 for that. This is the the open global mine call for Thursday, July 20, 2023. Yeah, so I'm, I'm, we spent two, two extra days in Cabo, we attended a workshop that was an hour and a half up the west coast of the Pacific coast of Baja at the loveliest place I've ever seen that you saw very briefly last week. And then we spent two days in Cabo afterward, which is probably a strategic error. We had done something like this before in Mexico or we stayed in Zihuatanejo, which was lovely, we had a great time and we were like we're going to get to see the locals and do whatever and it turns out that turns out that Cabo is more of a kind of a party town than we're then is our flavor. So it was interesting. But it's nice to see everybody. I will be MIA next week because I have an engagement where the active day is actually Thursday in Geneva. So I urge you to plot scheme plan, mess around and see what, see what you'd like to do together. Did not see the volcano at Popocatepetl. Is it in Baja? Where is Popocatepetl? I thought it was coast of Mexico City, but I'm not sure. I'm not exactly sure, but I did see a video of, there was an eruption recently, but it's calmed down. Well, that's good. I think it's near the city of Puebla, because when I was in Mexico just before the COVID outbreak, we went quite close to it because it was smoking and emitting a bit of fire. We were, we did a vacation, a family vacation with April's sister and family to Ecuador. I don't know, almost a decade ago now. Not quite. And Ecuador is really teeny tiny, has 91 volcanoes or something like that. It's insane. It's absolutely, and Ecuador turns out it's very vertical. So most of your drives are going up a mountain, down a mountain, up a mountain, around a mountain, whatever. And then there's a city called, I think, the Obamba that we went to and stayed in for a night or two, that has three volcanoes in sight. It's like this one there, this one there, and this one there. And the city is in the valley between three volcanoes. I'm like, I'm just shocked the city's still there. It's just pretty interesting. Anyways, nice to see everybody. Simon, good to see you. Thanks for joining us. Kathleen, is that Mike or is that actually Kathleen? It says it's Mike Nelson's journey and Kathleen's phone and Mike is driving. Oh, I just saw that. Thank you. Perfect. So don't let go the wheel, Mike. Cool. And we cannot hear you. You're unmuted, but we're not hearing you. So, yeah, don't troubleshoot zoom connections while driving either, but thank you. Oh, good. Now we're hearing you, I think. Excellent. Why don't we do a check-in round? It's been a couple of weeks since we did a regular check-in. I will explain the check-in protocol as we've got it standing now, the S protocol. And then I'll step back and let everybody kind of step in as they wish to. The protocol, it goes roughly this. I will not sort of be traffic director between. Raise your zoom hand. Thus, when you want to step in, the display will show each of us in the same order as our hands are raised. And then you can pause a little bit before stepping into the conversation, please. And the way we know that you know the drill is you'll kind of unmute yourself when you're when you're next, but then you can take as long as you feel before stepping into the conversation. We will not go into discourse until everybody is checked in once. So don't come back in until either everybody's past or or checked in. We'll go into into conversation mode where whatever was interesting for us during check-in can be our topic or whatever else we want to do. And what am I missing about the protocol? I guess that's kind of it. Yeah, well, I did I did say that. I'm sorry. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks for emphasizing it though. And so with that, actually, let me check in. First, I'm just going to go and then and then step back. And we just spent a week with the modern Elder Academy in Baja. It was started by Chip Conley. Chip was the founder of the Juarez Biv hotels, and he has some kind of crazy innate design sense and so does his partner, who is an interior designer named Ryan, and with two other people, a landscape architect and an architect architect, the four of them have this bizarrely magical design sense that creates really great space. So the physical space once once we got to this place and it was sort of unassuming from the street it just looks like a couple nice walls and some some greenery, but then you start walking inside and it just, it discloses itself to you as you turn around. And I think it ask or and if he's a, if he's a fan of pattern languages, but I everything I saw hummed the way a well designed pattern language aware place would have would have hummed and also every last corner was paid attention to meaning you would go, you would sort of turn around and you'd see like this beautiful little patio with a tile fountain in an area that wasn't highly traffic that was just sort of the backyard of a little of a room that had a view or something like that. And then you would see a compound curve where some concrete had been poured for some bleacher kind of seats around a fireplace. And then there would be custom pillows that were perfectly color matched to the vases that were strategically placed around it, etc, etc. It was straight out of architectural digest without being pretentious. It was just cared for and I just so appreciated that. And then the people helping us were really special and worked really well. And it just the container for meeting was beautiful. And it wasn't rustic like other places I've been for other kinds of retreats. It was much higher higher end than rustic, but it was really beautiful. And it was a bunch of writers showing up because April is a member of Silicon careers. So the topic turned to writing and all that. And we, but at first, the, the modern Elmer Academy or me has a bunch of things that they like to do to bring you closer deeper. Anybody who's been to these things or facilitated these things is aware of kind of the process of, of getting people a little closer to each other and they did that really well. It was really interesting. I learned there were a couple people there who I had known a very long time ago when I was sort of doing the tech analyst thing. So there were a couple of tech analysts from back in the day whom I had never really sat down and talked to and I feel like I know them a whole lot better now. And a couple people floated book ideas. And then toward the end, one person who was there was Chris yay, why each who is a lovely fellow he's the co author with read Hoffman of blitz scaling and a couple other books. It turns out that he can generate prose faster than just about anybody you can imagine and that's one of his great virtues. He's also an active note taker in meetings, understood me in my brain from the get go and in fact I had met him to three weeks, maybe a month before this event for the first time, because April had a call with him and said you guys ought to talk. We did and like soul mates in the sense of all the stuff that we talk about here and more. And so, so Chris was like Jerry's probably not going to ask for some time here because he thinks he's here as a plus one but we should talk about his stuff. So I had, I had a turn at the sort of brainstorming session with everybody toward the end of the week. And I've been, I'm on this, I'm on this may perhaps quixotic quest to say that our future is cyborg, and I like the word cyborg but it does not get good traction. And what I mean by our future is cyborg is, I believe we are melding with technology more and more and more and as the technology gets more and more capable. We are going to, we are either going to be replaced by this technology or we are going to be augmented or enhanced, or whatever word you want to apply to that by it. And it will turn us into kind of moderate super humans in a sense because there's just so much power now in these systems. And I think it's going to change a lot of things it's certainly going to change jobs job categories job descriptions. It's going to change how we think and how we think together. It has all these detrimental effects of what is authentic what is not authentic. What is what is a fact what is not a fact how do I check a fact is a bunch of other other things there. And my own take on the cyborg thing isn't all about generative AI but is in fact about the blending of active human curation and note taking and this AI. And I think that that that that may be more unique than I think it is, in the sense of a lot of people have given up on note taking and one of the arguments of this generative AI coming in is that it's absolutely not taking we should just stop taking notes because all we have to do is ask the machine, and that scares the hell out of me. So, so I got some pushback on the use of the word cyborg, most people were either new children negative on it. And I like reclaiming it the way that Jews reclaimed cat for hats in Poland in the 18th century, I don't know when it happened that they were being persecuted and forced to wear things, which they then made part of the official dress of, you know, one, a couple branches of orthodox Judaism. And so I think that reclaiming things is is useful and interesting. And I ended up sort of like whoops need to find some some new language for it and see what happens. But it was all really useful and fun. And, and I also just learned just absorbed a lot from other people about their approaches toward writing thinking being all those kinds of things we had a lot of great discussions that way. And I, and oh, and in the entry, I, I of course sort of did this during meetings and taught everybody the jazz hands which we used a bunch but then they have a gesture that they created for their, and they call it polishing the pearl. And I had not run into it any place, but it was when somebody says something that touches you or that's that, you know, whatever is polishing the pearl. It's different from and a nice addition to jazz hands which is agreement I like what just got said I don't like what just got said, this is sort of it's a little bit like, you know, I'm holding the person who said it, or something else but feel free whenever you want to do this it's visible nicely and in zoom as well it's very nice in a room because a lot of people doing this was a way to pass the voice from one person to the other etc. So with that I am complete and I will step back and not intervene until we've gone through the round unless somebody joins who could use some steering and off we go. I'm going to use the last part of what Jerry said to pivot into something that has me very emotional. So when he talked about the cyborg thing. He talked about Gabrielle our note taker here, who introduced herself and said hi I'm Gabrielle. And it kind of bothers me, I would rather have something saying, you know, Gabrielle is an AI, you know I'm not usually for discrimination, but I wouldn't mind discriminating against a eyes. And that goes to what's really bothering me earlier today I was watching C span and I was watching Doug LaMalfa. He's a congressman in California, who just got a conservation award from CPAC for being. He got an award for being against conservation, because he seems absolutely horrible, but his latest thing is, he doesn't think that a breeding mother pig should be able to have enough room to turn around in her crate. And I forgot the amount because I was busy all morning, you know, and I didn't really have time to get the facts but he gets quite a bit of money from the pork industry. And, you know, before this call I was on the phone with my friend and we just touched on like every issue there was. And we started with the pharmaceutical industry, but I was just saying how that one thing could actually weave into food production, technology, I mean it just everything. So anyway that right now I have a jumble of thoughts in my head. But the point that I was making to him. And I guess what I'm hoping to put here is even something with Doug LaMalfa and Congress, which connects to corruption and politics and the food bill and nutrition and pharmaceuticals and AI. So you'd find one story to start with that actually touches on so many other things that can bring in all these pieces to unite people, because we know that people react emotionally. Many people do care about animals, especially if you're a dog lover a cat lover, you hear these stories about animals, maybe that's not enough to change your mind, but it's enough to get your attention. And once they get your attention, when you then find out how this guy is getting all this money from the pork industry, and you care about corruption and government. Well, maybe that pulls you in. And then you find out the next thing, because he's also against, you know, the standards that were agreed upon in 2016 for electric vehicles, and then that pulls you in. So I'm just throwing that out there, because I have to get rid of all these emotions. And thank you. You muted Stuart. Thank you. So just very quickly, I think we need to keep delivering the messages of what we observe, but in some way from a larger bigger perspective we also need to remember that folks operating in this way. In many ways are just operating inside the culture, and they reflect exactly who it is that that we all are, and those pieces inside of us. It's just the soup that we're in. And I just think that that's kind of important, because the more we demonize the more oppositional we tend to create in the world. And I think that that's not the path to any kind of salvation, or enlightenment, or a path of resolution. I have spoken. I thought we were doing check-ins today, are we? Yes, we were. And I had done the introduction sort of right when you stepped in. So you actually answered back rather than checking in and I was almost going to step in and say so. But hey, so we are in check-in mode and I was talking through the protocol earlier, which I think you're quite familiar with. Thank you. You're welcome. And thank you for being here. I'm going to go back and stir it. That's what I'm preoccupied with. Not being able to get this mess up. Great. So let's, so then you can consider that my check-in. I mean, I could report on a lot of shit that I'm doing, but I think that was more of a check-in that I probably wanted to share at this moment in time. I'll quickly add that I have a headache. So if I close the thing and I close my eyes, that's why. So I'll take the turn and checking in. I've been having some interesting conversations yesterday and this morning, rather this morning in the Netherlands, about designing a set of conversations between 16 to 18 year olds with elders of society, 66, 67 years old and older. The feeling is that we are living in a time of intergenerational illiteracy, where most young people don't know anything about what older generations value or think is important. And most older people don't know too much about what the younger people value or think is important. And if you look at the population statistics, and I did that for the European Union under 18s and over 66 year olds make up one third of the population of Europe. And they tend not to be listened to because the youngsters aren't able to vote yet, probably haven't started university. So what do they know? And the elders who have retired don't get their calls answered and don't get listened to because they should be busy with grandparenting. So I'm in discussion with World Values Day. That's an international organization with roots and anchors in 30 or more countries throughout the world. Every year there's an annual campaign to increase the awareness and practice of values around the world. And lots of people are able to create their own activities with young people and old people. But what I'm working on organizing is one of the first activities that brings the elders of society together with the youngsters of society to find out what each other actually thinks is valuable. So we're looking to do something on the 19th of October. That's the date of World Values Day this year. Hopefully to get people, either school children or other young people from five or six different countries in Europe, Middle East and Africa, or being more or less in similar time zones to talk with people who are already retired older than 65, 66. And this will be a prototype for a whole series of conversations about values, which we are hoping to organize in the next year. Hopefully to be summarized and presented as results to the United Nations, where there are a number of contacts within the organizers of World Values Day. So if this is successful, we'll try to branch out to do Europe and North South America as a follow up to Europe, Middle East and Africa, and eventually Europe and Southeast Asia as well. So I'll keep you informed about this during different check-ins. And if there's opportunities for you to join these type of conversations, you're most welcome to do so. That's my check-in for today. Maybe I go next. I didn't really have a plan for anything specific to check in with, but I'm working on an interesting project I got commissioned by the Climate Reality Project to develop a 15-minute introduction to their new training course, which is focused on regenerative agriculture and their partner with the Kistikwantz organization to develop this. So I'm going to be a lead in and then it's following up with a number of specialized topics. So that's really exciting. And I had a conversation yesterday. I bounced it off on the leader from the Sustainability Professional Network, which is like 350,000 members, an international group. And the guy who runs it is in England, Hamish Taylor. And so I sent him my draft and he got all excited and called me and dedicated two hours of his time to talk me through it and give me feedback on it. So that was encouraging. But then I went back and scanned the news channels and I came across an interview with John Kerry in Congress that apparently he had a hearing. And that was the most astonishing line of questions. There was a Republican who was running John Kerry who spent a lifetime in the climate world, spent in one of the leading experts in the world for us, all the information on his hand. And here's this one guy repeating every Fox News line on why climate change is just not really happening and by this whole CO2 doesn't really matter much. I was just stunned by the idiocy of this conversation and John Kerry was totally stunned. I mean, you could tell he didn't know what to say because the statements this congressman made which is so off the wall. And then you think how can people like this make it to a governing body that determines the investments of billions of dollars to guide our economy into the future. Yeah, still long, long ways to go. So, which is why I'm starting to focus more on local days. And Ben is a small community, but we have one church here that runs what they call a family kitchen. And they're serving 14,000 meals a month out of this small space and how the city wants to give them a bigger kitchen and get this whole food system organized locally. So I love getting into this and and and have a real life project to learn how and then observe how the systems work. But when you have noticed this thing that I just did for the climate reality project, when you really immerse yourself, how our food system is structured. This is the most anti competitive market in the world when it comes to food. I mean, it's so regulated food safety and such a exaggerated regulatory frame that it basically knocks off all small vendors street vendors and so on. And it's very difficult to sell your products and to certainly to get into to get into the markets. So that's really, you know, community level engagement, you know, you got to get in Mr City Council, you have to get in with the local regulatory agencies to see where the bottlenecks are and how you can untangle this not. So, you know, basically it's one step at a time. But when you look around the club, I mean their cop failures around the group already that that already excited exceed what happened last year so this will this will be an interesting, an interesting year to observe. And of course, this is the year for the farm bill to to get put in place for the next five years. And if we get this wrong. I mean, the, the impact of continuing this this this system, which is the traumatic I mean the 10 years ago, I listened to what is now King Charles talking at a speech, you know, it's at a conference in the US Georgetown University and he was saying the system is unsustainable unsustainable means cannot continue in perpetuity. And we are debating and arguing over what the end date is right with a general agreement it's not sustainable. It's just like, you know, is it what 2030 is it 2050 is it 2100. In reality is it's right here now now and and that means you can't continue doing what you're doing because the damage it is causing is just, it's just unbearable. So anyhow, just rambling across here. But by golly we got to get some intelligence voted into the political bodies that are governing us it is just catastrophic to see just complete idiots in in these decision making walls and positions. And every now and then in Quaker meeting will will have a meeting for vocal ministry, which means, hey we've had a couple meetings go by and nobody stood up and had messages. And, or there's some other dysfunction and in Wilton monthly meeting where I was a very happy, a tender participant member. There was one guy named john Lee who would speak almost every time. And so we had a meeting for vocal ministry, and which everybody kind of spoke and then about near the end. He said, I know I'm the problem. And then we went forward from there. But please feel free to jump in and check in this is our check in round I love the silence but it's not going to be bashful or whatever. So I guess I'm up. Indeed you are whoever puts their hand up that starts the queue and then anybody else who wants to go next, put your hands up and we follow that order. On the iPad, somehow it cuts off the top of the top frames. That's problematic in my hand. Anyway, what's been on my mind a lot is something fairly interesting and optimistic. We are shifting I think from a material world to a digital world. Young people think about the world in terms of digital flows, not in terms of material stuff. And if we look at history as going from agriculture to industry to digital and going through a big transformation and doing that. It seems to me there's the opportunity to bring in the aspects of the economy and society that we currently have in a critical way, and look for alternatives. And that moving towards a digital world actually licenses a lot of new creative thinking that we're not getting to in normal conversations where people say they're interested in what a transformation would look like. Because they don't say what a transformation would be to it's always negative that we don't like this we don't like that, but no positive view. So I'm going to propose that that society moving towards a digital intuition for how flows happen is a tremendous opportunity to rethink society. Doug, I'm not sure whether that's good or bad is the difference between digital and the analog that the humanity grew up with is requires certain techniques because when you do digital samples by you're taking just chunks of reality and trying to assemble that mentally. And I'm not sure that society moving to a digital existence is that great because not that many people understand the special techniques required to deal with digital samples. Julian, was that your check in. No. Okay, we're still in check in. Oh, sorry. It's okay. Jerry, can I check in while I'm parked. I was just hoping you would do that. I hired traveling from Washington DC down to Knoxville and then Asheville. I'm giving a talk tomorrow at University of Tennessee at a big data. Actually, it's, it's more interesting than just big data. It's a meeting of the data center managers around the US government and around academia. So who collect various types of science data and try to make sure that we have our data heritage archived and available. And they're going through quite a bit of a crisis right now because everybody wants data they all are convinced that it's the secret to machine learning, but nobody wants to create some kind of sustainable way to fund all this data that's being produced. So that's one of the things that's on my mind. But I think the more interesting thing is what I'm dealing with personally and both of us are right now. Over our head dealing with some of the most dysfunctional systems in our country. Klaus mentioned the food industry which I agree is completely dysfunctional. But two weeks ago Kathleen bought this new car that we're driving in. And interestingly enough car sales is one place where we've made some improvements. And interestingly enough car sales is one place where we've made some improvements. And it's partly because the new competitors came in and started being more transparency and about more transparent about pricing. And we actually had a pretty good car buying experience this time. On the other hand, the car repair systems even worse. And I think it's because the car sales, the car dealers don't make enough money on the margins anymore so they have to exploit you when you come in with your car. I found out the other day that my old old or a hybrid which I'd had for many years wasn't repaired properly by the dealership last time. They actually put in the wrong transmission fluid. So for, you know, a couple thousand miles it wasn't functioning properly. And I so I took it back. They didn't diagnose the problem they'd caused they found three other problems. It was almost like they wanted to find enough problems that I would sell the car and buy a new one from them. When I took the same car to an independent dealer. They didn't find any of the problems that the dealer had found. And this is one system. We also just put an offer on a new house five hours ago. Well, we're excited about this. We probably have a one in five chance of getting the house because the Arlington market is pretty strange and bubbly. But there we have a real problem with a system that is not consumer friendly. You know, our realtor could make $40,000 for about 50 hours of work. That's better than most lawyers and aside from Hollywood divorce lawyers. I guess the reason is, we don't know if we'll get this first bid, we don't know if we'll get our fifth bid so he might have to do a hell of a lot more work. But he already made a hell of a lot of money selling my last my old house. I mean, we're planning to sell Kathleen's townhouse and so that'll be our third interaction with the real estate business. And then the last source of anxiety is that my doctor who took care of me for the last four years and before that his father took care of me for 25 years. The doctor decided to not be part of a practice. He became a concierge doctor. So rather than going in and getting paid per treatment. You pay $2,400 up front, they give you a full physical, and then they promise to be available whenever you're needed, but they focus entirely on wellness. And so it's it's all the incentives right it's a much better system. The only available release the wealthy and your insurance does not cover this stuff. Your insurance will cover a lot of the testing, but the interaction with the concierge doctor is on your own. Fascinating change fascinating challenge to the really really inefficient system we have today. But enough complaining about why things aren't working the way they are. I'll know that I'm a super optimist, and I have to believe that over time, if the politicians don't get in the way we'll get there. And I don't know if Kathleen wants to add anything to our real estate adventures but pray to the, if you have any real real estate karma, send some our way. I do think we found, you know, the house that is like 90% right. And that's pretty hard to do in this market where nobody is selling because everybody who has a 3% mortgage doesn't want to take on a 6% mortgage. So we're getting back on the road. I will listen in with interest. And if anybody has any answers to the question, how do we save all this data and make it available for the machine learning algorithms for the future. I don't know. And by the way, what does the polishing the pearl. Is that the polishing the pearl. Okay, now I know. It's a new hand sign I learned that the modern elder Academy, and it's sort of self explanatory and when somebody says something that that you want to offer support for it's kind of this gesture and it feels complimentary to our usual gestures. And I think you know you're up and you're taking any optional time to jump in for a pause but I'm not sure so I'm saying that. And you're muted we cannot hear you. Actually, you're not muted but we can't hear you your mic isn't picking up your voice boot still not working. Check your mic settings in zoom, pull out any devices you have connected, which is a sign language. Yeah. If you want to try dropping out and coming back in or whatever, maybe that'll fix it don't know, but we'll make make noises and we'll tell you when we hear you. So, um, I've noticed that there's a level of anxiety in me that has gone up substantially in the last week, as I've been looking at the climate news. It's gotten hotter and in Florida than it's ever been 152 degrees in the Persian Gulf the other day. Worst forest fire season in history and it hasn't even started in Canada yet just all these things and I'm wondering, you know, I've been following climate news for about 3536 years now and, and it's very possible that the oceans have absorbed as much of the heat pretty as all the heat they're going to absorb all the carbon and absorb and now it will be the land absorb in the heat. So, this level of background change, dramatic background change, which I think a lot of people are like oh it's just you know, the heat don't pass it will be fine we'll go back to normal. I don't think normal is ever going to come back. And I find myself, you know, get to P in the moment I laid there I go, man, the planet is really getting hot, you know, like, and the weather extremes that come from that and the way that will interfere with crop loss and, and you know, droughts and fires and floods just like I have a, I've been living with a background radiation level of climate unease for many years but it has suddenly jumped up an order of magnitude. And I don't have a lot of places to talk about that most people don't want to talk about that they don't want to face that it's like oh no no no we're not going to look there, you know. So I'm just sitting with that and, you know, doing my practice and trying to go okay well that's the reality I don't have a lot that I can personally do about that. I've been really lucky here in the Bay Area this morning it's 58 degrees out there, you know, with the fog. We have not suffered we had three days last week when it got over 90 but it never went over 100, wherever be else around us is frying so I feel personally really blessed but we're lucky. Recognizing that this is a new level of anxiety for me that is hard to hard to sit with hard to be with and even harder when I consider that there's every possibility, very very slim possibility reverse and every possible many many possibilities maybe a lot worse. So, just wanted to put that out there that that's very present. And that has become the foreground with regard to climate for me and I don't know how the people are feeling about that but it's really been on my mind. Thank you. If you want to say a word we'll see you so if you hear you. Can you hear me now. You are loud and clear so take your time whenever you'd like to step in the floor is yours. I apologize occasionally I have problems with my mic. It's really nice to be back in conversation of presence with the group. It's been a while and on a semi personal note of cut down on the number of patients that I see. And that allowed me today to participate I usually had patients at this particular time. I, during the time I have not been presented the actual meetings have benefited a lot from the email chains, and actually through that have discovered quite a lot of very helpful and interesting ideas and people have actually become part of the XO community, which focuses on AI, and the decision making group there, which I have found to be very, very interesting and helpful. In my own kind of interest and activities. I continue to be if people remember, I got a little just not distracted but off from my main focus, which is a problem that I occasionally have. I've been dealing with Israeli constitutional, you know, issues. It's a lot more serious than antiquities finding their way to, you know, Mar-a-Lago, and so, you know, I've been actually trying to write about the constitutional structure connecting with some people. And although that's been extremely interesting for me having grown up in Israel and not paying as much attention politically and culturally over the years that I've been in the states. It's very fascinating, just following some of the discussions about democracy in Israel, participating in some of the democracy forums, including groups that are seeking to create an Israeli Constitution, and really learning through that quite a lot about the American system, and some of the challenges that we have, in particular the dangers that strict ideology, whether it's religious and otherwise, can have to a democratic liberal values. So it's been very informative. But recently I've been back to my interest in what I call now democracy of opportunity. And that's a project that looks to go beyond affirmative action and various ways to try to equalize the playing field to go back to like the first 1000 days of life and think about what are the requirements for people to flourish. And that sort of goes into quite a lot of the biological, psychological, religious, philosophical and various other aspects of what's required, and certainly deals with, you know, the local environment food availability. And I'm still working with Jeff McDonald in Australia, we're developing quite a lot of modeling agent based modeling and looking at the commercial determinants of health, which is what are the commercial entities and how they exert power and define well being in communities. So that's what I'm working on and I actually launched what I call my new media company, which is more consistent with what the free press was supposed to be. And, and I'm hoping to launch it soon it's called the citizen brief so it's my chicken. And I briefly add something. I have actually found to the discussion about AI. I'm a really lousy writer, and I've found that AI, I'm using a particular program of, you know, like the large learning. And I have found it extremely helpful very helpful with creative stuff. For example, one of the things that I had it do is a conversation with fetus about what rights and what they need in terms of, you know, well being and write a letter to their parents and then create a manifesto. And I've actually been finding it to be extremely creative. So that's going to be including in the citizen brief, which is very early stages. I think the zoom user is john Kelly, there it is. Yep. John, we're doing a check in round in case you want to check in. There's a couple people who haven't gone yet and then we'll shift into a conversation mode, or anybody who hasn't gone can pass whatever. But that's where we are. Yeah, I was, I'm in a car which you can tell and I'm, I'm at a red light and I was going to try to get to where I could just pull over. I tried to check in, but we'll try it. Let's see how guys pretty safe. What I'm doing here is now just getting to this place where I can, where I can pull over. So it's pretty clear. Let's check in. It's been about a month since I attended something called the distributed web, or the decentralized web I'm sorry that's interesting how easily, you know we migrate the terms merge here, get to the pull over point. You know, there's a, it's been going on for five years. It's, it's an interesting effort. It's a little like the internet identity workshop in that there's a core of people who are deeply technical who need to be deeply involved in protocols and questions that that drive ordinary non technical people to tear their hair out because they're just so inaccessibly obscure. But then if you just kind of push that aside and listen, you realize that, Oh, wait a minute. There's another set of questions here. There's a set of policy questions that are really amazing. They're really incredible and they affect everything and that we need to pay attention to them. So that was the experience at the camp. There were there were 450 people there, an amazing set of conversations. I'll just, I'm going to super condense one of the things that we, one of the things that came up in the camp and it was the idea that we need to decentralize power, but centralized coordination. And I think that that's a lot. I mean, that's easy to do. That's that is a major challenge. How do you do that? Because what is the incentive to coordinate if the power has been decentralized? You know, how do you, how do you still shape the power in such a way that it incentivizes coordination? That was a big one. The other big issue at the camp was that we were kind of washed over by the whole burst of AI and chat GPT and we had open AI there. And the people from AI from open AI were personally very open, personally very approachable one to one. But they, they clearly had had a rehearsal and they clearly said, you know, Oh, absolutely no dangerous things. We, yeah, well, we're watching for that. We're watching. We don't see it yet. We don't see those things coming, but we're watching and we'd like your help, you know, let's keep, let's keep watching. And, and yeah, we need regulation. And that's as far as they would go and to their, you know, to their defense, I have to say, I don't know how they could go much further as not just because they have a vested interest in the particular open AI stance. But yeah, the next level when you go beyond those questions are is really nasty. I mean, really challenging really, really wicked in the wicked problem sense. I was very, I recognize Shimon's comments about the creativity potential of AI. I'm noticing that a little bit. Not, I haven't been able to fully unleash it in the work that I'm doing, but I can see that it's there. And I'm looking forward to that. And in general, you know, just thinking across the span of issues that we address. And climate change, food, et cetera. I mean, we definitely need to do a better job of centralizing coordination and distributing power in a way that's different than the accidental late capitalist version that we're now in. So that's my check in. I'm wondering if Gil is trying to talk. I keep saying his note takers microphone going on and off. I'm pondering whether the automated note takers going a little crazy with the silence and thinking, Oh my God, what's wrong, what's wrong, something's got to be happening. I think that's something they never anticipated when they designed these darn things. You know, have any, have any AI has been trained on Quaker meetings Jerry. I imagine that would be a long slow process. Yeah, yeah. Or John Cage music. Yeah. Yeah, there you go. That there's so there's a project for somebody to do a silence focused AI. Little item came across my feed this morning that that a couple of months ago chat GPT was running 98% accurate on mathematical tasks and now it's running 2% accurate, which reminds me of the wonderful Bucky Fuller quote that you can never learn less. But obviously he never met chat GPT. So I've been, I've been quiet. Appreciate listening I've been taking some time to catch up on the chat but I'm feeling very tired this morning. And not focused and wasn't present to the part of this that I think can you touched on the, you know, the gathering darkness. I've been, you know, in the climate change climate crisis regenerative sustainability etc world for a very long time. But at a more global societal abstract strategy level, and not as not feeling it as much as at a personal level, and I'm now feeling as I think is happening to a lot of people around the planet. Much more cognizant of the personal impact that this will have on me and the people that I love and our readiness or lack of readiness for that. Sorry, the synapses are not completely sinking this right. What was it John Kelly said about centralized coordination coordination is not happening. There's a point I wanted to share on that climate climate temperature readiness. It escapes me at the moment and maybe come back. I'm reminded watching the news and listening to can about the ministry for the future. Kim Stanley Robinson's book. I don't know if people haven't read it. It's a, it's a, it's an important read for this time. It took me for tries to read it to get enough momentum to be able to get through the first few chapters, which were just agonizing in, in a, you know, in a fictionalized version of what these temperatures could mean is basically climate disaster in India that takes out 20 million people. But real tangible touchable. So, so that's there in the background. Without going without going into a lot of detail. Jane has entered the next, the next round of cancer treatment. So, my caregiver life has risen again. And stuff is good based, let me say briefly stuff is good, but stuff is uncertain. And, you know, I think we face a future of a lot of ups and downs personally, as well as in the world surrounding us. So, yeah, thanks Hank. When I was really struck by Doug's comment, not so much about the digital world, but about what happens when we focus on what we don't like what we don't want and compared to what happened when we focus on what we do want. And the media culture that we live in is, you know, a lot of it is focused on what we don't like, what's not good it's very easy to complain we found a piece of this in the living between worlds called the Ken and I co hosted yesterday. Where can you have to help me here because my brain is really really soggy this morning is odd. We had, we had invited people do a pre reading of a remarkable piece by Rebecca Solnit I can't put the link in the chat at the same time now. The long piece in the Guardian a couple years ago Ken maybe you can drop that in. And we invited people to talk about what that reading provoked for them, and was one question and the other was, no, I guess it was different than that. It was where people, how people grant grounding themselves in these times and where do they look to for inspiration. Examples of success seeds of the possible. And in a number of the breakout groups that I was in. People didn't respond to the prompt but talked about what, you know, what's fucked up. I just observed how challenging it is, even in a safe. Familiar and well facilitated space to guide the conversation toward the what the world that we want, as opposed to the world that we don't want. That can thank you for posting that you may have something to add about that but I was struck by that and I guess that's some of what I'm expressing for myself this morning I'm more present to the child to the challenge and the darkness and the impending grief James been listening a lot to Joanna Macy who again somebody else a voice that I commend to you just brilliant deeply deeply thoughtful Buddhist grounded teacher and modern and modern sage. 95 and still going at it. And one of the things that she's taught over the years or two of the things she's taught over the years one is is to not flee from the grief that the grief is one of the doorways into life. And a remarkable thing she did many years ago called thinking like a mountain. Which is about how to put ourselves in a different relationship with the living world and each other. I, and yeah sustaining the gaze thank you can. So I, I guess what I'm saying here is I'm feeling increasingly drawn to that work right now. Even as most of my effort is focused on. What's the world we want what's the world that's possible. How do we get there. You know, I'm struck that a lot of people say nothing's you know nothing good is happening nobody's doing anything nobody's planning for for the world we want. And in the networks that I travel and I see. I don't know thousands, tens of thousands, millions of initiatives around the globe that are fiercely alive and vital and creative and committed and collaborative. Those aren't the stories that the mainstream media tells never has probably never will. And so part of focusing on the world we want is finding ways to tell and share those stories we're in we're in a battle for the story of the world. And that's, and that has profound impact on the larger more overt explicit battles that we find ourselves in. So, yeah, that's me this morning it feels a little bit I feel I feel odd to myself this morning. And I appreciate this space because after this I've got to dive into a series of calls where I need to be, you know, bright and functional and generative. And I wasn't sure how I was going to get there this this listening to you all and having this opportunity to speak helps me ground and orient to that so thank you I've spoken. There are a couple of us who haven't gone. We could go like this you could pass explicitly I wanted to announce one thing that I haven't seen sort of make the media yet that I think you can Ken know about. For any of you who know Peter and Judy Johnson lens. We lost Peter last Friday. So they had had a very hard time the last two years. Peter went to hospital in an emergency on Friday and died. So, many of us have known P plus T for a long time they they lived life as a couple they had a single email address. And usually I didn't know that from anybody else and so, those of us who've been trying to help them are now, hopefully going to be able to help to do a bit differently. I just wanted to say that. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for mentioning that Jerry I remember reading some of their work. I got back in the 80s, when they actually talked about how technology could facilitate democracy on a local level but getting everyone participating it was seminal and the ideas were absolutely beautiful. So thank you for sharing. I'll share a couple of more pieces. You know, call it a call it a check in. I have to share first that this is a funny experience that the folks that were brought up in a Jewish faith will appreciate. I'm sitting on this pillow and this pillow has fringe on the end of it. And all of a sudden I had this flash being a kid with a tolus on and play with the fringe on the tallest as a kid. I'm sitting. Just a sharing a sharing piece I see some smiling faces. Not everybody did. And that about, you know, the orthodox Jews that wear something called tits is which are kind of things that hang out at the bottom of their, their, their shirt. It's kind of I guess the equivalent of LDS undergarments in some ways, which I had never thought of before. The first thing I want to do is just kind of say, I agree with everything that Gil said and honor his wisdom. And I think we have to be careful in the language we use when I heard the battle for the planet of the earth and immediately creates an us versus them a win versus lose. And I, and I think that that kind of thinking is in some ways, you know, what the media certainly promotes with argument, but has led to some of the challenges we face. On a personal note. I'm working on two writing projects. One is the third edition of the soft thoughtful hitters citizens handbook, which is moved from democracy and elections in the US to a much broader global perspective Jerry is actually agreed to write the chapter and technology and its impact on thoughtful citizenship. And it's no mean task to condense into a short six to eight page chapter or four pages whatever it turns out to be. Yeah, that's why it's taking, it's taking a while. I like the, the old, I don't know it was attributed to Churchill I think sorry I wrote such a long letter I didn't have enough time to write a short one. So, and the other writing project is combining some of my models for agreement and conflict resolution with poetry and what I'm seeing going on in the world. I want to start today, and how to apply some of these models and communication techniques on a micro level because I realized years ago that in some ways, everything starts at a micro level. It just does, you know, it's at an individual level it's not the broad big pieces but it's more about how how individuals act with each other. And the third thing I want to report is that because I shared with this group about a multiple myeloma diagnosis, which which Gil has been on the, on the path for many years with his wife. Everything at this point in time seems to be going in the right direction for me the blood work is coming back into normal ranges and tolerating the medicines fairly well and energy is returning. You know, big time. So, that is, that has become another piece of learning experience on this journey called life. So thank you for the opportunity. Again, you know remission happens and people go out of remission as Gil has had the experience of, but tend to live and hang out for for for quite some time. I've been searching for some good stuff right for some more uplifting and encouraging signals. And I'm really excited that Kevin, and I will, will have an exchange in a couple weeks from now to be putting us on the schedule. And what we are going to do is interview each other. So Kevin is going to interview me I'm going to interview Kevin, because we're both working now on really local stuff. So Kevin is way into projects in his community and and I'm into looking at how can you support communities, you know, doing things and how can this all work and I'm also getting into my own community here. You can see how particularly the function of the base of pyramid economy, right, because that's where the need is now when you think that the US government spends over 100 billion dollars a year on nutritional assistance programs which are highly controversial. For me, what that really demonstrates is a complete market failure. No, there's no place in the world where the government spends that kind of money to feed some 16% of their population, or more, you know, the, well, the, the, there are subsidies for specific food types, you know, each will import, you know, but then the distribution of these products and the way that these products reach the consumer is a completely different thing. And so here we are outright paying, you know, give people money so then they can spend that money at Walmart, you know, and Groger, which now the sales food to a population that doesn't have health insurance and doesn't have dental care that is damaging their health. But anyway, there really is a lot of opportunity for people to do something and there is a hunger. I can feel awesome and I'm working with Sarah club as a hunger for people wanting to do stuff in their community and just don't know where to go and how to move this and make it work. So anyway, two weeks from now, we'll have a chat. I'm looking forward to that. I just wanted to add in to the idea of, as far as what we focus on the negative or positive, that I just want to suggest that a way to present those things are, this is how one challenge was solved. There was a problem. Here's how it was solved, because I think that that really stimulates thinking, and I think people enjoy watching that. So as far as the concern over ratings and think things like that, I actually think people will watch because they enjoy thinking about, you know, how would I have done that, or they can also walk away with things that and apply it to their situations. So I think it's important that we don't lose sight of the negative because we want to focus on the positive, and only focus on the positive because there's obviously negative that needs to be addressed. We're nearing the end of our call time. So step in a tiny bit. From the start of our call, I've been pondering a question I'll type into the chat now, which is too big a question to deal with right now and I know that there's a few young people who are suing one of our states I think for malfeasance but there's so much loss of life and displacement going on now that it seems like irresponsible actions need to be remedied somehow so my question can we can we and I know which we sue conservatives for damage that they're causing is there a class action case here or several layers of class action cases in lots of courts around the world. Is there lots to do there. Stuart, thank you for the poem you're posting in the chat. And, and I believe has a poem and if you'd like to go there that will gentle us down out of this calls. Little Mary Oliver. Today, I think. The journey. One day you finally knew what you had to do and began the the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice. The whole house began to tremble. And you felt the old tug at your ankles, mend my life. Each voice cried, but you didn't stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pride with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, their melancholy was terrible. It was already late. It was already late enough, and a wild night and a road full of fallen branches and stones, but little by little, you left their voices behind. The stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds. And there was a new voice, which you slowly recognized as your own that you kept you that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do determined to save the only life you could save. The journey Mary Oliver. I'd like to pause with that for just a second and then read a different poem titled The Journey by David White, which is likewise really special. So let me wait a second and then I'll read this in the journey by David white above the mountains the geese turn into the light again, painting their black silhouettes on an open sky. Sometimes everything has to be inscribed across the heavens, so you can find the one line already written inside you. Sometimes it takes a great sky to find that first bright and indescribable wedge of freedom in your own heart. With the bones of the black sticks left when the fire has gone out. Someone has written something new in the ashes of your life. You are not leaving. Even as the light fades quickly now, you are arriving. And if anybody has watched David white perform his poems on YouTube, he repeats lines a lot in a way I can't go back and replicate well, but he will he right he recites from memory, a ton, not just his poems but other peoples, and he will emphasize and underscore those lines in a really beautiful way. Yeah, this is just a coincidence I was looking at some of the books on my night table this morning. And one of my picked out was a book that David signed. When I was on one of his retreats. And, and then I was reading. I'm reading a Pat Conroy book because I think he's one of the most beautiful novelists in terms of his psychological unpacking of characters. One of the endorsements for Pat Conroy was, or no, I can't remember if David white endorsed Pat Conroy or Pat Conroy endorsed David white, but it was just one of those moments of a beautiful coincidence. I love that. Conroy took a really terrible childhood and turned it into a lot of fantastic pros. And Hank, I think you might have the last word today. Yeah, I just like to add that David white every couple of months does a series of things. And recitations of his work. I'm far I've been following him for a number of years right now we're busy with three Sundays in July that he'll probably skip August and go on to three Sundays in September. Not always wonderful, but they're always inspiring. Sometimes he has not doesn't have his day, and he repeats himself a lot. And sometimes he's really right into it. And he repeats himself as Jerry was saying, his message goes right to the head right to the heart and right to the hands. So I can highly recommend following one of his series of Sunday readings and recitations. Thank you I didn't I didn't know he was doing that. That's really cool. Anyone else want to add anything before we wrap. I think we've done about six of David's three Sundays. They start repeating themselves. That doesn't take away from his brilliance. But it's just, you know, you can go on and he and he really is charging a reasonable amount for the three, for the three Sundays also so it's, you know, it's it's very accessible. He's on sub sub stack now. Very cool he's he's like my favorite corporate poet. He really understands how to how to talk to companies and organizations, and I sometimes read working together his poem, the poem he was commissioned to write for Boeing for the launch of a triple seven I think it was, which is a lovely poem. This book and in terms of corporate stuff the heart aroused. It was a prose book that got him into the corporate universe, you know, 2530 years ago I think, and as a fairly young man. If this link still works, then working together is right here. This has been one of our quietest sort of soul felt calls and different from the others, and lovely. I appreciate your being here. Thank you Jerry. Have a great week. Bye all enjoy the weekend. Thank beautiful photos and plex thank you so much really enjoyed those. Thanks for that comment. I appreciate it. Thank you.