WEBVTT 1 00:00:19.120 --> 00:00:23.440 Hello, and welcome to Western CIV. In this bonus author interview, I 2 00:00:23.559 --> 00:00:29.079 sit down with historian Tom Wheeler and we talk about his most recent book, 3 00:00:29.120 --> 00:00:33.399 Techlash, Who Makes the Rules in the Digital guilded Age link in the show 4 00:00:33.399 --> 00:00:35.840 notes if you want to take a look at picking up a copy of it. 5 00:00:36.119 --> 00:00:39.759 I think it's a great book, not just for history buffs in this 6 00:00:39.799 --> 00:00:43.000 particular case. Of course, history buffs are going to love it because it 7 00:00:43.000 --> 00:00:47.280 talks about the guilded Age, but it's also an interesting book if you're just 8 00:00:47.359 --> 00:00:52.920 interested in modern public policy, or if you're just kind of curious about, 9 00:00:53.119 --> 00:00:56.920 hey, what is AI and what is the government going to do about it? 10 00:00:57.560 --> 00:00:59.560 And I think one of the things that Tom and I come back to 11 00:00:59.600 --> 00:01:04.439 again is there's a lot of parallels between the past and the present, especially 12 00:01:04.480 --> 00:01:11.400 if you look at the rate of industrialized industrializing. I suppose technological change in 13 00:01:11.439 --> 00:01:15.519 the Gilded Age, so late nineteenth early twentieth century, and then the pace 14 00:01:15.519 --> 00:01:22.680 of change driven by superconductors and computers today, Like, it's the same in 15 00:01:22.719 --> 00:01:26.480 a lot of different ways, and how we react to it can do a 16 00:01:26.480 --> 00:01:30.400 lot and can say a lot about us as a society. So it's a 17 00:01:30.599 --> 00:01:33.760 there's a good interview. I originally hope you enjoy it. It's a wonderful 18 00:01:33.760 --> 00:01:36.599 book. Pick up. A copy link is in the show notes. And 19 00:01:36.680 --> 00:01:52.519 so therefore, without further ado, here's the interview. Okay, as I 20 00:01:52.599 --> 00:01:57.120 mentioned moments ago, I'm sitting down with his story and Tom Wheeler talking about 21 00:01:57.120 --> 00:02:00.760 his most recent book, tech Lash, Who makes the Rules in the Digital 22 00:02:01.200 --> 00:02:05.239 guilded Age. Well, first of all, thanks for using the word guilded 23 00:02:05.280 --> 00:02:07.879 Age, because it's one of those things that when I talk to students, 24 00:02:07.879 --> 00:02:12.120 their eyes just glaze over. But it's a really interesting period for me, 25 00:02:12.840 --> 00:02:16.759 and I love the connections to the modern day, and I actually think that 26 00:02:16.879 --> 00:02:23.599 there are a ton of parallels between the Guilded Age and the period that we 27 00:02:23.680 --> 00:02:25.639 find ourselves in right now, which is kind of what we're going to get 28 00:02:25.680 --> 00:02:30.919 into. But as you write in the introduction, and I hear this in 29 00:02:30.960 --> 00:02:36.240 different phrases everywhere, but I think it's really apt here. History doesn't necessarily 30 00:02:36.319 --> 00:02:40.199 repeat itself, but it certainly has consistent themes, and so kind of broadly, 31 00:02:40.360 --> 00:02:45.199 just kind of starting out, like, how does the Gilded Age relate 32 00:02:45.319 --> 00:02:50.120 to the age that we find ourselves in? Because trains and electricity seem the 33 00:02:50.120 --> 00:02:54.080 thing of the distant past. Well, first of all, Adam, thank 34 00:02:54.080 --> 00:02:59.479 you very much for inviting me, and it's a great pleasure to be with 35 00:02:59.520 --> 00:03:07.639 you and your listeners today. You know, you were talking about guilded and 36 00:03:07.719 --> 00:03:14.520 the Gilded Age and then talking about how today echoes that. You know, 37 00:03:14.560 --> 00:03:21.360 it was Mark Twain who who created the term the Gilded Age, and he 38 00:03:21.439 --> 00:03:27.680 also had that great observation that history doesn't repeat itself, but it sometimes rhymes. 39 00:03:28.240 --> 00:03:30.199 And I think that's what we're dealing with right now. You know, 40 00:03:30.479 --> 00:03:39.439 let's look at the similarities between today and the Gilded Age, which was the 41 00:03:39.520 --> 00:03:46.680 late nineteenth early twentieth century. You've got new technology driving change. You've got 42 00:03:46.719 --> 00:03:55.199 new economic models resulting new products, lower prices for many products. You've got 43 00:03:55.240 --> 00:04:00.319 the acceleration of life. You know, we never stop and think about back 44 00:04:00.360 --> 00:04:06.680 in the nineteen hundreds, how everybody was rebelling against how fast life had all 45 00:04:06.719 --> 00:04:12.759 of a sudden become. We've got the destruction of small businesses, the creation 46 00:04:12.919 --> 00:04:20.759 of monopolies, huge wealth disparities resulting consumer harm, and even fake news. 47 00:04:21.560 --> 00:04:27.639 So the key thing I think, and what I was trying to talk about 48 00:04:28.120 --> 00:04:36.680 in techlash is to look behind the whys for both the original Gilded Age and 49 00:04:36.720 --> 00:04:44.199 the digital Gilded Age and try and assess why it happened then, why it's 50 00:04:44.240 --> 00:04:48.000 happening now, what they did about it, and what that suggests for us. 51 00:04:48.319 --> 00:04:53.720 And I think that the whys are first of all, that in both 52 00:04:53.759 --> 00:05:03.920 instances it's technology driven. What changed life in the Gilded Age was the railroad, 53 00:05:04.279 --> 00:05:11.759 which was the first high speed network, then immediately followed by the telegraph, 54 00:05:12.800 --> 00:05:19.000 which was the first electronic network, and that then changed or created the 55 00:05:19.279 --> 00:05:33.920 Industrial Revolution and created opportunities for visionary entrepreneurs and their investors to create the new 56 00:05:34.040 --> 00:05:44.600 rules that would govern that new economy, acting kind of as pseudo governments. 57 00:05:45.680 --> 00:05:48.240 And you know, that's a very similar situation what we have today, a 58 00:05:48.279 --> 00:05:56.079 group of entrepreneurs and their investors driving change and acting like pseudo governments. Just 59 00:05:56.120 --> 00:06:00.519 to drill down on the change for a moment, I think it's art for 60 00:06:00.720 --> 00:06:08.279 us, certainly hard for my students to understand how novel over the course of 61 00:06:08.439 --> 00:06:14.319 total human history, this pace of change is nowadays. If you took a 62 00:06:15.079 --> 00:06:20.079 let's just say, peasant farmer in Gaul around the time of Julius Caesar and 63 00:06:20.120 --> 00:06:26.600 then you jump forward to the Frankish Empire under Charlemagne roughly a thousand years eight 64 00:06:26.680 --> 00:06:31.959 hundred years later. Their lives are probably fairly comparable. They honestly are. 65 00:06:32.000 --> 00:06:36.040 There's still subsistence farming. Yeah, there's been a change as to who they 66 00:06:36.079 --> 00:06:41.120 pay their taxes to, but you know, they'd never really cared about that 67 00:06:41.160 --> 00:06:45.920 in the first place, and so it's there. Just wasn't change. Life 68 00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:49.439 was very static for a long period of time, and then really starting with 69 00:06:49.519 --> 00:06:58.040 the Gilded Age, things explode and the pace of change becomes almost exponential, 70 00:06:58.560 --> 00:07:02.839 and that's something that draws VI obviously the opportunities for growth, but I mean, 71 00:07:02.879 --> 00:07:08.399 correct me if I'm wrong. It definitely drives the opportunities for conflict as 72 00:07:08.439 --> 00:07:13.800 well, certainly societal conflict. When you take a society that hadn't changed for 73 00:07:13.839 --> 00:07:17.439 such a long period of time and then due to technology, you force it 74 00:07:17.480 --> 00:07:19.879 to go through those changes. I don't know, what do you think about 75 00:07:19.920 --> 00:07:27.279 that? No, I think it's a really good point that the you know, 76 00:07:27.360 --> 00:07:34.160 there was even a scholarly paper in one of the medical journals of the 77 00:07:34.240 --> 00:07:45.279 time that talked about the effect of the change in the pace of life on 78 00:07:46.079 --> 00:07:48.920 human behavior and human human psychology. And they blamed it on the railroad, 79 00:07:50.480 --> 00:08:00.000 the steam printing press, and the telegraphs, as well as the increasing rights 80 00:08:00.079 --> 00:08:07.720 of women. But it was a it was in a medical journal and accepted 81 00:08:07.839 --> 00:08:11.360 at the time. You know, I think your point about, you know, 82 00:08:11.519 --> 00:08:22.360 looking back into medieval times and how things really didn't change and comparing it 83 00:08:22.399 --> 00:08:28.000 to first of the original guilded Age and then todday. Let me just give 84 00:08:28.000 --> 00:08:33.240 you an example between today and the original guilded Age. So in the midst 85 00:08:33.320 --> 00:08:41.360 of the original guilded Age, Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. It took 86 00:08:41.759 --> 00:08:52.639 one hundred and twenty five years before the telephone connected one billion people around the 87 00:08:52.679 --> 00:09:03.480 world. The Android mobile operating system, which we all see in smartphones, 88 00:09:03.759 --> 00:09:11.120 the Android mobile operating system, the equivalent, if you will, communications backbone 89 00:09:11.440 --> 00:09:20.600 of the twenty first century, took less than six years to reach that same 90 00:09:20.639 --> 00:09:28.080 point. That is speed, that is change coming at you at exponential speed. 91 00:09:28.279 --> 00:09:33.440 And I think that that's interesting. It's that exponential thing that that makes 92 00:09:33.480 --> 00:09:35.200 a big difference. Another thing that I always like to point out to students 93 00:09:35.240 --> 00:09:39.559 is that it takes and really I think in the guilded Age. This get 94 00:09:39.679 --> 00:09:46.279 starts to get cemented into place that we as humans, we finally start to 95 00:09:46.320 --> 00:09:52.879 become forward looking. Forever humans were backward looking. And I mean that in 96 00:09:52.960 --> 00:09:58.799 terms of science too. You know, the idea that really tell the scientific 97 00:09:58.840 --> 00:10:03.240 revolution that to learn about the world around you, it wasn't to experiment, 98 00:10:03.320 --> 00:10:07.519 It wasn't to go out and look at things. It was to read Aristotle, 99 00:10:07.720 --> 00:10:09.399 it was to read Plato, it was to go back. Always had 100 00:10:09.440 --> 00:10:13.399 to go back, go back, go back. Even the founding fathers in 101 00:10:13.399 --> 00:10:16.320 the United States when they're trying to come up with, you know, names 102 00:10:16.399 --> 00:10:18.799 for what are we going to have a Senate, Well, they didn't pull 103 00:10:18.840 --> 00:10:22.240 that out of a hat. You know, that comes directly from Republican rome 104 00:10:22.279 --> 00:10:26.320 that they're trying to I mean like, let's go back, let's figure out 105 00:10:26.320 --> 00:10:28.440 how to do this, and finally, in the Gilded Age and in our 106 00:10:28.559 --> 00:10:33.440 modern era, we start to look forward firmly for the first time. And 107 00:10:33.480 --> 00:10:37.120 I think that's a big change. I'm really interested in mindsets really, to 108 00:10:37.159 --> 00:10:41.080 be honest with you. I think you take a Roman citizen, you pull 109 00:10:41.120 --> 00:10:45.320 them, you get the you know, the delorea and the flux capacitor, 110 00:10:45.360 --> 00:10:46.879 and you go back in time and you grab him and you bring him up. 111 00:10:46.960 --> 00:10:50.080 I think he gets used to the technology faster than he gets used to 112 00:10:50.080 --> 00:10:54.200 the way that we look at the world now, the way that we view 113 00:10:54.240 --> 00:10:56.519 the world. I think that takes a longer time for him. But when 114 00:10:56.519 --> 00:11:00.559 we're talking about these inventions, like I like the idea the book of sort 115 00:11:00.600 --> 00:11:05.440 of like some inventions are just naturally catalysts for other inventions. You think of 116 00:11:05.480 --> 00:11:09.519 them as like explosions that sets off explosions, that sets off explosion over here 117 00:11:09.559 --> 00:11:11.919 and over there, Like, what are some examples of that, because I 118 00:11:11.960 --> 00:11:15.279 really think of that. In the Gilded Age, we see that really for 119 00:11:15.320 --> 00:11:20.159 the first time. Well, let me go back and just expand on that 120 00:11:20.200 --> 00:11:31.840 point a little bit. Adam, it is never the primary technology that is 121 00:11:31.879 --> 00:11:37.919 transformational, but it's secondary effect. You know, it wasn't you know, 122 00:11:39.759 --> 00:11:50.159 you want to go back and way back in history. Gutenberg's press spread information 123 00:11:50.960 --> 00:11:58.840 and knowledge, but it's real result, there's real transformation. Was what the 124 00:11:58.879 --> 00:12:03.679 effect of that was a little thing called the Reformation, you know, the 125 00:12:03.720 --> 00:12:09.120 Renaissance, the development of the scientific method. You look at the railroad in 126 00:12:09.519 --> 00:12:20.200 the in the Gilded Age, the railroad was the death of distance. You 127 00:12:20.240 --> 00:12:28.559 know, it had from time immemorial, it had been geography and physical barriers 128 00:12:28.720 --> 00:12:39.200 that determined the breadth of the of economic activity, and the railroad changed all 129 00:12:39.240 --> 00:12:41.879 of that. And then right on the heels of the railroad comes the telegraph, 130 00:12:43.440 --> 00:12:46.480 which was, you know, the end of time as a as a 131 00:12:46.559 --> 00:12:54.960 determining factor. And so what we're looking at in in both revolutions is we 132 00:12:54.000 --> 00:13:00.279 need to make sure that we're looking we're not focusing on the technology per se, 133 00:13:00.519 --> 00:13:03.879 but we're focusing on what its effects are. And if I can just 134 00:13:03.240 --> 00:13:11.759 jump forward a bit, that's the issue dealing with artificial intelligence today. You 135 00:13:11.799 --> 00:13:20.279 know, it's not artificial intelligence qua artificial intelligence that is the issue. It 136 00:13:20.360 --> 00:13:26.639 is what is going to be the effects of artificial intelligence, and our challenge 137 00:13:26.480 --> 00:13:33.840 as a species and the challenge of policy making. Since I spent a good 138 00:13:33.879 --> 00:13:43.480 deal of my life working on federal policies, the challenge of both the species 139 00:13:43.600 --> 00:13:50.440 and particular the subset of species that are involved in policy is the tendency to 140 00:13:52.360 --> 00:14:01.759 define tomorrow by what we understood yesterday. You know, I was sitting with 141 00:14:03.360 --> 00:14:07.120 the late Madeline Albright one time and we were having a discussion of the former 142 00:14:07.159 --> 00:14:15.360 Secretary of State, and we were having a discussion about the impact of technology 143 00:14:15.360 --> 00:14:20.399 on diplomacy, and she said, you know, the problem is with diplomacy 144 00:14:20.600 --> 00:14:26.039 is that we take twenty first century solutions, define them in twentieth century terms, 145 00:14:26.360 --> 00:14:31.600 and propose nineteenth century solutions. I said, Madam Secretary, I'm stealing 146 00:14:31.679 --> 00:14:37.080 that line because that is the reality that we're dealing with in the technology world 147 00:14:37.159 --> 00:14:45.519 as well. We we define twenty first century problems with twentieth century terms and 148 00:14:45.559 --> 00:14:52.000 proposed nineteenth century solutions. And so what I was suggesting in Techlash was that 149 00:14:52.200 --> 00:14:58.679 we need to think about new solutions that reflect the new realities of the twenty 150 00:14:58.720 --> 00:15:03.159 first century, of the digital Gilded Age. Yeah. I think that's a 151 00:15:03.200 --> 00:15:05.720 really good point, and I want to come back to the policy in just 152 00:15:05.759 --> 00:15:09.240 a second. But also for the listeners, you said something, you know, 153 00:15:09.360 --> 00:15:13.759 the train was the death of distance, and I want to drill into 154 00:15:13.759 --> 00:15:16.159 that just a little bit more. And the reason is because sometimes students will 155 00:15:16.200 --> 00:15:22.200 ask me, well, why aren't there Robert Barns prior to this age? 156 00:15:22.240 --> 00:15:26.360 Why aren't there Rockefellers, you know, why aren't there Carnegies? Why aren't 157 00:15:26.360 --> 00:15:30.519 there any of these people? And I often explain like, well, if 158 00:15:30.519 --> 00:15:35.200 you have a factory, but you don't have railroads, and I make shirts, 159 00:15:35.639 --> 00:15:39.440 it's very difficult for me to sell those shirts hundreds of miles away. 160 00:15:39.799 --> 00:15:45.360 I can sell them locally, right, but it's very difficult for me to 161 00:15:45.360 --> 00:15:48.559 do that. And you call these networks in the book, how these different 162 00:15:48.600 --> 00:15:54.840 sort of technology networks sort of spur and other innovations and drive things. I 163 00:15:54.879 --> 00:15:56.279 wonder if you could drill down on that for a second, because I thought 164 00:15:56.320 --> 00:16:00.320 that part of the book was really interesting. Well, thank you, Adam. 165 00:16:00.960 --> 00:16:06.320 Yeah, I mean, I'm a network guy. I've spent my professional 166 00:16:06.360 --> 00:16:14.519 career in the evolution of new networks and have come to the conclusion that we 167 00:16:14.720 --> 00:16:26.320 are as we connect, that it is our networks that define our commerce as 168 00:16:26.360 --> 00:16:30.000 well as our culture. And let me just let me give you an example. 169 00:16:30.080 --> 00:16:41.960 So Chicago became the second city in the United States because it was a 170 00:16:41.080 --> 00:16:55.279 railroad hub during the nineteenth century, and the first railroad line out of Chicago 171 00:16:56.919 --> 00:17:02.120 connected it with the Mississippi River at Alina, Illinois, and it was creatively 172 00:17:02.159 --> 00:17:11.400 called the Chicago and Galina Railroad. On its first run, the ceremonial run, 173 00:17:11.440 --> 00:17:15.160 where the investors were all pumped up and riding along. This is so 174 00:17:15.240 --> 00:17:22.079 exciting. A farmer comes up and says, hey, I got a wagon 175 00:17:22.440 --> 00:17:29.240 of bags of wheat here, can you take them into Chicago rather than me 176 00:17:29.519 --> 00:17:36.440 having to haul them all the way in there. And so the railroad created 177 00:17:36.480 --> 00:17:45.799 the Industrial Revolution by enabling the centralization of production that used to have to be 178 00:17:45.000 --> 00:17:51.640 close to the output of the raw materials. So you could move coal and 179 00:17:51.759 --> 00:17:57.920 steal to Pittsburgh. You could move raw agricultural products to Chicago, where the 180 00:17:57.960 --> 00:18:04.480 great slaughterhouses then grow up. And so networks are at the core of everything. 181 00:18:04.599 --> 00:18:15.720 And what's been interesting in recent times is that the networks of the nineteenth 182 00:18:17.039 --> 00:18:26.400 and twentieth century were centralizing networks. You know, think about railroads going to 183 00:18:26.480 --> 00:18:30.839 a switching yard where cars were then set on to another line going to another 184 00:18:30.920 --> 00:18:40.240 point. At that centralization point, businesses developed. You know, you had 185 00:18:40.279 --> 00:18:44.680 that that was where That was why Chicago became second city, and all the 186 00:18:45.160 --> 00:18:53.599 abertuis to to slaughter animals located, all the refineries for grain products were located. 187 00:18:56.720 --> 00:19:02.119 And that's the way networks worked for most of the nine the nineteenth and 188 00:19:02.200 --> 00:19:06.400 most of the twentieth century. And then along came this thing called the Internet, 189 00:19:07.160 --> 00:19:15.400 which, instead of doing its network activity at central points, distributed it 190 00:19:15.599 --> 00:19:25.359 and put it out into smaller and smaller hubs where the act where the switching 191 00:19:25.519 --> 00:19:34.240 activity occurred. And that Internet protocol, if you will, change the nature 192 00:19:34.680 --> 00:19:42.519 of economic and individual activity in the late twentieth and early twenty first century to 193 00:19:42.559 --> 00:19:49.039 push it outward. And that's what we're trying to deal with. Now. 194 00:19:49.480 --> 00:19:59.799 How do we exist in how do we make the rules for an economy and 195 00:19:59.839 --> 00:20:08.519 a society that has been operating on assumptions built around centralized activity in an era 196 00:20:10.079 --> 00:20:18.119 of distributed economic and individual activity. And that's the challenge that I try to 197 00:20:18.160 --> 00:20:22.079 address in tech lash. And you know, I would be remiss if I 198 00:20:23.200 --> 00:20:27.039 didn't point this out. As somebody who's from originally from Milwaukee, you know 199 00:20:27.079 --> 00:20:32.839 that Milwaukee was a larger city than Chicago until that's hammered into you as a 200 00:20:32.880 --> 00:20:37.000 school child up. Also, you know that the Pestigo River fire was more 201 00:20:37.039 --> 00:20:41.839 important than the Chicago fire, which is a dubious claim at best, but 202 00:20:41.559 --> 00:20:45.160 well we'll cling to it. Well while we're having fun. While we're having 203 00:20:45.200 --> 00:20:52.839 fun here for a second, Adam, The really interesting thing is that as 204 00:20:52.880 --> 00:21:00.400 the railroads were going west from the east. The Chicago city fathers noticed they 205 00:21:00.440 --> 00:21:07.400 were going to get bypassed, and so they illegally went out and built a 206 00:21:07.480 --> 00:21:14.519 line into Chicago to create the economic activity in Chicago. But they were at 207 00:21:14.559 --> 00:21:18.160 that point in time states had to grant charters for railroads. They said, 208 00:21:18.160 --> 00:21:21.039 the hell of that, We're going to go ahead and build this even without 209 00:21:21.039 --> 00:21:25.640 a state charter. Yeah, that's super interesting. That's super interesting because you 210 00:21:25.640 --> 00:21:29.119 know, the other things that railroads of course allow you to do is maybe 211 00:21:29.119 --> 00:21:32.440 for the first time in human history, you can have a major city that's 212 00:21:32.480 --> 00:21:34.480 not by a body of water for the first time. If you want to, 213 00:21:34.519 --> 00:21:38.279 if you go look at a map, guys, prior to the let's 214 00:21:38.279 --> 00:21:42.079 say it's the early eighteenth century, like, there are no cities that are 215 00:21:42.119 --> 00:21:45.720 not by major bodies of water. And whether that's a river, of major 216 00:21:45.839 --> 00:21:48.960 lake, or the ocean, that's just how it is. Because you couldn't 217 00:21:49.000 --> 00:21:53.599 move goods any other way. Suddenly with the railroad you can move things. 218 00:21:55.000 --> 00:21:57.119 So you talk about in the book, and you kind of started to discuss 219 00:21:57.160 --> 00:22:00.759 this a little bit, But I'm interested in this idea of industrialization versus de 220 00:22:00.960 --> 00:22:07.680 industrialization because you know, we talk about that oftentimes in schools as the move 221 00:22:07.720 --> 00:22:11.240 from a secondary economy to tertiary economy, so, you know, an industrialized 222 00:22:11.240 --> 00:22:15.960 economy to something that's information based, service based, which can mean a lot 223 00:22:15.960 --> 00:22:19.359 of things. People think it's sometimes it's just restaurants. Service industry is a 224 00:22:19.400 --> 00:22:25.319 lot more than that, but it's I wonder if you could talk about some 225 00:22:25.400 --> 00:22:27.920 of the factors that are at play in that, especially especially the move to 226 00:22:27.960 --> 00:22:32.799 a de industrialized economy, because I think then we can kind of talk a 227 00:22:32.839 --> 00:22:37.480 little bit about some of the growing pains Western societies have experienced in recent decades. 228 00:22:40.440 --> 00:22:47.680 Sure, so, I have a chapter in Techlash entitled this is Not 229 00:22:48.319 --> 00:22:56.440 in Capital Letters the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The World Economic Forum has popularized that 230 00:22:56.720 --> 00:23:07.440 concept, and my concern is that it misconstrues what is going on today as 231 00:23:07.519 --> 00:23:18.200 a continuation of industrial habits rather than a seismic shift, and in so doing 232 00:23:19.039 --> 00:23:25.559 it it starts us off on the wrong foot to how do we deal with 233 00:23:25.720 --> 00:23:27.240 these issues? But let me just give you a couple of a couple of 234 00:23:27.240 --> 00:23:36.680 examples. Start with the assets of the twenty first century compared to the assets 235 00:23:36.799 --> 00:23:41.559 of the industrial era. Industrial era assets were things you could stub your toe 236 00:23:41.599 --> 00:23:48.839 on right. Digital assets and the capital asset of the twenty first century is 237 00:23:48.920 --> 00:23:56.480 digital information. Digital assets are soft, there's there's zeros and ones you can 238 00:23:56.799 --> 00:23:59.720 ly you can hardly find them, let alone stub your toe on them. 239 00:24:00.079 --> 00:24:07.200 But they also behave very differently. Industrial assets were exhaustible. You use that 240 00:24:07.319 --> 00:24:14.720 ton of coal and it was gone. Digital assets are inexhaustible. You reuse 241 00:24:14.799 --> 00:24:19.720 the lines of code again and again and again. Industrial assets were expensive. 242 00:24:22.200 --> 00:24:30.799 Digital assets are inexpensive and are and approach zero cost on a marginal basis. 243 00:24:30.960 --> 00:24:41.519 Industrial assets were a use once kind of activity that that you know, if 244 00:24:41.559 --> 00:24:48.440 I burn that ton of coal, it's gone forever. A digital file if 245 00:24:48.559 --> 00:24:53.279 I well, if I if I subscribe to Facebook, Adam, I'm using 246 00:24:53.400 --> 00:25:02.759 the same digital files that you use and they and there's another action here that 247 00:25:02.799 --> 00:25:06.160 if I had a ton of coal, you didn't have a ton of coal. 248 00:25:07.039 --> 00:25:14.319 Uh. The economists call that rivalrous assets and digital assets are non rivalrous 249 00:25:14.319 --> 00:25:18.279 in that you and I can both share the same code for Facebook or the 250 00:25:18.319 --> 00:25:26.559 same word uh, document preparation in our Microsoft Uh the software And and then 251 00:25:26.720 --> 00:25:33.519 and then lastly, is that the really interesting thing about about digital assets. 252 00:25:33.559 --> 00:25:42.400 This different from industrial assets is that they're iterative. When you use a digital 253 00:25:42.720 --> 00:25:53.160 asset, you create digital information, which then itself can be used either to 254 00:25:55.039 --> 00:25:57.799 improve the product or to create a new product. You know, before I 255 00:25:57.799 --> 00:26:02.480 became chairman of the fc SEE, I was a partner in a venture capital 256 00:26:02.519 --> 00:26:12.240 firm and our focus was investing in Internet protocol based services because of the fact 257 00:26:14.359 --> 00:26:18.359 that they were iterative. It was not just what they did, but it 258 00:26:18.400 --> 00:26:25.240 was the data they threw off that created value. And those things together mean 259 00:26:25.440 --> 00:26:33.720 that the economy behaves differently. In the industrial era, it was scope and 260 00:26:33.799 --> 00:26:41.720 scale economies that industrialization brought. I mean, the difference between a couple of 261 00:26:41.759 --> 00:26:52.039 blacksmiths producing a plow and a plow being produced in a factory setting was huge 262 00:26:52.079 --> 00:26:57.240 in the amount of time invested and therefore the cost to the consumer. It 263 00:26:57.359 --> 00:27:04.839 brought to scale things that weren't at scale. Digital moves beyond that kind of 264 00:27:06.079 --> 00:27:15.119 linear growth to literally exponential growth where everything adds on everything else, and that 265 00:27:15.240 --> 00:27:22.759 changes the way businesses operate. That changes the way we interface with the technology 266 00:27:23.279 --> 00:27:30.759 and with each other. So one of the messages in techlash is that is 267 00:27:30.799 --> 00:27:37.920 that we need to cleave we need to get away from defining what's happening today 268 00:27:38.160 --> 00:27:45.440 as though it is an extension of the Industrial Revolution. I mean, it's 269 00:27:45.480 --> 00:27:52.039 a great point. I certainly hope that people read the book, but also 270 00:27:52.079 --> 00:27:56.119 can look at this scenario and recognize that what we have here is a break. 271 00:27:56.160 --> 00:28:00.359 It's not a continuation for all the reasons that you point out and for 272 00:28:00.480 --> 00:28:03.599 many others. But I want to kind of think about, all, right, 273 00:28:04.720 --> 00:28:11.240 what maybe lessons are there from the guilded Age if we start to think 274 00:28:11.240 --> 00:28:15.960 about some of the problems that are facing society right now, which is I 275 00:28:17.000 --> 00:28:21.160 mean, let's just think about maybe two, maybe misinformation, right which is 276 00:28:21.480 --> 00:28:23.440 a big I mean, it's in the media all the time, people are 277 00:28:23.480 --> 00:28:26.880 talking about it. How do we deal with misinformation? Well, they have 278 00:28:27.000 --> 00:28:30.720 that in the Guilded Age too, so maybe there's a lesson there. And 279 00:28:30.759 --> 00:28:34.000 then how do you just deal with this level of sort of decisive change. 280 00:28:34.000 --> 00:28:37.799 And I mean that from the perspective of it's a totally different skill set that 281 00:28:37.839 --> 00:28:41.960 we need people to have than we needed them to have in say, nineteen 282 00:28:42.079 --> 00:28:48.839 fifty. It's totally different. So how do we start to reorient society in 283 00:28:48.880 --> 00:28:52.359 a way to address some of those problems. I don't know if there's any 284 00:28:52.440 --> 00:28:59.759 lessons from the past about that. So I think you have hit the nail 285 00:28:59.839 --> 00:29:10.680 on the head, Adam, with the with the challenge that we're looking in 286 00:29:10.759 --> 00:29:18.839 the Gilded Age. In the original Guilded Age, they were confronting never before 287 00:29:19.559 --> 00:29:26.720 seen challenges. I mean, remember what what what the Gilded Age replaced, 288 00:29:26.200 --> 00:29:34.839 which was an agrarian, an artisan kind of economy, And all of a 289 00:29:34.920 --> 00:29:42.920 sudden you had people being pulled off the farms and brought to major cities that 290 00:29:44.039 --> 00:29:51.839 were where not only were they then working in factories to produce again at scale, 291 00:29:52.880 --> 00:29:56.519 but they were creating all kinds of problems that color epidemics would break out 292 00:29:56.559 --> 00:30:00.680 because there wasn't any good sanitation. We've I ever had that many people living 293 00:30:00.720 --> 00:30:08.160 together before. How do we deal with that? Fires became a real issue, 294 00:30:08.200 --> 00:30:12.759 how do we deal with that? How do we deal with education on 295 00:30:12.799 --> 00:30:19.640 a mass scale? So what happened in the original Gilded Age was a never 296 00:30:19.759 --> 00:30:33.400 before set scene of challenges that society responded to with never before seen solutions. 297 00:30:34.240 --> 00:30:40.119 And that's what we That's the kind of thinking that I hope comes out of 298 00:30:40.640 --> 00:30:52.119 techlash that we are today seeing never before seen challenges and we need to have 299 00:30:52.400 --> 00:31:00.079 never before seen thinking. But now to your point about about fake news for 300 00:31:00.119 --> 00:31:10.680 instance, and back to our friend mister Twain, there are echoes because in 301 00:31:11.799 --> 00:31:19.960 the Gilded Age, the publishers taking advantage of this new technology called the steam 302 00:31:21.039 --> 00:31:32.319 printing press, which allowed them to produce thick newspapers full of advertisements and room 303 00:31:32.359 --> 00:31:41.319 for plenty of information. Guys like William Randolph Hurst and Joseph Pulitzer took the 304 00:31:41.400 --> 00:31:47.279 attitude, hey, as long as it sells papers, who cares if it's 305 00:31:47.440 --> 00:31:53.720 true or not. And it was one of the great periods of fake news. 306 00:31:55.920 --> 00:32:07.480 And in nineteen twenty two a group of newspaper editors working for these guys 307 00:32:09.279 --> 00:32:16.319 organize the American Society of Newspaper Editors, and in nineteen twenty three they came 308 00:32:16.359 --> 00:32:22.880 out with a code of ethics. The first item in the code was tell 309 00:32:22.920 --> 00:32:32.799 the truth is a fantastic story where these individuals literally bit the hand that fed 310 00:32:32.839 --> 00:32:44.880 them in order to push for truth and balance. And you know, if 311 00:32:44.920 --> 00:32:49.000 you go back and you think about what are the things that are dangerous about 312 00:32:49.039 --> 00:32:57.400 the Internet today, and it's spread of wise hate, misinformation, it's exactly 313 00:32:57.440 --> 00:33:02.119 the same economic model it is, Hey, here is to attract a lot 314 00:33:02.160 --> 00:33:07.839 of people to the site so they can see advertising, and so we will 315 00:33:08.119 --> 00:33:19.759 curate the content for outrage rather than veracity. The trouble is that that curation 316 00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:23.880 is now done by algorithm, and then, unlike the editors of the nineteen 317 00:33:23.960 --> 00:33:31.519 twenties, algorithms have no moral compass. And so the challenge becomes, how 318 00:33:31.559 --> 00:33:37.680 do we as a society collectively step in and say no, we think there 319 00:33:37.720 --> 00:33:42.880 needs to be some kind of a code. And again, one of the 320 00:33:42.920 --> 00:33:46.720 things that I propose as a structure whereby that could be accomplished in government. 321 00:33:49.119 --> 00:33:52.240 And that's what I was going to ask you, because I mean, yes, 322 00:33:52.279 --> 00:33:55.799 thinking kind of back to our I mean not so distant mirror here of 323 00:33:55.839 --> 00:34:01.480 the guilded age because it's not that far, but certainly not the scope of 324 00:34:01.519 --> 00:34:06.759 things. But yeah, I mean that's great. Newspaper editors came together and 325 00:34:06.799 --> 00:34:10.039 came up with a code of ethics. I don't see. I don't see 326 00:34:10.079 --> 00:34:14.360 Elon Musk, you know, owner of I guess it's called X now I 327 00:34:14.480 --> 00:34:19.000 still call it Twitter, but whatever. I don't see him leading the charge 328 00:34:20.079 --> 00:34:25.199 to create a code of ethics for things that are posted online and it's changed 329 00:34:25.320 --> 00:34:29.280 in that. Yeah. I mean, you could go out and start your 330 00:34:29.320 --> 00:34:31.760 own newspaper a long time ago, no one's going to read it. Nowadays 331 00:34:31.760 --> 00:34:36.840 you could set up a YouTube channel or a podcast in five seconds. Who's 332 00:34:36.880 --> 00:34:40.159 monitoring you? You know? Is this at the end of the day. 333 00:34:40.960 --> 00:34:44.960 Is this going to have to come from government? I guess is my question. 334 00:34:45.119 --> 00:34:47.199 Like, I just don't know. I don't see a way out other 335 00:34:47.280 --> 00:34:50.960 than that as to who's going to step in. I don't know that we 336 00:34:50.960 --> 00:34:54.039 can trust the businesses to do it. So the front end in the back 337 00:34:54.159 --> 00:35:01.400 end, I think, are governmental where there needs to be an impetus to 338 00:35:01.480 --> 00:35:07.039 come up with the equivalent of that nineteen twenty three publishers code, editors code, 339 00:35:07.840 --> 00:35:12.199 and there needs to be enforcement. So at the front end and the 340 00:35:12.239 --> 00:35:16.599 back end, there's a role for government. Government can say we need to 341 00:35:16.639 --> 00:35:24.880 bring in the middle. Then is a multi stakeholder group. One of the 342 00:35:24.920 --> 00:35:35.480 things that we need to learn in the new digital Gilded Age is that the 343 00:35:35.519 --> 00:35:44.199 way in which government behaved in the original Gilded Age, the industrial era doesn't 344 00:35:44.239 --> 00:35:52.480 work today because it was so micromanaging and overcontrolling, and that has an impact 345 00:35:52.599 --> 00:35:59.079 on the innovation and investment that you want to encourage today. But the structure, 346 00:36:00.440 --> 00:36:07.039 so I came out of the wireless industry, and you know how did 347 00:36:07.079 --> 00:36:12.360 we get from one G, two G, A three G, A four 348 00:36:12.480 --> 00:36:15.000 G, a five G, and now six G is being worked on. 349 00:36:15.760 --> 00:36:24.800 It was the companies coming together to establish technical standards. Let's make sure that 350 00:36:25.039 --> 00:36:30.599 this will work across all devices, no matter who makes them, that it'll 351 00:36:30.639 --> 00:36:37.280 work in all countries, and that it'll work on all networks. That was 352 00:36:37.320 --> 00:36:44.199 a multi stakeholder process where the device manufacturers, the network operators, the equipment 353 00:36:44.199 --> 00:36:47.920 network equipment manufacturers all got together and said this is how we will agree to 354 00:36:49.000 --> 00:36:54.480 operate. It seems to me that we can take that same kind of establishment 355 00:36:54.719 --> 00:37:00.960 of a technical code, if you will, and use it to develop a 356 00:37:01.159 --> 00:37:07.679 behavioral code. But you need the front end of government saying we've had enough. 357 00:37:07.800 --> 00:37:10.920 You guys need to come together and resolve this. We're going to check 358 00:37:10.960 --> 00:37:15.199 it to make sure that it's not just you know, pretty pictures, and 359 00:37:15.239 --> 00:37:21.320 then there'll be an enforcement mechanism. But we need But I go back to 360 00:37:21.360 --> 00:37:25.679 the point that because we're facing never foreseen challenges, we've got to have never 361 00:37:25.760 --> 00:37:30.719 foreseen solutions and I couldn't agree with you more. And I want to be 362 00:37:30.760 --> 00:37:36.360 optimistic. I do. I'm an optimistic person in general. But at the 363 00:37:36.400 --> 00:37:39.000 same token, Tom, as you and I are sitting here having this conversation, 364 00:37:39.639 --> 00:37:44.719 there is no speaker of the House of Representatives, and there has not 365 00:37:44.840 --> 00:37:49.239 been for some time. And I wonder, I think to myself, well, 366 00:37:49.719 --> 00:37:54.400 could a digital regulation survive a filibuster infested Senate. I'm not sure. 367 00:37:55.360 --> 00:38:01.480 I just I want to be optimistic about governmently the way. I just wonder 368 00:38:02.280 --> 00:38:07.840 if we're to that point yet where that can happen. Let's go back in 369 00:38:07.960 --> 00:38:13.639 history again, Adam. Let's go back in history. It was the late 370 00:38:13.880 --> 00:38:20.760 nineteenth century. So the first federal regulatory agency, the Interstate Commerce Commission, 371 00:38:20.800 --> 00:38:27.639 was created in eighteen eighty seven. The Sherman Anti Trust Act was passed in 372 00:38:27.880 --> 00:38:35.119 eighteen ninety. The Pure Food and Drug Act was passed in nineteen oh six. 373 00:38:35.920 --> 00:38:42.199 The Federal Trade Commission Act was passed in nineteen fourteen. The Clayton Anti 374 00:38:42.239 --> 00:38:49.639 Trust Act was passed in nineteen fourteen. Remember those classic pictures that you saw 375 00:38:49.679 --> 00:38:55.000 in school and you're probably still using in class of the big, fat cat 376 00:38:55.519 --> 00:39:06.119 moneyed barons behind the rows of the United States Senate, and these rules were 377 00:39:06.199 --> 00:39:13.000 passed. These laws were passed at a time when corruption was rampant in the 378 00:39:13.079 --> 00:39:17.880 Congress of the United States. Literally cash was exchanged freely. You didn't vote 379 00:39:17.880 --> 00:39:23.199 against the railroads because the railroads gave you free tickets. And you know what, 380 00:39:23.320 --> 00:39:32.559 Adam, despite that kind of dysfunction, we the people. It was 381 00:39:32.599 --> 00:39:38.199 a combination by the way of both populists and progressives who said, hey, 382 00:39:38.199 --> 00:39:52.039 we've had enough and I want to believe that we the people again can express 383 00:39:52.079 --> 00:39:57.320 ourselves. And it's not going to be a overnight thing. It's not going 384 00:39:57.360 --> 00:40:00.280 to be a smooth thing. It's not going to be perfect from the start. 385 00:40:02.880 --> 00:40:05.719 I do agree with you, by the way, at the end of 386 00:40:05.800 --> 00:40:08.760 the day, I think that what the United States has shown us is I 387 00:40:08.760 --> 00:40:12.320 mean, we went through a civil war and we survived a civil war. 388 00:40:12.400 --> 00:40:15.039 So when people say things have never been this bad in this country, like, 389 00:40:15.079 --> 00:40:19.079 well, we did fight a civil war. But I think that there 390 00:40:19.280 --> 00:40:22.079 is a way out. Just because I don't see it yet doesn't mean that 391 00:40:22.119 --> 00:40:25.239 it's not going to form. But what I agree with you completely from this 392 00:40:25.360 --> 00:40:30.519 talk today is that new problems do require new solutions. The notion that we're 393 00:40:30.519 --> 00:40:35.119 going to look back to the past and find a way out of this is 394 00:40:35.440 --> 00:40:38.239 silly, especially based off of the pace of change. One other I want 395 00:40:38.280 --> 00:40:42.039 to ask you this question, and this is kind of an awful wall question, 396 00:40:42.079 --> 00:40:46.599 but I'm really interested in time. I'm really interested in the monetization of 397 00:40:46.679 --> 00:40:52.039 time that really happens starting with the industrial revolution, because if you think about 398 00:40:52.079 --> 00:40:54.360 it prior to that, you know it's by large negrarian society. You have 399 00:40:54.400 --> 00:40:58.119 a sort of a task based life. Well, I have to know, 400 00:40:58.159 --> 00:41:00.599 I've got to till this field over long it takes me to till this field? 401 00:41:00.719 --> 00:41:04.800 Is however long it takes me to till this field. Then, but 402 00:41:04.880 --> 00:41:07.920 when we transition to an industrialized economy, suddenly everything is judged on time, 403 00:41:08.119 --> 00:41:10.960 Like, well, you work this shift from this time to this time, 404 00:41:12.000 --> 00:41:15.679 and you're not paid necessarily based on the output, but based on the amount 405 00:41:15.679 --> 00:41:19.000 of time that you spend here. I wonder do you think in the as 406 00:41:19.000 --> 00:41:22.159 we move to sort of a de industrialized tertiary economy, do you think there'll 407 00:41:22.159 --> 00:41:25.480 be a move away from that in the future or do you think, well, 408 00:41:25.480 --> 00:41:29.920 we're kind of we're kind of stuck still in this idea of, well, 409 00:41:29.920 --> 00:41:31.519 you know, you owe me eight hours of time, and that's what 410 00:41:31.559 --> 00:41:36.920 I'm going to judge your productivity on. I'm just curious. Haven't we already 411 00:41:36.920 --> 00:41:38.599 started to see that in the work from home phenomena? I think so, 412 00:41:38.760 --> 00:41:43.079 And that's kind of what That's kind of what I was wondering, which, 413 00:41:43.079 --> 00:41:45.400 by the way, I'm in favor of, Like I've always thought, it's 414 00:41:45.760 --> 00:41:49.360 rather silly if you can accomplish a task in twenty minutes to say that you 415 00:41:49.480 --> 00:41:52.800 need to spend an hour doing it. You know, we should move off 416 00:41:52.840 --> 00:41:54.440 from that. But you know, just one of those things. Well, 417 00:41:54.480 --> 00:42:00.760 but I think there's another aspect to it as well, which is you and 418 00:42:00.800 --> 00:42:06.159 I are recording this on a Sunday morning. Sundays used to be sacricyct. 419 00:42:07.119 --> 00:42:10.079 You know, before we recorded this, I was sitting at my desk here 420 00:42:10.199 --> 00:42:17.000 at home working. I will be working after we record this. The constant 421 00:42:17.079 --> 00:42:29.519 connectivity has made time fungible and and uh and and the barriers that used to 422 00:42:29.599 --> 00:42:34.719 exist, the structural barriers that used to exist about this is how you spend 423 00:42:34.800 --> 00:42:43.320 time no longer exist. And we're working our way as a society right now 424 00:42:44.159 --> 00:42:45.519 through that question. I mean what do you do if you when you go 425 00:42:45.599 --> 00:42:49.679 back to work. How many meetings have ever been into where people say, 426 00:42:49.800 --> 00:42:53.800 all right, you turn your phones off now, and we got to we 427 00:42:53.800 --> 00:43:00.320 we're trying to come up with those new cultural behavioral rules. And what I've 428 00:43:00.360 --> 00:43:06.840 been talking about is the need to come up with with new commercial behavior or 429 00:43:06.920 --> 00:43:13.840 rules. Yeah, I think, and I think that those behavior rules are 430 00:43:13.840 --> 00:43:17.719 something that we're still we're still working through in a lot of ways. And 431 00:43:17.760 --> 00:43:22.119 you do kind of think about the idea of the meeting. Now, Now 432 00:43:22.199 --> 00:43:27.679 you might have a meeting where everyone in the building is joining via zoom, 433 00:43:27.800 --> 00:43:34.000 even though they're all in the building together, and like how that alters whether 434 00:43:34.119 --> 00:43:37.960 what we see the purpose of this is a little bit different, especially with 435 00:43:37.000 --> 00:43:40.000 the knowledge that all of us have, which is when I'm talking on a 436 00:43:40.079 --> 00:43:44.599 zoom meeting, I know people are probably kind of listening, most of them, 437 00:43:44.599 --> 00:43:46.960 They're not one hundred percent locked in. Now, as a teacher, 438 00:43:47.000 --> 00:43:51.599 I'm used to most people not listening to what I'm saying. But that's that's 439 00:43:51.679 --> 00:43:55.519 just me. But let's just ask I am just kind of curious you talk 440 00:43:55.599 --> 00:44:01.679 about the idea of sort of virtual reality and AI as we sort of get 441 00:44:01.719 --> 00:44:07.280 to the end of the book and sort of like what guard rails does the 442 00:44:07.280 --> 00:44:12.119 guilded Ay suggest to us that we need to get in place as these new 443 00:44:12.159 --> 00:44:17.239 technologies come out that could just blow the doors off. I mean, you 444 00:44:17.400 --> 00:44:24.880 talk about exponential growth in technology, but once real functioning AI and we're starting 445 00:44:24.960 --> 00:44:30.119 to see the edges of it right now, but once it's firmly up and 446 00:44:30.199 --> 00:44:34.719 running, I don't think we can even conceive of the number of things that 447 00:44:34.760 --> 00:44:37.559 we're going to change. And so I'm wondering, like, can we Monday 448 00:44:37.599 --> 00:44:42.599 morning quarterback this or before this genie is out of the bottle, do we 449 00:44:42.639 --> 00:44:45.599 need to sit down and say, gosh, we really should come up with 450 00:44:45.679 --> 00:44:50.400 some rules right now, because trying to do this after the fact could get 451 00:44:50.719 --> 00:44:54.960 real ugly. Well, as you know from the book, I'm of the 452 00:44:55.039 --> 00:45:02.679 latter school. But you know, it's interesting that the Internet, which has 453 00:45:04.920 --> 00:45:08.599 had such a profound impact on how we all live our lives and how commerce 454 00:45:08.719 --> 00:45:16.159 operates, was in essence a call and a response kind of structure in which 455 00:45:17.719 --> 00:45:24.960 we would go to the internet, go to a place on the Internet, 456 00:45:27.079 --> 00:45:36.199 and then react to our screen. It was a two dimensional activity, both 457 00:45:36.239 --> 00:45:38.440 the metaverse and AI, and I think the thing that we need to make 458 00:45:38.480 --> 00:45:45.400 sure that we don't forget is that it is AI that runs the metaverse. 459 00:45:46.119 --> 00:45:55.119 But both the metaverse and AI take the user into that screen. If you 460 00:45:55.199 --> 00:46:01.599 will chat GPT, I'm talking to chat Jeep, I'm chatting with them, 461 00:46:02.000 --> 00:46:07.920 but even more powerfully, in the metaverse, I'm inside, I am interacting 462 00:46:08.039 --> 00:46:15.000 with somebody else. We have moved the metaverse moves us from social media where 463 00:46:15.039 --> 00:46:24.039 we sit there and look at what others type or show as video, to 464 00:46:24.280 --> 00:46:34.840 social virtual reality where I'm inside interacting with somebody. It's exciting. I mean, 465 00:46:34.880 --> 00:46:39.840 we all see the ads that meta is running on TV and elsewhere talking 466 00:46:39.880 --> 00:46:45.599 about how surgeons will be able to practice in the metaverse before they ever lay 467 00:46:45.599 --> 00:46:50.880 a scalpel on your body or mind. I like that idea. As a 468 00:46:50.920 --> 00:46:55.559 history teacher, you've got to love the idea that the students can transport back 469 00:46:55.639 --> 00:47:00.199 to the Roman era and be there with Mark Anthony on the steps of the 470 00:47:00.320 --> 00:47:12.760 Roman Forum. But the issues that arise out of that just start with the 471 00:47:12.880 --> 00:47:22.920 question of privacy. They what information is displayed, How there will be competitive 472 00:47:22.960 --> 00:47:30.239 alternatives that you and I as consumers can can consider. Those are issues. 473 00:47:30.280 --> 00:47:34.400 Those are very real issues that we have to solve as the metaverse and AI 474 00:47:35.239 --> 00:47:37.800 expands. But the answer we're getting, at least from the metaverse is all, 475 00:47:37.880 --> 00:47:42.159 don't worry. You know, we got plenty of time to work that 476 00:47:42.280 --> 00:47:49.239 out. No, we don't. You know, so Mark Sockerberg, who 477 00:47:49.559 --> 00:47:55.840 who I admire a great deal. Mark Zuckerberg's mantra, which became the mantra 478 00:47:55.840 --> 00:48:01.920 of Silicon Valley move fast and break things. You know, he wasn't breaking 479 00:48:02.840 --> 00:48:10.840 computers, he wasn't breaking the China. He was breaking the behavioral patterns that 480 00:48:10.960 --> 00:48:17.679 for over a century had provided stability and why do you move fast? You 481 00:48:17.760 --> 00:48:23.519 move fast so that those changes are adopted before anybody really understands the depth of 482 00:48:23.559 --> 00:48:35.920 their impact. We've learned that lesson. Now with metaverse and AI, are 483 00:48:36.000 --> 00:48:40.719 we going to practice what we've learned? Are we going to put in place 484 00:48:42.440 --> 00:48:46.920 the learnings from that experience and not say, oh, let's just wait. 485 00:48:47.280 --> 00:48:51.800 You know, we've got plenty of time to work this out. Meanwhile, 486 00:48:52.480 --> 00:49:01.400 the effects of the new technology are becoming buried in our daily lives and economic 487 00:49:01.519 --> 00:49:08.719 activity to a point where they're almost untouchable. That's our challenge, and I 488 00:49:08.760 --> 00:49:13.719 think it's a big challenge, and I think, but I think it's a 489 00:49:13.800 --> 00:49:17.280 necessary challenge. I tend to agree with you that the longer we wait, 490 00:49:19.320 --> 00:49:22.880 the more difficult this is going to become for society in general. Another thing 491 00:49:22.920 --> 00:49:27.920 I think about when you sort of talk about the yes as a history teacher, 492 00:49:27.960 --> 00:49:30.960 I'm really excited about virtual reality and being able to pull people into the 493 00:49:31.079 --> 00:49:37.679 history. But one of the things I wonder about is whose history? Who's 494 00:49:37.760 --> 00:49:40.480 deciding? Because you know, I've lived in a variety of different states, 495 00:49:40.480 --> 00:49:44.679 and if you I'm in Texas right now, and if you open a textbook 496 00:49:44.679 --> 00:49:47.599 in the public school here in American history, you won't see the word slave. 497 00:49:49.639 --> 00:49:52.199 You'll see the word worker. And so if I say go back to 498 00:49:52.599 --> 00:49:58.320 I'm gonna do virtual reality, I'm gonna go back to Louisiana in eighteen twenty. 499 00:49:58.360 --> 00:50:02.159 What am I going to see? What's it going to show me like? 500 00:50:02.199 --> 00:50:07.320 Because who's feeding that information in there? I could get two really different 501 00:50:07.400 --> 00:50:14.400 pictures. And how does that then start to shape our collective views of our 502 00:50:14.519 --> 00:50:21.480 past in ways that we may be very happy with and ways that we may 503 00:50:21.519 --> 00:50:23.599 be very unhappy with. And there may be groups who are very happy and 504 00:50:23.639 --> 00:50:27.880 groups that are very unhappy at the same time, and how are we going 505 00:50:27.920 --> 00:50:32.519 to navigate that? But we need to have that debate. Now. I 506 00:50:32.519 --> 00:50:36.199 couldn't agree with you more. I couldn't agree with you more. And putting 507 00:50:36.199 --> 00:50:37.400 it in a box and putting in the back and saying we're not going to 508 00:50:37.480 --> 00:50:42.719 talk about this is not going to solve any problems. But well, this 509 00:50:42.760 --> 00:50:45.679 has been a great conversation. It's a much longer book, obviously, But 510 00:50:45.000 --> 00:50:51.079 was there anything else that you really wanted to add that you feel like maybe 511 00:50:51.119 --> 00:50:53.440 we missed now, Adam, you know, it's great to be able to 512 00:50:53.519 --> 00:51:01.880 talk to a historian about how you make history relevant today. And I thoroughly 513 00:51:01.960 --> 00:51:07.039 enjoyed this and appreciate the opportunity. Thank you very much. Well, it's 514 00:51:07.079 --> 00:51:13.800 a great book. I really I always appreciate books that try to connect the 515 00:51:13.920 --> 00:51:17.719 past to the present because it makes it much more relevant. This book does 516 00:51:17.800 --> 00:51:22.920 that in spades. So thank you so much for coming on. It's been 517 00:51:22.159 --> 00:51:47.440 really a wonderful conversation. Thanks Adam.