Leadership Lessons From The Great Books

Hello. My name is Jesan Sorrells, and this is the Leadership

Lessons from the Great Books podcast, bonus.

There's no book reading on these bonus

episodes, or at least there's no usually no book reading, although we've been breaking that

rule lately. These are typically interviews,

rants, raves, insights, and other audio musings and conversations

about leadership. Because listening to me and an

interesting guest talk about leadership for at least a couple of hours, is

still better than reading and trying to understand yet another

business book, even that business book that's been sitting on your

shelf for the last six months that you got for Christmas, even though that was,

like, two months ago. Our guest

today, Brian Morgan, is a founder who has

a system. Quoting directly from his website,

Brian Morgan built the think deeply, write clearly system to address the

gap between the requirements of the college education system even at

excellent schools and the depth of thinking and writing needed in business.

The system grew out of his 15 experience as managing editor at one of New

York City's premier environmental planning and engineering firms and also from his

teaching work at the New Jersey Institute of Technology among other

New York City area schools.

But having a website that is touting a system is

not the reason we are talking with him today on the show. It's a

nice little extra thing, but it's not the real reason we're talking

with him on the show. That would violate one of our core principles.

We're talking with Brian on the show today because he thinks deeply about

writing, education, reading technology, and that the

and how all those areas intersect with, well, leadership.

And he writes clearly about all of those areas.

And in a world of algorithmic and I'm gonna use a term here. So if

you're got kids in the car, mute me here. But, in a

world of algorithmic, quote, unquote, instidification, to borrow a term

from Cory Doctorow, which describes the gradual deterioration of

online platforms, but increasingly can be applied to the deterioration of

communication in general, understanding in particular, and

critical thinking most narrowly, Morgan's

approach to deepening human thinking through writing

might just be the revolution we need right

now. And I haven't even gotten into the

impact that the large language models are going to have on

human cognition. We're already starting to see the

signs, and we may talk about that today. But Brian

has thought about all of this and more, and we're gonna talk with him, like

I said, about all of it here on the podcast today. So welcome to the

podcast, Brian. How are you doing? Good. Thank you for the opportunity,

my friend. Appreciate appreciate your time today as well. Absolutely.

So tell all our listeners who you are and what do you do

and all that. Well, I mean, I think you've done a nice you've

done a nice introduction. If if people hang out on

LinkedIn, they probably, know me for the

business that I run, which is,

both a a a corporate training and also

marketing and sales company.

But those two bend together in one specific

space, which is which is really, I I would say, I

help people put language to their

thinking. And that begs

the question, of course, because that that's not particularly new

or revolutionary in and of itself. That it begs the

question really, what is the quality of the thought that is being

expressed? And and that maybe that maybe

shouldn't be as quite as revolutionary as it is.

Right? Maybe we should think about the quality of the

thoughts that we want to express, and and that but that really

goes into both directions. Right? Like, if you work for an

institution where where people make decisions based you work for

the United States Federal Reserve or you you work for a consulting company so that

people are gonna make decisions based on your language, then

then they need to know the quality of the thinking behind that language. They

can make accurate decisions. And it's sort of the same

thing, not not sort of, in the marketing and sales space. If we were

to indicate to somebody that this is our view of the world and

and that because of this view in the world, the services that we provide

are accurate reflections of what we see the world to be, then

then we want the quality of that thinking to be to be good. And,

unfortunately, we live in a in a world both on

the institutional, let's just say corporate side, as well as the

entrepreneurial sales, marketing,

podcast e side, where we care a lot

about getting behind the microphone and we care maybe

not as much as we should about what is the quality of

the thought that is reflected in the speech that we use

or we say behind that microphone. And I think that's probably

that's that's where those two things meet together, if that makes sense to you.

Yeah. That makes sense. Matter of fact, that makes a lot of

sense, And it particularly aligns with the work

that I'm trying to do on this podcast by reading novels and

essays and nonfiction and fiction and trying to pull

leadership lessons, from spaces that

have not been watered down by,

business book jargon, or by

logos or by a lack of quality, and I did say logos, yes, or

by a lack of quality of thought.

So let's start off with that sticky area

because listeners are going to are going to hear this and they're gonna go quality

of thought. All my thoughts are quality. All of my thoughts

deserve to be spat out on the Internet or on social

media or all of my thoughts deserve to be tweeted. I mean, we have an

entire platform, Twitter, that is

devoted to the

it is devoted to shortening the distance between my

thought and expression. And I am algorithmically

rewarded for the hot take, and I am not

algorithmically rewarded for the slow burn. So how do

we I guess maybe the core question here is this.

What does quality of thought mean in a time such

as this? Yeah. Well okay. I I

love this question because because it implies so many,

I think, stunningly important things that we don't we just don't get enough

of a chance to discuss in the world. And and

so the first thing is everyone

has a right to their own thinking. Right? No. That

and and we should. This is this is not a thing that I would

even if I don't agree with someone's thinking or I think it's shallow or I

think it's stupid or whatever, I would I would still say, please continue

thinking. Like, you should do that, and the world should do

that. And and, like, don't stop now just because

just because some idiot on on your lovely podcast, you

know, is is is gonna indicate that that the quality of thinking out

there on social media platforms or whatever is not particularly useful.

But but it begs the next purpose of the question, which is why

would why would we want to share that thinking?

Right? That that could be the fact that I have the thought and the fact

that I have the right to share it doesn't necessarily answer the

question, what is the purpose of sharing it? And and this

is, to me, where we get screwed up. And

and so and so if I had to put my my initial thoughts together on

that, it would go something like this. Most people

want to share their thoughts because

some very unthoughtful marketing adviser or

something told them that if they were top of mind and they had a

personal brand, that other people would see them

as credible and amazing, and they would make money, and they'd

get better jobs, and they'd be promoted. And it's all bullshit, of course. Like, no.

None none of that actually happens, but unless your name's Kardashian. And and

and but it but it but it but but the Kardashians are sort of interesting

here. Right? Because to me, this is sort of this is sort of the

point that that the Kardashians

do that, and I know who they are, but I

wouldn't hire them to do anything. Right? That that and

so and so the only thing the Kardashians actually have

accomplished is is that people know who they are and

advertisers are halfway decent at making money from them.

But certainly, no one benefits from, from

from the wisdom that they share or don't share. We don't we don't see it.

And and so if your if your business or

if your approach to your business or your job or whatever is based on how

well you make sense of the world, then it begs the question, is

a constant litany of all of the thoughts that you

have the best way to display the credibility that you bring to your

thinking? And and the answer is almost certainly not. And and

so and so the minute the minute we we have this conversation, we end

up saying, well, if the purpose of my writing

is now no longer if is now no

longer to build my personal brand, which is

the dumb way of looking at it, but it is to help other

people, meaning meaning my my job now is is to put

language into the world that helps other people live better lives. And

from that, I also make money, have have a better brand, be

seen as an expert in a space. Then then it begs the

question, what is the quality of my thinking that is

necessary to actually help somebody? At which point you realize,

well, it's very rare that we live in that

language space inside our own heads. It's very easy to

say, I don't like what's happening with the government. It's very hard to

say, I've been thinking about why I don't

like about what's happening with the government and what

I'd prefer to see different and

why. And and the outcomes that I think the government wants, which is

different than the outcomes that I might want, and this is the

quality of thinking that I'm bringing to this discussion. And so you can build a

personal brand with your complaints, but you won't build any

trust for your thinking. But the minute we get to to discussing

not what I think, but why and how I think

it, you can gain a lot of intimate trust with our

thinking. And that and if language is tied immediately to that depth of

thought, then then all of a sudden the world moves in your direction pretty quickly.

But I think we begin to see that without that reflection of why

do I think that and and and what is a process that I've that I've

gone through to to to think why that's important to other people,

then what we have is a whole bunch of noise on social media

among other places. And it's not that people don't have the right to that noise.

They have the right. It's just not particularly useful to them or to

anybody else. But does that make sense, or how do you hear that?

No. That that that makes that makes a lot of sense.

If we begin with what is the

purpose of sharing my thought. Right? What is

the thing that I want people to do? Which, by the way, good

marketing. And I'm a fan of the writer Seth Godin. He's also a

marketer. He does write deceptively

simple sentences that have deep thoughts in them. I don't know that I

agree with all of those sentences, but the thought is

definitely there. Mhmm. And you can tell in the nature of his

writing versus the writing of a person

like I'm gonna throw him under the bus because what

the heck? Why not? He's not listening to the show. Gary Vaynerchuk. Right?

Like, that guy is monetizing everything

to the nth degree. He would even monetize his facial

hair if he could get away with it. Right? And he's sort of an

exaggeration of sort of the worst examples. You mentioned the Kardashians. Sort of the

worst examples of of of fame culture, or the outcomes

of fame culture, in a a fragmented media environment

where it seems as though shouting your your

purposeless thoughts louder in order to get

attention in the public square seems to be the mode for most marketers.

And there is a growing

category of people because I do believe there's a tension here. There's a growing category

of people, and this is why I have you on the show. I put myself

in that category. There's a growing category of people who

are tired of

garbage thinking and garbage writing.

Now they don't know where to go because the systems haven't been built out

for them over the last twenty years. Maybe they'll start being built out over the

next twenty years.

And so because they have nowhere to go, they're listening to podcasts

or they're writing on Substack or they're, you know, they're they're they're in those

spaces where long form, I hate this term, but long

form content is is the thing. Right?

And then the other thought that I have these were all half formed thoughts, but

probably this is maybe the the most

controversial thought that I have.

This is the most controversial thought that I have.

What you're talking about is gatekeeping myself, and why would I wanna do that?

I'm being rewarded for not gatekeeping myself. Yeah.

And the gatekeepers who used to stop

me, and I'll use a perfect example for this.

When there used to be newspapers and people used to write letters to the

editor, there was always a crank file. Mhmm.

Mhmm. And and the editor

of the newspaper, managing or otherwise,

acted as a stop on that person's crank thinking.

So you mentioned the government. I have a problem with the government, and it's the

alien's fault. Mhmm. And

the newspaper editor looked at that thought,

which might have been fully thought out on mimeograph paper,

and and said we're not publishing that. Mhmm. We're acting as a

backstop on that. It seems as though, from

my perspective, when you're asking people to gatekeep themselves and yet they

are being rewarded for not doing that and there's no external gatekeepers

on them, it seems as though you've selected amount to Everest of a

problem to solve. Or am I looking at it incorrectly?

I think you're looking at it the way the platforms would

love for you to look at it, but it wouldn't be the way I would

look at it Okay. If I was a person who wanted

to, for instance, display the credibility of

of my thinking for my business or something.

And and so, I'll give you a good example of this.

I was in, yeah, I'm

pretty sure this is accurate. I think I was in Germany

when, a

yeah. Yeah. I was in Italy. I was in Italy. Same trip. Different different time

period. When

Bridgewater, the largest

hedge fund in the world, put out, an essay

called, we're all mercantilists now, which

we're recording this on

02/24/2025, and that was

probably December 15. Pretty good job, Bridgewater.

Right? Pretty good job. So

so so you would think that that

essay written by Ray Dalio's replacement,

I can't imagine that that thing did not go viral.

Right? They paid. They've sponsored it. I've seen

that ad. They've paid to put that in

front of me. Facebook didn't give it to them that they've

paid to put that in front of me.

We're talking about it right now. How

many tens of

thousands of pieces of content have crossed

both your life and mine since

12/15/2024,

and we're talking about that content. And it's

like, that wasn't up to the algorithm. That was somebody

somebody wrote something amazing and useful

and helpful, and then they paid to put

it in front of them. And we're talking about it now because

it was useful and helpful and brilliant. And and I imagine

they're gonna keep doing that, and their hedge fund will continue to grow

and grow and grow. And they seem to be some of the wisest

people in the space. And so and

so and so if if you're the platform,

you say, hey. What's the stuff that I've gotta

do for the free stuff? Like,

the free what's the free stuff that I have to

do to keep the people who are gonna see a

lot of stuff on the platform. And then it's

gonna be angry stuff, shallow stuff,

stupid stuff. Right? It's gonna be all of that. And

and so the platform will look at it and say,

I want the shallowest, angriest, most unthoughtful

stuff all of the time because it keeps other shallow,

angry, unthoughtful people on the platform, and I can sell, you

know, shoes to them or something. Right? Okay. And then

there's the layer. It's like, you and I are on there. We're looking at pictures

of our friends' kids or something. Right? We're we're we're looking at each other's

stuff probably. And and we go, this is a great

essay. And the algorithm didn't give it to

us. The the ad space gave it to us.

And so and so we get that out of that experience, and they know

how to target it to us. And so the question

becomes, who are you aiming at, and then how do you

get that material in front of the other in in front of that person?

And the difficulty we have in the marketing space is that everybody

says, in order to market, you have to understand the algorithm.

Bullshit. In order to market, you have to understand

human comprehension. And so if we were to

say somebody has to comprehend this about something that really

matters to them, then the only question is how do

we get that piece of information in front of that person. And

it doesn't actually matter if there's only, let's just

say, 10,000 people an hour who who who are

that person versus the millions of people on there. All you have

to do is get that in front of the right 10,000. And so on

LinkedIn, there are ways to do that. On Facebook, there are ways to do that.

We do a lot of it in relationship building on LinkedIn around

people that we really that's how you and I met, that on on people

that we really think are interesting and thoughtful people. And so and

so and so I think if we start looking at it like, who is it

that we need to speak to, and who is it that

that this piece of content is going to be beneficial for,

and how do I get this in front of them? That's

an equation that makes sense to us, and it removes the question,

what does the algorithm sponsor make easy,

go viral? That all all of that doesn't matter. That's their problem, not

mine. My question is, how do I use that service to get

the right information in front of you? And and if as long

as I'm in control of that, I could give a I could give a shit

what they do. Right? Let let let let them make pictures of banana

goes go go viral. I don't care. Right? I I just want

my stuff in front of you so that we can have this relationship. And I

think if we started looking at it that way, we'd we'd stop looking at it

like, oh, I understand if I put this and that in there, I'm gonna

go viral. And I'm like, why the fuck would you wanna go viral? Say

thoughtful things and get it in front of thoughtful people, and your world gets

really simple and and much more lucrative really quickly. So does that make sense,

or how do you hear that? Yeah. No. That that makes that makes a lot

of sense. And I hear the

core challenge in there of

understanding human comprehension. So let's let's

wander down that road a little bit. How do you understand how do we,

how do I right? I I've written I'll use myself as an example. So just

yeah. I've written three books. I'm getting ready to write a fourth one. I do

this podcast. I do training and development, kind of

the same that you do. I work with clients. I'm consulting and and coaching in

the leadership and in the organizational behavior space. You

know, I'm I'm trying to give people and I

try to push clients towards meat, not milk.

You know, one of the greatest sort of compliments I've ever gotten from a

client is that, you know, Hasan, you offer pragmatic

solutions. Mhmm. Because things have to work.

Because that's really what people care about. People care about things working. Right? So

this this essay that you were referring to, we're all mercantilists now.

If that's going to make me invest better as a member of that hedge

fund or as a part of that hedge fund or as a person who's giving

advice from that hedge fund to the hedge fund I'm running,

great. It's been pragmatic. It's it's worked. Right?

But the the rise of pragmatism, which I think, by the way, is is the

only escape hatch you have from the algorithm, or at least it's the escape

hatch I found. The rise of pragmatism as a countervailing

force or a counterbalancing force

does require not only an understanding, I think, of human comprehension,

but an understanding of human attitude and behavior. And

so how does how does how does comprehension

and behavior link together if I'm if I'm

writing my fourth book? Right? Which I am, by the way. I'm writing my fourth

book. So if you were advising me, in writing my fourth book,

which is not a business book, it's a cultural commentary book, little bit of a

polemic small book, you know, only a 50 pages.

It's a book I feel compelled to write. That's why I'm writing it. I spent

two years working on the ideas in it. Partially, the podcast

has influenced it. Other things are the conversations I have with people. And

by the way, I write because I want to inflict my ideas on other people

because I think they're worth inflicting on other people. And I think that my

page should have them in a book form because I'm I'm obsessed with books.

Right? I'm drunk on ideas as Richard Dawkins would

would say. Right? So how do I, as a

person, writing a book, putting an idea out in the world that I thought deeply

about, how do I understand the link between comprehension and behavior in order

to get somebody, not not necessarily to pick up the book, but just to read

my deep thoughts. Mhmm. So,

I just wanna make sure I understand the question. Sure. I understand the comprehension

part. Yeah. And I think you're you're asking,

what what if what if people don't

have the right attitudes or behaviors to be open

for the type of writing that you're discussing? And and,

therefore, how do we how do we access Yeah. And I think that that's a

huge problem for a lot of a lot of folks because in a

fragmented communication milieu,

where well, when we just saw this, you know, we're in

2025. Right? We just saw this with the last election. Right?

There are many, many people who don't know people who voted for the opposite

candidate on their social media plat platforms. Right? Because the platform does the thing

that the platform does, which I loved your description of that. But in real

life, they don't know. Forget the platforms. In real life, which is

another area we can talk about, they don't know anybody because we're self

selecting. Right? Mhmm. COVID really sort of,

accelerated this process, you know, as people literally physically got up and moved around the

country. Right? Because they could. Right? It was a it was a

unique opportunity to be able to do that. I'm gonna I know because I was

one of those people. People self selected into into or

out of groups. Right? Behavior groups that they wanted to be a part of. But

when you do that, the group of people you're targeting with your ideas, if you're

a business, does not expand. It becomes smaller.

So how do we link, like I said, how do we link behavior and comprehension

together? How do we how do we do that? Mhmm.

I think I think the if the the the best answer I could give you

is we accept that we can't, but but we

can invite people to our own comprehension.

And so, if you don't mind a slightly longer

answer to the two question, this is a very common

thing that I do in my workshops. But Mhmm. You'll

see, this coffee cup here. If anybody's on YouTube, you can

see this. And it says, this is not a coffee cup on it. And and

what that means is is that we don't think of

it, but but we we learned language

as an act of manipulation. So a a a

teacher held up a pen in a fourth grade

classroom and said, this is a pen. And what is this? And the class

went, it's a pen. What is it? It's a pen. What is it? It's a

pen. And went, okay. Great. You can identify in this in the world. You

have power. And to be very clear, in in

love and adoration to all fourth grade teachers, they needed to do that

because the kids have to function in the world. That's your

vegetables. You have to eat them. Right? Like like, kids

have to function. But we never actually fix

that underlying assumption, which is which is that

identification is power, and I can't think of anything less

actually accurate than that. So so if we take the

coffee cup that that we we don't we don't

say, you know, if if I

tell you that, that that this is a coffee cup, that

this is an act of manipulation. Right? If you're at my house and

I say, is it alright with you if I put my your coffee in

this coffee cup? We don't say that's an act of manipulation. We we

don't we don't say, I'm commanding you to see this as

a coffee cup because I have learned it to be a coffee cup, and I

demand that you see this as a coffee cup because it's a coffee cup

and you probably do. But there's a reason

that this is effective to hold coffee. It's ceramic. It's got a

handle. It's got a decent size to it. The ceramic

structure is different than metal or glass, which would burn my hand if I put

something warm in it. And so I could say, while you're at

my house, do you mind if I put this in this cup that

is ceramic and it's got a handle on it and it's got looser molecules in

it than, say, metal or glass, it won't burn your hand. And for the duration

of this conversation, is it alright with you? If if I if

I call this a coffee cup and put it in there and you say, that

was completely useless, I call that a coffee cup too. That's ridiculous.

Of course, you can do that. But what I've really done is invited you into

my frame of the world. I haven't commanded you to take my own.

And that's a very different thing than this is a coffee

cup. Right? Like, that's a very different thing. This is my

understanding of the structure of this thing, and I think it's gonna be useful

for you. And do you mind if I put your coffee in it? Is a

very different thing than this is a coffee cup. And no one

says this matters. No one says we need to do this. This is just

semantic philosophical bullshit Until someone says democrats are

assholes, and you go, where the hell did you get that from? That's

really mean. That's, like, you're saying, jerk. Like, where did that come from? And

it's like, wait a minute. If I can command you to see

reality as I do with this, then I've

learned that my view of reality is real, and it's not.

It's a lie. It's bullshit. And so what I have to

do is say, my understanding is

that this functions in a way that is useful to

hold coffee. And if it's alright with you, I'd like to put

your coffee in it because I think that's what's best for you. And you'll say,

I agree with that. And I'll say, I have concerns

about how the Democratic Party is messaging. And I think some of that

messaging and and so what I'm doing is sharing my frame for

information, and then you volunteer whether or

not that frame for information is an accurate place to make the decision.

Yes. Put coffee there. Yes. I think that's where

Democratic party party messaging needs to go, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

So all I can do is is command my

own frame of understanding, and I can invite you

to my frame of understanding, and you have every right to say, that guy's

an asshole. I'm not gonna take that frame. You have every right, and I can't

and I can't demand that you do. I can only say,

these are the things that I'm noticing in the world. This is this is

why I think things are working this way, and these are

my suggestions because of this understanding that that I

think the world will be better if if if because of these

understandings. And so how do you hear that? And then you get a

choice, and and I have to give you that choice.

I cannot command it of you. I have to give you that

choice. And so are certain people going

to be more open to your frame than other people? Yes.

And the people who aren't, fuck them. It's not it's not for them, and

that's okay. Right. Move on. Right? And and and so and so

you're not gonna and and and that's a powerful thing. Right? Because I because I

think I think a lot of times people go, like, well, you

know, my my my neighbor down the street would would never would would never

like, that person, I've really just gotta say, this is the world and you better

take it. And it's like, how many people are you not speaking

to in order to speak that way to the most unthoughtful person on your

street? And and and how many people how many people

are you are you losing and and not inviting into

the thoughtful observations of the world that that you have? And

so I think we go through this. I think we go through it every day.

We just don't discuss it. And not for nothing. You and I both have an

academic background. Schools are the basis of

this, that we we are terrible. Like,

this conversation does not happen in freshman

English, and it should. It's it's the core

of what of what freshman English should be. But but it

doesn't happen in freshman English, and they say, well, you have an opinion. Write your

opinion. Find 15 sources that roughly put it in

MLA, and, we'll give you an a. And and then and then

we never fix this misunderstanding that I can

command someone to see reality versus I can invite

someone to see my own, and that's a huge change in the world. But does

that make sense, or how do you hear that? Oh, yeah. I mean, that makes

it makes sense. I don't

necessarily agree with all parts of it, but I understand how you got to the

end of the road with the with the cul de sac. Absolutely makes sense how

you got there. And I would

say that you are talking about well, first

off, you're right. It's not a coffee cup. It is a collection of atoms that

just holds another collection of atoms. Oh, really? Just as Now we're

closer. Well, you know yeah. Well, I was so in

in first year art history class, we look at, you know,

the Magritte painting that your cup comes from. You know? We look at the treachery

of images, and we seek to understand. And I know this because I was a

bachelor of fine arts major as an undergraduate in college. And

so we understand how yes. We understand

how we understand how and why

even philosophers like Plato had a problem with the artists. Mhmm.

Because that manipulation in a

sophistic way can be used, yes, for understanding and for breaking frames

and for joining people together, but it can also be used

for creating frames and and blocking people off and creating,

creating, what do you call it? Fake what I call fake conflict, pretend

conflict around things that don't really matter. This is what this is all what Plato

was yelling about with the sophists. This is why he was yelling at those guys

all the time. And sophistry has been raised to a high art and then given

a platform and an algorithm, these days.

The other thing that I think

is that if we're inviting people into our thinking,

right, We are

social animals. Right? So, you know, we wanna

invite as many people into our tribe as we possibly can. We know from

Dunbar's number that once we get to about a hundred, we're basically done. We can't

keep track of that many. We those that's the max limit on relationships.

Right? And you even see this on those algorithmic

platforms. You know? I'm only interacting with five or six people because that's all that's

all all the things that I can, like, handle and I can't. You know? And

if somebody pops out with something or whatever and by the way, just use my

own example, post election,

in The United States, one of the things

that I've done is I've taken to snoozing people,

because just you you gotta be snoozed for thirty days. Like, you need to go

to sleep. Like, my wife's just like, just get off Facebook period. Like, no. Just

just just you go to sleep.

And and, you know, I snooze and then I delete.

Right? Because I wanna give people an opportunity to still, you to your point, think

their thoughts and and bring those thoughts into my frame,

because two things can be true at the same time. I don't wanna be assaulted

inside of my frame by your thinking. I don't wanna be and I think you're

getting to this as well. This is when I'm hearing the core idea. I don't

wanna be assaulted into compliance. Right. I don't wanna be

forced to comply with your thinking. I want to be invited for

sure. But if you invite me and then I've

taken the invitation and I've said, no. I don't want it. I want to

leave. I should be allowed to leave.

This isn't

Facebook post is not a suicide pact.

A marketing post on LinkedIn is not a suicide pact with a brand.

Like, I don't have to ride or die with you. You

invited me in. I looked around. I saw what was going

on. It's not for me.

Mhmm. I think people, because they

are seeking for connection, you use the term connection several times in relationship because

that's the the larger thing that we're going to. I think people are seeking the

connection and relationship that comes from purposeful communication,

but they don't know how to ask for it. They don't know how to ask

for that purposeful connection. And I don't know if that starts in the family. You

you talk about being in the fourth grade, you know, holding up a pen. I

think it starts way earlier than that. I think it starts when you're two one

and two years old in your house. It's way earlier than that. I think

the the educational system, and both my wife and I are

educators. The educational system comes along way after a lot of that's already

hardwired in and then just doubles down and reinforces, you

know, all the way through twelfth grade or, you know, if you're

so blessed, college. You know? And

it is all about compliance. We will get you

to comply. The question, I guess,

is who does that work for, which gets us into some very Marxist territory.

You know, does it work for the capitalist? Does it work for the people in

power? Who has the power? And I don't wanna go down that. I don't wanna

go down that road. That's a that's a different kind of road than what I

wanna go down. I want to focus on the

writing piece of this because I think you've hit on something,

and the decline in writing among the k through

12 cohort is something I think we have to we

have to talk about. And so

who do who does it benefit if kids can't write

and if kids can't comprehend? What kind of adults do they become?

Mhmm. Yeah. This is this is interesting, and and

we may or may not have have the same point of view on this. I

I know that that there's there's

a, maybe a theory out there

that that the education system

has conspired, to make

kids ineffectual and and

soldier on for the for the powers that

be. And I could see that argument. Like like, certainly,

there's a there's a there's a frame of

understanding there that that is credible enough to

consider at any rate, that that that it's not it's not it's

not outright dismissible. But I I've done enough work

in government and and other places. I love I think I heard this on a

Sunday show at one point. This is, you know, the thing about conspiracy theories is

is that you're making the assumption that the government is, wise

enough, smart enough, and, committed enough to

actually pull through on any of these things. It's not any of them. And

I know that that is more roughly

my experience of the and so but

but and so and so and so I don't think it's the answer you might

be leaning for, but I'll answer your question. Go ahead and give no. Give me

give me the give me the answer that is the answer. I'm I'll work with

my own leaning for that. I don't know. But but but if someone were asking

me that question, I would say the person that it benefits is the

school teacher and the professor and the

person who does not have to take on the obligation of

what it takes to be successful in life. Oh. And

and so and so by by being a person this

is this is absolutely true. Like, I'll I'll just share this with you. Last week,

I shared with my students, freshmen. I do not teach at

a predominantly white institution. I did a lot of first generation

college kids, lots of and so and

so we and and so I went through, and I was

and it's like, I don't care

if you get wealthy in this country. Like like

like, that's up to you. I very much care that you

know how. Like, I want you to know how to do

it. And and it's important to me that you understand the difference

between working for someone and having your own business and understand that is a

choice. And it's very it's under like, let's talk

about investing money, and and and that is a choice. Like,

there are all of these choices that are available to you, and

it's and it's like, well, why are we having that discussion in an English

in an English classroom? Because it isn't happening anywhere else. It isn't happening anywhere else.

Yeah. And and so and and so and so the

people who have it, and I don't think this is a conspiracy, I think this

is just life, are the peoples whose parents had

it. And and their parents had it, and their parents and so and and so

and so someone's childhood so someone's

educational outcome is essentially predetermined

by the family that they're brought into and the quality of conversations

at their dinner table, and school tries not to get in the way and to

help the rest of the people more or less the best

they can. And what that does is alleviate the

responsibility of the teachers of actually understanding the

world very deeply and being able to explain the world in a very

deep way as a matter of character, as a matter as a matter of finance,

as a matter of economy, as a matter of geopolitics, as a matter

of everything. It's it it alleviates that responsibility. And so I think

the person who benefits from kids not knowing that is the person who

doesn't have to take on the responsibility of, I have to now go

investigate the world really, really well. And

and listen, let's face it. If you make $65,000 a

year, maybe we're not paying or finding the right people to do

that. Like like, if someone were to say, Brian, fix the world in

in a generation or less, I'd say everybody who might

go into law Mhmm. Pay them enough to go into

teaching. Bring bring all of the smartest educated

people in the world, pay them all a hundred and $50 a year to go

teach and and and get that thinking, that

wide, broad, thoughtful, amazing geopolitical,

economic, etcetera, thinking into the classroom and do it from

k to k to the time they graduate, but but we don't have those

teachers there. And so so to me, the system is built not by

conspiracy, but just by default to to to make

it easy to pass kids through. And the net effect of

that is they're not they're they're not good in the world, but the only person

who really benefits there are the professors. I wouldn't say it's necessarily the

rich people or whatever. I think it's probably the professors that get more benefit than

that. But how do you hear that? So it's interesting that you bring this up

because I I don't, again, I don't fully agree with you,

and these two things can be true at once. And I have seen in

my experience when I was working as an adjunct, at a

business school and making significantly less than

$65,000 a year. Let's be real. I understand. Okay. I would have made more

babysitting. And

and some days, that's what I feel like they expected me to do.

Because of the nature of how I'm wired, and, yes, this does go to

upbringing and all of that, I categorically refuse to

play that play that game. Right? And, intentionally, this is a word I use with

leadership, and this is a word I use in organizational behavior. We have to lead

with our brains on. We have to if we're talking about teaching, we have to

teach with our brains on. We have to write with our brains on. Right?

Intentionality for me is huge. Right? Are you doing things on purpose,

or are you just reactively responding by accident?

Okay. When I

was, you know, that adjunct, I would always do a

lecture in my business class, and it would come usually

spring semester. Actually, probably right about now. And it was a

lecture about globalism because very few

students in business schools who are going to go work

60% of them are gonna go work for some multinational corporation

that is not fully to care about them and is gonna burn them out in

four years. Mhmm. And then they're gonna be clamoring around

trying to find a smaller place or whatever

They don't understand why it's cheaper for a

hedge fund, going back to a hedge fund for just a minute, to send them

to Malaysia to live out of a laptop than it is for head and and

look at an Excel spreadsheet and fire a bunch of people that they never met

than it is for a hedge fund to keep them at home in a neighborhood

actually engaging with people that they may be firing at a local plant. It's

cheaper to send them to Malaysia because of globalism.

But business school students do not understand this. They don't to

your point about it not being explained, at no point in high school,

and I thought I taught probably a thousand students

in the course of five years, right, that I was an adjunct. I can't

remember one student coming up to me and saying, oh, yeah. This was all explored

in, like, high school. The vast majority of folks

came up to me and said, I never actually heard that explained. And by the

way, I started globalism off with Bretton Woods and what happened after World War

two, and then just a cascade of, you know, down in Nixon and everything else.

Right? Okay. And I draw the line for them. And I say, if you

want to make this decision, this is the system you're engaging in. I don't care

if you engage in the system. I am agnostic on your life decisions.

That's right. And and I I don't care. But I don't

want you to be able to say that no one ever told you Yes. That

this was the thing that was going to happen. And so Yes. I have seen

what you're talking about when as an instructor, as a

teacher, I chose to, regardless of what I was getting

paid, go to the system with a different

idea. That was an active choice.

And because I'm psychologically wired to be high in

personal agency and I'm I have a a high

internal locus of control rather than an external one,

I'm not really too concerned about whether or not the system likes me. That doesn't

really Right. Like, concern me. Right? Right. What concerns me

is, are the people who are going into any system, are they

adequately prepared to operate and know what the rules are because no one

is explaining it to them as a failure of leadership, which is the point of

actually this podcast as well. K. And the failures of leadership are all over the

place. You know? And so I think those

thoughts at the same time, I also think of this as where I maybe disagree

with you a little bit. I don't think it's a conspiracy so much as it

is the inertia of things moving

beneficially forward. Right? And by the way,

benefiting to your point, maybe teachers or or

principals or k through 12 administrators. Sure. Okay.

I always ask the question, at what point does the benefit run out? Which I

think the benefit is starting to run out now. My father always used to tell

me you're gonna pay the piper one way or another, and the the bill always

comes due. I agree. You know? I agree. And so I think we're paying the

piper now. Yeah. And I think we're going to be paying the piper in the

future, particularly as we outsource more and more of

our cognition to these large language models and these

more of the algorithmic in publication, to

paraphrase from Cory Doctor, Doctorow, an AI

slop that's just gonna be laying around the Internet. Yep. And it'll

be our own fault. We will have done it to ourselves, but, of course, we

will search for a leader who we can blame or who will save us,

and we will never have realized that

that saving piece was in our own hands the whole

time. So I

have a bunch of a bunch of different thoughts in my head. I'm gonna have

to go through this a little bit. I'm gonna have to cascade this and think

about this a little bit because

it's not necessarily agree on that, by the way. I I don't I I I'll

I'll take I'll take inertia as as,

as as the as the process of

of false or or or umbrellaed,

or umbrellaed conspiracy. I I would take that word. I think I think that's an

accurate ish. Well and I'm not willing to go full Marxist. I think

Marxists don't.

The the Marxist left and the anarchist right both share something in common. They're both

looking for boogeyman under the bed. Yes. When in reality More than

that. But yes.

When when in reality, the boogeyman is themselves the whole time. And they're both, by

the way, underneath the same bed. They're both hiding out in the same bed looking

for each other. Isn't that funny? So It it's oh, it's hilarious.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Let's turn the corner a little bit because

we've talked about frames. We've talked about comprehension and a little bit about

commission and the purpose of sharing thoughts, the education system, free

stuff versus paid stuff, getting our language, making sure

the the quality of our language is is high when we are

expressing it, and that we are careful thinkers

thinkers and speakers.

For leaders, for people who have been

positionally placed in charge and by the way, I'm not thinking

about a leader of a major corporation. So I don't this

is not where I'm framing this this question. I'm thinking of a leader in

a small company, employees maybe 500

people, maybe. Maybe his dad,

or his granddad founded that company. Mhmm. And

he grew up in it, and and he just always assumed that he was gonna

be the leader, and he got into the leadership position. And now we live

in times like these where,

he may not prioritize writing clearly. He

may not prioritize writing at all. He may outsource it to somebody else.

Mhmm. What do you say? What advice do you have? What thought name

and advice. What information, that's a better word, do you have

for that individual, around agency, even

around his own thoughts and putting them out there into, into the

world? Yeah. So so

so this is interesting. My

my I'll I'll answer it in two ways just just because one's gonna make

me laugh. That person, I never try

to convince them of anything. Right? If somebody says, I'm gonna

let AI do all my writing, and, I don't need writing,

and I've been writing since the fourth grade. I know what I do. I say,

I wish you luck. Right. Right. Like, I actually don't try to

convince that person of anything. But but but I think what you're hinting at

at is is is what is it that that writing is

inferring about leadership Mhmm. Or quality of

thinking or whatever that we don't say out loud. And and and and so taking

that frame, here's here's the here here's

my understanding of it. The the first thing is we

David Eagleman writes about this in his neuroscience book, which I which I absolutely love.

I don't know if you've you've discussed his books here on your podcast or not,

but but, he's got a couple which are which are great, but incognito is

the kind of the one that that gets the most press, and it's worth

it. He talks about the human being is not

a successful animal because we are more

cognitive than other than other animals because we

think better. That that's a mistake. That the human

being is not a successful animal because

we have fewer instincts and more cognition, which is the

story we tell ourselves. The human being is a successful

animal because we have more instincts and

better instincts honed by our cognition,

which is which is a fundamentally different

thing. And so and so now we'll start with that when it comes to

writing. So for instance, somebody says,

we we do this on on Thursdays. If any one of your people wanna join

us at at some point, they're welcome to. Where we look at an essay

from The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times or something. And we simply

say, do we trust this author as being credible? Would we make

decisions based on the information that's and the answer is almost always

no in part because I try to find the worst essay that day. But Of

course. But Put my thumb on the scale a little bit

there. Exactly. But but but

but but it when we listen to, like, when we listen to those conversations on

Thursday, what generally speaking is somebody raise some somebody says

something in the first ten words.

And I'm gonna pair it. I'm gonna I'm I'm just gonna make one up. But

but to give people an an example, it might say something like

the Trump administration is obviously incorrect

on policy x. Right? And and so

and and so even there are people in that room who

would politically agree with that statement, but they

would still say that undercuts the writer's credibility.

And that's a feeling. It's a feeling. We

go, oh, why like, why am I having that feeling toward that

frame of information? Why am I having that feeling? And

so and so what I would say to the person who's interested

to how writing what language is gonna do is say, I've had an

instinct, and the instinct is this is wrong. Mhmm. And now

I wanna go through the process of saying, why am

I having that instinct? Does does does that reflect

the presentation of somebody's information? Mhmm.

Does that reflect my own biases? Does that does that reflect

something that triggered me from when I was a kid? And and so and so

that's coming up. Like, I have to now ask the question and be

willing to answer the question, why am I having this instinct, this

reaction, this feeling? And the minute I have that and so

take your your average piece of, let's just

say, email around, I don't know. You we

gotta we're we're we're gonna come back to the office. We're no longer gonna work

from home. Mhmm. And so and so a leader

now is forced to present that information. And this well,

the easiest thing is just write an email that said Mhmm. Come back to the

office. We're no longer gonna work from home, and then people are gonna get really

angry. If you don't like it, quit. Right? That's Yep. So so

so that's one way of handling it. Right? And and people

go, man, the way this is presented has really concerned me.

That says something. Right? And so and so then we say, well, why are people

having that instinct? Can we anticipate that instinct? And

can we say, I suspect that

that there are gonna be people who have difficulty with this, so I wanna be

very transparent about why we're doing what we're doing. I wanna show you exactly our

observations of the world and how we're making sense of those observations

so that you can understand the decisions we've come in we've come to. And those

observations are, and those decisions are, and the reasons are.

And people go, oh, okay. Now I see how you make

that decision, not just the decision that you've made.

Take the essay in the Wall Street Journal. Trump administration is

obviously wrong. It's not necessarily incorrect. It's just

inferred. Right? And as opposed to explained or explored, it's

an abstraction that infers concrete information

versus details concrete information. And so if we

own the difference between what concrete

information are people going to agree on, this is a coffee cup,

versus what concrete information do we need to state the

inferences so they can agree on it or at least understand

it. That's the benefit of writing well. Does that make sense? This is

the continuing battle of the enlightenment. Right? I mean, this is the battle going all

the way back to the seventeenth century in the West. This is why our

greatest fights, I've come to this conclusion in the last couple of

years, are over who owns the

dictionary and what words get to be in. That's where

our greatest fights are. And it's not really

about politics. It's about,

the struggle in Western culture, and it is most notable in

Western culture. The struggle in Western culture to ascend

to the heights of reason without feelings. This is what all

the technologists promise us. Right?

And, you know, look, I so I'm also an amateur historian

because I think history matters a whole lot in these kinds of con a whole

lot in these kinds of conversations, I think, actually, history probably

matters more than which generational cohort you happen to be in,

because the historical events that are surrounding you

mold your thinking even if you are not aware of them,

because they molded your parents' thinking. And then your parents behaved a certain way, and

there we go. That's the the the falling domino. Right?

So I think the height

of enlightenment reason was the atomic bomb,

Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That was the height of enlightenment reasoning. And I think

we've been pulling back in the West in horror from that over the

last eighty years. And what you're talking about is a triumph of

at least what I'm hearing. And maybe I'm I'm incorrect. Correct me if I'm wrong.

And I have not read Ekeland's book. I wrote it down. I'll go ahead and

take a look at that. I read some neuroscience stuff.

Okay. Sounds good. Yeah. Probably. Because There's some other

things that happened to me in my life, relatives and my family and and whatnot.

I had to figure out what's going on with them. But, but what I'm

seeing over the last eighty years is that the triumph

of or the, I mean, not the triumph of. I think of it like Star

Wars. Right? The Empire Strikes Back. It's it's feeling strike

back. Right? And and if I'm

incorrect in thinking about this or analyzing this this way, let me know.

I I I think I think the continuing

struggle will be the tension between feelings and reason, but this is the enlightenment

struggle. And the lie is that we

can write our way out of it or we can reason our way out of

it because writing feels,

well, for lack of a better term, reasonable.

But I even just said it there. It feels

reasonable. There's no rationality or logic to that. Right? And

so this this this tension, I don't think is going

to be is gonna be going anywhere anytime soon.

And our technology, of course, serves to wind up that tension to a higher and

higher level because it it benefits people, right, and benefits

advertisers and whatever. Yeah. I

oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. No. Go ahead. You're

I I know at one point you wanted to bring up LLMs and and and

this this this Yeah. I'm I'm wandering in that direction. Right? Yeah. This kind of

this kind of loose there. But but,

I I do not see

feelings and reason as,

in a war. Mhmm. Okay. I

so so if if this makes sense to you,

there is no entity

out there

rationalizing for you and me. You

rationalize for you and I rationalize for me. And

and so and so and

so I am going to be a

experiential mix of the things that I

have observed, how they have affected me,

and and given me instincts for reaction, let's call that emotion,

and my ability to reflect on

that and try to make the most sense of it as possible

before I create any behavior. So

so that that's of one piece to me. That's all

one thing that I have experiences,

and then they are mine to emote about, and they are mine to

reflect on. On. And so I get to question why am I having that

emotional response or why am I not having that emotional response.

But but the mechanism of of of

rationality is is me. And

and so so so so that so then we sort of go,

well, does the world function where we have,

whatever, 8,000,000,000 individual

mechanisms of of comprehension

and and not a rational reality,

yes. Right? Like like, that's

like like, that that or at least that is our experience

of the world. I would concede that there is a reality,

but but I wouldn't concede that I know it. That but but

I can I can have my own reflections on it

and then make my own assumptions

of, and and be curious about it and try to and

try to understand that reality as much as possible and then align my

life to the way where I think that that that I can

have the most productive and meaningful life inside of that reality? But

the sense maker there is me. It's not my church. It's

not my university. It's not the sense

maker there. It's me. And and so to me, they're not really

divorced from each other. They're of the same piece because they're internal to

us, and they inform each other. But we may see that differently.

Yeah. We do. I'm gonna sidestep that because that's that we would unwind into,

like, a four hour conversation. I don't think we have that kind of time. And

I would I would love to challenge the the

lack of a god inside of the machine. Let's let's frame it that way.

Idea that's inherent in that, but not right now. Maybe we'll have you on.

Yeah. I mean, that that would be another section. That'd be that's a different kind

of conversation. Yeah. But the but I and I and I will say

this. I

I am of the thought that we can actually know

reality, but, here's the but, it's hard and it requires

effort from us Yeah. Which

we filter that effort through our

experiences and through our feelings and through our reason.

But the effort is the thing that matters.

This is why, the term Israel means we

who wrestle with or struggle with god. Right?

And I think that that is an appropriate

motto for our time. I tend to I tend

to I'm just I'll just sort of partially lay my cards out.

I tend to not think that Nietzsche was that brilliant. He got a

couple of things correct, but he was

just calling the end of the Kantian enlightenment project,

and saying that it had reached its logical conclusion. But a lot of

people, a lot of philosophers in particular and also

writers, have leveraged his thoughts, I

think, incorrectly, throughout the twentieth century and and and

caused a lot of damage, actually. Mhmm. So and and I think that

there's some talk about the neuroscience. I think there's some neuroscience

and some research that shows that,

yeah, maybe we might we might have missed the mark a little bit on that.

So Mhmm. But, again, that's that's way beyond that's way beyond where we

are. Listen. I don't think that's that that's controversial. I don't think you should be

worried. I I'm like, hey. Say it. Like like, I

you know? Like No. No. It's not the controversy. Oh, I'm not worried about the

controversy piece. It's the it's I wanna be cognizant of your time. It's the only

thing that we yeah. Let let us all live in a world where a hundred

years from now, people are looking back on these talks, and they go, you know,

they got some things right about the world, but not everything. I'm not gonna be

a person. I'll sign up for that, man. There you go. That's right.

Okay. So we've talked about well, okay. So this

leads into one of the things that sort of I'm obsessed with on this show.

Okay? I'm obsessed with with the transference of wisdom.

How do we get wisdom from one generation to another? The

best vehicles we've had for that have been stories. Stories, the

oral narrative. There's an essayist named Walter

Benjamin, who wrote an essay called The Storyteller.

It was on the writings his critique of the writings of, Nikolai

Leskoff, back in the nineteen thirties. And we actually covered that on the podcast.

You should go listen to that episode. And his

critique, right, of the technology of the novel

was that it killed the ability to transfer wisdom.

Instead, it took wisdom that was in an oral narrative and turned it

into mere information. Mhmm. Okay.

And and he was approaching it from a Marxian dialectic as well. So there's there's

some other things underneath there. But also you're going? Yeah.

Yeah. But also a Judaic mystic frame and a German German

Prussian sort of framing as he was writing in the nineteen thirties, you

know, in Germany, and and trying to figure out what was

going on in the Intergerum, you know, in that in that country. Right?

Why wasn't why wasn't the wisdom of avoiding

authoritarianism filtering down into people? Why were they going in the

particular direction that they were going?

And I think that's a relevant question for our time as well.

So how does writing help us

transfer wisdom? Does it, or do we need the oral narrative? Is it better to

just do that through conversation?

I think I think writing is, generally

speaking, more effective than oral,

But but the type of oral tradition you're referring to is

is a a type of oral tradition

that functions as a piece of writing. Okay. And and

so and and so to me. And and

so if we think of writing, this is and this is

not all writing to our to our Mhmm. Social media conversation earlier.

Yeah. But if we think of writing as the

written expression of a thought that has

been, reflected upon enough

to be worthy of someone else's time,

then writing is certainly a very useful

mechanism of sharing wisdom if if that's

if that's the definition of it. And I think, you know, that's

really what what traditional oral history

is is is is is that. Right? It is a

it it is the process of language applied to a reflection

that that, informs the listener of

the world. And so, I think Benjamin

is is onto something about do all novels do that?

No. Do even most novels do that? Probably not.

The and then if you wanna get controversial,

did novels in

1995 do

that better than novels

in 2015? Yes.

That that that I I would say the same difficulties we

have on social media, name your publishing house. They've

had those difficulties too that how, you

know, the the the the loudest people, not necessarily the most

thoughtful, not necessarily the most reflective, the ones who make the

most noise out there with the biggest platforms are the ones who are getting the

book deals. And and it's like, well, what is that doing

to the, wisdom of the of the, of

of the culture? You know, it's not particularly adding to it. So so

but but but do I think that writing as as the

if we look at it as in in the same way we would in a

in a strong oral tradition, is is the is the

verbalization or the written verbalization of of

a reflection that is worthy of consideration of

someone else? And does writing function that way? And

can it function that way and create wisdom

for other people to grow and make decisions and add their own

understandings of it to that? I do think writing is highly effective and probably the

most effective tool we have for that still. Yeah. I mean, I

agree with Benjamin about the novel,

disintermediating, which is a word he did not know.

The and the printing press, actually, is where he really goes back to it, disintermediating

the oral narrative. And yet, there are books

that seem to resist the disintermediation

of the printing press, or they went along with it.

Stories that were then translated and became

parts of or transliterated, not translated, transliterated into

other forms in novels, movies,

film, of course, in the West.

And, of course, in these books, I'm I'm in front of, like, in this thought.

Those books also seem to defy the algorithm. I

mean, if I am and the example that

I'll use is Homer. Like, Christopher Nolan, who just directed Oppenheimer,

is directing The Odyssey. Mhmm.

Make of that whatever you will. Okay? And I'm I'm

gonna be here. Lots of cool things happen. I'm a I'm a huge

fan of Christopher Nolan as a director. I've I've I've I've

here's here's what I was and Nolan, I trust, and I just leave it at

that. There you go. Okay. You know? He's he's made a few duds. Don't get

me wrong. Interstellar was not great. Chris, we should have a conversation about that. That

movie was trash, and tenant tenant was self referential

garbage. Stop it, sir. But Yes. The vast majority of the rest of it has

been has been has been excellent. I guess. A plus

stuff. But this is a person who, again, understands how storytelling applies

to that medium, how ancient stories, again, Homer,

apply to that medium, how they, again, they defy the algorithm. And I think our

most ancient stories that come out of an oral tradition, like the Bible,

like Greek mythology, are gonna just continue on

regardless of what the technology is that seeks to disintermediate them.

And that gets us to our last go around here. It gets us to the

LLMs.

Mhmm. So

as a person who writes, I'm not worried. Weirdly

enough, I'm not worried about large language models. I'm really

not. A, because

I personally, as an individual, can

outthink them no matter what they spew out. Right? I can find

the gaps and all of that. Number two, I don't

anthropomorphize them. I don't call them intelligence because they're

not, and I refuse to play that,

word game with them. But then I also and this

is the third thing. Just like any technology, I am

expecting it to expose human failures,

but also to create human successes. Right?

And so I don't buy into the hype of LLMs. I do see their

usefulness in certain situations or for certain

projects. But I think the challenge

that they provide is one of, and it's kind of

one we're we've kind of been lazy at, at least in America over the last

twenty years, curation and aggregation.

And the people who figure out how to use these models and

then curated aggregate the best of these models are

going to be fine. Other people are just

gonna continue to use Microsoft Copilot to write a crappy email that they don't wanna

send so they could twirl around at their desk and eat a Snickers bar. And

that's fine. That's that's fine. I mean, I guess.

Thoughts on LLMs? Thoughts on anything. I believe

that was a commercial, by the way. I was trying to say I believe that

was a commercial during the Super Bowl that I might have missed or might have

heard about later on. Thoughts on thoughts

on on the the the hype around LLMs versus

the reality of of human cognition? I I

think I couldn't agree with you more. I I I think it's it's

a but, like, so so let's let's give LLMs

their their their due Their due. Yeah. At

first. And and so,

are there tens of

thousands of photos of rare cancers

on the Internet? Probably. Yeah.

Could someone, in the foreseeable future or now,

take a photo of a spot on their arm,

which the doctor said it's probably nothing,

And the artificial intelligence engine could say there's

a eighty two percent chance that it's one of these

rare cancers. Possible.

And it might take the doctor six weeks to

test and whatever. And now that

process is accelerated by this

person going and saying, I'd like to be tested for these cancers, and

this is why. And I guess this part of the mole

looking this way is roughly approximating this rare

cancer, and I'd like to look for it. And now you've you've accelerated the

process six weeks. So Mhmm. So do I think that that is a

foreseeable and a useful and an amazing

achievement? I do, and we should use it, and God

bless humanity. And then the

question becomes, is it actually

intelligent? Because that isn't actually intelligence. That

is that is something closer to

a massively high functioning

database. Mhmm. And and but it doesn't

actually require new information. And

the minute the minute we go, well,

what's the what what's the what what is

the next level of understanding that

humans do not have about something? Mhmm.

Can we ask the the computers to do

it? There's two difficulties I have with that just as a

matter of structure. One is, to our point earlier,

we falsely think humans are are

intelligent because we have

data. It's not true. Humans

are intelligent because we have instincts

based on reflections of data. And so

and so that begs the question,

what instincts does this have? None. Mhmm.

And what reflective ability does it have?

None. So it's highly limited in its

ability to create actual intelligence, and

you and I are not. Right? It's actually a fairly it's a

fairly simple process, right, that that, you know,

if my wife were to come in here right now and start yelling

at me, we we would we would say, oh, jeez. Brian looks upset. And

then and then we'd be able to determine within a couple

of minutes, probably, why she's upset.

Yeah. And and it would be really hard for an LLM

to do that. Right? Like like, you could feed it

my whole life, and it and it probably couldn't do that. But you and

I could do it in about forty seconds. And so and

so and so and so it's very like, it's it and and so and so

we make the assumption that data is equal

to assessment of data and reflection on data, and they're

not the same thing. And and and it's not codable.

And and and it then begs the question, does

it that it who who is the thinker? Not

not what is the not what is the data to be

thought about, but who is the thinker.

And and and do these things actually have enough personality

and, therefore, the instincts, etcetera, to be thinking?

And my sense is we're very far from from from

that right right now, and I don't know that we will ever get

there. And I'll and I'll share with you

this. I I was gonna ask this question. This I was at the Wall Street

Journal Future of Everything conference, and I went to the the guy who

runs DeepMind, went to his thing. Yeah. And so I'm sure this is

gonna end up on the Internet, and go ahead and feel free to clip this

and make me look like an asshole. But I was gonna ask him this question.

And number one, he didn't take any questions. The guy who ran DeepMind was

was was number one, he didn't ask any questions. Oh, no. It was it was

Google's sorry. I should say this right because because the DeepMind guy was there as

well. It was Google's, like, like, head

of, like, moonshot projects or something. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mhmm.

And and and I was gonna ask this question, but

his presentation was

so pedestrian. It was so simple. It

was so, hey. Human beings have been replaced by technology for

forever, and I know you're upset about it. But, like, it was so I was

like, I can't ask. I'm not sure he could answer it.

Like like like, if if this is the guy

doing moonshots, we're nowhere like,

they're driving. They're not this is not even the right highway. They're they're they're going

the wrong direction. Like like, this person can't

comprehend that question. Right. That right? And and

so and and so, like, I was like, this is so frustrating. Like like because

because these are interesting things if they actually bring it up, but but that

was awful. Right? It was like talk about the

the the quality of somebody's, reflections on on the

experiences they've had. I'm like, if that's the quality of

reflection based on the experiences of the people who run

Google moonshots, sell your stock. Right? Like

like, that that ain't gonna go well for people. And so

and and so my sense is that that we have this promise of

the thing. We think data and processing power is the way to

get through the promise of this thing, and we're missing the

question, who is the thinker and how is the thinker

creating the instincts of the instincts of of

creation? And I don't think we're anywhere near there, and I don't think Yeah. I

don't think we're it's it's just not a threat to writers. No. No. I

I agree. I think

human beings can do everything an LLM can't do. Right? Which is a lot of

things. And these two

things can be true at the same time. LLMs can do a lot of things

that human beings don't want to do when they are

employed to do those things that human beings don't wanna do.

And the sad tragedy is the things that human beings don't

wanna do. Say, for instance, I've got

to I do my laundry because I live in a house with other

people, so I get to do my laundry once a month.

That's the only time that I can get in. Yes. I do have enough clean

clothes. Thank you for asking.

I make sure I do everything once a month, and then I just dominate. And

then I'm done, and I irritate everybody, and it's fine. I don't

want an LLM to send my email

to somebody. That's not a problem. I want the

LLM to do my laundry. Yes. Yes.

To paraphrase Peter Thiel, you know, I don't

wanna I don't wanna be promised moonshots and

get emails. And don't don't don't overpromise

and then and then specifically don't don't

under deliver. Yeah. Yeah.

Alright, Brian. I think we've reached the end of our time together. This has been

a fascinating conversation. We've opened up doors in the floor, in

the floor of my head. Hopefully, I've opened up some doors in the floor of

your head. Appreciate it. Hopefully, this has been a this has been a an an

enlightening and engaging conversation for our our listeners as well, something to think

about. We haven't really come to any conclusions, and I think that's good, because these

are all still open questions. What would you like to

promote today, if anything? I'll give you the last word here.

Well, first of all, if anybody's interested in learning more about us,

think deeply, write clearly Com. There's a little

button on there for a fifteen minute call if anybody's interested

in in in chatting. In a in

a very nonspecific way, the things that a lot of

people find interesting to to start with my company if if this

conversation is is is of interest to you and how to

write from more deeply and observed,

way in the world is is of interest to you. We have a

a program that's $99 per quarter, and it's about ten

minutes a week. People tend to love that, and I'd be happy to give anybody,

you know, a couple of months free into that and see if they like it.

So just email me or or, you know, hook up on that

somehow on that site, and I'd be happy to chat with you. Great. We will

have links to Brian Morgan's site

at think deeply, write clearly. I would encourage

you to check that out and to click on all those links and get in

contact with Brian Morgan and, of course, follow him around in all the places on

social media where you may be able to follow him, follow him

around and, and make sure to connect with him widely

and clearly. Alright. I'd like to thank Brian

Morgan for coming on leadership lessons from the Great Books podcast today. And

with that, well, we're out. Thank you,

Fred.