political certification or the introduction 00:06:39.959 --> 00:06:42.529 of corporate ethics, the overarching paradigm 00:06:42.529 --> 00:06:45.170 remains entirely intact. Exactly, because at 00:06:45.170 --> 00:06:47.430 the end of the day, a socially responsible business 00:06:47.430 --> 00:06:50.170 still needs to report its earnings, and even 00:06:50.170 --> 00:06:52.870 a highly contested election still ends with someone 00:06:52.870 --> 00:06:55.629 taking the oath of office. The primary measures 00:06:55.629 --> 00:06:57.730 of success in both of these arenas are still 00:06:57.730 --> 00:07:00.290 rigidly defined, highly visible, and above all, 00:07:00.550 --> 00:07:02.449 quantifiable. But here's where it gets really 00:07:02.449 --> 00:07:05.170 interesting, because the issue isn't just what 00:07:05.170 --> 00:07:08.209 we are measuring. The real trap lies in how often 00:07:08.209 --> 00:07:10.490 we measure it and the competitive environment 00:07:10.490 --> 00:07:12.569 in which those measurements take place. We have 00:07:12.569 --> 00:07:14.930 to look at the element of time. Oh, the timelines 00:07:14.930 --> 00:07:17.430 are relentless. Think about the business world. 00:07:18.189 --> 00:07:20.949 Things operate on an incredibly short -term loop. 00:07:21.319 --> 00:07:23.839 Profits are typically reported four times each 00:07:23.839 --> 00:07:26.379 year. Every single quarter, the clock runs out 00:07:26.379 --> 00:07:28.600 the scoreboard resets and you have to prove your 00:07:28.600 --> 00:07:31.600 worth all over again. It is a constant unending 00:07:31.600 --> 00:07:34.019 sprint. And it is a sprint against everyone else. 00:07:34.360 --> 00:07:36.699 It's a fierce competition for greater profit 00:07:36.699 --> 00:07:38.740 and market share against other companies producing 00:07:38.740 --> 00:07:41.319 similar products or services. You aren't just 00:07:41.319 --> 00:07:44.540 trying to grow. You're trying to dominate a defined 00:07:44.540 --> 00:07:47.600 space within a three month window. Politics operates 00:07:47.600 --> 00:07:49.920 on a similar short term loop, though the intervals 00:07:49.920 --> 00:07:52.209 are slightly longer. Elections happen every one 00:07:52.209 --> 00:07:54.410 to four years depending on the office. But the 00:07:54.410 --> 00:07:56.550 competition is even more severe. Oh, absolutely. 00:07:56.810 --> 00:07:58.629 Yeah. In business, you can have two profitable 00:07:58.629 --> 00:08:00.670 companies in the same sector. They can coexist. 00:08:01.389 --> 00:08:04.569 But politics is a stark zero -sum game. There's 00:08:04.569 --> 00:08:07.689 a brutal binary outcome. Elections have winners 00:08:07.689 --> 00:08:10.269 who take office and losers who remain in the 00:08:10.269 --> 00:08:12.410 citizenry. There are no participation trophies. 00:08:12.509 --> 00:08:14.649 None. You either hold the power or you don't. 00:08:14.750 --> 00:08:17.110 If we connect this to the bigger picture, we 00:08:17.110 --> 00:08:19.970 can start to see the profound psychological conditioning 00:08:19.970 --> 00:08:22.949 that is taking place. Business and politics are 00:08:22.949 --> 00:08:25.649 the loudest voices in our culture. They dominate 00:08:25.649 --> 00:08:28.050 our news feeds, our economic realities, and our 00:08:28.050 --> 00:08:30.490 daily conversations. They're everywhere. Because 00:08:30.490 --> 00:08:32.649 they both operate on these short -term, highly 00:08:32.649 --> 00:08:35.009 competitive loops and because they both rely 00:08:35.009 --> 00:08:38.289 on easily quantifiable metrics, they train us 00:08:38.289 --> 00:08:40.929 to view the entire world through that exact same 00:08:40.929 --> 00:08:43.429 lens. We are conditioned to want a quarterly 00:08:43.429 --> 00:08:46.690 report for everything. We want to know our return 00:08:46.690 --> 00:08:49.000 on investment right this second. We want to know 00:08:49.000 --> 00:08:52.259 who is winning and who is losing in every aspect 00:08:52.259 --> 00:08:54.820 of life. We've internalized the rhythms of the 00:08:54.820 --> 00:08:57.779 boardroom and the ballot box. We expect immediate, 00:08:58.120 --> 00:09:00.419 measurable, unequivocal results in absolutely 00:09:00.419 --> 00:09:03.539 every human endeavor. And that expectation brings 00:09:03.539 --> 00:09:05.539 us to the monumental disconnect at the heart 00:09:05.539 --> 00:09:07.379 of our discussion today. So what does this all 00:09:07.379 --> 00:09:09.539 mean? It means we are setting ourselves up for 00:09:09.539 --> 00:09:12.320 massive failure when we take those expectations 00:09:12.320 --> 00:09:15.340 and apply them to human development. The ultimate 00:09:15.340 --> 00:09:17.519 argument here is that learning is completely 00:09:17.519 --> 00:09:20.179 different. Teaching and learning simply do not 00:09:20.179 --> 00:09:22.620 belong in the same universe as quarterly profits 00:09:22.620 --> 00:09:25.519 and election cycles. The language Ackerman uses 00:09:25.519 --> 00:09:28.720 to describe learning is the key to breaking this 00:09:28.720 --> 00:09:31.860 conditioning. He defines learning as a natural 00:09:31.860 --> 00:09:34.779 phenomena. Which is a massive philosophical departure. 00:09:35.159 --> 00:09:36.740 It completely shifts the ground we're standing 00:09:36.740 --> 00:09:40.120 on. Corporations are artificial constructs. Voting 00:09:40.120 --> 00:09:42.559 districts are artificial constructs. We invented 00:09:42.559 --> 00:09:44.620 the rules, we drew the boundaries, and we created 00:09:44.620 --> 00:09:48.080 the spreadsheets. But learning, learning is biological. 00:09:48.379 --> 00:09:51.240 It is an organic, experiential reality of being 00:09:51.240 --> 00:09:53.299 human. And because it is a natural phenomenon, 00:09:53.600 --> 00:09:56.539 it is inherently messy. It is not clearly definable, 00:09:56.600 --> 00:09:58.980 and it is incredibly difficult to quantify. You 00:09:58.980 --> 00:10:01.080 cannot take the cognitive development of a human 00:10:01.080 --> 00:10:03.460 being and track it on a neat little graph that 00:10:03.460 --> 00:10:05.860 trends perfectly upward every three months. This 00:10:05.860 --> 00:10:08.840 raises an important question. If we strip away 00:10:08.840 --> 00:10:11.460 the short -term loops and the artificial scoreboards, 00:10:12.179 --> 00:10:14.940 how does time actually factor into education? 00:10:15.149 --> 00:10:18.210 The reality of education is staggeringly long 00:10:18.210 --> 00:10:21.730 -term. The true quality of a person's education 00:10:21.730 --> 00:10:24.909 may not be known until much later in life. That 00:10:24.909 --> 00:10:27.590 concept completely shatters the quarterly report 00:10:27.590 --> 00:10:30.269 mindset. It really does. You might sit in a classroom 00:10:30.269 --> 00:10:32.870 or read a book or have a deep conversation today, 00:10:33.309 --> 00:10:35.389 and the actual value of what you absorbed might 00:10:35.389 --> 00:10:37.889 not reveal itself for a decade. You might not 00:10:37.889 --> 00:10:39.889 realize you learned something vital until you 00:10:39.889 --> 00:10:41.889 are suddenly faced with a complex, unforeseen 00:10:41.889 --> 00:10:44.669 crisis years down the road. Furthermore, judgments 00:10:44.669 --> 00:10:47.070 of that quality can change entirely over time. 00:10:47.210 --> 00:10:50.549 A piece of knowledge that seems trivial or purely 00:10:50.549 --> 00:10:53.370 academic in your 20s might become the foundational 00:10:53.370 --> 00:10:55.870 pillar of your worldview in your 50s. The value 00:10:55.870 --> 00:10:59.649 of learning fluctuates based on your life experience. 00:10:59.950 --> 00:11:02.889 It's fluid. It is the absolute antithesis of 00:11:02.889 --> 00:11:05.029 a certified election result that is permanently 00:11:05.029 --> 00:11:07.250 locked into the history books on a specific Tuesday 00:11:07.250 --> 00:11:10.509 in November. To really drive home why learning 00:11:10.509 --> 00:11:13.470 defies measurement, the text points out three 00:11:13.470 --> 00:11:16.970 profoundly unquantifiable aspects of human nature 00:11:16.970 --> 00:11:19.690 involved in this process. Let's look at the first 00:11:19.690 --> 00:11:22.690 one. What is learned? Right. In a factory, you 00:11:22.690 --> 00:11:25.509 know exactly what was produced today. 10 ,000 00:11:25.509 --> 00:11:27.960 widgets. But in a learning environment, you could 00:11:27.960 --> 00:11:30.419 have 30 people read the exact same source material 00:11:30.419 --> 00:11:33.080 or listen to the exact same lecture, and every 00:11:33.080 --> 00:11:34.960 single one of them will walk away having learned 00:11:34.960 --> 00:11:36.919 something completely different. Because they 00:11:36.919 --> 00:11:39.360 are filtering the information through their own 00:11:39.360 --> 00:11:42.539 unique prior experiences, their current emotional 00:11:42.539 --> 00:11:44.559 state, and their personal interests. Exactly. 00:11:44.779 --> 00:11:46.940 One person might latch onto a historical date. 00:11:47.460 --> 00:11:49.860 Another might be captivated by the psychological 00:11:49.860 --> 00:11:52.299 motivation of a figure, and a third might just 00:11:52.299 --> 00:11:54.220 learn that they strongly dislike the topic. You 00:11:54.220 --> 00:11:56.600 cannot put a single objective metric on what 00:11:56.600 --> 00:11:58.860 was actually taken away from that shared experience. 00:11:58.980 --> 00:12:02.059 You just can't. The second unquantifiable aspect 00:12:02.059 --> 00:12:05.240 is how well it is learned. In the business world, 00:12:05.600 --> 00:12:07.940 profit is basically binary. It was sufficient 00:12:07.940 --> 00:12:10.799 or it wasn't. But human understanding operates 00:12:10.799 --> 00:12:13.919 on a vast, multi -dimensional spectrum. How well 00:12:13.919 --> 00:12:16.870 do you know something? Do you just have the vocabulary 00:12:16.870 --> 00:12:19.529 memorized so you can pass a multiple choice test? 00:12:19.990 --> 00:12:22.870 Or do you deeply understand the underlying mechanics 00:12:22.870 --> 00:12:26.610 so well that you can apply the concept to a completely 00:12:26.610 --> 00:12:29.669 novel situation? How well is an aspect of human 00:12:29.669 --> 00:12:32.429 depth that resists being boiled down to a clean 00:12:32.429 --> 00:12:35.370 number? A test score might tell you if someone 00:12:35.370 --> 00:12:38.230 memorized a fact, but it tells you almost nothing 00:12:38.230 --> 00:12:40.990 about their true comprehension. which leads directly 00:12:40.990 --> 00:12:44.169 into the third and perhaps most crucial unquantifiable 00:12:44.169 --> 00:12:47.350 aspect, how long it stays learned. This is the 00:12:47.350 --> 00:12:49.490 ultimate defeat of the short -term measurement 00:12:49.490 --> 00:12:51.649 loop. We have all experienced this. You can cram 00:12:51.649 --> 00:12:53.570 intensely for an exam as you get the perfect 00:12:53.570 --> 00:12:55.789 score and hit the so -called metric of success 00:12:55.789 --> 00:12:58.149 in that short -term cycle. But if the information 00:12:58.149 --> 00:13:00.269 completely evaporates from your brain three days 00:13:00.269 --> 00:13:02.429 later, did you actually learn anything? Learning 00:13:02.429 --> 00:13:04.769 is a natural biological phenomena fundamentally 00:13:04.769 --> 00:13:07.720 involves long -term retention. And tracking how 00:13:07.720 --> 00:13:10.139 long a specific piece of knowledge remains viable 00:13:10.139 --> 00:13:12.019 and accessible in a human mind over the course 00:13:12.019 --> 00:13:15.039 of an entire lifetime is simply impossible to 00:13:15.039 --> 00:13:17.620 quantify in the way we track market share or 00:13:17.620 --> 00:13:20.360 votes. When you really look at those three elements, 00:13:20.779 --> 00:13:23.019 what is learned, how well it is deeply understood, 00:13:23.080 --> 00:13:25.620 and how long it actually stays with you, you 00:13:25.620 --> 00:13:28.940 realize the absolute absurdity of trying to force 00:13:28.940 --> 00:13:32.019 education into the mold of business or politics. 00:13:32.720 --> 00:13:35.379 They are completely fundamentally incompatible 00:13:35.379 --> 00:13:37.960 paradigms. It is like trying to measure the growth 00:13:37.960 --> 00:13:41.279 of an oak tree using a stopwatch. The tool is 00:13:41.279 --> 00:13:43.919 entirely inappropriate for the natural phenomenon 00:13:43.919 --> 00:13:46.299 you are observing. That is a perfect analogy. 00:13:46.440 --> 00:13:48.440 The stopwatch just doesn't make sense for the 00:13:48.440 --> 00:13:50.899 tree, which brings this entire deep dive directly 00:13:50.899 --> 00:13:53.860 to you listening right now. We want you to reflect 00:13:53.860 --> 00:13:56.840 on your own persona as a learner. Why does this 00:13:56.840 --> 00:13:58.799 philosophical distinction matter to your daily 00:13:58.799 --> 00:14:01.220 life? It matters because if you are treating 00:14:01.220 --> 00:14:03.240 your own personal growth and education like a 00:14:03.240 --> 00:14:06.009 quarterly profit report, you are going to exhaust 00:14:06.009 --> 00:14:08.570 yourself. You really will. If you approach learning 00:14:08.570 --> 00:14:11.169 a new skill or understanding a complex topic 00:14:11.169 --> 00:14:13.009 like a political election where you are either 00:14:13.009 --> 00:14:15.330 an immediate winner who masters it or a loser 00:14:15.330 --> 00:14:18.450 who fails you are setting yourself up for unnecessary 00:14:18.450 --> 00:14:21.429 frustration. You are adopting a zero -sum mentality 00:14:21.429 --> 00:14:23.769 for a process that is supposed to be infinite. 00:14:23.960 --> 00:14:26.200 Ackerman's ultimate thesis that we're exploring 00:14:26.200 --> 00:14:29.419 today is a direct call to action regarding these 00:14:29.419 --> 00:14:32.279 conflicting frameworks. It all builds to this 00:14:32.279 --> 00:14:35.220 singular vital conclusion. It is time we stop 00:14:35.220 --> 00:14:38.279 conflating the two. We must stop confusing the 00:14:38.279 --> 00:14:41.360 artificial highly competitive short -term metrics 00:14:41.360 --> 00:14:45.159 of society with the organic deeply personal long 00:14:45.159 --> 00:14:47.320 term reality of human development. Stop mixing 00:14:47.320 --> 00:14:49.340 them up. Give yourself permission to step off 00:14:49.340 --> 00:14:51.659 the imaginary educational treadmill. Just step 00:14:51.659 --> 00:14:53.759 off. Let's do a quick distillation of everything 00:14:53.759 --> 00:14:55.899 we've covered on this journey. We started by 00:14:55.899 --> 00:14:57.860 examining the baseline structures of business 00:14:57.860 --> 00:15:01.019 and politics. They are realms defined by easily 00:15:01.019 --> 00:15:03.980 measured objective and unequivocal results. They 00:15:03.980 --> 00:15:06.139 operate under relentless short term timelines, 00:15:06.620 --> 00:15:08.639 quarterly financial reports and regular election 00:15:08.639 --> 00:15:10.980 cycles. And they are highly competitive, often 00:15:10.980 --> 00:15:13.879 zero sum games driven by quantifiable data like 00:15:13.879 --> 00:15:16.100 profit margins and certified vote counts. And 00:15:16.100 --> 00:15:18.580 then we contrasted those rigid artificial structures 00:15:18.580 --> 00:15:21.419 with the messy, beautiful reality of teaching 00:15:21.419 --> 00:15:23.740 and learning. Learning is a natural phenomenon. 00:15:24.059 --> 00:15:27.179 It actively defies easy definition and it fiercely 00:15:27.179 --> 00:15:29.509 resists quantifiable measurement. We explored 00:15:29.509 --> 00:15:32.250 how the true quality of an education is a long 00:15:32.250 --> 00:15:35.110 -term reveal, sometimes taking decades to fully 00:15:35.110 --> 00:15:38.789 manifest. Furthermore, the deeply personal nuances 00:15:38.789 --> 00:15:41.549 of what is learned, how thoroughly it is understood, 00:15:41.750 --> 00:15:44.549 and how long it is retained simply cannot be 00:15:44.549 --> 00:15:46.649 plotted on a corporate spreadsheet or tallied 00:15:46.649 --> 00:15:49.490 in a ballot box. We have to actively break the 00:15:49.490 --> 00:15:51.490 habit of measuring our minds with the rulers 00:15:51.490 --> 00:15:54.169 designed for boardrooms and campaigns. It has 00:15:54.169 --> 00:15:56.590 been an incredibly enlightening deep dive today 00:15:56.590 --> 00:15:59.690 and we are so glad you came along. But before 00:15:59.690 --> 00:16:01.909 we part ways, we want to leave you with a final 00:16:01.909 --> 00:16:04.370 provocative thought to mull over, something that 00:16:04.370 --> 00:16:06.389 builds on everything we've discussed but flips 00:16:06.389 --> 00:16:09.129 it around a bit. Consider the implications of 00:16:09.129 --> 00:16:11.840 time and failure. If the true quality of learning 00:16:11.840 --> 00:16:14.240 is a natural phenomenon that can only be judged 00:16:14.240 --> 00:16:16.600 much later in life, how might that change the 00:16:16.600 --> 00:16:18.600 way you view the things you supposedly failed 00:16:18.600 --> 00:16:21.360 to learn in school? If there are no true losers 00:16:21.360 --> 00:16:23.940 returning to the citizenry and no quarterly reports 00:16:23.940 --> 00:16:26.159 required on the state of your brain, does trying 00:16:26.159 --> 00:16:28.480 to speed run your personal education actually 00:16:28.480 --> 00:16:30.580 short -circuit the natural process of long -term 00:16:30.580 --> 00:16:34.000 retention? It is a profound question. Does the 00:16:34.000 --> 00:16:37.440 rush to measure actually destroy the learning? 00:16:37.559 --> 00:16:39.840 We want to warmly thank you for joining us on 00:16:39.840 --> 00:16:41.940 this deep dive. It is always a privilege to sift 00:16:41.940 --> 00:16:44.179 through these incredible ideas with you. Remember 00:16:44.179 --> 00:16:46.820 to stay deeply curious, be endlessly patient 00:16:46.820 --> 00:16:49.399 with your own progress, and fully embrace the 00:16:49.399 --> 00:16:51.600 unquantifiable lifelong journey of learning.