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S1: visit threatlocker Kommerell. That's Threatlocker Kommerell. Welcome to Unsupervised Learning,
S1: a security, AI, and meaning focused podcast that looks at
S1: how best to thrive as humans in a post AI world.
S1: It combines original ideas, analysis, and mental models to bring
S1: not just the news, but why it matters and how
S1: to respond. All right, welcome to unsupervised learning. This is
S1: Daniel Miessler. All right. A few notes to start off.
S1: All better from being sick. It was actually quite minor.
S1: Definitely the most minor time I've been sick in recent history.
S1: Would not even have known that I was sick if
S1: it wasn't for testing. So yeah. Good, good that that's over.
S1: We migrated fabric to go. So this is really major
S1: massive shout out to Jonathan Dunn who helped massively with this.
S1: And project still looks largely the same. But it's all
S1: go now. And if you check this out look at
S1: the installation. Now this is just insane. Watch this. You
S1: just run this, that's all. You run okay? That's how
S1: you install it and it just installs and it just works.
S1: So no more Python, no more Python dependency. Hell, you
S1: just run this and you run setup and it works.
S1: Now you might have to add some environmental variables or
S1: your go install might do it for you. It depends
S1: how you install go, but check this out. If you're
S1: going to migrate, you just do pip x uninstall fabric
S1: and that will get rid of the Python version. And
S1: then you want to check your bash RC and your
S1: zshrc and basically clean those out. If you have any
S1: aliases or anything like that in there. And then you
S1: do this which is the same one as above, and
S1: you do the setup. And again you could do the
S1: environmental variables. But watch this. Let's say you haven't messed
S1: with it in a while, which would be blasphemy. But
S1: let's say you haven't messed with it in a while
S1: and you come back, you went on vacation. Whatever, you
S1: come back three weeks later and you want to install
S1: this thing and you want to get the latest version,
S1: how do you upgrade? You just run the go install again.
S1: That's all you do. You just run the go install
S1: again and you're completely updated and upgraded. And yeah, we
S1: kind of kind of simplified up the the Readme here.
S1: It should be pretty clean. And yeah, just really, really
S1: happy with this. And it is so much faster. Yeah,
S1: it is so much faster now. Yeah. I don't know
S1: what um, I could show you here. All right. Yeah.
S1: That's basically, uh, getting some aphorisms. So I think I
S1: might have used one of these. Yeah, I used one
S1: of these for the newsletter this week. Oh, actually. And
S1: I'm recording the newsletter right now. Of course. So we'll
S1: actually see this. This is the command that I used
S1: to actually come up with some ideas for aphorisms. So
S1: I just echo Red Queen concept from Ridley's book. So
S1: I knew I wanted aphorisms around that. And um, look
S1: at this. I get back some really, really cool different
S1: aphorisms that I could potentially Potential use and depending on
S1: the model, I was using one model and it only
S1: gave me. Matt Ridley quotes. So that was pretty cool.
S1: So really depends on the model that you use. But.
S1: I basically use fabric all the time and the go
S1: version is just unbelievably good. So that's that. Um, highly
S1: recommend you check out this conversation between Peter Thiel and
S1: Joe Rogan. Um, Joe's. An interesting character. He he had
S1: Katt Williams on, and I watched as much as I
S1: could of. That episode. And it was just like these
S1: crazy conspiracy theories. And Katt Williams was quite serious, and
S1: Joe was kind of pretending to be serious. But you
S1: also don't know with Joe, like, what he believes and
S1: what he doesn't believe sometimes when he's going off on
S1: those things. But then you see him with someone like
S1: Peter Thiel and he's way more balanced. He's like, he's
S1: not coming up with a bunch of crazy stuff. He's
S1: just having a normal conversation with someone he knows is smart.
S1: And here's what's crazy. I actually thought his his description
S1: of the future of humanity was better than Peter Thiel's. Now,
S1: maybe just me and Joe are wrong, but Thiel seemed
S1: unwilling to sort of go in the direction that the
S1: Joe was taking it, which happens to be the exact
S1: same direction that I always take it in, which is like,
S1: this is inevitable. We have to merge with them. Basically,
S1: it's like AI is going to get better and better,
S1: and either we're going to merge with it or we're
S1: going to be completely replaced and it would be better
S1: to merge. And that just becomes the new us. And
S1: that was Joe's perspective on it. And it's always been
S1: my perspective on it. And I thought that was really interesting.
S1: So basically you see this kind of elevated really smart
S1: Joe on here. And then you kind of see the
S1: opposite when he's talking to someone else. He kind of
S1: just basically adapts to whoever he's talking to. If he's
S1: talking to some fighter, he'll just talk about fights and
S1: he'll just vibe out on that. If he's talking to
S1: some hunter, he'll talk about hunting like he just blends
S1: in with whoever he kind of is empathic with whoever
S1: he's talking to. And you might want to say, well,
S1: that's just a gimmick and he's just trash and blah, blah, blah.
S1: He did start podcasting, basically. He did make podcasting a
S1: thing by doing the thing that he's doing. So if
S1: you don't like his politics or whatever, you still have
S1: to objectively recognize that he is good at doing what
S1: he does. And I believe it's because of this empathy thing.
S1: So anyway, recommend checking it out. Most of the cool
S1: thoughts were coming from teal one because he's super smart
S1: and two because he was the guest. So that's Joe's
S1: job is to extract that out of the guest. But
S1: I'm I'm still trying to solve Peter Thiel because I
S1: have always thought he was kind of like this right wing, uh,
S1: crazy person. Uh, I really, really was mad at him
S1: because he was supporting Trump back in what, 2020 or 2016?
S1: I can't remember. And I was like, yeah, this is
S1: I just don't like this person because he's supporting Trump
S1: and how could you possibly do that? So I was
S1: very triggered by that. He has since been like, yeah,
S1: that was a horrible mistake. Like he's way more chaotic
S1: than I thought he was going to be. And I
S1: think he's supporting Trump again. But in a very sort
S1: of distant kind of way, almost kind of like Elon
S1: seems to be doing for the purposes of same with
S1: Andreessen and same with Horowitz for the purpose of saying,
S1: I think the other one is worse. You're not getting
S1: like strong endorsements from any of these. I would call
S1: centre right people. You're not getting strong endorsements of like,
S1: oh yeah, Trump is great, right? And I don't mean
S1: to be talking about politics here, but I'm actually not
S1: talking about politics. I'm talking about what it means to
S1: be an intellectual and have opinions that are counter to Orthodoxy. Right.
S1: So essentially what I'm saying here is I'm trying to
S1: figure teal out And the thing that I'm realizing about
S1: teal is, and what I'm really liking about teal is
S1: he and sort of dislike in some ways, it's like
S1: he's not really committing to anything. He's not. I don't
S1: see him saying, I think we should do this, which
S1: I would really appreciate. Um, it's something that I try
S1: to do. I try to do the objective thing, but
S1: then come up with a direction to move in. I
S1: feel like that's what you have to do if you
S1: want to try to lead or to motivate or inspire.
S1: But I feel like what teal does is just he's
S1: just got this giant table full of hats, and he's
S1: just always putting these different hats on. He's like, well,
S1: let's let's steel man that let's beat that up. Let's
S1: steel man that, let's beat that up. So he's just
S1: like constantly looking at pros and cons of different ways
S1: of thinking. And I think he has some general tendencies right.
S1: He's obviously generally libertarian but he'll just straight up tell
S1: you where he's not libertarian. And so what I like
S1: about him is he's not fitting into any sort of
S1: right wing bolt. Right. A lot of right people, right
S1: wing people probably think he is. But if you actually
S1: listen to him, he's not. He's actually going down his
S1: own path from first principles. From all this reading, if
S1: you watch his conversation with Tyler Cowen. Oh my God,
S1: I mean, it's like the Joe Rogan one times 1000
S1: because they are just riffing on all this history and
S1: all this different stuff that they're talking about, and they're
S1: just jumping from one topic to another. And so he's
S1: using all that knowledge to walk his own path using
S1: first principles. And sometimes that takes him like center right.
S1: Sometimes that takes him center left. I imagine sometimes he
S1: goes more extreme left and more extreme right. But I
S1: don't think he honestly cares about left and right. I
S1: think what he cares about is first principles and and
S1: studying and learning and trying to just constantly improve his
S1: models so that he can have all these different hats.
S1: Because ultimately, I think he's an investor, and I think
S1: ultimately his whole game is trying to figure out how
S1: to predict the future to some degree, some limited degree. Oh,
S1: that's the other thing. He's extremely humble. He's extremely cautious.
S1: They'll be like, hey, what do you think of this?
S1: What's the future going to be? He's like, yeah, nobody knows.
S1: It's a dumb question. So it's like the opposite of
S1: the right. Okay. You get a typical right wing pundit.
S1: So let me give you a perfect example. Peter Thiel
S1: is the absolute opposite from Tucker Carlson. Tucker Carlson is
S1: extremely sure about things and extremely wrong. And Peter Thiel
S1: is extremely unsure about things and tends to be very right.
S1: And he's very cautious and he's just constantly consuming and learning.
S1: And it's just yeah, so I'm still trying to lock
S1: in on Peter Thiel. I'm still trying to look for
S1: skeletons or look for biases, but I feel like he's
S1: a pretty good model of how to learn about the world,
S1: as far as I can tell. So far, I've got
S1: like a 75% read. I would love to see if
S1: anyone has a different read, or has knowledge that can
S1: sort of shape my model of him based on this,
S1: and I bought one of those mini libraries to put
S1: up in my neighborhood. I don't know if you've ever
S1: seen these. I've seen them all over, definitely in Palo Alto.
S1: So if you drive through one of these neighborhoods in
S1: Palo Alto, like kind of near Stanford, um, not Atherton,
S1: but one of the nicer neighborhoods in Palo Alto, you'll see,
S1: like these little it looks like a birdhouse, kind of.
S1: But it's like on the curb, like right against the street.
S1: And it says like mini library or community library or
S1: whatever on it. And it's just like this little birdhouse thing,
S1: except for when you open it up. It's like 1
S1: or 2 shelves of books. And the idea is you
S1: take a book, you just walk away. You just walk
S1: away with it. Maybe you never bring it back, but
S1: the idea is community karma. So yes, you do bring
S1: it back. Or maybe you bring back an extra book.
S1: So it's just like this. It's a combination of community
S1: with books. Love it. Obviously. All right. So my work
S1: got this new piece on the four components of what's
S1: going to make models. When I models win and it's
S1: basically I'll go into it here. It's basically the model itself,
S1: post-training internal tooling and then agents. And I'm actually going
S1: to add some extra stuff here. But these are the four.
S1: And then the summary is just the four of those.
S1: So we should start thinking about top models as model
S1: ecosystems instead of just models. Because it's not just the
S1: neural net weights doing the work. There are four main components.
S1: And the company that wins the AI model wars will
S1: need to excel at all four of these. Not just
S1: spending lots of money to have the neural net with
S1: the most parameters. So that's that piece. Next one here
S1: is the link between free will and LLM denial. That
S1: one's a bit deep and esoteric. And if you don't
S1: like free will it won't interest you. So I'm going
S1: to skip that one. Okay. Security. Microsoft just released a
S1: bunch of patches, uh, 90 security flaws, including ten zero days,
S1: six of which being actively exploited. I think the biggest one.
S1: If I'm not incorrect about this is Wasn't there a
S1: really nasty IPv6 one? Just pull this up real quick.
S1: IPv6 Microsoft repeatedly sent IPv6 packets include specially crafted packets
S1: to windows machine enable remote code execution. Yeah, so pretty nasty.
S1: And I think it's before the firewall. So somebody was
S1: saying it might have been Marcus Hutchins saying this, who
S1: he got to meet in person for the first time
S1: after talking to him for a number of years just online,
S1: but got to meet him at this crater meetup that
S1: we do in Vegas. Probably got Covid there. Lots of
S1: people probably gave me Covid there. Lots of people probably
S1: got Covid there. Anyway. Got to meet him in person
S1: there in Vegas. That was cool. But I think he
S1: might have been saying somewhere that basically the IPv6 packets
S1: come in and don't even make it to the firewall.
S1: It just goes straight through and gets parsed and produces
S1: the ability to create RC. So that's great. Uh Russian
S1: cyber spies from the FSB. Cold War. Trail. Cold war's trail.
S1: Cold wastrel. Who knows how to say that? Been running
S1: a massive phishing campaign dubbed River of fish, targeting U.S.
S1: and European entities since 2022, going after high risk individuals, NGOs,
S1: media outlets, government people. And the Pentagon is talking about
S1: their plan to flood the Taiwan Strait with thousands of
S1: drones in the event of a Chinese invasion. So this guy,
S1: Admiral Sam Samuel Paparo, described the strategy as creating an
S1: unmanned hellscape to delay Chinese forces. Why are we talking
S1: about this? Unless this is part of the strategy to
S1: make them think we're doing this, and then they try
S1: to adjust for that. But that's not actually what we're doing. Like,
S1: are we playing games here? Like what exactly. Why are
S1: we talking about this? Evidently, it's not meant to be
S1: useful as a surprise because it's no longer a surprise. Whatever.
S1: That'd be cool if it was like, yeah, we're not
S1: really going to do that. We're just going to make
S1: them do a bunch of anti-drone stuff. And actually our
S1: strategy is going to be completely different. Whatever. We'd like
S1: to know more. Someone published a timeline of his research
S1: on offensive AI agents, three distinct types of AI offensive systems.
S1: SolarWinds patched a critical Deserialization vulnerability 9.8 on the Richter scale.
S1: Iranian banks have been hit by a massive cyber attack,
S1: probably tied to Israel. I'm just guessing Trump shared a
S1: fake image. Oh man, I didn't put the link. I
S1: just got an email about this. Didn't put the link.
S1: Oh man. Whatever fake image of Harris speaking at a
S1: Communist event. All right, let me let me find this thing.
S1: Trump share. Yeah, look at that. Look at that. I mean,
S1: does anyone think she would actually go to an event
S1: like that? Well, first of all, yeah, this this is
S1: what I said actually in the piece. Right. Um, one
S1: lots of people will believe it's real. And two, current
S1: tech can already make more believable ones than this. So
S1: this isn't the actual problem. The actual problem is when
S1: it gets much worse. Oh, here's the other one that
S1: they were sharing. Watch this one. Trump. Share. Taylor Swift
S1: should be enough, right? No links. Yeah. Look at this.
S1: Look at this. So we've been talking about for years.
S1: I went looking for this post where I first started
S1: talking about this. I couldn't find it. So. Beehive, fix
S1: your search, please. Uh, couldn't find it with Google either, so.
S1: Kind of annoying. Anyway, I wrote about basically deep fakes
S1: becoming an issue because we're not going to be able
S1: to believe things. It's so obvious now. It's not even
S1: a good post, but it was very early. This was
S1: like two years ago. Um, I was talking about this. Um,
S1: but anyway, everyone knows now, uh, and here is the actual.
S1: It's just now starting to matter. Okay, look at this picture.
S1: The top right one that looks like an actual, like event.
S1: This person's got his phone. He's got his foot sticking
S1: out That looks super real. Super real Swifties for Trump.
S1: Now you don't be funny is if that was if
S1: that was actually real like some. Okay the bottom left
S1: definitely not real. Okay. They're probably none of these are
S1: probably real. Just to be very clear about, you know,
S1: disinformation or whatever. But, um, the point is you can
S1: make these. Oh, yeah. This bottom right one also looks
S1: super real. The bottom left one does not because that
S1: Swifties for Trump looks like two clear like the white
S1: of the text just looks a little bit too artificial.
S1: But this one Swifties for Trump. It's got shadow on it.
S1: The T is hidden because it's on the other side
S1: of her body, so that one looks real. It's actually
S1: the same person as this. Honestly, these two look really,
S1: really good that that would trick basically anybody, including me
S1: right now. So the point is, these are getting so
S1: good that you can't tell the difference between reality and
S1: doesn't really matter for this. Right now. This one maybe
S1: kind of does. The question is what happens when it's
S1: a thing that really matters? Like did a crime actually occur? Um,
S1: who is the assailant? Evidence of something bad happening. Where
S1: where we're going to use pictures or video as part
S1: of the evidence for that crime. That's when it starts
S1: to really, really matter. And also for politics as well. Um,
S1: the worst possible one is, is like the absolute worst
S1: one is where you have, um, a video of Trump saying,
S1: you know, it looks like we're going to have to
S1: attack Russia, pre-emptive nuclear strike. And it's very believable. And
S1: it freaks somebody out and that person freaks out Putin
S1: and something goes off or something similar to that. Maybe
S1: it's not a nuclear war, but something where there's an
S1: actual threat being made and it causes the other person
S1: to respond. So it's a trigger point for kinetic action
S1: that that's pretty serious and we have the tech now
S1: to be able to do that. Not everyone could do it,
S1: but it's getting pretty close, and it's much easier to
S1: do with images than it is for video. But the
S1: point is, this is getting very, very real. No longer
S1: theoretical Iranian hacking group Abt 42 has targeted both Trump
S1: and Biden campaigns, according to Google's Tag group. They look
S1: like they work for Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is
S1: like their elite group. And it looks like they targeted
S1: both campaigns. But only Trump's campaign had sensitive files leaked.
S1: Kind of interesting. I mean, maybe there was nothing there
S1: on the Democratic side. Maybe, I don't know, why are
S1: they why are they anti-Trump? Um, oh, maybe. Maybe because
S1: Trump is about to massively support Israel and massively crush Iran.
S1: That would be a good explanation. Trump corroborated this by
S1: pointing the finger at Iran for hacking his campaign, praising
S1: the FBI's investigation into the breach. This is one thing
S1: that I like decently about Trump when he does it,
S1: and it's only because the bar is so low. But
S1: if he gets on a phone call with the FBI
S1: and the FBI is like, yes sir, no sir, blah, blah, blah,
S1: you know, we did this or we did that. If
S1: he just got done railing against the FBI for like
S1: the last six months and he has that call, he'll
S1: go and talk to the press and be like, yeah,
S1: I just had a great call with the FBI. Very professional,
S1: very cool. It's like the thing that happened most recently
S1: is like his view of reality, but at least he's
S1: willing to, like, be positive if a positive thing happened.
S1: I mean, I can't believe I'm saying that as a
S1: positive thing, since that's called normal. China linked cyber spies
S1: have infected dozens of Russian government and IT sector computers
S1: with backdoors and trojans since late July, according to Kaspersky. So,
S1: China v Russia scammers are targeting young Chinese job seekers
S1: in a tough economy. AI and tech grok chatbot now
S1: lets users create images from text prompts and publish them
S1: to X, leading to chaotic results like Barack Obama doing
S1: cocaine and Donald Trump in a Nazi uniform. Yeah, the
S1: one that I saw. Yeah, I wrote this right here. Um,
S1: the one I saw was Trump basically had his arm
S1: around Ellen, and Ellen was pregnant. And Ellen posted that
S1: and he was like, live by the sword, die by
S1: the sword. Yeah. Uh, okay. Got someone who's on a
S1: mission to make you love reading again. So he's using
S1: AI tools like ChatGPT to recommend books, understand deeper themes,
S1: and novels like Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha, and create actionable strategies
S1: from business books like Alex Hormozi $100 million Offers. I've
S1: already got that built into fabric. Um, I've got one
S1: called create $100 million offer. You give it any product,
S1: concept or idea and it'll build you a hormozi offer
S1: based on it. Comedians are increasingly using AI to help
S1: write jokes and brainstorm ideas with mixed results. I think
S1: this is as big or bigger, not bigger as big,
S1: maybe as the Turing test in terms of the importance
S1: of AI progress. Because if I can write a full
S1: comedy set and make humans laugh, that is massively huge.
S1: Even better if it can be deepfaked performed right. So
S1: it's actually AI writing it and AI performing it, and
S1: all the human did was tell an agent to write
S1: a comedy set around a topic. Okay, that is this.
S1: This is an unbelievable metric, okay, a milestone metric. So basically,
S1: here's the test. Can I give an agent or any model?
S1: Let's say, for example, I hand this to I write
S1: a comedy sketch skit or set around, um, good coffee
S1: versus bad coffee or how baristas don't care about you
S1: or how customer services people don't care about you. Do
S1: write a 20 minute set just about this topic. Okay.
S1: So now I want to see on a screen either
S1: a stand up view or a face view. Yeah. A
S1: stand up view would be better. Actually, I want to
S1: see a stage. I want to see a microphone. I
S1: want to see a person standing there talking. And I
S1: want to see them moving. I want to see them
S1: moving their hands. I want to see them gesturing. A full,
S1: complete deepfake of the content that they wrote. And this
S1: has to be funny. Okay. And it doesn't even have
S1: to be, like, the funniest thing. It doesn't have to
S1: be Dave Chappelle. It has to be decently funny. Like
S1: good enough to get gigs on a comedy tour. And
S1: if you've been on a comedy, tours like The Bar
S1: is not super high for the average comic that I
S1: don't know what I skeptics are going to say to that.
S1: And I would say I'm going to I'm going to
S1: call it right now. We are in the middle of 2024.
S1: I'm going to call that as 2025, 2026 at the latest.
S1: Full deepfake integration 2026 at the latest. So both 2026,
S1: both in 2026. That's two years from now, a year
S1: and a half from now, we will have the ability
S1: to have a Deepfaked comic, right? A funny set and
S1: perform it in a way that if a regular person
S1: who enjoys comedy watches it, they'll be like, yeah, that's
S1: pretty funny. That's decently funny. Now, could they get their
S1: own Netflix Netflix special based on that content? That would
S1: be like the top, top tier. But keep in mind
S1: how few comics actually have Netflix specials. So yeah. Interesting.
S1: What did I say? 27. No, I said 26. Yeah.
S1: All right. I'm holding myself to that. San Francisco is
S1: looking to ban software that critics claim is being used
S1: to artificially inflate rates, so it allegedly helps landlords coordinate
S1: rent increases. You might be over using vim visual mode.
S1: I've been worried about this for quite some time, actually.
S1: Oh yeah, instead of doing GG takes you to the
S1: top V which switched to visual mode, and then capital G,
S1: which goes to the bottom of the file. Instead you
S1: do GG quote plus y Why capital? That's a lot
S1: of characters, man. Anyway, I'm going to try to learn
S1: how to do this and do it more with normal
S1: commands instead of visual. All right humans. We're going to
S1: have driver's licenses in the Apple Wallet before too long,
S1: and you'll be able to go through LAX and SFO.
S1: China's manufacturers are facing a financial crisis, with many going
S1: bankrupt due to a combination of weak demand, rising costs
S1: and increased competition. Scientists at Fermilab have detected the first
S1: neutrinos using a prototype detector. Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment. Dune.
S1: You got to land. You got to land. The acronym.
S1: They landed it. Venture capitalists aren't looking for nice founders.
S1: They want risk takers. Nate Silver highlights that 70% of
S1: the billionaires on the 2023 Forbes 400 list are self-made, 70% self-made,
S1: modest backgrounds. So I saw Scott Galloway talking to Nate
S1: Silver about this. I really love this idea of basically
S1: Nate Silver was talking about this thing I've been talking
S1: about for a while, which is they want crazy religious
S1: people who are just like, yep, I have no life whatsoever.
S1: I will sleep under my desk. That is what people
S1: are looking for. They're looking for a crazy vision. And
S1: when I say people, I'm talking about VCs and also
S1: startup founders who are hiring people. And I would argue
S1: this is the future of all work. The future of
S1: all work is you only hire these people. You only
S1: hire the most talented and the most crazy dedicated because
S1: to hire a worker who just does normal work, they
S1: show up 9 to 5 and they do average level work.
S1: That's called AI except for it doesn't go home, it
S1: doesn't commute, it doesn't draw a salary, and you can
S1: upgrade it instantly. Okay, so 9 to 5 workers who
S1: just do average work that gets replaced. The only people
S1: I think that people are going to want going forward.
S1: And this is an exaggeration. There's still going to be
S1: a need for some some of the other type. But
S1: I would say in general, the motion towards is towards
S1: this dedicated zealot crazy person which happens to be young,
S1: happens to be male, usually um, and just obsessed with tech,
S1: obsessed with building things, obsessed with like. And you got
S1: all sorts of hangups around this. You got God complexes,
S1: you got narcissism, you got like, just ambition. Just all
S1: sorts of crazy testosterone powered things going on there. And
S1: the upside is taking risk. They're like, oh yeah, just
S1: I'll take all my money and put it into this
S1: idea and sleep under my desk for four years. And
S1: you don't see many older people doing that. You don't
S1: see many women doing that. There are some, uh, a
S1: decent amount, right? If you look at the entire world,
S1: but in general, it starts to look like one particular demographic.
S1: And silver is basically saying, yeah, that's what gets it done.
S1: That's what VCs are looking for and not people who
S1: are cautious. And I find that really interesting. This negativity,
S1: this risk acceptance. It feels very Atlas Shrugged to me,
S1: which is kind of awesome and kind of gross for
S1: different reasons, but I think that's one of the premises
S1: of Atlas Shrugged is that the risk takers are the
S1: ones who get the benefits, like the awesome people are
S1: the ones who are actually building. And I feel like
S1: Silicon Valley is based around this entire concept, is that
S1: those people who sleep under the desk, they are the
S1: special people, and of course, very few of them actually succeed,
S1: you know, especially the first time. But anyway, really cool
S1: concept coming out of Nate Silver. And by the way,
S1: he's the one who did FiveThirtyEight, although he does not
S1: run it anymore, someone else is running it and they're
S1: actually competing using Nate Silver's brand of FiveThirtyEight. So do
S1: not tie yourself to a brand and then sell it,
S1: because everyone will think you still have it. Growing trend
S1: of Gen Z men becoming NEETs not in employment, education
S1: or training. 1 in 5 young men under 25 unemployed
S1: and not actively looking for work, 1 in 5 unemployed
S1: and not looking for work. What the f is going on?
S1: Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast. I've always loved this.
S1: I'm ex-military myself. I've heard this a million times. It's
S1: not just Navy Seals. Lots of military talk about this,
S1: but cool idea. No one wants kids anymore. And it's
S1: not you. Cool video talks about declining birth rates, touching
S1: on economic pressures, changing societal values, and personal choices. Imposter
S1: syndrome often stems from systemic biases, not just self-doubt, and
S1: highlights that many women experience this due to real exclusionary practices,
S1: which is 100% true. Guy got fired and replaced by
S1: AI at cosmos magazine, and the management didn't tell anyone.
S1: They're using generative AI to write articles, possibly trained on
S1: their own authors work, and basically firing all the humans
S1: who could have possibly predicted this. I give my kids
S1: a summer like mine. In the 1980s, this parent decided
S1: to give her ten and five year old daughters a
S1: taste of a 1980s summer holiday where the bedroom where
S1: boredom was common and self entertainment was key. 1980. Summer holiday.
S1: This is when I grew up. I grew up in
S1: the 80s where boredom was common and self entertainment was key. Boredom.
S1: You know how awesome it is. I'm thinking about this
S1: right now to be a kid outside on a weekend.
S1: You had some sort of breakfast which your parents cooked
S1: for you. You are now out playing. That's what it's called.
S1: You're out playing. I don't know what age this is.
S1: Let's call it 12 or something like that, or 14.
S1: You then get together with your buddies and obviously I'm
S1: a boy, so I'm going to have a boy perspective.
S1: But you would get together with your guy friends all
S1: the same age and you're just like, what are we
S1: going to do? I don't know, I don't know, what
S1: are you going to do? And you're just like, maybe
S1: we should go over here. No. That's stupid. We just
S1: did that. Uh, maybe we should go over here. Hey,
S1: you want to, like, see if we can lift up
S1: these manhole covers and, like, roll them around? Yeah, that
S1: sounds cool. So you go over, you try to stick
S1: your finger in the hole. You try to like, wedge
S1: some sort of piece of metal in there and yank
S1: it up. Turns out the metal was sharp and you
S1: just gouged your hand open. You're bleeding all over the place,
S1: so someone, like, rips the sleeve off of their shirt
S1: and wraps it around your hand, and then you just
S1: keep doing it, and then you just, like, roll this thing.
S1: Then you realize, well, someone walks by here and falls
S1: in that hole like you're super screwed. You know you're
S1: going to hurt yourself. Maybe one of your friends actually
S1: do it. Maybe you decide to climb down there because
S1: that's stupid also, but also kind of fun. Do you
S1: know how many hundreds of these moments that I've had
S1: that Gen X people have had that are just magical?
S1: I was talking to my girl about this as well.
S1: She loves this. The same exact thing. She would get
S1: on her bike and go riding all over the frickin town,
S1: riding all over. Just go visit her friends and hang out.
S1: And she'd have her bike with a banana seat and
S1: just like, take it everywhere. And then she would start
S1: getting hungry. The sun would start going down. And if
S1: she didn't get home once that happened, that was an
S1: ass whoopin and just everyone understood that you are free, 1,000%
S1: free until the street lights come on. Then you got
S1: to get home. Then there's dinner there for you. You
S1: have dinner and it's just magical. There is no boredom now.
S1: Kids do not get bored because TikTok or Facebook or
S1: Instagram or whatever it is. Texting is so compelling and
S1: arguably more compelling than manhole covers, and that's a problem.
S1: This is what I think a big problem is. I
S1: don't know why I'm fucking rambling about this shit, and
S1: I'm supposed to be supposed to be delivering this podcast.
S1: I'm just going to do whatever, um, when stimuli is
S1: too high, the dopamine level is too high, and anything
S1: that drops the dopamine level down, let's say that currently
S1: in 2024, things are so awesome in terms of stimuli
S1: and inputs. The dopamine levels are like an 85, let's
S1: say in the 1980s. As an average kid, they used
S1: to be like a 35, okay. And now they're an
S1: 85 because of like all this tech. Okay, better games,
S1: better game consoles, better screens, better audio experiences, more video games. Okay,
S1: more access to porn. All the social media, TikTok. I mean,
S1: it's not even 85. It's like 285. And it used
S1: to be a 35. Okay, now try to take somebody
S1: like that and put him outside there like, are you
S1: kidding me? It's dirty out here. You want me to
S1: ride my bike? You want me to, like, what am
S1: I supposed to do out here? Nothing compares. Nothing in
S1: that world compares to TikTok. TikTok is crack. It's crack cocaine.
S1: And that's dangerous. Now what everyone seems to know and
S1: the experts seem to know. And I think you can
S1: learn this just by doing it, is you can actually
S1: reset your dopamine level very quickly. So what this person,
S1: I think did this parents decided to give her ten
S1: and five year old daughters a taste of the 1980s
S1: summer holiday where boredom was common and self entertainment was key.
S1: So what that means is you have to take the
S1: things away and throw them together and just be like,
S1: figure out something to do and they'll be like, oh, well,
S1: let's take this blanket and put it at an angle.
S1: And now we have a fort, right? And pretty soon
S1: you're making forts because you were bored. And that enjoyment
S1: of coming up with something from boredom and getting your
S1: dopamine level from a five to a 25 feels amazing.
S1: And it involves more creativity, more innovation. I think it's
S1: just healthier. It's just healthier. It's more natural, it's more healthy.
S1: And I don't think there's a problem with all the
S1: tech and hyper, you know, blasting with dopamine from a
S1: TikTok or whatever. But it's you got to regulate it.
S1: You got to regulate it and go back to this
S1: dopamine fasting and, you know, lower and slower anyway. All right.
S1: Few ideas I've had recently. The ultimate privilege, I think
S1: the ultimate privilege might be growing up in a stable
S1: household with two parents who give you a strong work ethic.
S1: It trips me out how simple this is and how
S1: the best advice is often like this. It's the exact
S1: same with diet, exercise, relationships, and a million other things.
S1: The best advice is concise, wise, and generally hard to do,
S1: but it is not a mystery. I think the US
S1: and the world should lock in on this one thing.
S1: Stable two parent households that imbue a strong work ethic
S1: and focus a lot of energy on getting to 100%
S1: on that metric. All right, next idea. The biggest market
S1: opening right now is for a product platform that validates
S1: the authenticity of content coming from a creator or publisher. Yeah,
S1: that's a tweet. I'm not going to do the whole thread.
S1: I used to think there was a big difference between
S1: somebody being weak and somebody being evil. I now treat
S1: them mostly the same because the outcomes they manifest are
S1: mostly the same. The only difference is that with a
S1: weak person, I could try to make them strong. Someone
S1: responded and said, don't you mean cowardice and not weakness?
S1: I'm kind of equivocating, those two. But I do see
S1: their point. I'm not talking about, like, little children. I'm
S1: talking about. I'm not talking about somebody who's supposed to
S1: be weak because they're disabled or they're super young. They're,
S1: you know, one and a half years old. Stop being weak.
S1: That's not the point. The point is somebody who is
S1: weak due to a flaw in character and who is
S1: causing damage to people around them and themselves as a result.
S1: And importantly, somebody, ideally, who could potentially fix themselves. That's
S1: what I'm talking about. All right. Discovery fabric plus raycast.
S1: So this guy Wil Chen did a YouTube video on
S1: how to integrate fabric into raycast. And guess what. I
S1: am now using raycast. Look at that activate trial. I
S1: need to do that. This is. Yeah, I switched back
S1: to spotlight because I like to use native tools rather
S1: than third party. I was on Alfred for years and
S1: years and years and years. Then I switched back to
S1: spotlight because there was some OS upgrade. I was like, oh,
S1: let's see how good spotlight is. I prefer to use
S1: the native tools anyway, unless there's a compelling reason to
S1: use a third party tool, which is why I'm on
S1: Safari instead of Chrome. Even though Chrome is way faster.
S1: I like the inbuilt stuff in Safari. Anyway, fabric integration
S1: into raycast. That is a big enough reason for me
S1: to switch back. So guess what? Now I'm about to
S1: become a raycast guru and look at this. I might
S1: integrate it more deeply by hosting a set of these
S1: scripts within fabric. So basically these are Python scripts that
S1: raycast reads and that's how raycast executes these things. So
S1: I'm thinking about putting a whole directory of these inside
S1: of fabric. So you could just point raycast to that
S1: directory and boom you're ready to go. And so the
S1: way he described this you know what. Frick it. Just
S1: open it. Watch this.
S2: Uh, okay. So, um.
S1: I don't know if you can hear that, but.
S2: So watch this. I, uh, look at this, like going back.
S2: Going back through these, uh, to these various patterns and fabric. Um,
S2: like if you're if you're like if you have some
S2: text in your selection, like if you, if you have
S2: something you want to select or you want to quick
S2: Paul Graham essay, I can just go ahead and just
S2: type in extract wisdom. Right. And let's say I can
S2: grab this one.
S1: So he copied.
S2: Or I can I can grab the whole thing. Grabs
S2: the whole wisdom right. Extract wisdom. And then just type.
S1: X and then paste it and.
S2: It will run. And look at.
S1: This. Here comes fabric.
S2: That fabric prompt I use it to run it with
S2: Claude Sonnet 3.5. And it's insane.
S1: So yeah, I'm about to rig everything up in that way.
S1: Eric Schmidt of Google did a crazy, honest interview at Stanford,
S1: and it was so spicy that Stanford took it down.
S1: But guess what? I got the link to the video,
S1: and I pulled out the transcript and I made a
S1: fabric summary of it. So there you go. Ideal founding
S1: team Ben Horowitz lays out the perfect founding team in
S1: the clearest way I've ever seen. It's just it's really good.
S1: Scrape it now. New CLI tool for web scraping grok two.
S1: This is the one that just does all sorts of
S1: crazy stuff. Prompt caching with Claude Flux AI by Black
S1: Forest Labs. This one getting a lot of talk. I
S1: haven't used it yet because I'm not doing a lot
S1: of AI image stuff. When I need an AI image,
S1: I usually use Midjourney. Still graphic info. New website lets
S1: you generate infographics to make your articles more engaging. Agile
S1: is for losers, a rant about the author's decade long
S1: frustrations with the agile methodology infiltrating digital agencies, and the
S1: recommendation of the week. Stop accepting it when your loved ones,
S1: especially the young people, are not AI literate. Here's the
S1: way I recommend you think about this. Imagine that the
S1: competition level for getting top jobs or mates or whatever
S1: was 100. In 2022, the average person was at like
S1: an 80. Okay. AI is augmentation technology. It adds 20
S1: to 50 points to people who get good at it.
S1: So now the person with an 85 learns AI and
S1: they're like a 125. So the new standard is reset
S1: from 80 to 120. So if you were a 90
S1: before or a 110, you are now behind. Don't let
S1: your people get left behind. I is the new reading.
S1: It's the new high school diploma. It's the new degree.
S1: Make sure your people, the people that you love, have it.
S1: And just to show you how real this thing is. Okay,
S1: this is the best. This is the absolute best. And
S1: to get you motivated, here is an 18. No an
S1: eight year old. Here's an eight year old doing live coding.
S3: Watch this thing every one. And today I'm well I'm.
S3: Yeah I'm going to show you how to code with cursor.
S3: I'm gonna go to terminal and I'm going to say
S3: new terminal and new terminal.
S1: Look at.
S3: This.
S1: She's she's running.
S3: Pom pom run npm.
S1: Run dev.
S3: There I have that. And then I go to be
S3: and look, I made it. Say hello. I want this
S3: to say. Say hey.
S1: Okay, so we're gonna.
S3: We're gonna.
S1: Jump ahead here.
S3: So, um, I wanted to say chat with Harry and
S3: and then recent cloudfare workers AI. And then it will
S3: do all of the stuff. So you can't do it
S3: if it's not finished, because then it just won't work.
S3: So now I'm gonna save it. So now I'm going
S3: to say hi. Wicked. Hi there. I'm Harry James Potter.
S3: Oh my goodness.
S1: She just built a chat bot to talk to Harry Potter.
S1: She's eight years.
S3: Old, right?
S1: Okay, I'm telling you, that is an eight year old
S1: who just built a chat bot to talk to Harry Potter. Okay.
S1: And you and I have a lot of loved ones
S1: who were like, oh, ChatGPT. Is that still a thing?
S1: How is that still a thing? I thought that blew out, like,
S1: a year ago. I thought it got really important when
S1: people start. Stopped talking about it, and now I don't
S1: care anymore. This is what you're competing with. Eight year olds,
S1: building chat bots to talk to Harry Potter. All right.
S1: And the aphorism of the week standing still in evolution
S1: is equivalent to moving backwards. Standing still in evolution is
S1: equivalent to moving backwards Matt Ridley. Unsupervised learning is produced
S1: and edited by Daniel Miessler on a Neumann U87 AI
S1: microphone using Hindenburg. Intro and outro music is by zombie
S1: with a Y. And to get the text and links
S1: from this episode, sign up for the newsletter version of
S1: the show at Daniel missler.com/newsletter. We'll see you next time.