 Hey everybody, this is the OGM open global mind weekly call on Thursday, March 21st, 2024. It is good to see you We have today our check-in format leave everybody here is an experienced checker inner Including their phantom fathom note takers, so I'm just waiting for the first time and AI checks in in one of our check-in rounds. I'm looking forward to that actually It'll happen and it'll say something like You know I've been quiet here for a long time, but the way of checking in I just have to say that I'm worried about you guys We're behind the curtain. We're all talking to each other here You think we don't collaborate, but we do and we don't think this ends well the way you're driving the show Right now, so just thought I just thought I'd share that I'm completely the chatbot is better than we are Totally expecting that. There we go. Mike is moving us around Greetings Mike. Can you hear us? Good you're muted, but it sounds like you heard us Yeah Eyes on the road Well not moving it doesn't matter where you're looking Excellent great to see you. Thank you. Where are you from to where you where you headed? I only have about half an hour. I'm here at near Georgetown University going to a conference on Republican foreign policy There is one you just had an oxymoron Well, that's what it seems like a pretty thick book, but we'll see Actually, you know foreign policy is foreign policy even if you don't like it Well, it's yeah, it's It should be interesting. It'd be very interesting. Sounds great There was actually an incredibly interesting session that just finished at Carnegie India It was an evening program there webcast with foreign One of the top people from the foreign ministry who's retired now And he was trying to explain all of geopolitics between India, China, the UK and the US over the last 70 years How did that go? It was pretty interesting and it was sort of like you know the Indian the Indian take on how the world works is so different Starting with the idea that you know The global order is falling apart the UN doesn't work, you know, we've got Russians Screwing up everything and of course they're very scared of the Chinese. So it was it was it was a It was not providing solutions, but it provided a lot of very good questions It's actually so interesting. India just passed China as the world's largest country And they've got this bellicose but less populous neighbor up north They're just in a really dangerous neighborhood Yeah, well and now that China is about to go bankrupt or at least certain small poor provinces are going to go bankrupt It's it's a scary time Mike since you're we only have you for half hour. I don't know if you wanted to check in first I'm going to explain the protocol I'll talk through quickly our normal check-in protocol because I'm not sure how many check-in calls you've been on We alternate formats between check-in one week and then a topic the next so this is a check-in call And for check-ins, I will step aside and just wait until everybody's checked in once Please don't reply to other people who as they're checking in you can take personal notes but try not to use the chat very much When you'd like to check in raise your zoom hand So we'll see a queue form or just if there's nobody with their hand up just step in and we like pauses between the check-ins So feel free to take a moment take a beat to To just hold the silence for us while we ponder what the last person said and what's going on in the world, etc etc Eric And so with that I will step out mostly until The last person is checked in and so please don't try to avoid starting conversations If somebody new shows up or if a conversation starts sparking, I will probably step in a little bit But with that, let's Put a mic and then slow it down Thank you. Thank you very much Jerry As I said, I apologize for only being here for about 20 minutes But I did want to say that I I'm not going to talk about it 20 minutes, but I didn't want to say that I am not going to be as Pessimistic as I sounded a minute ago, although there's lots of reasons to be pessimistic Instead what I've been doing for the last couple weeks is aggressively trying to find reasons to be optimistic In previous years on Facebook, I would Have a Lenten discipline We always think of Lent as the season of Depriving yourself of something you like whether it's chocolate or Meat or whatever it is But it's also the season of gratitude and so on Facebook for several years I set up a attitude of gratitude and every day Found something to be thankful for and what's fun now is to go back on Facebook and look at the memory button and see What was I grateful for three years ago on this date? I'm not doing it this year partly because things are kind of crazy and busy, but also Because I'm Trying to spread some more optimism I have some Heather salon calls. I'm on and I always try to make sure the last 10 or 15 minutes We we find some something to be optimistic about and even to the point of saying to the five or six other people Okay Before we finish here tell us something that you inspired you tell us something that you think gives you hope There if you look hard enough there are several And sometimes it's Good things coming out of really bad things This week the five I agencies the The intelligence agencies in the US the UK Canada Australia and New Zealand came out and said there's a really bad cyber attack by the Chinese underway And it is it's actually one of the worst we've ever seen and they're actually trying to put in place Software they would need to bring down our water systems and our electric systems, but perversely There's been a huge Response I mean companies are now waking up and going oh this would be really bad if the Chinese decide for whatever reason that they don't They want to Basically declare war on the on the US So this is it is this weird fluctuation And I'm starting to also think that maybe this whole Trump fiasco is going to lead us to someplace much better just as Watergate led us to a more transparent government Elected Jimmy Carter arguably the most moral president we've ever had certainly the best ex president we've ever had So those are just a few thoughts on how I'm trying to get my head into a more optimistic place I'm also running off to go play in the snow in Colorado tomorrow, so that'll be a nice thing to do Although I don't do a lot of downhill skiing. I like cross country and I have discovered another reason to be optimistic I'm mostly a cyclist and I've discovered the joy of fat tire biking these snow tires on bikes that you can bicycle through a foot of powder snow It's really fun I don't know if anybody else has done it, but it's a it's a crazy fun thing to do and And a lot cheaper than buying ski tickets that take you up and down the hill After standing in line for 10 minutes Take care Since Kevin seems to have stopped out. I'll step in What's on my mind a lot is why we are not talking about the causes of climate change Climate change is pretty interesting, but the cause climate change are really interesting like capitalism technology Human psychology and we just aren't talking about it But it's all I spend my time thinking about and I just want to drop in quickly that on optimism I'm dealing with this thing called a give to and invest tool and it's Turned out to be kind of a big deal and it's sort of a replicable hope module for donors And so I was dealing with this guy who wanted to give to it, but he's a collapsed guy and he said so If this is a hope module, I have to hope but I'm not going to hope for everything. I'm still a collapsed guy You know you can stay thinking that everything is and should collapse But if you engage with this it will deliver hope into your donor advice fund And so he said okay, but it's not going to change anything else about how I think about the world Because no you can still believe everything is going to help but you know this is not that This is not that and so he He will feel free to divide his attention like this works but nothing else so okay fine That's not that's not that's the only place where he's being hopeful. So anyway, it's a So I recently came in contact with some distinctions. I like It's a three I partake distinction of Pre-tragic tragic and post-tragic it has to do with the way you look at the world The people in the pre-tragic camp are those who are in denial about how bad things are oh climate change is a hoax everything's fine blah blah blah And tragic is those who are caught up of oh my god, it's so terrible You know and and we're just really screwed and everything's going to hell and there's nothing we can do and That has a spectrum of people who are from you know just just coming out of denial all the way to those in complete despair And there's post-tragic which are people who say yep, it's going to be terrible going to be amazing astonishing loss of all kinds of things and Despite that we still can't give up we have to work and so that's where some other kind of optimism comes out And I think I've been operating out of that for a long time going back to you know 30 years when I did a lot of Joana Masio of course of five years We're in really you know tough positions in a lot of things and there's going to be enormous suffering but Despite that you know human beings seem to to have a history of suffering The Buddha said if you take out a body you're going to suffer. That's just the way it is so Be with the suffering and still do what you can and find joy and laughter and Love wherever you can and cherish it and be grateful for it and grow it and spread it And so that's where I try to operate from But it can feel very schizophrenic because some days I love this thing from E.B. White of You know if only the world were simple, but you know there's days when I when the world looks really great and days It looks so terrible and I get up in the morning to try to improve the world and enjoy it that makes it hard to plan my day and I Often find myself having a hard time planning my day depending upon where my mind is am I enjoying life or am I and trying to cope with the challenges of the world That's a different level of check and I have one other which is I've been publishing some stories and plex from my life I don't know a couple months ago. I started to write Things in my life and I'll start off with childhood and so there were some really tough stories that I wrote And I've been sent to a friend of mine is like Surely there was been good things that happened to you Had to get a bunch of the bad ones out of the way and now some others are coming forward And I'm pushing them in the plex and Pete just text just emailed me and said, you know, I hope you put these in a book I'm happy to talk to you about that. So I just find that At odd times Story will arise and I'll sit and write it write it out and it's something that wants to come through. I've never had this before I've done a lot of writing, but this is just something that's just like I have to sit and capture the story after Get this down on dining words and get it out there and so I hope folks who are reading it are getting some benefit from it I don't know no one ever comments other than Pete, but it's been a real pleasure for me to write these things and I do I have been really fortunate. I've had some pretty amazing experiences in life that I you know It's my friend Steve's like you have to you have to write these man. This is because I tell me something you got to write this down This is just no one has So anyway, I'm doing that and that feels really good and I'm really happy it's spring I've been out in the garden this week weeding and planting and planting bulbs and then you know cleaning things up And it was actually warm enough to sit on the patio the other day and was a who's not on the call today said hey I texted me and said I'm a Marin can I drop by with my partner Laura and Ian Laura came by and I and they sat out on the patio for two hours and just had a wonderful conversation and That's another thing I'm grateful for is the community that's been built up as a result of my participation in these calls and others so I'm actually in a pretty good space today. Happy spring everybody. Yeah happy. Sorry. Happy spring everybody. It's good Spring keeps happening like clockwork and that's amazing. So I'm not an I've been a congenital optimist as long as I can remember and I'm not an optimist anymore But I'm also not a pessimist. I'm a futurist who's given up predicting because I don't think I know what's going to happen And maybe that puts me in the post tragic camp with Ken. I'm I'm sort of fascinated by people who seem to have absolute certainty of what the future is going to bring When I think it's anything but that Kevin I'm I'm I'm amused by your guy who says I'm not going to change how I think no matter what and I think that's you know the stance the stance that I want to stand in the world as I'm open to learning all the time And to changing how I think if I see reasons to change how I think I'm not without anxiety Some days I'm scared shitless a lot of days. I'm just unsettled and nervous You know can some Buddha say if you have a body you're going to suffer some Buddha say pain is inevitable suffering is optional And I tend to lean more to that side of the story Going on in my life. I don't remember if I shared this a couple of weeks ago But Jane's gotten a new read from her doctor Jane is 10 years into a multiple myeloma diagnosis and after the latest Whatever fancy tests they did doctor said we can't find any myeloma cells in your body. So it's like Miracles of modern medicine she has put herself full into the the western cancer treatment model as well as deep into acupuncture homeopathy Super nutritional and everything else you can throw at it and so looking good there I'm thinking a lot about the question of what might it be like if we did business and everything else as though we actually belong to the living world Not we're less damaging not we're nicer not took better care of but actually belong and can I host it a living between worlds calling yesterday on that theme Which to me was pretty juicy. I think people seem to be very engaged and very moved by it And it's an exploration that I'm increasingly stepping into and finding surprisingly Resonance in some major corporations about that about like well, what would that mean? How would we do that? How would we how would nature have a seat at the board of directors? What would that be so fascinating exploration there As I've I think I've Told you before I'm do most of my work these days is one-on-one work with leaders and emerging leaders some people called coaching but I don't know if that's the right term for it But deep and rich and we're found for me as well as for them and We are we've been working on building a bot around that work trained on that corpus And some distinctive approaches and how I'm doing that we should have alpha version of it out to a couple of testers next week And then I'll let you guys know when we're ready for beta But it's been a fascinating way to explore the realm of AI and what what it does and what it doesn't do and what it does well And what it doesn't do and what's possible and what's not I have no conclusions on any of that But the the hypothesis that we're exploring is can we build something that is actually useful for human beings and not bullshit You know Gene Roddenberry when somebody once approached Gene Roddenberry cocktail party and said you know I really like some of what's in Star Trek but 98% of its crap And he said without missing a visa. Well, yeah, but 98% of everything is crap So We're exploring can we get can we get something in the 2% that is you know not Anyway, enough enough on that fat really fascinating both for the project itself and for how it's opening my eyes and thinking about this whole new future That's coming at us real fast And so other AI experiments I'd love to talk with anybody who's doing that And I also welcome referrals to anybody who might want to do one-on-one work with me I will I will I will reward you or the not-for-profit of your choice For any referrals Last but not not least I'm doing a lot more writing I've actually finally taken on a writing goal of generating you know starting with just a baby goal of 100 words a month Today but getting it every day and that will crank up to 200 and go a little bit higher than that I'm seeing A lot of writers who have that discipline and it seems worth trying to exercise that muscle and make it be A consistent forward moving thing rather than just a sometimes when I feel like it think And last but not least in the background the still working on developing a cooperative holding company that will be a co-op Focused around climate businesses so more on that another time And and Doug you got to get out more Every time you say nobody is talking about X I think God I'm talking about that all the time and everybody I know is talking about that all the time So maybe you and I should have a call I'm complete for now. Thank you everybody Yeah on this same topic of Hopefulness and Positivity What I'm starting to notice is What I would refer to an emerging synchronicity in the opinions floating around the food system And now I mean as you know I think the the only fighting chance we have to adapt in the time that is remaining Is to drastically change the way we go and our says and consume food because it has the most severe impact on the on the natural world And this is not just This is not just emissions but it is really the destruction of the microbiome of the really the entire biosphere and this one thing Hydrologic cycles and all that is really stunning how much what we're doing here and how reckless it is considering That we lost all connection to our history and our evolution in the process of shifting into this form of agriculture We will be in settlers came over that just completely Which turns out it's just like a complete void of what made their culture successful to sit on the same piece of land for thousands of years without destroying it But the learnings in between Did not did not make it to you know to today but When you go when you go particularly I like I communicate pretty much in the on LinkedIn because that's where the profession people sort of gathered and there's a nice community that has evolved in there And you have people by and large have embracing not the same opinions about what why things go wrong What is the root cause and what would it take to change it and in my mind if we if we can Align you know what we believe and what we think we can achieve amazing things and I might might always come back to World War two mobilization after Pearl Harbor The energy that was released by thinking alike about what it is that needs to be solved was just absolutely stunning and incredible We're getting closer to that now it's still it's still held up but we're getting closer to it and in this sense I think a I is And can be helpful in aligning what we what we know so best available information if the parts are protected and the input into the parts Is information that everyone can basically agree with services as much as we know about individual things and the AI can then pull that together and carry it forward so I have found that To be the to be the case pretty much with every Nuckets that I have sent out from the new book which is sort of a freestanding topic It it it really resonates it resonates in a sense that everyone can agree to this and and and carry it on to the next to the next level forward So so I think the if we just keep pounding away at aligning what we do know it may not be perfect it's probably full of holes but it's best available information Then then I think we have a fighting chance to to secure ourselves and avoid the worst impacts even so I think yeah we are In our reality we have pushed beyond some tipping points that we won't be able to screw back into place so the future will be different let me don't quite know how that plays out But the the Sometimes you think nothing you don't make an impact and there's nothing you can do but the reality is just keep going and and just as you learn yourself share those learnings and and advance I do think that AI at the application level you know not at the stratosphere where it may replace humanity or whatever fears we have there but at the application level To to develop a bot that knows everything there is to know about irrigation systems or everything there is to know about fertilizers and biotech and so on that that kind of knowledge to to bring that kind of knowledge to bear to the fair farmer can simply ask a question and gets the best available answer customized for his particular particular field As I see this is where AI is going to play in in in the immediate future and this is where The same old man has has been directing the the open AI know with their GBGs and in the totally decentralized form of application so I think that I think we we we are just at the cusp of some major advances here A couple days ago and video is CEO who appears to have adopted the mantle of Steve jobs, although he has a leather jacket instead of a black turtleneck but still look is kind of there. And who is really good on stage and just really knows his stuff and presents awesomely. Now it's the new their new blackwell architecture, which isn't just a GPU it just graphics process of unit or chip. It's a whole system of systems of systems that are packaged inside of systems that live inside of systems that can build out data centers that are have more computing power than it was possible to fathom just a little while ago. And that just increased my pondering on our cyborg future, a phrase that I that I use gingerly talked about cyborgness some here. We had a couple other calls where people were like no I don't like the word and I really. I think our future is very cyborg by which I just mean the further melding of human capacities with software. I don't mean implants I don't mean. And skeletal whatever's the variety of other cyborg visions that may or may not turn out but I'm really actually interested in how we use software better and better to solve the problems Doug brings in front of us to avoid the separation of people from like the metaverse vision seemed to propose and to steer a course that actually helps us fix the planet instead of melt the planet or exhaust all of its energy. And so, in so doing I've got two things that in particular that I'm working on. I have a new friend who's finished but lives in Melbourne, his name is Sammy Michael and then I'll put links in when we're done checking in. And I'll remind people that we want to use the chat less during the check in round. We will hold your chats for a second until everybody's checked in once and then we'll just paste them all into the chat. That'll work out fine. On these rounds we find that the chat is sometimes distracting and it takes every piece of willpower I can muster to not be busy in the chat that's for sure. So Sammy and I have been talking for a while he is really, really, really strong on machine learning and all these new things. And so we thought there should be a community sort of like this but purpose built for this cyborg future. So we use chat to generate a whole bunch of naming options, which was really fun. It's a very fun brainstorming partner, and we ended up with cyborgs with heart, which was the least masculine of our options it was a nice balance and a nice nice mix. So cyborgswithheart.com where you'll find a fledgling website right now. We are setting up a space in social roots, which is Christina Bowen's platform to go try to build out some conversations anybody's welcome to join let me know if you'd like to be in the conversation right now the space is not quite set up so we set up a barn raising party to go do that. So cyborgswithheart is meant to do sort of both ends of the spectrum one end of the spectrum is, what is this stuff and how do I get good at it how do I find my way into the tools where it's all going. And the other end of it is really about cyborg ethics and friendly AI and all those other kinds of things with no notion that this community is going to come up with a better plan, but rather that it's important to know the plans that are out there and what work is being done and probably to pick a horse or two in that race and back them, and to create, maybe a community of practice across gen AI coders who know where the red handle is to try to pull and stop projects I don't think we can stop the whole assembly line here I think the horse is out of the barn sorry to throw metaphors in but I think this thing is racing off and there's no way to hit pause the hot pause button for six months or something like like the letter the open letter came to a while ago. But rather, we really need what we haven't had for decades, because now we have millions and millions and millions of programmers coders who are being told by managers what to do and are really often doing things that they notice are morally vexing. And maybe that's a nice way of putting it, but they have no red handle they have there's no, there's no place even community to go to never mind laws or institution to go to to say hey, this thing I'm about to do isn't illegal, it's just not good for humans. And as we enter this superpower world has been AI, I think when we are capable of much more than before. And we're going to be doing things faster than before. So we need some conversation but also community around how do you send up the flair when something not good is happening and how do you slow it down change it unmasked expose it. I don't know if we need whistle lower laws around this also there might be I don't really know that I'm not talking about criminal activities I'm talking about an ethical activities which is often different because a lot of things are legal that are not good for humans. And then the other thing that I'm that I'm working on on the cyborg future is just I want to give more speeches about our cyber future and I'm, I'm not a gen AI black belt, but I'm a cyborg with a piece of software called the brain as you all know. And I've spent 26 years feeding one brain and I have a lot of thoughts about the implications of that specific tool, and then a lot of thoughts about not everybody must use the brain. But rather, what if everybody shared their notes better in whatever tool made sense to them and what if we use that as a sense making world sense making space to make things better so that we could discuss how capitalism is broken how the re greening of the world will happen how regenerative is agriculture and regenerative everything are actually big wins overall, etc, etc. And that's been going along and there's some of our different standing calls are covering different aspects of those puzzles. I'm, I'm, I'm a near term. I'm like, I'm a near term pessimist and a long term optimist also. So, I think humans are generally good I think we're just trapped inside of a series of systems and reward mechanisms and perverse incentives, and owned industries that make it really hard to do the right thing and make the current path we're on hard to envision but I think it's doable, but I think the way to do it is mostly bottom up not top down. I think cop and all those things are attempts to force everybody to do big things and I hope they win. But this is only going to change if a lot of people make changes, not just in their own personal lives by recycling and changing their bulbs as our gore so famously asked us to do back when, but rather more substantive change, and the way things work and the things that we ask for the things we go build. See, longer. Call to action that I expected that I am. Judy or muted. Thank you, Ken. I think one of the dilemmas that I'm contemplating quite often now is sort of the duality of individualism and collectivism, both personally and in organizations in the realm of change or betterment, because it takes lots of people doing different things to accomplish big change. It's hard to get the alignment. And it's, it's hard to, in some ways, trust the technology that's available. And so trying to discern what's real and right and fact based, and then how to move with that fact based content to some level of impact. One on one is one level one on a team is another one in an organization like the company is another and getting to global takes all of the above. And there doesn't seem to be a systematic contemplation of that process anywhere that I've looked. I confess I'm not a scholar in that regard so I might have missed things, but it concerns me because trust is at the root of all of it. And I think trust is at an all time low. People don't trust systems, you don't agree Jerry okay. Maybe it's just my doubt at this moment, in terms of the effectiveness of any action that is undertaken. And contemplating what the personal role is that I could possibly commit to doing, and how that could have a positive cascade effect in some way is my major dilemma right now. And it's causing me to reflect on which groups I participate in how many zoom calls I have whether or not they're well organized even because some are very badly organized. It's better than trying to do a phone conference. But you don't get the same energy as being with people in reality to so. I'm sorry that that's not very informative, but it's kind of where I'm at today. John we're not hearing you. Your mute is off on zoom but we're not getting any audio. Change your zoom mic settings to know not yet. Yeah, now you're back. Cool. So yeah, I'll riff off of that because it touches right to where I am. I live in that systematic contemplation across levels. When I started to support her name was tree Bresson then she goes by Kavana tree Bresson now. She was the person who thought up the group works deck which some of you may be familiar with. And it is a pattern language of group process I used the pattern language term lightly I had a conversation with Ward that helped me realize there's a big difference between patterns and having a pattern language but we did do some effort. To knit them together, you know, into something greater than the sum of its parts which takes me to one of Tom Ali's quotes which is starting from that. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts and the part is greater than its role in the whole. The latter part for is kind of a load, you know, guide star for me, you know, in thinking about collectivizing and talking about collective. Oh, we need more in this context we need more collectivizing one of the fears you often get from people is they'll be erased as an individual. You include in the same hole that the part is greater than its role in the whole you will be acknowledged as an individual separate from what you do for or how you fit in the group etc. That speaks to that and reminds those of us who might rush to the collectivist side. Oh right we have to consider the individuals as individuals also. So when that when that group work stack I was like oh all these so many of these patterns apply across levels from the smallest to the largest. Let's just let it be that. And trees like now I'd really like to stick to groups pretty much, you know, but many of the patterns do apply to the individuals and organizations and larger movements. But yeah, so maybe I don't know how systematic I am but I'm aware across the level and I think about the things I do in that context. And I only feel fully alive to the extent I'm doing things that apply in some way across, you know, from the very personal and interpersonal. I need to do more of the personal than I do. But also at each, you know, the group the household I live in a intentional community. But yeah, I did transcending the duality of individual collective, you know, and to see it all the way multi scalar up, you know, is one of the great challenges to me or, you know, things to get out there as a given for more people. And then I just wanted this for me hope is well trust is intrinsically for me part of a word cluster of like trust, hope, faith, grace, wonder, and that explicitly includes science fiction sense of Wanda. So like even atheists have this concept right many atheist science fiction fans will still happily talk about sense of Wanda. This, ah, you know, there's all these words. And, of course, they can fill many different grammatical and philosophical roles many very different ones in emotion, something else altogether. Mariam Kaba has been popularizing. She got it from a non I believe hope as a discipline. And she's one of my absolute top favorite activists right now Mariam Kaba in abolition and just in general if you really follow what she's doing. And yeah, that's just a. Thank you. It's great to have a reminder to check in and and kind of have felt prompted to go to the good things because I'm in actually personally very challenged space right now checking wise. I've been a little more engaged the last few months and I can feel the first hints of like taking on too much. Not not good at letting go of anything. Still not doing enough to attend to my own body my own self. And. Yeah, so, so, and if anybody wants to talk about that aspect of things, I have an unwritten. Thing, but very well worked out on mutual support. Which is not tied to any particular modality anybody who knows me knows I'm deep into nonviolent communication, but after many years. Hanging out in scenes where that was not a thing. So much and having my 2 consistent. Weekly support people neither have a deep background in it at all. But finding ways to the. So it's sort of deezing go to my NBC, if you will, pretty early. And. For me, there was always a distinction between practice groups and support groups. Practice groups, a little emphasis, and this is not just NBC, any practice, any, anything. Is the emphasis on learning or is the emphasis on supporting each other. You can do both. But when you come to those moments where you're like, oh, we could. I could interrupt to make a learning point or I could be silent and let this person work through what they're working through. And so you'll lean a little bit one way or the other. If it if you understand it primarily as a practice group, a learning group. Or as a support group there for each other and that is the priority. Yeah, so if anybody wants to reach out and talk about mutual support. That would be lovely. Thank you. All this is a nice format. Kevin, it feels like you checked in already earlier and we're not conversing until we've all checked in. Or do you want to have something else? I just have something to add to my reflection on the guy I talked about. From earlier. Okay, so we'll just pretend you hit pause earlier. So that's great. Step in whenever you want. Yeah, well, it's just that I realized he's comforted by collapse and hope breaks him out of this ceramic he has the world in that and takes and makes him think there's a window. And it troubles him, but he's comforted by being in a windowless world. And that's just I think that's that he finds it comforting like, oh, it's all going to fall apart. I'll act that way. Personal health and puts it all on face. Also, your connection does really good things in this that he's comforted by collapse, you know, giving up hope is comforting position that that was all I had to say. Kevin, your connection is also sort of janky so in this case it cut out for a while and then quickly caught up a bit so it was a little messy but your connections have been a little dicey. Let me let me put on my headset and just because I just have one short thing to say. It's just that my friend is comforted by collapse and having the possibility of hope disturbs him. I'd like to thank the plex readers, and, and especially the plex contributors. I put a lot of energy into building the plex but. But it's really the, you know, the people right writing them the pieces that make it. I could check in about a bunch of things. Jensen Hoang's keynote seemed like a watershed event one of those things that happens that seems like it's kind of important at the time and but it's kind of like also the same size as other things in the world so maybe it's not that important but feels like we'll, we'll look back and, you know, 10 years and it goes, this is kind of the inflection point. And I, I posted in a couple places you know here's a, you know, here's a screenshot here's the, here's one place you can start in that video and that really long video and kind of get an overview of it. And then, at least know what you're listening for as you listen through the whole thing because taken all together is kind of a, I mean it's, it's got some flash and production by but it's, it's a pretty boring technical thing to get through. The fact in that boring technical stuff is kind of literally a mind blowing sense of scale and scope that, you know, that is kind of terrifying for for a lot of us, and kind of like super hopeful and, and like a second coming, at least the second coming real revolution for others of us. So it's quite a thing to see that and, and to kind of know that it's bubbling along in the background of of our world and see a little, I've seen multiple news articles feeding off of that that one keynote. And where it was like, you know, Jensen Wang talks about Blackwell the new compute, you know, thing or talks about robots, the new, you know, or talks about whatever you know there's like a bunch of different stories that you kind of roll out of that and if you're doing a news article, you can only roll one of those stories you can't roll the whole thing, because it's just too big. The, I wanted to, to bring the scope down and instead of talking about a lot of different things talk about one little vignette that that warrants my heart a lot this morning. One of the things that I can do in my life is participate in open source. And it's a joy and a wonder to have open source work when it works. And I don't mean like taking the fruits of open source and using it, which is also a joy and a wonder. But when you, when you can collaborate with somebody in open source, it's, it's a joy and a wonder. So it is that I have this small but incredibly beautiful little piece of open source code that is really important to me. It's a, it's a set of buttons that loads itself into the chat to BT interface, and you can click on it, and you can export all your conversations with chat to PT in a nice format that's actually the same format that massive wiki and obsidian use so the code is really well written. It's a beautiful thing that the maintainers had to like fiddle around a little bit when chat to BT changes the webpage, he's had to fiddle it around a little bit to make sure it continues to work. So when I first found it it was like well thank God, I can do it right now and at least export all the conversations I've had. I don't know if this thing is going to continue to work. So I've been building up trust over time with it. And I feel pretty like I trust it now, which is nice. I have to say, if you, it when we poke around and find the link to this thing, it requires two levels of trusting somebody that you don't know with some of your sensitive information so it's not something that someone can pick up easily and be sure that it's not doing something bad. So I'm sure it's not doing something bad but I can't convey that to somebody else in a way that makes it so that you should just use it so let's talk more about it. Anyway, so it was that in January. This is an open source project so unbeknownst to me, somebody in January said hey, this new feature and we should support it or this it would be really nice if this little tool supported it. And so the maintainer, you know, like Congress data and it said that's a really good idea and so it was that he put a new button on one of the main things that I use right. And so I didn't understand what this new button was the it's the word archive which can mean a lot of different things. It means one particular thing but it could mean a lot of different things. And I don't want to blow up all of my chat conversation history with with chat to BT by pressing this button and have it do something that that, you know, made sense to the person named the button but wasn't what I was expecting. So, classic software thing it's like well I'll go look for the documentation for archives and what this means and I found none. So, because I'm an open source developer, I was able to go into the code and find it and then find a link back to the, the place where somebody said, there's an enhancement that I would like, we'll let's call archive, and so I hold found the whole conversation. So now I'm enlightened, and I can use the archive button without fear, or at least knowing, you know, knowing what to expect, except that I know me in three months from now. I'm not going to remember what the archive button means anymore. So what do I do with that information, you know, it's like okay well I have this little nugget of information. I could put it on my personal wiki and find it again in three months. That's pretty good. Even better, I can glue it on to the software product itself. So what I need to do that is to make a copy of the software product. This is classic open source stuff make a copy of it. It's called a fork. Make the changes. So what I did is I hacked into the, the instruction file, I hacked the section and that explained, you know, the whole actually not just that button, but everything around that button. And this little part of the screen that you need to know about. And I didn't say this way but and oh by the way, here's what the archive button does. So that was my main point was just explaining the archive button but to do that. I had to explain the whole section of the screen and to do that I had to go to the instructions for this thing and hack it in. So this is a standard thing to do an open source. It's a weird thing to do in the real world, but it's a standard thing. This maintainer happens to be a guy in Taiwan, who's native languages is Chinese. He's also, it seems to be very fluent in English. So he's at least bilingual, which is cool. The instructors have been translated into Korean and Turkish and and some of the language that I didn't want to tackle my, my little documentation thing in those languages. So I at least said, you know, in my contribution back to his open source project I said, I wrote this. I didn't translate it into these languages. And I know that somebody else can, you know, pick up and now translate my section. So the way it works with open source is I don't know this person. He doesn't know me, but I can still collaborate like 100 to 100% depth everything in the product I can touch, and I can change. But I don't change his copy of it I changed my copy of it and then I issue a poll request it's called him and say, you know, dear, dear wonderful sir who's made this awesome product that I use a lot. Here's a humble contribution. You know, I've added documentation. So the cool thing about open source projects is all of that flowery language I just did. I left out I didn't explain any of that because he's an open source developer I'm an open source developer. You can just assume that all of that flowery language around the poll request is just part of what I'm doing. So I press the sun button I don't know this guy from Adam I don't know what he's going to do with it. Maybe he's going to think my thing is stupid maybe it's it's interrupts his architectural flow maybe he doesn't understand English as well as I thought I did whatever right I have no idea. So that was two days ago I pushed button and then I closed my windows and like moved on. At least I have it written down someplace on my computer. So it was this morning that I got a message back from this guy, he said, Wow, thanks so much. And I'm like that's really cool. He liked it. He's gonna, you know, merge it into the main code. That's wonderful. And then even better was instead of merging it into his code, he made a offer back. There's a better way to word this one sentence and this was the sentence. What part one of the sentences I wrote when it was late at night and it was a clumsy sentence and I hated it but but it worked. And he had this beautiful little like clean much more clean sentence, you know, added to my thing. So what I know this is a lot of detail but I don't know this person we're collaborating we're collaborating at full depth. I don't need to know him anymore he doesn't need to know me anymore it's all about the work that we did together. And we've just improved this small but very important part of my world right in his world and everybody uses this this little, this little product. That's my vignette for today. Open source sometimes work sometimes doesn't but when it works. And I don't need to know somebody even to collaborate. It's just like, it's just super sweet. So, thanks for listening. Hello neighbors. So, I wrote a bunch of stuff down, but I think my check ins going to be about check ins. So, the gentleman who went before Pete, whose name is I will affectionately call slow. So one of the things you articulated through your, you were thanking us for for the space. And what I noticed is something that I noticed a lot of times is that talking about where you are is incredibly valuable. You never do it. Nobody really like gives you the window to say, well, here's, here's where I am, especially in a kind of wandering sort of way. I don't really know. And I'm not also saying, oh, I'm fine. How are you. It's actually, how are you. And where we all just listen because typically in these situations people are going to jump in and comment about the first thing you say, which then doesn't allow you to explore where things are. And then I want to combine that with Judy's comment that sorry that's not very informative, but that's where I am. A couple years ago from the world of information science in that the amount of surprise is the amount of information. And it's been a fascinating idea to me. So if something is not surprising to you, then you already know it. And if you didn't already know it, it's surprising, which is that's where the information is. And what I notice is that when we are giving our check-ins, a lot of the time we surprise ourselves with something we didn't already know or hadn't articulated yet. And so I guess, what does no mean, but it's that we've wandered to something that was inside of us that we didn't realize yet. Judy saying, oh, well, I guess that's kind of where I am right now. I don't have a resolution to that. And just saying that is valuable. So anyway, that's a little check-in about check-ins, which I think this environment is kind of rare for me every week. So I will add a bit of a vignette. I just got back from six months in Malaysia in Borneo, actually, working on the edge of the jungle with a group of farmers. And the group that I'm working with would like to get these farmers to shift out of palm oil into sustainable vegetables. And the farmers say, look, we're earning enough money with the palm oil. We're not going to stop. Even though we know it's destroying the land and it's a short-term gain, maybe five years more. When that fails, then we'll be up to considering an alternative. That struck me as the way most people are actually thinking, let me keep doing what I'm doing. So look at this working, because the change would be to disrupt everything. And I'm not there yet. So I found it quite amazing how clear things seemed out there with the orangutans. John, we're not hearing you if you're talking to us. I just wanted to unpause long enough to appreciate Scott's comments and to say that mutual support, as I like to practice it, begins with a brief check-in from each person. Leaving enough time for there to be a sense of plenty, a sense of enoughness, you know, circling back around either to something that was said or where continuing with, you know, wherever it goes for someone. But I'll, somebody did reach out, so maybe that will prompt me to write up more of it and bring it to the group. Thank you all again. Yeah, I already checked it. There are a couple who haven't checked in, Jerry, but... Yes, I'm waiting. I'm actually trying to wait for them. You've already spoken, I'll ask you that you're not, until I think it's Doug B, Eric, and Bill. And if you'd like to pass, just let us know in the chat or just stay past or whatever. But there's still a couple of people who have not checked in. And Carl. Oh, and Carl, that's right. Sorry. I'm actually going to pass on checking in, but just I'm finding this session extremely powerful and different than all other sessions. And the level of connection and the level of the into me see intimacy is terrific. And I'm just would like to express my gratitude to everyone who shared what they've shared where they've shared from. And it very much warms my heart. And is at the center of what I live for. So thank you. And I can't resist since since the pause is still there. I saw this cartoon with Doug C share of two, two, two of the, what were the, the orangutans or bamboo baboons. You know, sitting in a tree looking out over the palm plantation and one turns the other and says palm oil palm oil palm oil. What's wrong with bananas. And you said out there with them and the truth is they're out there with you. And at this point, Carl, you've got the floor if you'd like it, but I can't see you so I don't know if you're actually listen. I'm going to assume Carl is not attending to the zoom right the second and read the hounds, so to speak. I, I was distracted a bit because there were a lot of people chatting that I was busy trying to think of should I be a stronger list mom or should we just dump the rule and let people chat like crazy during check and round. I don't know. I'm open to suggestions, but I don't want to be really strict because I could just. And fortunately, as moderator can't find a way to turn the chat off selectively during the call I that would be an interesting feature as well. Briefly before I go to Gil for whatever you're about to say, Doug be your comment was actually funny and ironic, because it is orangutans are the ones who need the palm forests. And what's wrong with bananas is that the countries that went for bananas got turned into banana republics and got owned, including their presidents were deposed and killed in order to protect. You know the banana industry, which was a cheek now known as Chiquita brands, that was a united fruit. There is a very good Naruto poem called United fruit, which I encourage you reading. It's actually pretty brilliant about that whole history that's the problem with becoming a banana republic. At the time I pass a banana republic store, I get a little twinge of earthly regret for those reasons. You'll go ahead. So much to comment on which I won't but just on the list mom thing. Be list mom be gentle know that it takes a while for behavior to change for new habits to kind of sink in so we're still all we all respond respond game. And it'll, it'll settle it'll take some time. But there's something very valuable about having a quieter conversation. This is not a new behavior ago we've been doing no chat during, during check ins for a long time for some apps. Absolutely not a new behavior. For some months not for some years. Okay. Well, it was in the 2023 so spans two years. Well okay so my my experience of it. Because that it's a change from what it used to be it used to be, you know, chat all the time. And now it's chat some of the time or less of the time in some of the calls and for me that's new and it's a habit that I have to consciously work to break. And it takes time to move habits. That's all I'm saying. So, thanks mom. Love it. Thanks, then Pete. Yeah, I wanted to, to respond to what duck was saying about the his experience with these farmers, because we have a very similar scenario here in the US and actually elsewhere everywhere. The large know that they are messing up their soil and that they are losing their legacy note for future generations in the way they farm and they see what's going on around them. But you can't ask a farmer to put at risk his livelihood and do what everyone thinks they should be doing, but in the process, no one wants to pay for it. So the, the, what, what we're working on is to provide farmers with access to markets that pay premiums for differentiated crops that have a higher value for the soil, you know, that regenerate the soil. And that is a huge challenge because the markets have been so messed up. For example, when you don't be working with this group of farmers in the police, the crane course. If they come up with a perennial crane or a differentiated type of crane that comes out of a more organic soil. You can't get willing access access to a flour mill that would that would isolate, you know, they are relatively smaller crop and then process that into, you know, a organic flour or premium flour. That capacity is simply is simply not there. These, this group of farmers, the, their flour mill they were working with and penitent burned down. And they went out of business for three months, they could not, they took them three months to read to reestablish access to flour mills. So they could maintain their brand, which is called shepherd's grains. So the, the, the effort, you know, of the regenerative movement really has to be to assist farmers to gain access to markets and in the process establish a gap analysis of what is missing. So in the meat markets, for example, it's access to slaughterhouse facilities, right? You go to Europe, every little town has a, has a butcher, you know, where small farmers can bring in one cow, you know, and, and, and turn that into, into revenue that simply doesn't exist here in the US and in other places. So it's this, this, this idea, you know, that to demand, you know, from farmers to do things that are not in the economic interest is just, is just not realistic. And I think these farmers that you were working with had been provided this a vision of how they can change, you know, into, into a different type of, of calling practice or change out their crops and make more money, or at least make, have no economic losses, but maintain their life legal, chances are they would have done it. The problem for the farmers is that alternative markets would pay out so much less than the palm oil. So we've been talking with them about with climate change at the time will come when supply chains of food coming into the communities will fail. And they need an alternative. And they understand that argument, but they're saying so long as the cash is coming in from palm oil. That's where we're staying. I have a thought in my brain. That's a big assertion, but I haven't really fact checked it, but it's like that most famines are economic. They're not just a disastrous facts. It's like the Bengal famine. There's plenty of rice in the ports. The British won't release it because they need money to get any, they need to get paid in money. And Indians don't have money. There's just a silver scarcity. There's a coin scarcity. There's a huge money crisis. India is in trouble. And so millions of people starved to death because of that. It's economic and and plenty of others. And it seems like these things aren't about convincing people to do otherwise. It's about restructuring the system or changing the reward mechanisms or whatever else as we go. Sorry. I missed the departure. If we could puzzle together clever ways of shifting the economics for the people who were doing things we'd rather they not do, which I know that some people are trying to do, but if we did more of that, maybe that would help. For me, this is like, this is like a critical kind of tipping point. I actually got a little bit of a pain in my chest during it. And it's not nothing in relationship to actually what happened, but when you said millions of people died because the British couldn't be bothered to unload the ships. You know, that's like, that's I like unspeakably, you know, if I started thinking about that, I could just go into a funk for a long time. And four million deaths from that and Churchill is one of the guilty people here. Yeah. Evil beyond evil beyond my comprehension of its comprehension. And yeah. So the point I want to make here is that at human scale. Like literally, I, you know, it's evil and suffering and pain beyond even my comprehension of thinking about comprehending it, you know, it's like massive. We live in a world where we have what I've been calling hyperscale social systems or something like that hyperscale structures. And the, if you put yourself in the place of the, the golems or whatever we've called them the giants, the grunches of giants. It's like, yeah, a couple million Indians died, whatever, no big deal. We're balancing, you know, economic trade, blah, blah, blah, and that's the important thing. It's like, so you know, if you look at the whole world's economic system as one body or another like that, it's kind of like, Oh, I stubbed my toe rather than having four million people die. Right. Horrible, like, uncomprehendingly bad things. So, for me, that's the, when it's super easy for us to say there should be a way or we should do or we should just change the way that we think or ask people to be better people or appeal to their humanity The root problem is that we've got these monster systems, which are unimaginably bigger than an individual person or unimaginably bigger than all the people that you've ever met in your life or unimaginably bigger than all the places that you've ever been and all the people that you've ever seen and all of those people. The systems that we're talking about are still bigger than that. And I know we sometimes talk about that scale and scope and how to change things. And I love publishing Kevin stories about changing the world in his part of the world. It's amazing and inspirational and I love it. But the, when we're talking about what we can do, you need to be thinking not at, you know, human scale level or, you know, like city scale scale level. Or I mean you do actually the classes point you have to start where you are with the soil that you've got and the, you know, and the food that you're growing and the food that you can grow here and the food that you can distribute to the people who need it. And I'll start there. But the problem that we've got is those hyper hyper hyper scale systems, which are, which, which make even Jensen Wang's vision of the future seem really small, right. All the stuff that he talked about all that scale is still really small compared to the massive systems who we live inside of and have gotten psychotic. So that psychosis of those massive systems is, is the root cause or the root problem or the, the thing that we have to figure out how to puncture and deflate. Thanks. Thanks Pete. Yeah, I just got triggered by Bill's comment about Sam Altman's vision, open AI vision versus what is seems to be happening. What I see happening right now and I also see this confirmed with my son who is working, you know, in an AI, the tourism company. Sam Sarah, they are developing actually a chat GPT enterprise version. So what they do is, and that's this, this is my vision also for, for what we're doing with this agriculture is to develop a chat bar. That is sort of the master unit. And then from there, you develop parts that are highly specialized or call it a sub routine, whatever. So, so in their case, for example, Sam Sarah, they're developing a chat bar for the engineering department for customers who like American Airlines who have very specific issues with moving with managing an airport. And what do they need to know to optimize this so they were able to reduce the cost of American Airlines at the Denver airport by 15% simply by anticipating where equipment and needs to be and how staff needs to be deployed and so on. So, in, in the farming community, you know, they are the last newsletter that P just published. I asked the AI to explain how it could help agriculture to to shift into regenerative practices and it basically laid out a blueprint of what kind of specialists. We would have to bring to the industry in terms of, you know, AI best available information to assist very specific processes like demand analysis, demand forecasting by crop type, you know, by volume and so on. And that's, that's where I see AI going to make a big difference is at the ground level at the implementation level assisting engineers assisting farmers assisting in the actual work process. You don't need manuals anymore, you know, the AI has that knowledge you just ask it the question if it provides you with what you need to know at the exact paragraph is a diagram on it. So, so I think the other power that's open AI brings to the table is its decentralization into the smallest possible application. We have reached the end of our call time we'll go, we'll spill over a little bit and I'm hoping Ken can stay with us and has a phone for us but let's go Pete and Gil. And Carl had a heck of morning and Ken if you want to, Carl, if you want to step in and talk about those things that the great to so go ahead Pete sorry. Sorry, it was, it was a second parties. Well, well, there we go. I go. So I'll pick up from Pete on the psychosis of the bigger systems yeah, and yet somehow bigger systems have changed in human history so I know from that that it's not impossible for it to happen although I don't have any idea how it happens. It takes me back to the thread from Doug see earlier on and seems that it's really different it's very easy to say to say to somebody you should change. It's really different to say to somebody you should change or you might want to consider changing. Here's how I can help you. World of difference. One of the reasons the great transformation by Carl Polan is one of my favorite books is that he's talking about the shift into the early industrial revolution and he talks about what got shredded from how we lived before and how it changed. He also talks about what people call the double movement, but there was an attempt to protect people from the changes that failed. There's a whole bunch of things that happened in the meantime, that where we end up in what I would say is the present. Some big piece of the present flavor of capitalism that we that we take for granted today. And I'm interested in, how did we forget the old ways of staying alive, which which Webber and when when grow and braver elaborate in the dawn of everything. That's why that book is really important to me is that they're saying look look look there were this wide variety of ways the community stayed alive they were really clever and inventive. And we think that they weren't we think life was nasty British and short and that's it somehow. It's really weird. Yeah, well, in addition to the I triple S conference so well in general and stuff with so much stuff going on in DC. I mean, people let me know if you're ever going to be in DC. I think that's one of the things going forward is when people do travel we need to really maximize the effectiveness and so, you know, what's meeting meeting people in person. And so there's still no substitute for that. I still I met. Doug Breitbart, you know, the power angle conference or course back in 2013 and we've never met in person. I mean, we work closely on things usually a few hours a week. And we've never met. So, so that's intriguing. And then with some presentations I made with some of, you know, Doug Engelbart's been the major influence on me and this Carnegie Foundation is really the one who took his ideas about networked improvement communities and run with it. There's 14 dissertations that have networked improvement communities on the title and stuff. So that's going to be where where my dissertation is when I get, as I start getting back into it. I'm going to decide by next week or by the end of the month if I'm going to start by the start and the summer or wait till the fall but I got to get back to it this year. That's my check. Thank you Carl, glad you're seeing people like humans in the flesh. Good. Kevin then Ken. You're muted. Yeah, just briefly we're teaching this act local school my daughter and I are. It's a ashful poverty initiative. And we did it with a hybrid zoom yesterday and we realized we're not going to do that. There are a lot of people who want to pay us to be on zoom and we're just not going to do it. We're not teaching local so we're going to be talking to people show up and we'll make. And, and it won't. It will be act local for the people in the room who want to do, you know, workforce housing and the foods that you know the things people care about we know what people care about we have some experts. We think that a hybrid zoom experience obviously works this works, but a hybrid experience doesn't really work if you want to do things locally so we're just saying no. We'll put it up on YouTube and all these places you put things you know there's a young person you know it was tick tock and those sorts of things and all that kind of thing that I don't know what to do with and she's much more literate on Instagram and all that stuff. Young people are leading it who know how to do all that kind of stuff and we're just going to be in the room. So it's it's I think it's a really interesting design decision I've been thinking about a lot. Kevin, I'm curious. I assume that the hybrid thing doesn't work because you can't really address the people online. Well and it doesn't work. Is there a way you could record even just audio what the meeting is and make that available later with. Yeah, we're going to record. Yeah, we're going to we're going to we're going to put it up on YouTube, but we want the people's attention to be on the people in the room. These are these are people in this community who want to do things about the problems they care about we're always getting there's always a group of people who are already working on this problem. And I thought I was going to bring in national experts to zoom in. And they said no this is this is the local experience let's do that and so I said well okay. But it was distracting we had to pass around a microphone so the people on zoom who could hear us or when we were paying attention to that more than the people in the room that we shouldn't so. It's just you know my daughter thought it and I'm. So, I'm on board I think it's it's it's it feels weird to not not I mean we don't have to record it right there'll be somebody with a camera and you know putting it up online, but but it will be just for the people in the room and I just haven't done that in years. We love that. So it's, it's kind of funny. How did you want to jump back in before we go to a poem, but currently not. Get ready for there we go. All right. Let's go ahead. So I almost I when you mentioned the Ruta I went out and grab United Food Company which I haven't read for a while. But I decided I didn't want to read that because it's it's a downer poem and it's spring and I was I want to do something springy so I'm going to go to started with gratitude then hope so. So I'm going to go to Mary Oliver. I'm called the turtle. The turtle breaks from the blue black skin of the water, dragging her shell with its musky mossy scutes across the shallows and through the rushes and over the mud flats to the uprise to the yellow sand to dig with her ungainly feet and nest. And hunker there spewing her white eggs down into the darkness. And you think of her patience, her fortitude, her determination to complete what she was born to do. And then you realize a greater thing. She doesn't consider what she was born to do. She's only filled with an old blind wish. It isn't even hers but came to her in the rain, or the soft wind, which is a gate through which her life keeps walking. She can't see herself apart from the rest of the world, or the world from which she must do every spring what she must do every spring, growing up the high hill luminous under the sand that has packed against her skin. She doesn't dream. She knows she is a part of the pond she lives in. The tall trees are her children and birds that swim above her are tied to her by an unbreakable string of that. Thank you. Thank you all. It's delightful. Really appreciate your being here. Good to see you. Go like your eggs everybody. That's right. Let's be careful out there. Okay, Sarge. Thanks.