WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.660 I want to start with a number that, honestly, 00:00:02.839 --> 00:00:07.080 it scares me a little. 13 .7. 13 .7. Years. Years, 00:00:07.139 --> 00:00:10.720 yeah. Specifically, we're talking about the time 00:00:10.720 --> 00:00:15.720 between, say, late 2025 and early 2039. The Reed 00:00:15.720 --> 00:00:17.899 Multiplex source material that we're digging 00:00:17.899 --> 00:00:21.079 into today calls this the abundance interregnum. 00:00:21.199 --> 00:00:24.750 Right. If you strip away all the fancy terminology, 00:00:25.010 --> 00:00:26.149 what we're really talking about is a countdown. 00:00:26.489 --> 00:00:28.730 It absolutely is a countdown. And it's not just 00:00:28.730 --> 00:00:31.629 some arbitrary window or a prediction pulled 00:00:31.629 --> 00:00:34.630 out of thin air. This is the 5 ,000 days timeline. 00:00:34.969 --> 00:00:36.909 The whole premise here, the thing we've been 00:00:36.909 --> 00:00:39.549 tracking, is that we're living in this very specific, 00:00:39.770 --> 00:00:43.070 very strange liminal space. A space where the 00:00:43.070 --> 00:00:45.310 rules are changing. Completely. The fundamental 00:00:45.310 --> 00:00:48.030 link, the one that's defined human society for 00:00:48.030 --> 00:00:50.829 millennia, between working for a living and, 00:00:50.950 --> 00:00:54.990 well, surviving. That link is being severed by 00:00:54.990 --> 00:00:57.590 AI and robotics. Which, you know, on paper sounds 00:00:57.590 --> 00:00:59.530 amazing. It sounds like utopia from some old 00:00:59.530 --> 00:01:02.350 sci -fi novel. But living through it in the day 00:01:02.350 --> 00:01:04.209 to day, it feels a lot more like anxiety. It 00:01:04.209 --> 00:01:06.510 does. Feels like the floor is disappearing. Exactly. 00:01:06.969 --> 00:01:09.109 And we've been covering the series for a while 00:01:09.109 --> 00:01:11.510 now. This is the Read Multiplex podcast after 00:01:11.510 --> 00:01:13.670 all. But today we're looking at part 12. It's 00:01:13.670 --> 00:01:17.329 titled Resurrection in the Reversal. And I have 00:01:17.329 --> 00:01:21.000 to say, the source material here takes a... A 00:01:21.000 --> 00:01:24.280 pretty hard left turn from the usual tech optimism 00:01:24.280 --> 00:01:26.260 you see everywhere else. It really does. It stops 00:01:26.260 --> 00:01:28.239 focusing on the gigahertz and the parameter counts, 00:01:28.340 --> 00:01:30.280 and it starts looking at the psychology of it 00:01:30.280 --> 00:01:33.500 all, at us. The core argument here is about this 00:01:33.500 --> 00:01:37.159 one word, obsolescence. A word nobody wants to 00:01:37.159 --> 00:01:38.980 hear. Right. Usually when we hear that word, 00:01:39.019 --> 00:01:40.739 we think of, I don't know, an old flip phone 00:01:40.739 --> 00:01:44.519 in a junk drawer. We think, useless. We think 00:01:44.519 --> 00:01:46.700 it's over. You think of being discarded, being 00:01:46.700 --> 00:01:49.079 left behind. But the sources we're looking at... 00:01:49.239 --> 00:01:50.939 And they're drawing heavily on the really the 00:01:50.939 --> 00:01:53.040 prophetic work of Norbert Wiener and J .C .R. 00:01:53.060 --> 00:01:55.659 Licklider. They argue that obsolescence is actually 00:01:55.659 --> 00:01:59.120 a crucible. A crucible. So a trial by fire. Exactly. 00:01:59.219 --> 00:02:01.680 It's an initiation ritual. The source says when 00:02:01.680 --> 00:02:04.620 the machine takes the drudgery of your job, the 00:02:04.620 --> 00:02:06.599 repetitive tasks, it doesn't just leave a hole. 00:02:06.799 --> 00:02:10.180 It creates a vacuum that sort of forces you to 00:02:10.180 --> 00:02:13.469 become something else. Something else. Okay, 00:02:13.509 --> 00:02:15.229 that's the mystery, isn't it? That's what we're 00:02:15.229 --> 00:02:17.250 trying to solve in this deep dive. Because if 00:02:17.250 --> 00:02:20.069 I'm not my job title, and if a machine can do 00:02:20.069 --> 00:02:22.889 the tasks of my job better, faster, and cheaper 00:02:22.889 --> 00:02:25.870 than me, then what am I? That is the question, 00:02:26.050 --> 00:02:28.810 the central question of the 5 ,000 days. And 00:02:28.810 --> 00:02:30.710 to even begin to answer it, we have to go back 00:02:30.710 --> 00:02:34.009 in time. We have to go back to the 1940s, to 00:02:34.009 --> 00:02:37.110 a mathematician who realized that the way we 00:02:37.110 --> 00:02:39.210 think about machines and the way we think about 00:02:39.210 --> 00:02:42.310 ourselves, we're about to collide in a very big 00:02:42.310 --> 00:02:44.250 way. Before we jump into the history, though, 00:02:44.409 --> 00:02:47.750 let's just frame where we are in this 5000 Days 00:02:47.750 --> 00:02:49.389 series, because this isn't just a collection 00:02:49.389 --> 00:02:52.050 of articles. It's built on a very specific narrative 00:02:52.050 --> 00:02:53.710 structure, which I think is key to understanding 00:02:53.710 --> 00:02:56.409 it. It is. It's absolutely fundamental. The series 00:02:56.409 --> 00:02:59.530 uses Joseph Campbell's hero's journey. the monomyth, 00:02:59.530 --> 00:03:02.289 to map the psychological evolution of the entire 00:03:02.289 --> 00:03:04.610 human race during this transition. So it's not 00:03:04.610 --> 00:03:07.710 just about economics. No, it reframes this economic 00:03:07.710 --> 00:03:09.770 crisis we're seeing, with all the headlines about 00:03:09.770 --> 00:03:12.650 layoffs and automation, not as some random disaster, 00:03:12.870 --> 00:03:15.349 but as an initiation, a collective one. Which 00:03:15.349 --> 00:03:17.449 is a really helpful framework, I think, because 00:03:17.449 --> 00:03:20.289 without it, the news just looks like pure chaos. 00:03:20.330 --> 00:03:23.030 It's terrifying. But if you can view it as a 00:03:23.030 --> 00:03:26.469 story, as a journey, you can at least try to 00:03:26.469 --> 00:03:29.289 find where you are on the map. Exactly. And if 00:03:29.289 --> 00:03:30.889 you look at the journey so far, we're talking 00:03:30.889 --> 00:03:33.969 parts 1 through 11, it tracks almost perfectly 00:03:33.969 --> 00:03:37.439 with the Kubler -Ross model of grief. It's fascinating. 00:03:37.639 --> 00:03:40.039 So we started with the grief cycle. We did. We 00:03:40.039 --> 00:03:41.900 started with the call and the threshold in parts 00:03:41.900 --> 00:03:44.139 one and two. That was the initial wake up call. 00:03:44.199 --> 00:03:46.560 The moment you realize this is real. And it was 00:03:46.560 --> 00:03:49.039 about dealing with the grief of leaving the old 00:03:49.039 --> 00:03:51.639 world, the predictable world behind. That was 00:03:51.639 --> 00:03:54.759 the denial phase. You know, AI is just a fad 00:03:54.759 --> 00:03:57.219 or I can't write poetry or it'll never replace 00:03:57.219 --> 00:03:59.840 a real artist. All that stuff. Precisely. The 00:03:59.840 --> 00:04:02.360 bargaining. Then we moved into the danger in 00:04:02.360 --> 00:04:04.219 parts three and four. This is where the source 00:04:04.219 --> 00:04:06.400 material talked about the player piano risk. 00:04:06.580 --> 00:04:09.800 The player piano. Automation that feels empty. 00:04:10.020 --> 00:04:13.020 Yes. Automation causing this deep alienation. 00:04:13.240 --> 00:04:16.259 If the machines do everything, do we matter? 00:04:16.439 --> 00:04:19.050 Right. Do we have a purpose? The challenge there 00:04:19.050 --> 00:04:21.870 was to reframe this coming abundance as liberation, 00:04:22.189 --> 00:04:25.250 not just cosmic boredom. Which led us, and I 00:04:25.250 --> 00:04:27.189 think a lot of people are here right now, to 00:04:27.189 --> 00:04:31.050 the ordeal. Parts five and six, you're de -skilling. 00:04:31.230 --> 00:04:33.750 This is the hard part. This is the dark forest 00:04:33.750 --> 00:04:35.930 of the journey. It's the pain of losing your 00:04:35.930 --> 00:04:38.449 old identities. If you spend 20 years of your 00:04:38.449 --> 00:04:40.990 life being a graphic designer or a coder or a 00:04:40.990 --> 00:04:43.449 copywriter, and a machine can now do it almost 00:04:43.449 --> 00:04:46.579 instantly. You feel that de -skilling in your 00:04:46.579 --> 00:04:49.620 bones. It's a profound identity crisis. I feel 00:04:49.620 --> 00:04:51.220 like a lot of our listeners are probably nodding 00:04:51.220 --> 00:04:54.000 along right now, stuck right there in the ordeal. 00:04:54.040 --> 00:04:56.040 I think most of us are. It's a painful place 00:04:56.040 --> 00:04:58.519 to be. But the series argues that it's not the 00:04:58.519 --> 00:05:00.839 end. It moves forward. Parts seven through nine 00:05:00.839 --> 00:05:03.680 were about the shift, finding meaning beyond 00:05:03.680 --> 00:05:06.439 pure utility. The source even references I &M 00:05:06.439 --> 00:05:08.740 Bank's culture series there. It was about saving 00:05:08.740 --> 00:05:11.279 human wisdom and the artisan's awakening. The 00:05:11.279 --> 00:05:13.639 resurgence of craft, of things made by hand. 00:05:13.839 --> 00:05:17.339 Yes. The return to the tactile. And now we're 00:05:17.339 --> 00:05:19.560 at the tipping point. The reversal of obsolescence 00:05:19.560 --> 00:05:22.220 based on Marshall McLuhan's tetrad. We're at 00:05:22.220 --> 00:05:25.420 part 12. This is the moment where defeat is supposed 00:05:25.420 --> 00:05:28.939 to flip to victory. So the mission of this specific 00:05:28.939 --> 00:05:31.519 deep dive then is to figure out how we stick 00:05:31.519 --> 00:05:34.040 that landing. How do we actually move from the 00:05:34.040 --> 00:05:37.560 ordeal to the resurrection? And the source material 00:05:37.560 --> 00:05:40.660 points us to two very specific guides for this 00:05:40.660 --> 00:05:43.750 part of the journey. Norbert Wiener, and JCR 00:05:43.750 --> 00:05:46.290 Licklider. The prophet and the architect. That's 00:05:46.290 --> 00:05:47.769 what the source calls them. Let's start with 00:05:47.769 --> 00:05:49.790 the prophet then. Let's start with Wiener. I 00:05:49.790 --> 00:05:52.170 knew the name, obviously cybernetics, but I have 00:05:52.170 --> 00:05:54.889 to admit, I didn't realize how deeply integral 00:05:54.889 --> 00:05:57.810 he is to understanding this specific moment we're 00:05:57.810 --> 00:06:00.360 in right now. He's everything. To understand 00:06:00.360 --> 00:06:02.199 Wiener, you have to understand the problem he 00:06:02.199 --> 00:06:04.620 was trying to solve during World War II. It wasn't 00:06:04.620 --> 00:06:06.939 code breaking like Turing. It was something more 00:06:06.939 --> 00:06:09.500 dynamic. It was ballistics. You mean like shooting 00:06:09.500 --> 00:06:11.779 down planes? Exactly. The German bombers were 00:06:11.779 --> 00:06:15.220 flying fast. Too fast. Too fast for a human gunner 00:06:15.220 --> 00:06:17.879 to track and lead the target. Way too fast for 00:06:17.879 --> 00:06:20.410 the human reaction time. Think about it. By the 00:06:20.410 --> 00:06:22.810 time the gunner's eye saw the plane, and his 00:06:22.810 --> 00:06:25.389 brain calculated the trajectory, and his nervous 00:06:25.389 --> 00:06:27.569 system told his hand to crank the gun, and the 00:06:27.569 --> 00:06:30.310 shell actually flew through the air. The plane 00:06:30.310 --> 00:06:33.110 was miles away. You're always, always shooting 00:06:33.110 --> 00:06:34.990 at a ghost. So you have to predict the future. 00:06:35.110 --> 00:06:36.689 You have to shoot where the plane is going to 00:06:36.689 --> 00:06:39.829 be. But the pilot is actively trying to evade 00:06:39.829 --> 00:06:42.649 you. It's random. See, that's the thing. It looks 00:06:42.649 --> 00:06:46.199 random. But Wiener, as this incredible prodigy, 00:06:46.199 --> 00:06:49.399 realized it wasn't truly random. How so? Even 00:06:49.399 --> 00:06:52.240 a pilot trying to dodge is still a human being 00:06:52.240 --> 00:06:54.680 in a machine. They're under physical constraints. 00:06:54.899 --> 00:06:57.720 Gravity, momentum, the turning radius of the 00:06:57.720 --> 00:07:00.699 plane, and maybe most importantly, fear. Human 00:07:00.699 --> 00:07:03.339 psychology. Wiener realized that if you treat 00:07:03.339 --> 00:07:05.899 the pilot's behavior not as random noise, but 00:07:05.899 --> 00:07:08.360 as a pattern of information, a stream of inputs 00:07:08.360 --> 00:07:11.100 and outputs, you could start to predict the future 00:07:11.100 --> 00:07:13.660 statistically. Okay, hold on. This is the famous 00:07:13.660 --> 00:07:16.079 anti -aircraft predictor. He's literally building 00:07:16.079 --> 00:07:18.279 a machine that predicts the future. In a very 00:07:18.279 --> 00:07:20.560 specific way. He's building it around a feedback 00:07:20.560 --> 00:07:23.689 loop. This is the birth of cybernetics. It's 00:07:23.689 --> 00:07:27.129 so elegant. The gun fires. It misses. The system 00:07:27.129 --> 00:07:30.170 sees the error, the distance between the shell's 00:07:30.170 --> 00:07:33.170 explosion and the plane. And it feeds that error, 00:07:33.250 --> 00:07:36.350 that new piece of information back into the equation 00:07:36.350 --> 00:07:39.170 to correct the very next shot. So it learns from 00:07:39.170 --> 00:07:42.050 its own mistake. Instantly. Yeah. And this is 00:07:42.050 --> 00:07:44.009 the critical takeaway, the thing that changes 00:07:44.009 --> 00:07:46.930 everything. Wiener proved that purposeful behavior 00:07:46.930 --> 00:07:49.569 like trying to hit a moving target is just a 00:07:49.569 --> 00:07:51.850 negative feedback loop. It's a system trying 00:07:51.850 --> 00:07:54.449 to reduce the error between its goal and its 00:07:54.449 --> 00:07:56.230 current state. And it doesn't matter if that 00:07:56.230 --> 00:07:58.350 system is a human brain or a circuit board with 00:07:58.350 --> 00:08:00.910 vacuum tubes. It doesn't matter. If it corrects 00:08:00.910 --> 00:08:03.290 its error based on feedback from the environment, 00:08:03.490 --> 00:08:07.240 it is thinking. in a cybernetic sense. It is 00:08:07.240 --> 00:08:09.240 behaving purposefully. I mean, that's deeply 00:08:09.240 --> 00:08:11.639 unsettling because it implies that intelligence, 00:08:11.819 --> 00:08:14.300 this thing we hold so sacred, isn't some magical 00:08:14.300 --> 00:08:16.600 soul stuff. It's just error correction. Which 00:08:16.600 --> 00:08:19.439 is precisely why Norbert Wiener got scared. Really 00:08:19.439 --> 00:08:22.019 scared. He looked at this anti -aircraft gun, 00:08:22.120 --> 00:08:24.379 this machine he'd helped create, and he had this 00:08:24.379 --> 00:08:27.100 terrifying realization. We just built a machine 00:08:27.100 --> 00:08:29.800 that acts like a biological organism. And if 00:08:29.800 --> 00:08:32.440 we can scale this up... We aren't just building 00:08:32.440 --> 00:08:35.039 better tools anymore. We are building a new species 00:08:35.039 --> 00:08:37.179 of labor. And this is where the prophet title 00:08:37.179 --> 00:08:39.840 really comes into play. He saw this 5 ,000 days 00:08:39.840 --> 00:08:43.179 crisis coming 80 years ago. He absolutely did. 00:08:43.299 --> 00:08:46.259 In 1947, he published an article in The Atlantic 00:08:46.259 --> 00:08:49.340 called A Scientist Rebels. He publicly refused 00:08:49.340 --> 00:08:52.100 to share his work with military contractors ever 00:08:52.100 --> 00:08:54.100 again because he'd seen the destruction of the 00:08:54.100 --> 00:08:56.840 war and he saw where this was headed. He later 00:08:56.840 --> 00:08:58.980 wrote a book called The Human Use of Human Beings. 00:08:59.309 --> 00:09:01.070 The title alone tells you everything you need 00:09:01.070 --> 00:09:03.210 to know about his perspective. It does. His warning 00:09:03.210 --> 00:09:05.809 was so stark, so clear. He said, if we use these 00:09:05.809 --> 00:09:08.250 new automatic machines to simply replace humans, 00:09:08.429 --> 00:09:11.309 to treat human beings as inefficient slave labor 00:09:11.309 --> 00:09:14.610 that we can just discard, we degrade humanity 00:09:14.610 --> 00:09:17.070 itself. He had this quote, and it's central to 00:09:17.070 --> 00:09:19.549 the whole deep dive. The automatic machine is 00:09:19.549 --> 00:09:22.009 the precise economic equivalent of slave labor. 00:09:22.250 --> 00:09:24.549 Wow. So if you try to compete with the machine 00:09:24.549 --> 00:09:27.610 on its own terms, pure efficiency, raw speed, 00:09:27.769 --> 00:09:30.679 calculation, you will always lose. You effectively 00:09:30.679 --> 00:09:33.299 become the slave in that relationship. You lose 00:09:33.299 --> 00:09:35.139 your humanity by trying to be a bad machine. 00:09:35.360 --> 00:09:37.820 Exactly. But, and this is the hopeful part, if 00:09:37.820 --> 00:09:40.480 we use them properly as partners, we can liberate 00:09:40.480 --> 00:09:42.679 ourselves. And that brings us to the man who 00:09:42.679 --> 00:09:45.059 took Wiener's profound warning and turned it 00:09:45.059 --> 00:09:48.179 into an actual blueprint for the future, J .C 00:09:48.179 --> 00:09:50.820 .R. Licklider. Licklider. Okay, so he's the essential 00:09:50.820 --> 00:09:53.679 link here. Because Wiener gave us the fundamental 00:09:53.679 --> 00:09:55.820 mechanism, the feedback loop, and the warning, 00:09:55.960 --> 00:09:58.909 but... Licklider gave us the strategy. He did. 00:09:59.070 --> 00:10:01.230 Licklider was a psychologist by training, which 00:10:01.230 --> 00:10:02.629 is really important. He was interested in the 00:10:02.629 --> 00:10:05.009 human mind. But he was at MIT, and he sat at 00:10:05.009 --> 00:10:06.970 Wiener's table. He went to the Macy conferences. 00:10:07.230 --> 00:10:09.389 He absorbed all these ideas about cybernetics 00:10:09.389 --> 00:10:11.590 and feedback loops, but he added the crucial 00:10:11.590 --> 00:10:14.710 next step. In 1960, he published this seminal 00:10:14.710 --> 00:10:18.149 paper, Man -Computer Symbiosis. Symbiosis. Not 00:10:18.149 --> 00:10:21.009 domination, not replacement. Partnership. Partnership. 00:10:21.470 --> 00:10:24.049 That's the word. The core concept was that humans 00:10:24.049 --> 00:10:26.830 and computers could be coupled so tightly together 00:10:26.830 --> 00:10:29.750 that they would effectively think thoughts that 00:10:29.750 --> 00:10:33.230 no single mind, whether human or machine, could 00:10:33.230 --> 00:10:35.549 ever reach on its own. It's like a turbo boost 00:10:35.549 --> 00:10:37.769 for the brain. But how does that actually work 00:10:37.769 --> 00:10:39.730 in practice? Because right now, for a lot of 00:10:39.730 --> 00:10:41.710 people, it feels like the computer is doing the 00:10:41.710 --> 00:10:44.429 thinking for me, not with me. And that's the 00:10:44.429 --> 00:10:47.070 danger Wiener saw. Licklider's vision was different. 00:10:47.210 --> 00:10:49.610 He broke it down by a clear division of labor. 00:10:50.059 --> 00:10:52.399 The computers, he said, are brilliant at the 00:10:52.399 --> 00:10:56.259 routine. The rote tasks, data retrieval, real 00:10:56.259 --> 00:10:59.179 -time simulation. The desk, as he called it, 00:10:59.240 --> 00:11:01.519 becomes this sacred station of computational 00:11:01.519 --> 00:11:03.779 power. Okay, so the machine handles the what. 00:11:03.840 --> 00:11:06.159 It handles the what and the how, but the humans, 00:11:06.399 --> 00:11:09.419 we handle the why. We set the goals. We frame 00:11:09.419 --> 00:11:12.519 the questions. We formulate the hypotheses. And 00:11:12.519 --> 00:11:15.360 most importantly, we judge the values. It's the 00:11:15.360 --> 00:11:16.899 difference between the engine and the steering 00:11:16.899 --> 00:11:19.940 wheel. The engine provides the power, but the 00:11:19.940 --> 00:11:22.340 human decides the destination. That's a perfect 00:11:22.340 --> 00:11:25.200 analogy. And Licklider was the one who literally 00:11:25.200 --> 00:11:27.519 steered us toward what we now call the Internet. 00:11:27.980 --> 00:11:31.659 When he was at ARPA in the early 60s, he sketched 00:11:31.659 --> 00:11:33.740 out his vision for an intergalactic computer 00:11:33.740 --> 00:11:35.980 network. The intergalactic computer network? 00:11:36.080 --> 00:11:39.080 I love that. It's fantastic, right? But his vision 00:11:39.080 --> 00:11:41.220 wasn't just about connecting machines. It was 00:11:41.220 --> 00:11:43.940 about linking machines globally so that humans 00:11:43.940 --> 00:11:46.500 could share knowledge and collaborate. He saw 00:11:46.500 --> 00:11:49.700 the fork in the road so clearly, even back then. 00:11:49.940 --> 00:11:52.120 He knew we could build a future of domination, 00:11:52.500 --> 00:11:55.919 the AI overlord. Or we could build a future of 00:11:55.919 --> 00:11:59.419 symbiosis, the AI partner. He chose partner. 00:11:59.600 --> 00:12:02.480 He bet on us. So we have Wiener giving us the 00:12:02.480 --> 00:12:04.679 mechanism of the feedback loop and Licklider 00:12:04.679 --> 00:12:06.539 giving us the partnership model. This brings 00:12:06.539 --> 00:12:09.019 us to the core thesis of this deep dive. The 00:12:09.019 --> 00:12:11.220 source material outlines what it calls three 00:12:11.220 --> 00:12:13.700 lanterns to light the path ahead. These are the 00:12:13.700 --> 00:12:15.460 guiding principles, the things you need to hold 00:12:15.460 --> 00:12:17.659 on to to get through the reversal without losing 00:12:17.659 --> 00:12:19.779 your way. Let's hit the first one. It's a big 00:12:19.779 --> 00:12:22.759 one. Society is a system of messages. This is 00:12:22.759 --> 00:12:26.259 pure Wiener. He said, society can only be understood 00:12:26.259 --> 00:12:28.679 through a study of the messages and the communication 00:12:28.679 --> 00:12:31.929 facilities which belong to it. So in the age 00:12:31.929 --> 00:12:34.870 of AI, the algorithms that curate our feeds, 00:12:35.090 --> 00:12:37.529 that write our emails, that suggest our next 00:12:37.529 --> 00:12:40.750 purchase, they are the message stream. So we 00:12:40.750 --> 00:12:42.669 have to look at the purpose behind those messages. 00:12:42.809 --> 00:12:45.049 We have to. Are they serving manipulation for 00:12:45.049 --> 00:12:47.610 profit? Or are they serving truth, connection, 00:12:47.809 --> 00:12:50.710 and human flourishing? It forces you to be critical 00:12:50.710 --> 00:12:53.169 of the information ecosystem you live in. Okay, 00:12:53.210 --> 00:12:55.450 but this feels a little abstract. Society is 00:12:55.450 --> 00:12:58.830 messages. What does that mean for, say, the person 00:12:58.830 --> 00:13:00.750 who just got laid off because an AI took their 00:13:00.750 --> 00:13:03.090 job? It means their job wasn't just labor. It 00:13:03.090 --> 00:13:05.230 was a message. It was a message they were sending 00:13:05.230 --> 00:13:07.789 to society about their value, their competence, 00:13:08.009 --> 00:13:10.070 their contribution, and the paycheck they got 00:13:10.070 --> 00:13:12.509 back. That was a message society sent back saying, 00:13:12.649 --> 00:13:15.860 yes, you were valued. When that feedback loop 00:13:15.860 --> 00:13:19.139 breaks, the silence is deafening. It's an existential 00:13:19.139 --> 00:13:21.539 crisis. Which leads right into the second lantern, 00:13:21.820 --> 00:13:24.740 combating entropy. Now, this is a physics term, 00:13:24.779 --> 00:13:27.259 but the source uses it psychologically, which 00:13:27.259 --> 00:13:29.500 I found really interesting. It's the second law 00:13:29.500 --> 00:13:32.500 of thermodynamics. At its core, it just means 00:13:32.500 --> 00:13:35.539 that in a closed system, disorder always increases. 00:13:35.620 --> 00:13:38.860 Things fall apart. The center cannot hold. That's 00:13:38.860 --> 00:13:42.059 entropy. The natural tendency toward chaos. Precisely. 00:13:42.100 --> 00:13:45.440 And life, consciousness, intelligence, these 00:13:45.440 --> 00:13:47.419 are the only things in the known universe that 00:13:47.419 --> 00:13:49.879 seem to push back against it. We use information 00:13:49.879 --> 00:13:52.580 and feedback to create these tiny temporary pockets 00:13:52.580 --> 00:13:57.500 of order. A garden. A family. A symphony. Okay, 00:13:57.539 --> 00:13:59.519 so connect this to the psychological obsolescence 00:13:59.519 --> 00:14:01.100 we're talking about. The feeling of being useless. 00:14:01.500 --> 00:14:04.039 Think about it. When a machine takes your job, 00:14:04.539 --> 00:14:06.940 All those rote tasks you did every day, the structure 00:14:06.940 --> 00:14:10.100 of your week, you feel a void. That void, that 00:14:10.100 --> 00:14:12.740 sense of aimlessness and chaos, is entropy flooding 00:14:12.740 --> 00:14:15.700 into your life. The old order is gone. And the 00:14:15.700 --> 00:14:17.779 resurrection is about building a new order. It's 00:14:17.779 --> 00:14:19.620 about filling that void with higher order creation, 00:14:19.860 --> 00:14:22.740 with things only a human can do. Art, science, 00:14:22.960 --> 00:14:25.320 philosophy, community, soul work. You're pushing 00:14:25.320 --> 00:14:27.919 back against the encroaching chaos by creating 00:14:27.919 --> 00:14:30.480 something new and meaningful. That makes so much 00:14:30.480 --> 00:14:33.139 sense. We feel the chaos because the external 00:14:33.139 --> 00:14:35.740 structure of the job has been removed. So we 00:14:35.740 --> 00:14:38.100 have to build a new internal structure. A structure 00:14:38.100 --> 00:14:41.240 based on purpose, not just utility. And that 00:14:41.240 --> 00:14:43.539 requires the third lantern, which is maybe the 00:14:43.539 --> 00:14:45.840 most important. Technology and human service. 00:14:46.320 --> 00:14:48.919 This is the synthesis of Wiener and Licklider. 00:14:49.220 --> 00:14:52.620 The human must hold the reins. The machine proposes. 00:14:53.100 --> 00:14:55.620 The human disposes. The machine proposes. The 00:14:55.620 --> 00:14:58.279 human disposes. That is the absolute definition 00:14:58.279 --> 00:15:00.080 of the solution. Okay, let's get out of the clouds 00:15:00.080 --> 00:15:02.700 now. The whole promise of these Reed Multiplex 00:15:02.700 --> 00:15:05.419 deep dives is that we land the plane on practical 00:15:05.419 --> 00:15:07.539 ground. How do we do this? We have to live this. 00:15:07.639 --> 00:15:09.679 It can't just be theory. And the source material, 00:15:09.940 --> 00:15:12.220 drawing really heavily on Brian Rommel's work, 00:15:12.340 --> 00:15:15.360 provides five specific actionable solutions on 00:15:15.360 --> 00:15:18.019 how to live this resurrection today, not in 2039. 00:15:18.759 --> 00:15:20.659 Today. And I really want to spend the bulk of 00:15:20.659 --> 00:15:22.360 our time here because this is where the rubber 00:15:22.360 --> 00:15:24.820 meets the road. This is the toolkit. This is 00:15:24.820 --> 00:15:27.240 how you move from that scarcity mindset where 00:15:27.240 --> 00:15:29.799 your self -worth is tied to your toil to what 00:15:29.799 --> 00:15:32.480 the source calls sovereign mastery, where your 00:15:32.480 --> 00:15:35.200 worth is tied to your purpose. OK. Solution number 00:15:35.200 --> 00:15:38.820 one, engineering personal feedback loops. Now, 00:15:38.860 --> 00:15:40.720 I'll be totally honest. When I first read this, 00:15:40.759 --> 00:15:43.480 it sounded. Well, it sounded a bit like a self 00:15:43.480 --> 00:15:46.000 -help diary. You know, write down your day. It 00:15:46.000 --> 00:15:47.940 does sound like deer diary, right? I had the 00:15:47.940 --> 00:15:49.759 same reaction at first. Yeah. But you have to 00:15:49.759 --> 00:15:51.879 look at it through the lens of what we just discussed 00:15:51.879 --> 00:15:54.759 about Wiener and that anti -aircraft gun. Okay. 00:15:54.820 --> 00:15:57.299 Walk me through it. Remind me. In this scenario, 00:15:57.600 --> 00:16:00.580 you are both the pilot and the gunner. The problem 00:16:00.580 --> 00:16:03.419 with so much of modern life and why we feel this 00:16:03.419 --> 00:16:06.940 creeping entropy, this chaos, is that we have 00:16:06.940 --> 00:16:09.539 broken our own feedback loops. We doom scroll 00:16:09.539 --> 00:16:12.019 on social media. We work on autopilot. We binge 00:16:12.019 --> 00:16:14.940 watch. We sleep. There's no reflection. We don't 00:16:14.940 --> 00:16:16.980 measure the error. We don't stop to see where 00:16:16.980 --> 00:16:19.179 we miss the target of the person we want to be. 00:16:19.419 --> 00:16:22.500 Exactly. So Rommel's suggestion isn't just journaling. 00:16:22.580 --> 00:16:25.360 It's about consciously closing the circuit. The 00:16:25.360 --> 00:16:29.590 practice is this. Each evening, you feed a distilled 00:16:29.590 --> 00:16:31.549 summary of your day, your actions, your feelings, 00:16:31.629 --> 00:16:33.870 your key interactions into a large language model. 00:16:33.990 --> 00:16:36.370 A private, secure one, obviously. Okay, so you 00:16:36.370 --> 00:16:39.190 give it the raw data. You give it the data. And 00:16:39.190 --> 00:16:41.029 then, and this is the critical part of the prompt, 00:16:41.149 --> 00:16:43.649 you don't just ask, how was my day? You ask it 00:16:43.649 --> 00:16:46.360 something specific like... Based on my stated 00:16:46.360 --> 00:16:49.679 values of patience, creativity, connection, identify 00:16:49.679 --> 00:16:52.460 patterns in my behavior today where I drifted 00:16:52.460 --> 00:16:55.639 from those values, surface one small, actionable 00:16:55.639 --> 00:16:58.700 adjustment I could make tomorrow. Ah, you're 00:16:58.700 --> 00:17:02.360 using the AI as the error detector. You're asking 00:17:02.360 --> 00:17:05.000 it to be the cybernetic system that spots the 00:17:05.000 --> 00:17:07.240 gap between the goal and the reality. You're 00:17:07.240 --> 00:17:09.859 using the AI to literally combat entropy in your 00:17:09.859 --> 00:17:12.779 own life. The second law of thermodynamics says 00:17:12.779 --> 00:17:15.599 everything drifts towards disorder. The only 00:17:15.599 --> 00:17:17.299 thing that fights that drift is information. 00:17:18.140 --> 00:17:21.039 By forcing the AI to extract a meaningful pattern 00:17:21.039 --> 00:17:23.960 from the chaotic data of your day, you are creating 00:17:23.960 --> 00:17:26.359 order. You are extracting signal from noise. 00:17:26.559 --> 00:17:28.400 So when the AI comes back and says, hey, you 00:17:28.400 --> 00:17:30.200 got angry with your kids at 2 p .m. and it seems 00:17:30.200 --> 00:17:32.440 to happen every time you skip lunch, that's not 00:17:32.440 --> 00:17:35.059 just diet advice. That's signal extraction from 00:17:35.059 --> 00:17:37.480 the noise of your life. That's cybernetics applied 00:17:37.480 --> 00:17:40.819 to the soul. You are becoming the steersman of 00:17:40.819 --> 00:17:43.529 your own life. Which, by the way, is the direct 00:17:43.529 --> 00:17:47.130 greet root of the word cybernetics. Kybernetics. 00:17:47.269 --> 00:17:49.789 The pilot. The one who steers the ship. That 00:17:49.789 --> 00:17:52.009 reframing actually makes me want to try it. It's 00:17:52.009 --> 00:17:54.509 less deer diary and more. Yeah. I don't know. 00:17:54.690 --> 00:17:57.089 Captain's log. It's taking the wheel back. And 00:17:57.089 --> 00:17:58.789 the second part of the solution is the action. 00:17:58.970 --> 00:18:01.869 This is the lick lighter part. The machine proposes 00:18:01.869 --> 00:18:05.170 the adjustment. Eat lunch at 1 p .m. The human 00:18:05.170 --> 00:18:07.769 disposes. You make the choice to actually do 00:18:07.769 --> 00:18:09.849 it. And then you log the result the next day. 00:18:09.970 --> 00:18:12.650 Did it work? Was the outcome better? If yes, 00:18:12.789 --> 00:18:15.349 the loop is closed. If no, you adjust the strategy 00:18:15.349 --> 00:18:17.789 and try again. That is incredibly powerful. It 00:18:17.789 --> 00:18:20.349 really does turn the AI into a mirror, a tool 00:18:20.349 --> 00:18:22.829 for self -reflection rather than a master or 00:18:22.829 --> 00:18:24.990 an oracle. It creates a personal self -correcting 00:18:24.990 --> 00:18:27.730 circuit for growth. Okay, let's move on to solution 00:18:27.730 --> 00:18:30.670 number two, embedding humane purpose in prompting. 00:18:30.869 --> 00:18:33.390 This feels like it touches directly on Licklider's 00:18:33.390 --> 00:18:36.109 idea of symbiosis. But again, let's make it practical. 00:18:36.170 --> 00:18:38.109 How does this change how I type into a chat box? 00:18:38.519 --> 00:18:40.660 I think we need to stop settling for raw efficiency. 00:18:41.460 --> 00:18:44.180 Right now, most people use AI to just get it 00:18:44.180 --> 00:18:46.420 done. Write this email, summarize this report, 00:18:46.640 --> 00:18:49.059 plan this trip. Make it sound professional. That's 00:18:49.059 --> 00:18:50.819 the one I see all the time. Right. What does 00:18:50.819 --> 00:18:53.339 the AI do? It gives you the statistical average 00:18:53.339 --> 00:18:55.839 of every professional email it's ever been trained 00:18:55.839 --> 00:19:00.099 on, which is usually bland, generic, and slightly 00:19:00.099 --> 00:19:03.190 soulless. Rommel's argument is that we need to 00:19:03.190 --> 00:19:05.369 stop prompting for tasks and start prompting 00:19:05.369 --> 00:19:08.150 for values. We have to inject our purpose into 00:19:08.150 --> 00:19:10.809 the command. Can you give me a concrete example? 00:19:11.250 --> 00:19:12.769 Okay, let's say you're a writer. You could just 00:19:12.769 --> 00:19:15.589 ask an AI, write an intro for a blog post about 00:19:15.589 --> 00:19:18.589 coffee. And it'll give you something utterly 00:19:18.589 --> 00:19:20.650 generic. You know, coffee is one of the world's 00:19:20.650 --> 00:19:22.410 most popular beverages. Which is technically 00:19:22.410 --> 00:19:25.069 true, but emotionally dead. It has no flavor. 00:19:25.269 --> 00:19:28.069 Exactly. It's entropic communication. Instead, 00:19:28.309 --> 00:19:31.059 you shift the goal. You change the prompt. You 00:19:31.059 --> 00:19:34.200 ask the model to generate three opening paragraphs 00:19:34.200 --> 00:19:36.759 for an article about coffee that honor the dignity 00:19:36.759 --> 00:19:39.099 of the reader's time and the simple beauty of 00:19:39.099 --> 00:19:42.759 a morning ritual. Wow. Okay. Honor the dignity 00:19:42.759 --> 00:19:44.940 of the reader. That's a completely different 00:19:44.940 --> 00:19:46.940 instruction. It's a values -based instruction. 00:19:47.480 --> 00:19:50.720 You explicitly command it to care about beauty 00:19:50.720 --> 00:19:53.880 and respect. Now, the machine doesn't feel dignity, 00:19:54.079 --> 00:19:57.480 of course, but it has processed millions of texts 00:19:57.480 --> 00:20:00.740 from philosophy to poetry to great novels that 00:20:00.740 --> 00:20:03.519 discuss dignity. It knows the pattern of dignity. 00:20:03.819 --> 00:20:06.299 By invoking that pattern, you force the machine 00:20:06.299 --> 00:20:08.980 to aim for a higher quality of output. And then 00:20:08.980 --> 00:20:11.700 this is the crucial human disposes part. You 00:20:11.700 --> 00:20:13.759 don't just copy and paste the result. You use 00:20:13.759 --> 00:20:16.380 it as a starting point. You use it as your creative 00:20:16.380 --> 00:20:19.000 partner. You take its best attempt, and then 00:20:19.000 --> 00:20:21.380 you refine it. You polish it. You add the soul, 00:20:21.579 --> 00:20:24.099 the specific memory, the neurons that only a 00:20:24.099 --> 00:20:26.420 biological being with lived experience can provide. 00:20:26.700 --> 00:20:29.019 The source gives another great example with parenting. 00:20:29.279 --> 00:20:32.079 Yes, the scheduling assistant. If you're using 00:20:32.079 --> 00:20:34.619 an AI to schedule your family's week, don't just 00:20:34.619 --> 00:20:36.779 ask it to fit everything in or optimize for time 00:20:36.779 --> 00:20:39.200 management. Ask it to optimize for emotional 00:20:39.200 --> 00:20:42.259 connection. That is such a profound shift. Optimize 00:20:42.259 --> 00:20:44.279 for emotional connection. I can't imagine what 00:20:44.279 --> 00:20:46.470 it would even suggest. Well... It might look 00:20:46.470 --> 00:20:48.970 at the schedule and say, hey, you have a 20 -minute 00:20:48.970 --> 00:20:51.089 gap between your work call and your son's soccer 00:20:51.089 --> 00:20:53.289 practice. That's enough time for a short walk 00:20:53.289 --> 00:20:55.970 together where you can connect. The machine implies 00:20:55.970 --> 00:20:59.069 the logistics. The human supplies the love. That, 00:20:59.089 --> 00:21:01.609 right there, is the difference between subservience 00:21:01.609 --> 00:21:04.650 and Licklider symbiosis. You're using the machine 00:21:04.650 --> 00:21:07.509 to remind you to be more human. Precisely. You're 00:21:07.509 --> 00:21:09.930 using its computational power to serve your highest 00:21:09.930 --> 00:21:13.400 values. Solution number three. This one is my 00:21:13.400 --> 00:21:15.559 personal favorite, I think, because I'm a sucker 00:21:15.559 --> 00:21:18.240 for analog things, reclaiming the tactile analog. 00:21:18.720 --> 00:21:21.220 But my first question is, why is this a solution 00:21:21.220 --> 00:21:23.859 to the AI problem? It kind of feels like running 00:21:23.859 --> 00:21:26.059 away from it. It's not running away. It's balancing 00:21:26.059 --> 00:21:28.680 the equation. It's about grounding. The source 00:21:28.680 --> 00:21:32.339 has this amazing line. In an age of digital abundance, 00:21:32.759 --> 00:21:35.559 friction is the ultimate luxury. Friction is 00:21:35.559 --> 00:21:37.859 the ultimate luxury. Okay, unpack that for me. 00:21:38.000 --> 00:21:40.440 Think about the digital world. Everything is 00:21:40.440 --> 00:21:44.019 smooth, glass screams, instant answers, zero 00:21:44.019 --> 00:21:47.039 resistance. If you want an image of a medieval 00:21:47.039 --> 00:21:49.579 castle, you type some words and poof! There it 00:21:49.579 --> 00:21:52.339 is. You don't have to quarry the stone, mix the 00:21:52.339 --> 00:21:55.660 mortar or hoist the blocks. But we as human beings 00:21:55.660 --> 00:21:58.500 evolved over millions of years in a world of 00:21:58.500 --> 00:22:01.359 physical resistance, of gravity, of the grain 00:22:01.359 --> 00:22:04.140 of wood, of the heft of a stone. When we lose 00:22:04.140 --> 00:22:06.940 that constant feedback, we lose our anchor to 00:22:06.940 --> 00:22:09.299 reality. We can start to feel like we're just 00:22:09.299 --> 00:22:12.299 floating away in this entropic digital fog. So 00:22:12.299 --> 00:22:14.500 the solution is to deliberately consciously build 00:22:14.500 --> 00:22:17.059 friction back into our lives. Yes. And the source 00:22:17.059 --> 00:22:19.640 suggests. Very specific, tangible activities. 00:22:20.279 --> 00:22:23.500 Build a small wooden box with hand tools. Not 00:22:23.500 --> 00:22:25.579 with a 3D printer. With a saw and a chisel. With 00:22:25.579 --> 00:22:27.980 a saw and a chisel. Feel the resistance of the 00:22:27.980 --> 00:22:30.579 wood grain as the saw bites into it. The wood 00:22:30.579 --> 00:22:32.900 fights back. The screen never fights back. It 00:22:32.900 --> 00:22:35.819 just yields instantly. Or another example. Write 00:22:35.819 --> 00:22:37.519 a letter on good paper with the fountain pen. 00:22:37.640 --> 00:22:39.460 Oh, the fountain pen. I love that. You have to 00:22:39.460 --> 00:22:41.319 be careful with those. You can't just mash it 00:22:41.319 --> 00:22:43.259 down like a cheap ballpoint. You have to find 00:22:43.259 --> 00:22:45.509 the right angle, the right pressure. Exactly. 00:22:45.609 --> 00:22:48.630 The ink has weight. The paper has texture. If 00:22:48.630 --> 00:22:50.569 you pause your thought for too long in one spot, 00:22:50.789 --> 00:22:55.089 the ink bleeds. That is feedback. It's real -world 00:22:55.089 --> 00:22:58.250 physics talking back to you. An AI can simulate 00:22:58.250 --> 00:23:01.029 the sound of a violin perfectly, but it cannot 00:23:01.029 --> 00:23:03.009 simulate the feeling of the string vibrating 00:23:03.009 --> 00:23:05.069 through the wood and into your fingertip and 00:23:05.069 --> 00:23:07.509 jawbone. And that physical feedback loops back 00:23:07.509 --> 00:23:09.910 into your psyche. It reminds you that you exist 00:23:09.910 --> 00:23:12.269 in a physical body, in the real world. It's grounding. 00:23:12.390 --> 00:23:15.119 It anchors you. Wiener and Licklider both knew 00:23:15.119 --> 00:23:18.180 this. We are biological beings. We cannot just 00:23:18.180 --> 00:23:20.259 upload our consciousness into the cloud and expect 00:23:20.259 --> 00:23:23.059 to remain fully human. We need the tactile to 00:23:23.059 --> 00:23:25.099 balance the digital. It's a fascinating paradox. 00:23:25.180 --> 00:23:27.480 The more advanced and frictionless the AI gets, 00:23:27.660 --> 00:23:30.519 the more valuable a smudged, handwritten note 00:23:30.519 --> 00:23:32.819 becomes. Because it proves a human was there. 00:23:33.059 --> 00:23:36.000 It proves time and effort and care were spent. 00:23:36.240 --> 00:23:39.059 And in an emerging economy of instant, effortless 00:23:39.059 --> 00:23:41.480 abundance, effort becomes the new currency of 00:23:41.480 --> 00:23:43.839 love and meaning. Let's talk about solution number 00:23:43.839 --> 00:23:47.019 four, curating message ecosystems. This sounds 00:23:47.019 --> 00:23:49.140 a bit more social, more about community. This 00:23:49.140 --> 00:23:51.160 is about how we talk to each other. It goes back 00:23:51.160 --> 00:23:53.299 to that first lantern. Wiener's saying society 00:23:53.299 --> 00:23:55.980 is a system of messages. If all our messages 00:23:55.980 --> 00:23:58.799 become texts and tweets and algorithmically generated 00:23:58.799 --> 00:24:02.420 feeds, society itself starts to degrade. It loses 00:24:02.420 --> 00:24:05.180 coherence. So what's the practical ritual here? 00:24:05.240 --> 00:24:07.160 What's the solution? It's simple and radical 00:24:07.160 --> 00:24:10.440 at the same time. Gather friends for a physical 00:24:10.440 --> 00:24:14.160 dinner, unplugged. A strict no phones on the 00:24:14.160 --> 00:24:16.299 table rule. Okay, that's old school, but we've 00:24:16.299 --> 00:24:18.960 heard put down the phone a million times. What's 00:24:18.960 --> 00:24:22.339 the new twist here? The twist is in how you leverage 00:24:22.339 --> 00:24:26.240 AI before and after the human event. You use 00:24:26.240 --> 00:24:29.049 the AI as a research assistant. to prep provocative, 00:24:29.170 --> 00:24:31.329 deep questions. You don't just show up and ask 00:24:31.329 --> 00:24:33.690 how was work. You prime the pump. You go to your 00:24:33.690 --> 00:24:36.190 AI and say, give me five powerful conversation 00:24:36.190 --> 00:24:38.950 starters for a dinner party based on the philosophy 00:24:38.950 --> 00:24:41.130 of Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey and Eric 00:24:41.130 --> 00:24:42.930 Fromm's The Art of Loving. Oh, that is cool. 00:24:43.009 --> 00:24:45.029 So you're using the AI to deliberately upgrade 00:24:45.029 --> 00:24:47.089 the depth and quality of the human conversation? 00:24:47.609 --> 00:24:50.170 Right. You aren't just gossiping or talking about 00:24:50.170 --> 00:24:52.930 the weather. You're using the time to discuss 00:24:52.930 --> 00:24:55.349 the nature of love or the structure of a meaningful 00:24:55.349 --> 00:24:58.230 life. You're using the machine to provide high 00:24:58.230 --> 00:25:00.809 -quality intellectual fuel for the human fire. 00:25:01.589 --> 00:25:03.789 And then, and this is the really interesting 00:25:03.789 --> 00:25:06.470 part, you record the dialogue with everyone's 00:25:06.470 --> 00:25:09.210 permission, of course. And afterward, you feed 00:25:09.210 --> 00:25:12.150 the transcript to a model and ask it to synthesize 00:25:12.150 --> 00:25:14.730 the key themes, insights, and unresolved questions 00:25:14.730 --> 00:25:17.450 from your group's conversation into a shared 00:25:17.450 --> 00:25:20.000 document. So you're creating a living archive, 00:25:20.180 --> 00:25:22.920 a record of your friend group's collective wisdom 00:25:22.920 --> 00:25:25.779 over time. Exactly. You are using the technology 00:25:25.779 --> 00:25:29.099 to capture, clarify, and preserve human connection, 00:25:29.220 --> 00:25:32.119 not to replace it. It steers your little corner 00:25:32.119 --> 00:25:34.740 of civilization away from alienation and toward 00:25:34.740 --> 00:25:37.220 meaning. It transforms a simple dinner party 00:25:37.220 --> 00:25:39.579 into a modern -day salon. It makes the conversation 00:25:39.579 --> 00:25:41.539 feel like it mattered, like it wasn't just noise 00:25:41.539 --> 00:25:43.759 that dissipated into the air. It combats the 00:25:43.759 --> 00:25:46.160 entropy of forgetting. It creates a pocket of 00:25:46.160 --> 00:25:48.259 shared order. And that brings us to the final 00:25:48.259 --> 00:25:51.319 one, solution number five, stepping into vocation. 00:25:51.480 --> 00:25:53.859 This is the big one. This is the end game of 00:25:53.859 --> 00:25:56.539 the 5 ,000 days. This is the gift you bring back 00:25:56.539 --> 00:25:58.680 from the underworld. And we really need to distinguish 00:25:58.680 --> 00:26:02.579 between work or a job and a vocation. We do. 00:26:03.279 --> 00:26:05.440 Work, in the industrial sense that we're leaving 00:26:05.440 --> 00:26:08.140 behind, was often about survival, about utility, 00:26:08.400 --> 00:26:10.500 about doing what the machine now does better. 00:26:10.799 --> 00:26:14.390 Move this box from A to B. Calculate this column 00:26:14.390 --> 00:26:17.430 of numbers. A vocation is different. It's a calling. 00:26:17.789 --> 00:26:20.569 The source defines it as choosing pursuits that 00:26:20.569 --> 00:26:23.869 machines can enhance but never ever truly own. 00:26:24.009 --> 00:26:25.730 Okay, give us some concrete examples from the 00:26:25.730 --> 00:26:27.390 source. Because people are panicked about their 00:26:27.390 --> 00:26:29.230 jobs, they need to see what this looks like. 00:26:29.470 --> 00:26:32.279 Mentoring. A great example, mentoring young people 00:26:32.279 --> 00:26:34.259 in deep reading, critical thinking, or ethics. 00:26:34.500 --> 00:26:37.519 And AI can teach you facts. It can explain the 00:26:37.519 --> 00:26:40.240 quadratic formula. But it cannot model what it 00:26:40.240 --> 00:26:42.140 means to be a wise, compassionate, resilient 00:26:42.140 --> 00:26:45.160 adult. That is a fundamentally human vocation. 00:26:45.279 --> 00:26:47.359 Another one mentioned was the neighborhood repair 00:26:47.359 --> 00:26:50.849 cafe. I love that idea. It's brilliant. You're 00:26:50.849 --> 00:26:54.009 fixing objects, yes, but you're also fixing stories. 00:26:54.589 --> 00:26:57.230 You aren't just fixing a broken toaster. You're 00:26:57.230 --> 00:26:59.630 gathering your community. You're teaching skills. 00:26:59.890 --> 00:27:02.990 You're showing that things and people have value 00:27:02.990 --> 00:27:05.210 and are worth repairing, not just discarding. 00:27:05.250 --> 00:27:08.049 Or something like philosophical inquiry, writing 00:27:08.049 --> 00:27:10.829 essays that explore the meaning of life in this 00:27:10.829 --> 00:27:13.089 new era. These are all the things we told ourselves 00:27:13.089 --> 00:27:14.950 we didn't have time for when we were grinding 00:27:14.950 --> 00:27:17.529 60 hours a week just to pay the rent. And this 00:27:17.529 --> 00:27:19.660 is the elixir. And the language of the hero's 00:27:19.660 --> 00:27:23.539 journey. These vocations are the gifts the hero 00:27:23.539 --> 00:27:26.039 brings back from the ordeal. You went through 00:27:26.039 --> 00:27:28.200 the de -skilling, you faced the dark night of 00:27:28.200 --> 00:27:30.380 obsolescence, and you came back with the most 00:27:30.380 --> 00:27:33.500 valuable skills of all. The ability to mentor, 00:27:33.779 --> 00:27:36.759 to repair, to think deeply, to connect. It's 00:27:36.759 --> 00:27:39.299 powerful stuff. It really does reframe the whole 00:27:39.299 --> 00:27:41.980 fear narrative around AI. It suggests that maybe 00:27:41.980 --> 00:27:43.940 the job as we knew it was actually holding us 00:27:43.940 --> 00:27:47.059 back from our true vocation. It does. It tells 00:27:47.059 --> 00:27:50.319 us that this interregnum, this messy, chaotic 00:27:50.319 --> 00:27:53.680 13 -year period, isn't a waiting room where we 00:27:53.680 --> 00:27:56.519 hope for the old world to come back. It's a construction 00:27:56.519 --> 00:27:59.799 site. And we are the architects of what comes 00:27:59.799 --> 00:28:02.279 next. So as we start to wrap up this deep dive 00:28:02.279 --> 00:28:05.640 into Part 12, Resurrection and the Reversal, 00:28:05.680 --> 00:28:07.720 let's just try to bring it all together. We've 00:28:07.720 --> 00:28:10.140 gone from a World War II anti -aircraft gun all 00:28:10.140 --> 00:28:12.279 the way to a neighborhood dinner party. The hero 00:28:12.279 --> 00:28:14.740 rises. That's the stage of the journey we are 00:28:14.740 --> 00:28:17.809 entering now. Obsolescence has dismantled the 00:28:17.809 --> 00:28:21.630 old identity, the old ego. It hurt. It was terrifying. 00:28:21.910 --> 00:28:23.930 But the resurrection isn't something that happens 00:28:23.930 --> 00:28:26.670 to you. It's something you build. In the interregnum, 00:28:26.670 --> 00:28:28.750 the 5 ,000 days is the resurrection chamber. 00:28:28.910 --> 00:28:31.829 It's the workshop. Exactly. And the call to action 00:28:31.829 --> 00:28:34.450 for you, for everyone listening, is to use Wiener 00:28:34.450 --> 00:28:36.490 and Licklider as your guides. Use these five 00:28:36.490 --> 00:28:39.029 solutions as your tools. Do not just try to survive 00:28:39.029 --> 00:28:41.210 the reversal. Don't just cling to your old job 00:28:41.210 --> 00:28:43.250 description and hope for the best. The goal is 00:28:43.250 --> 00:28:45.880 to emerge sovereign. The 5 ,000 days continue. 00:28:46.119 --> 00:28:48.819 The journey deepens. That's how the source ends 00:28:48.819 --> 00:28:50.640 this section. And I want to leave our listeners 00:28:50.640 --> 00:28:53.539 with one final provocative thought. It comes 00:28:53.539 --> 00:28:55.519 straight from Norbert Wiener himself. Let's hear 00:28:55.519 --> 00:28:58.880 it. In his work, Wiener wrote, We are not stuff 00:28:58.880 --> 00:29:01.579 that abides, but patterns that perpetuate ourselves. 00:29:02.160 --> 00:29:04.700 Patterns that perpetuate ourselves. Say a bit 00:29:04.700 --> 00:29:06.839 more about that. We aren't our atoms. They're 00:29:06.839 --> 00:29:09.299 replaced every few years. We aren't our job titles. 00:29:09.440 --> 00:29:12.019 They can be taken away in an instant. We are 00:29:12.019 --> 00:29:14.170 the patterns of our thoughts. our behaviors, 00:29:14.369 --> 00:29:17.369 our relationships, our values, our love. That 00:29:17.369 --> 00:29:20.069 is the us that continues. So the question for 00:29:20.069 --> 00:29:23.630 you listening right now is this. In this new 00:29:23.630 --> 00:29:26.349 era where the machines can replicate almost any 00:29:26.349 --> 00:29:29.789 pattern of labor or skill, what patterns are 00:29:29.789 --> 00:29:31.789 you choosing to weave? That is the question. 00:29:32.109 --> 00:29:34.190 That is the only question that matters now. Thank 00:29:34.190 --> 00:29:35.849 you for listening to the Read Multiplex podcast. 00:29:36.329 --> 00:29:38.529 This has been our deep dive into the 5 ,000 Days 00:29:38.529 --> 00:29:41.569 series. Go build your feedback loops. Reclaim 00:29:41.569 --> 00:29:44.200 the tactile. And we will see you on the other 00:29:44.200 --> 00:29:45.779 side of the reversal. See you there.