What’s More Dangerous: AI, Modern Kristallnachts, or That 9 AM Zoom Call You Keep Saying Yes To?
Also: UBI, Proverbs, and good old pals
TL;DR
Can AI take your top skills to a whole new level?
Why you should build your core career offer around problems …
A new tool for reducing friction in work …
Why you should have friends like
…Solomon's Proverbs will tell you stuff you can’t learn any other way …
Short reviews on 5 books read while on holiday …
… and why I’m never skipping holidays again
We're sleepwalking into an antisemitic reign of terror …
But first … do we still live in a democracy?
HUMAN
Do we still live in a democracy?
suggests the horse has bolted. I always cringe a bit when I read pieces like this, because I can hear voices saying, "You're becoming awfully consipracy-theoristy!" Nevertheless, he's got a compelling argument.
If he’s right … wow. David Eagleman thinks AI might actually help us take our best skills to a whole new level. Apparently, after then-World #1 Go player Ke Jie was beaten by AlphaGo, he studied why AlphaGo beat him, and then won his next 12 matches against human opponents, far more easily than he previously would have.
Daniel Miessler suggests you plan your career around clearly-defined problems that you're obsessed with. This is spot on. And I'll add a bit: The bigger and more intractable the problem, the bigger your income potential. Mull this video over. It's not long, and well worth the time.
TECHNOLOGY
ran a thought experiment about AI taking over the US government. He thinks it might be a good thing. Interesting angle, though I quibble with the idea that UBI (universal basic income) funded by AI-driven profits would guarantee economic security:
It won't stop governments' money-printing habits (which erode the effectiveness of UBI);
How does he propose to acquire those AI-driven profits? Taxes? Come on. Those 5-man AI behemoths will just up and relocate to a tax haven.
It'll be irresistable for governments to insist you be politically-correct before you receive your UBI.
Economic security is just one small term in the equation. Most people I've seen surviving on government handouts are miserable. Something in the human psyche that needs to GIVE something in exchange for what they receive.
IDEAS & DISCOVERIES
Daniel Miessler keeps beating the drum of technology integration (i.e. we have all these awesome new tools but they don't integrate in a frictionless way). He's discovered a tool called Raycast that gets a lot closer to "executing at the speed of thought". (Unfortunately it's only usable on MacOS and iOS, although there's a waitlist for an upcoming Windows version). Basically it's a universal launcher: You can launch queries, AI prompts, and your own customised workflows, all without ever leaving Raycast. Miessler gushes about it here for about 48 minutes:
Although you might find the Raycast channel on YouTube less time consuming? Maybe?
Miessler mixes Raycast with his own self-designed workflow tool called Fabric, which he talks about here:
SPOTLIGHT ON A HERO
Friends, wine, and campfires ... all work the same way.
Last week, while on holiday in the UK, we caught up with old friends Paul, Sue, Sally and Graham, whom we'd not seen in 5 years. I also met up with old and trusted Airbus colleague Norman Wijker. What was cool about it was how we were able to just pick up where we'd left off. I had some coffee and Welsh cakes at the ready, which I knew were Sue's weakness. They brought us up to speed with their lives, the happy and the sad. It was delightful.
Another case in point:
Been pals with Karl almost 35 years. We met in Guelph, Ontario, when we were both around 30, newly married, and starting to have kids.
We haven't been in touch consistently through that time. After 8 years in Guelph, we left for the UK, they left for the US. Then after about 20 years, we suddenly found ourselves a scant 2 hours' drive apart, which allowed us to rekindle the friendship.
And the rekindling was easy. For Karl, Sue, Sally, Graham, and numerous others I could name.
Karl picked a marvellous woman for a wife. They have soldiered together through joy, pain and heartbreak.
And they have had plenty of all three. Wouldn't be right to spill the details for all to see, but trust me. They've been through much that would break some marriages, and break some people.
Not them. Solid. Faith in the Boss is the magic ingredient.
Karl is a stranger to pretense. No guessin' with him, man. He's gonna tell you what he thinks.
And sometimes, it ain't pretty. Few years ago, we were snowshoeing, and when the straps on his snowshoes wouldn't behave, the F-bombs came thick and furious. His good wife has written the manual on how to calm agitated husbands. But his rants never last long. Never.
Almost every time we're there, he introduces me to a new band or song. I can still remember where I was when he played Collective Soul's Shine for me. Been a fave ever since.
He hates sitting still. Always out in the yard trying to bring some order to the chaos, BBQing in his smoker on the deck, or helping someone out with something.
Rock of a man.
And that's his latest challenge. Because now he's got MS, and had early retirement forced on him. ("I sure didn't think I'd go out like this!") Had some business ideas all lined up, which are now on ice, perhaps permanently. Had to use a cane to walk his daughter down the aisle recently, which he did with good grace.
Can't be the rock much longer. Will have to lean on The Rock in a whole new way.
Won't be easy. But he'll succeed.
Hero.
You want friends like that. You can throw some more wood on the dying campfire, and it will quickly catch.
And you want to BE a friend like that.
FROM THE SOURCE
Solomon's Proverbs are to wisdom what Chinese cuisine is to food.
Every morsel bite-sized, pre-cut, marinaded and cooked to perfection, meeting your need.
I'm beavering through them at a torrid pace at the mo.
Listen to some of these gems:
Pr 14 v4 Where there are no oxen, the manger is empty, but from the strength of an ox come abundant harvests.
Pr 14 v28 A large population is a king’s glory, but without subjects a prince is ruined.
21st Century application? Use technology as a lever and force magnifier, to acquire a large number of subscribers and customers. That's the kind of stuff you can learn the easy way, just by reading Solomon's Proverbs.
But what's equally fascinating to me is the patterns you see when you study Proverbs carefully.
You start seeing the same few words repeated over and over.
Righteous. Wicked. Fools. Sluggards. (Good old English word. Say it over a few times, it's very therapeutic😀) Discerning. Diligent. Wisdom.
Solomon really had it in for 3 classes of people in particular. Couldn't stand them:
The Wicked
Fools
Sluggards
So far as I know, Solomon was the first one of whom it could be rightly said, He didn't suffer fools gladly. But even worse in his book was that group he just called The Wicked. Even went so far as to say that if a king purged the Wicked from his presence, his throne would be "established in righteousness".
Not just "established" (i.e. secure). Established "in righteousness".
He never provides a clear definition of the Wicked. He just tells you what they do, what they are like, and leaves you to reach your own definition.
Only other historical rulers I recall being that dogmatically reviled by wickedness were (his father and predecessor) King David, and Kings Hezekiah and Josiah. (Moses and the other leaders and patriarchs were not rulers.) I'm not aware of any subsequently.
And it worked in Solomon's favour, as for the duration of his reign, Israel could rightly be said to be the dominant empire of the day. Thereafter ... it was pretty much a moral slide downhill.
So I'm trying to absorb as much righteous wisdom from the Torah and the other books of the Tanakh as I can.
WHAT I’M DOING
These last 5 years, I've not taken enough time off.
Maybe two one-week stints per year, then maybe a day here, a day there. Mistake. A week off (never mind a day) just doesn't clear your head.
So these last 2 weeks have been glorious, and much needed.
In the taxi on the way to Toronto Pearson airport, I started sneezing. Uh oh. Just hay fever, hopefully. But by the time we'd cleared security, that telltale sensation in the throat was there. Darn. Don the mask. So not a pleasant flight.
But recovery was swift. Hung out in south Wales, climbed a Welsh peak or two, caught up with some old mates, and slept. Oh man, did I sleep.
And read books. Nothing beats a holiday spent in a well-stocked library, and this holiday, I was so blessed. Food for the mind, man ... is as essential as rest for the body.
The following are the books I digested. None did I digest completely. I tend to have multiple books on the go at any one time, and since I was on holiday, damned if I was going to pretend I was in school and read one book to the end before beginning another.
Cal Newport's Deep Work
This is the only one I nearly finished. I tend to speed-read books, often grabbing only the first sentence of a paragraph and plowing through chapters at a fearful rate until something so grabs me, I have to slow down. Deep Work lends itself to this. (If that sounds like a criticism, it isn't. I'm very grateful for authors and subjects that allow me to grab the 80% of treasure with 20% of the effort required.)
Newport's done a super job of illustrating what's wrong with 21st Century life and work. Most of us have allowed the world to squeeze our priorities and schedules into its mold, to the point that by 5pm, when it's time to head home for the day, we feel like we have accomplished nothing of value to anyone (least of all, ourselves).
I urge you to say: To Hell With That.
This means: Social media (perhaps including Substack, and perhaps your whole flaming mobile device) gets banished to a place where its screaming voices don't reach your eyeballs or eardrums.
Then ... you Focus, and Obsess. On the work that really matters. To you. Without interrruption.
Looking back at the jobs and contracts I've done over the years, I can see that almost none of them ever allowed me to do any deep work at all. They valued the ability to interrupt me at will.
And I allowed them to do that. My fault.
So I
Which make the next book all the more poignant:
Boundaries, by Henry Cloud and John Townsend
I'd heard my pal Paul Daigle speak highly of this one, so I grabbed it quickly. Didn't read much of it, because my wife grabbed it herself - that was the end of my Boundaries holiday experience. However, I absorbed enough to learn the following:
Good boundaries are directly related to your willingness to:
• Identify and reject conclusions that you reached early in life about how the world works, which are making you miserable
• Say one word: NO
• Ask for what you want, without shame
• Walk away from a deal or relationship with people who do not respect your boundaries
• Respect others' boundaries similarly
If you were raised by parents who didn't themselves have good boundaries (I include myself in that mix) ... it's unlikely you have good boundaries.
If your boundaries are bad, you will allow yourself to work jobs and bosses who push you around, change your pay and working conditions to suit them, and generally, make your life miserable. (And you'll live under politicians who do the same, btw.)
Carol Dweck's Mindset
Similarly to Cal Newport's Deep Work, this book is easy to power-read through. And it's liberally anointed with stories and case studies, which tell me as much as any theory. Dweck's essential thesis: A fixed mindset will hamstring your success and joy in life; a growth mindset will boost it. Hardly eye-opening, and yet reading snippets from this book were enlightening and inspiring. Mindset is a book you can dip in and out of as needed. (And I will.)
Derren Brown's Tricks Of The Mind
I've been interested in Derren Brown since seeing a few of his hypnosis videos, and since learning that he was a student (and launching his showman career) at U of Bristol around the same time I was living just outside Bristol. Tricks Of The Mind is the only book of the bunch I found disaapointing. It's unnecessarily wordy - Derren is, after all, a showman, so he peppers his language with lots of his personality. I was reading to learn, not be entertained. His personality got in the way of my objective. You're probably better off watching the videos (of which there are TONS) on his YouTube channel. That said, it's a thick read, so possibly I have not given him a fair hearing.
Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes
By Rob Wilkins, who was Pratchett's personal assistant for the last 15 years of his life.
I've been interested in Pratchett's humour ever since spending a week painting a bedroom at home while listening to an audio recording of on of his DiscWorld novels (hilarious) while trying to pair the humour with his reputation as an crusty old curmudgeon. Those two characteristics don't typically make good travelling companions in my book.
(An anecdote in the book features Neil Gaiman trying to calm Terry down one day, only for Terry to reply, "Do not take this anger lightly - it fuels DiscWorld!")
So I was curious enough to start into this biography. Sadly, you can't read it (or any Pratchett, for that matter) by reading the first sentence of every paragraph. Pratchett is to humour what Beethoven is to music: You can't do either one distractedly. Both of them demand your full and undivided attention, or you are wasting your time.
Boiling this 2 weeks' worth of reading down ... I've realised the following:
I have not Focused, Obsessed, and done Deep Work, nearly enough, not even since abandoning the world of traditional work 6 years ago.
I've allowed my best working time, and my best work, to be invaded and interrupted far too much.
I've allowed too many unnecessary meetings and discusssions to usurp my time.
I've allowed people to invade and move my boundaries.
Mantra: If you keep on doing what you've always done, you'll go on getting what you've always got.
Another mantrqa: The systems you have in place are perfectly designed and tuned to achieve the results you're getting right now. (Don't like those results? You know what to di.)
Time for a change. (It all reminds me of a coffee mug I once saw on a desk: No More Mr Nice Guy.)
So going forward ... I'm purging my schedule of all morning phone calls, zooms, messages, and emails before 1pm. (One exception: A Wednesday 7am zoom with a group of extraordinary men I've been meeting with since 2021.) Only deep work until 1pm, which is a hard stop. Lunch, then emails, zooms and calls as required until 3.30. Write down tomorrow's deep work task, and wrap up loose ends until 4. Then knock off for the day, and start preparing the evening meal before my wife gets home.
I'll report back on how this goes in a coming NerdLetter.
Another idea I picked up from Deep Work is this: Carve out one week in the month where you don't even allow the afternoon emails and zooms. The whole day is just deep work. And the deep work is not the same deep work you've been doing for the previous 3 weeks that month - it's experimenting, tinkering, playing. I'm not implementing that one yet; one radical change at a time. But I'm considering it.
VIEW FROM THE LAPTOP
********* RANT ALERT ***********
We're sleepwalking into the Age of Antisemitic Anger.
The DC double-murder two weeks ago has been followed by a molotov cocktail thrown at a group of demonstrating Jews in Boulder, Colorado.
Too many people seem to think their opinion about the plight of Gazans can be acceptably translated into random acts of violence against convenient (and innocent) Jewish targets half a world away.
Mainstream Media is oh, so quick to jump all over Israel anytime someone in Gaza screams "Massacre!" Case in point this past weekend. https://www.thefp.com/p/profits-from-gazas-desperation?lli=1 At worst, the IDF may have fired a few warning bullets that went rogue. May have. But Mainstream Media is hyper-convinced that Jews are bloodthirsty, while Hamas barely rates mention (never mind blame).
And then unabashed conservative
puts out this piece indicating that young right-wing males in the US are rapidly becoming anti-semitic.
If I was Jewish anywhere in the world except Israel, I'd be running scared right now. (And don't look now but ... Jews in Israel aren't exactly relaxed these days, what with their sons and daughers in the IDF.)
I'm asking myself these questions:
Is a 21st Century version of Kristallnacht right around the corner? (I suspect very possibly, but on a much bigger scale.)
If so ... will the police in my corner of the world (and yours) defend targeted Jews? Or will they stand by, make excuses, and do nothing?
What can I do to help protect the Jews in my community? (Sincere, Jewish-friendly suggestions welcomed.)
I'm a card-carrying Gentile student of Jewish thought, and follower of Jesus Christ, who was an extremely Jewish man and teacher.
What is the probability that, if (God forbid) all the Jews in the world are, ahem, eliminated from the global gene pool ... I WILL BE NEXT ON THE LIST? (HINT: I've figured out the answer to that one. It's close to 100%.)
Humour me for a moment. Run a thought experiment:
You're neither Jewish nor particularly interested in Jesus Christ.
Let's say all Jews and people like me are successfully kicked out of the gene pool.
Do you think the angry, disaffected, frustrated, disenfranchised, dis-everything-ised ... will be placated? Do you think they will drop their knives and guns? Because at last they've levelled the playing field and eliminated financial inequality everywhere?
Or do you think they'll look for a new group of voiceless, easily-picked-on targets for their ire?
And if the latter ... who might that be?
C'mon, run the experiment now.
And then look for the nearest Jew you know, who's likely to give you a straight answer ... and ask them what you can do to help get us off this Road of Insanity.
Don’t be surprised if they are suspicious of you. If I was Jewish right now, I’d be hyper-vigilant about who I trusted.
OK, rant over.
For now.
Agree that focusing on problems to solve for a job search is a good idea.