Speaker 1: Welcome to Text Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: and I love all things tech and a lot of
Speaker 1: you out there who have been listening to this show
Speaker 1: for a while, I know that I like to get
Speaker 1: on a soapbox about critical thinking, and I also talk
Speaker 1: a lot about compassion and how I believe we really
Speaker 1: need to employ both critical thinking and compassion together if
Speaker 1: we are to be good human beings. In many places
Speaker 1: around the world, including here in the United States, we
Speaker 1: are seeing a play by play of what happens when
Speaker 1: we ignore critical thinking and compassion when we do not
Speaker 1: incorporate those qualities into our systems. When we do that,
Speaker 1: then there are people who are specifically left out of
Speaker 1: those systems who suffer because of those systems, from pandemic
Speaker 1: responses to people on the sidelines who are judging the
Speaker 1: actions and motivations of protesters who, let's face it, are
Speaker 1: actually just asking that they be treated like human beings.
Speaker 1: This is a problem that has a real world negative
Speaker 1: impact on countless lives. We need to examine ideas and
Speaker 1: claims carefully and make sure that those ideas and those
Speaker 1: claims have merit. But we also need to remember that
Speaker 1: other people are you know people. Some of them might
Speaker 1: be knowingly engaged in creating or perpetrating falsehoods for whatever reasons,
Speaker 1: and that's obviously bad. You know, if their motivations are
Speaker 1: bad and they're acting on those bad motivations, they are
Speaker 1: not good people. But others might be doing this without
Speaker 1: realizing it or noing that the information that they're spreading
Speaker 1: is wrong, which is also bad, but that is potentially
Speaker 1: reparable with the right approach. So today's episode is going
Speaker 1: to be another one about critical thinking and probably a
Speaker 1: bit of compassion thrown in there too, and I'll frame
Speaker 1: it within the context of technology for the most part.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to do a rundown of you know,
Speaker 1: current events. But please keep in mind that we should
Speaker 1: be employing these qualities everywhere, not just when it comes
Speaker 1: to should I buy this gadget or is it too
Speaker 1: good to be true? Critical thinking really is about digging
Speaker 1: beneath the surface level of a topic or an issue
Speaker 1: to understand what's really going on. And it's related to
Speaker 1: stuff like the scientific method, and it's a skill that,
Speaker 1: like most skills, gets better the more you use it.
Speaker 1: It's not the same thing as outright denial. I'm not
Speaker 1: telling you to go out and just deny stuff. It's
Speaker 1: really more about asking questions and looking for the answers
Speaker 1: and evaluaiting those answers, and if the answers hold up,
Speaker 1: then accepting those answers, even if the answer doesn't align
Speaker 1: with what you had already guessed was going to be
Speaker 1: the answer You've you've got to be willing to accept
Speaker 1: it if it holds up under evaluation. And one other
Speaker 1: thing I want to get out of the way is
Speaker 1: that I don't mean to come across as being on
Speaker 1: a high horse here. I want to tell you guys
Speaker 1: something that I am not very proud of. It took
Speaker 1: me an embarrassingly long time to really embrace critical thinking.
Speaker 1: I didn't even hear the term until I was in college,
Speaker 1: and my professors talked about it as though it had
Speaker 1: been part of my education the entire time, and it wasn't.
Speaker 1: And while I learned about critical thinking in college, I
Speaker 1: was not good at it. I'd say it wasn't until
Speaker 1: I was in my mid thirties that I started really
Speaker 1: understanding it and employing it, and to this day I
Speaker 1: still slip up. It's not unusual for me to realize
Speaker 1: that something I had previously just accepted really required more
Speaker 1: scrutiny and understanding. So you can think of this episode
Speaker 1: as being inspired by my own slow journey toward critical thinking,
Speaker 1: a journey that's still going on today. But let's start
Speaker 1: with the obvious. We've all seen countless advertisements of variable
Speaker 1: messaging and quality, and we all understand that ads are
Speaker 1: intended to motivate us to spend money on goods or services.
Speaker 1: That includes stuff like political ads too. By the way,
Speaker 1: in those cases, you can think of the transaction as
Speaker 1: a vote rather than an exchange of money, unless we're
Speaker 1: talking about ads that are asking for campaign contributions, in
Speaker 1: which case, yeah, that's similar to an ad trying to
Speaker 1: sell you a new car or pair of sneakers or whatever.
Speaker 1: So let's think about this from the perspective of someone
Speaker 1: who designs ads. Their job ultimately is to create something
Speaker 1: that motivates the audience to take action. Moreover, that action
Speaker 1: typically means motivating them to spend some of their own
Speaker 1: money on a product or service, and that could be
Speaker 1: a tough hill to climb right, So someone who is
Speaker 1: good at creating ads has to think about how to
Speaker 1: frame their subject in a way that speaks to the
Speaker 1: intended audience. Typically, these ads need to convince that audience
Speaker 1: that whatever is being sold is something that the audience
Speaker 1: actually needs. Now, if whatever is being sold is already
Speaker 1: an established thing, that's not as difficult, right. I mean,
Speaker 1: if I'm trying to sell microwave ovens, I don't have
Speaker 1: to explain what a microwave oven is because those have
Speaker 1: existed for decades. Moreover, folks tend to understand the use
Speaker 1: case for a microwave oven and how they can really
Speaker 1: be convenient and fast compared to other methods of food preparation.
Speaker 1: So all of that groundwork has already been done for me.
Speaker 1: But let's say I come out with a new product,
Speaker 1: or a product that hasn't really established a firm foothold
Speaker 1: in the market. Now I have to convince my audience
Speaker 1: that the thing I have created or that I am
Speaker 1: tasked to sell is actually useful. I will have to
Speaker 1: demonstrate how it solves a problem or and these ads
Speaker 1: are particularly clever, I have to convince my audience that
Speaker 1: they have a problem. They were previously unaware of, you know,
Speaker 1: the problem they never knew they had, and that my
Speaker 1: product solves that problem. I'm sure you've seen examples of
Speaker 1: ads or critiques of ads that have some variation of
Speaker 1: the phrase it solves a problem and you didn't even
Speaker 1: know you had. That, by the way, is a red flag.
Speaker 1: But we're going to get to red flags a little later.
Speaker 1: So that's one of the responsibilities that add creators must meet.
Speaker 1: Another is to convince the audience that the specific variant
Speaker 1: of the goods or services that the ad is about
Speaker 1: is superior to all others in that same category. Going
Speaker 1: back to the microwave oven, if I were to try
Speaker 1: and market a new oven, I would need to convince
Speaker 1: people that the oven I was producing was better than
Speaker 1: the dozens of other variations that are already on the market,
Speaker 1: or else I'm not going to get a good return
Speaker 1: on my investment. I'm not gonna sell many ovens, so
Speaker 1: I need to come people my microwave is the best
Speaker 1: in some way. Maybe it's less expensive, maybe it's more
Speaker 1: energy efficient, maybe it heats more evenly, or maybe I
Speaker 1: just claim some combination of these things and then try
Speaker 1: and go for that all of this needs to be
Speaker 1: conveyed in an effective way to the audience, and that
Speaker 1: means it needs to grab attention, It needs to be memorable,
Speaker 1: and typically it needs to be short and really skilled
Speaker 1: advertisers have become adept at sussing out some basic psychology
Speaker 1: to trigger our impulses. So let's talk about some of
Speaker 1: those red flags I just mentioned. I already said that
Speaker 1: the concept of solving a problem you didn't know you
Speaker 1: have should be a warning. In some cases, it may
Speaker 1: very well be legitimate. The product or service might actually
Speaker 1: take care of something that otherwise we had to do ourselves,
Speaker 1: and we never even thought twice about it because in
Speaker 1: our experience there was no way to offload that task.
Speaker 1: But there is no shortage of products, particularly in the
Speaker 1: as seen on TV category, that really don't solve anything.
Speaker 1: They might create an alternative way to do something, but
Speaker 1: they don't actually save any one time or effort. They
Speaker 1: might not even work as well as the more established
Speaker 1: methods they're supposed to replace, and they also cost you money.
Speaker 1: You have to buy these things, right, so that would
Speaker 1: mean for you it would be a net loss if
Speaker 1: you bought one. As a rule, I assume any product
Speaker 1: that relies on videos of actors being comically incapable of
Speaker 1: doing something simple like opening a carton of milk to
Speaker 1: fall into this category. Another red flag falls in line
Speaker 1: with the old saying if it looks too good to
Speaker 1: be true, it probably is. I think that's saying can
Speaker 1: be applied to about of all the ads I see
Speaker 1: whenever I visit Facebook. I can't tell you, guys how
Speaker 1: frequently I've seen ads for stuff like electric guitars that
Speaker 1: really go whole hog on this one. Now. I've been
Speaker 1: doing a lot of research on guitars because I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about finally learning to play one, but because I'm browsing
Speaker 1: online to learn this stuff, and because I have not
Speaker 1: taken better precautions to hide my browsing from Facebook, and
Speaker 1: that is totally on me, I now get flooded with
Speaker 1: ads for guitars when I look at Facebook. These ads
Speaker 1: frequently claimed to sell some brand named guitars, stuff like Fender,
Speaker 1: you know, the Fender Strato Caster or the Gibson Less Paul,
Speaker 1: but for ludicrously low prices. A guitar that could cost
Speaker 1: six dollars or more will list on one of these
Speaker 1: ads for so talk about the temptation. If you're an
Speaker 1: aspiring musician or someone who's been playing on an entry
Speaker 1: level instrument, but you would love to own something more professional,
Speaker 1: more high end, that sounds like an incredible offer. The
Speaker 1: ads I saw typically said that whatever store was posting
Speaker 1: the ad was going out of business, or that they
Speaker 1: had to make room for new stocks, They had to
Speaker 1: do a clearance sale of all this old inventory, and
Speaker 1: the ad was creating a fiction to make it seem
Speaker 1: as though there was some justification for those low prices,
Speaker 1: to give at least some sense that this possibly could
Speaker 1: be on the up and up. Now did those ads
Speaker 1: tempt me? Yeah, I'm human, But I also didn't believe them.
Speaker 1: Immediately I was suspicious. So I decided that I was
Speaker 1: going to start opening up these ads into another browser
Speaker 1: and look at the landing page. And I immediately grew
Speaker 1: suspicious of them because the language was very similar to
Speaker 1: other ones I had seen before, the details about the
Speaker 1: page were really sparse, and also as soon as I
Speaker 1: opened up more than one of them, I saw that
Speaker 1: these ads, which were supposedly all for different companies and
Speaker 1: different guitar shops, they all had different names and different
Speaker 1: U r L s They all landed on pages that
Speaker 1: were identical except for the U r L address, So
Speaker 1: I wasn't getting redirected to the same website. No, there
Speaker 1: were duplicates of this same web site. That's dead giveaway.
Speaker 1: It's an indication that someone is casting as wide a
Speaker 1: net as they can to try and trick people into
Speaker 1: a transaction. So what is actually going on here? Well,
Speaker 1: with many of these companies, most of which are running
Speaker 1: places like China, the whole operation is a bait and switch.
Speaker 1: The goal is to convince people that they are buying
Speaker 1: something legitimate, like a Fender stratocaster, but it could be anything.
Speaker 1: It could be a costume piece, it could be some
Speaker 1: other gadget, it could be knives, you name it. But
Speaker 1: what the company will ship will be some sort of
Speaker 1: cheap knockoff. And most companies won't even attempt to hide
Speaker 1: this fact. It's just apparent as soon as you receive
Speaker 1: the package. These companies are very slow to ship those products,
Speaker 1: and really the goal is to waste enough time so
Speaker 1: that by the time you finally get whatever that cheap
Speaker 1: knockoff is, it's really hard for you to cancel that transaction.
Speaker 1: The transaction is already gone through, and it's hard for
Speaker 1: you to get your money back. Many of them have
Speaker 1: no return policy, or they do have a return policy,
Speaker 1: but it's going to cost you more to ship the
Speaker 1: product back to the company then it cost you to
Speaker 1: buy in the first place. So that one hundred dollar
Speaker 1: cheap knockoff of a Fender stratocaster would end up costing
Speaker 1: me two hundred dollars to ship back to the company
Speaker 1: for a refund. So it's a net loss. So you
Speaker 1: don't get the thing you actually, you know, paid for,
Speaker 1: and you're left with no real way to fix that situation.
Speaker 1: And since the company is operating out of another country,
Speaker 1: you don't really have many options to seek justice. Now,
Speaker 1: in my case, I started marking these ads and reporting
Speaker 1: them to Facebook as being misleading, and this would prompt
Speaker 1: Facebook to essentially block those ads from appearing on my page. Now,
Speaker 1: it didn't mean that Facebook removed the ad, It's just
Speaker 1: that I didn't see it anymore. But here's the thing.
Speaker 1: As soon as I would block one version of that ad,
Speaker 1: I would see another one that was nearly identical to
Speaker 1: the first one, and it would go to a different
Speaker 1: you are l but it was on that exact same
Speaker 1: style web page, the same layout, same pictures, everything, So
Speaker 1: it was the same scam. And then I would report
Speaker 1: that ad, and then I would see another, And I
Speaker 1: must have gone through at least half a dozen of
Speaker 1: these before I stopped seeing versions of that ad. So today,
Speaker 1: if I go to Facebook, I don't see that one anymore.
Speaker 1: But doesn't mean that there aren't other ads that are
Speaker 1: following in this same pattern. And again, none of this
Speaker 1: means that Facebook is actually not running those ads for
Speaker 1: other people. Facebook's revenue is almost entirely dependent upon advertising.
Speaker 1: It is not in Facebook's financial interests to come down
Speaker 1: hard on advertisers and demand that they are transparent and honest.
Speaker 1: If Facebook institute those rules, it would lose out on
Speaker 1: millions of dollars of revenue every quarter. So Facebook has
Speaker 1: a financial incentive to run those ads and to serve
Speaker 1: as a platform for advertising that's both good and bad.
Speaker 1: Bad ads will only hurt Facebook if there's a large
Speaker 1: enough response among users, and typically that would mean that
Speaker 1: users would have to abandon the platform or or just
Speaker 1: not use it at all, or somehow block ads across
Speaker 1: all the Facebook. The company's standpoint is really more hands
Speaker 1: off and essentially saying caveat intour or buyer, beware the
Speaker 1: responsibility of figuring out which ads are legit would fall
Speaker 1: to you, the user, not to Facebook. This also applies
Speaker 1: to Facebook's stance on misinformation. Now, if you are in
Speaker 1: the United States, you've likely seen a lot of news
Speaker 1: about Mark Zuckerberg saying that he doesn't want Facebook to
Speaker 1: be an arbiter of truth. He doesn't want Facebook to
Speaker 1: declare to users which posts reflect honest messages and which
Speaker 1: are misinformation, And he frames in a way that makes
Speaker 1: it sound like Facebook is trying to be an agnostic
Speaker 1: platform upon which people can express themselves. Freedom of speech
Speaker 1: the first Amendment in the United States, and that to
Speaker 1: act otherwise, we mean Facebook would have to replace this
Speaker 1: with a company of proved expression of ideas. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're framing it is a very much a free speech
Speaker 1: kind of issue. But is that what's really going on?
Speaker 1: When we come back, we'll consider some alternatives by applying
Speaker 1: some critical thinking. But before that, and I know this
Speaker 1: is going to sound totally hypocritical, We're going to take
Speaker 1: a brief break to thank our sponsor, and by the
Speaker 1: end of this episode I'll have more to say about sponsors.
Speaker 1: And ads in our podcasts in particular. But first, let's
Speaker 1: take that quick break. Zuckerberg says he doesn't want his
Speaker 1: company to dictate what is truth, and he frames it
Speaker 1: in a way that seems to say, who are we
Speaker 1: to decide what is truth and what is false? And
Speaker 1: that's a fairly compelling argument, right. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: know about you, but I don't love the idea of
Speaker 1: some centralized authority deciding seemingly arbitrarily, which are true and
Speaker 1: which ones are false. We've seen throughout Facebook's history that
Speaker 1: whenever the company tweaks their algorithm, people get mad because
Speaker 1: they see only a selection of the posts their friends
Speaker 1: are making. Every time it happens, I have to look
Speaker 1: for the settings that allow me to view Facebook posts
Speaker 1: by most recent rather than whatever factors Facebook thinks are
Speaker 1: more important to me. And even then, I know I'm
Speaker 1: not actually seeing everything my friends are posting in reverse
Speaker 1: chronological order. I'm just seeing some of it. So I
Speaker 1: think that not wanting to be the arbiter of truth
Speaker 1: is part of the reasoning. I think that's a kernel
Speaker 1: of truth with Facebook. But I also think it's not
Speaker 1: the only, or perhaps not even the primary reason for
Speaker 1: that decision. So let's think critically about Facebook and how
Speaker 1: Facebook makes money. So, as we already mentioned, Facebook makes
Speaker 1: money through advertising, and it doesn't have a huge incentive
Speaker 1: to make sure that those ads that are running on
Speaker 1: the platform are for legitimate businesses and purposes, though the
Speaker 1: company definitely does have an interest in preventing anything that
Speaker 1: would be damaging to Facebook from running on that platform.
Speaker 1: But another component to this is that Facebook makes more
Speaker 1: money the longer people stay on Facebook actively. So if
Speaker 1: you can convince people to actively stay on Facebook for longer,
Speaker 1: you can serve them more ads, and that means you
Speaker 1: make more money. Therefore, it benefits Facebook to employee strategies
Speaker 1: that keep people glued to the website longer. One way
Speaker 1: to do that is to design algorithms that show posts
Speaker 1: that are proven to get more engagement than others. And
Speaker 1: by engagement, we're talking about stuff like posts that get
Speaker 1: lots of comments or a lot of people are sharing
Speaker 1: it to their own pages or friends pages, and the
Speaker 1: number of likes that those posts are getting, Posts that
Speaker 1: encourage people to participate and perpetuate essentially, and those are
Speaker 1: the posts that keep people on Facebook longer. Thus, those
Speaker 1: are the ones that mean more ads can be served
Speaker 1: for longer amounts of time to those people. In the
Speaker 1: business model for Facebook, all of this is a good thing.
Speaker 1: So it's in Facebook's interests to design algorithms that can
Speaker 1: identify the types of posts that are driving engagement and
Speaker 1: then serve them to a larger spectrum of Facebook's users.
Speaker 1: Remember I said earlier, I know I'm not seeing all
Speaker 1: of the stuff my friends are posting, even when I'm
Speaker 1: trying to view my Facebook in you know, chronological order. Well,
Speaker 1: that's because Facebook is kind of choosing which ones I
Speaker 1: see in which ones I don't, And usually it's trying
Speaker 1: to pick the ones that are more likely to drive
Speaker 1: high engagement, and those are the ones I'm seeing. Once
Speaker 1: you understand that that's how Facebook works, you can start
Speaker 1: to craft posts that take advantage of this property. You
Speaker 1: can game the system. You can build stuff that by
Speaker 1: its very nature, is designed to drive engagement. Now, it
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be true. In fact, if you restrict
Speaker 1: yourself to posting stuff that's only true, you're not likely
Speaker 1: to drive that much engagement. But it does need to
Speaker 1: be really compelling. Things that are more outrageous or tap
Speaker 1: into basic emotional responses, whether positive or negative, tend to
Speaker 1: work really well. So it is with that understanding that
Speaker 1: people can craft messages that contain misinformation and have those
Speaker 1: messages perpetuate quickly across platforms like Facebook, and those messages
Speaker 1: can be really harmful. And whether the person who made
Speaker 1: the message intended to push a specific agenda, or they
Speaker 1: wanted to discredit some other point of view they don't
Speaker 1: agree with, or they just wanted to find a way
Speaker 1: to drive engagement for whatever reason, the motivations are immaterial.
Speaker 1: They could range from irritating but mostly benign to downright
Speaker 1: mean spirited, but the outcome ends up being the same.
Speaker 1: Misinformation spreads like wildfire across Facebook and beyond. And if
Speaker 1: you are encountering misinformation all the time, and it's popping
Speaker 1: up like crazy in your feet and being re and
Speaker 1: forced that way, you start to get the impression that
Speaker 1: that stuff is the real deal, even if it doesn't
Speaker 1: sound legit to you. The fact that Facebook can become
Speaker 1: a fire hose of misinformation helps reinforce those messages, even
Speaker 1: if the messages themselves lack merit. I compared to living
Speaker 1: in a place like China or North Korea, where nearly
Speaker 1: all messaging requires state level approval, and that means the
Speaker 1: government gets to dictate what information the citizens can access. Well,
Speaker 1: that sort of thing is bound to shape thoughts and opinions.
Speaker 1: If you never get to see anything outside the approved stuff,
Speaker 1: then you have no idea that it even exists. We
Speaker 1: don't have this innate ability to know the truth from falsehood.
Speaker 1: Facebook meanwhile, has little incentive to change anything. Facebook isn't
Speaker 1: in the business of trying to make things better for
Speaker 1: the average person. That's not their business model. There in
Speaker 1: the business of making money, and that increased level of
Speaker 1: engagement drives revenue, which means more money for Facebook. Acting
Speaker 1: against that would go against the company's self interest. Moreover,
Speaker 1: there's a concept that's important to Facebook's operations called safe harbor. Now, basically,
Speaker 1: this concept is that if a company is acting as
Speaker 1: a means of communication, it cannot be held responsible for
Speaker 1: the stuff that's said using that company's services. So let's
Speaker 1: say that if someone were to call up another person
Speaker 1: on the phone and then they threatened that person. So
Speaker 1: person A calls person B and issues a threat over
Speaker 1: the phone, the phone company would not be responsible for
Speaker 1: that horrible act. The phone company just runs the infrastructure
Speaker 1: that was used to make the phone call. The same
Speaker 1: sort of concept generally applies to platforms like Facebook. The
Speaker 1: idea is that if a user were to post something
Speaker 1: illegal or disruptive on Facebook, the company wouldn't be held responsible,
Speaker 1: particularly if the company could show that it had acted
Speaker 1: promptly in response to complaints or reports about the transgression.
Speaker 1: If face book takes a stance on misinformation, there might
Speaker 1: be a fear that it would be shifting in a
Speaker 1: role of accountability, which might seem to undermine the safe
Speaker 1: harbor argument. In addition to that, monitoring posts and labeling
Speaker 1: stuff that is spreading misinformation as such, or removing such
Speaker 1: messages or whatever the plan is, would require an investment
Speaker 1: on Facebook's part. The company would have to spend time, energy,
Speaker 1: and resources, and all that boils down to money to
Speaker 1: create a method to identify and label or remove posts
Speaker 1: that are promoting misinformation. So not only would Facebook be
Speaker 1: cutting back on the types of posts that drive engagement
Speaker 1: and thus generate revenue, the company would also have to
Speaker 1: pour money into that effort. Asking a business to spend
Speaker 1: money so that it can make less money is a
Speaker 1: pretty tough argument. It's no wonder Zuckerberg as opposed to it. Yes,
Speaker 1: it would be a huge responsibility to determine which messages
Speaker 1: reflect reality and which do not. It would bring Facebook
Speaker 1: under enormous scrutiny and criticism. Any person or group or
Speaker 1: whatever that saw messages being labeled or removed would raise
Speaker 1: an enormous stink over it, and the company would have
Speaker 1: to deal with that. Right, So, let's say people who
Speaker 1: are perpetrating misinformation see that their messages are being taken down,
Speaker 1: then they can just make it an even bigger thing.
Speaker 1: But more than that, combating misinformation hurts the company's bottom line. Now,
Speaker 1: as I record this, news is breaking that dozens of
Speaker 1: Facebook employees have staged a walk out in protest of
Speaker 1: how Zuckerberg and other high level management at Facebook have
Speaker 1: refused to intervene when it comes to misinformation and inflammatory posts. Now,
Speaker 1: the particular posts that are at the center of this
Speaker 1: protest originated from the office of the President of the
Speaker 1: United States. So the stakes are very high on this one,
Speaker 1: and I'm definitely dogging on Facebook a lot here, but
Speaker 1: I want to be clear that it's not the only
Speaker 1: corporation and to do this kind of stuff. The stage
Speaker 1: had been set long before Facebook was even a thing.
Speaker 1: Back in the nineteen sixties, financial analysts and big thinkers
Speaker 1: started a gradual shift towards a focus on shareholder value,
Speaker 1: pairing that idea with the idea that executives should receive
Speaker 1: compensation that traded high salaries for stock options. The logic
Speaker 1: was that if your leaders in your company have a
Speaker 1: personal stake in the performance of the company, they will
Speaker 1: make decisions that will be best for the company. But
Speaker 1: it hasn't necessarily played out that way, as time and
Speaker 1: again executives have made decisions that were incredibly positive from
Speaker 1: a shareholder value and thus a personal finance perspective, but
Speaker 1: had negative consequences for stuff like customer satisfaction or employee
Speaker 1: conditions and more. In recent years, more leaders, including Jack Welch,
Speaker 1: who was seen as the champion of shareholder value back
Speaker 1: in the nineteen eighties. He was the CEO of General
Speaker 1: Electric back at that time. Even Jack Welch has come
Speaker 1: out and said that this is a bad approach and
Speaker 1: that really the priorities should be customers first, then employees,
Speaker 1: and then shareholders. They should be behind the focus on
Speaker 1: customers and employees. But this is a view that's taking
Speaker 1: a very long time to precipitate throughout business as a whole,
Speaker 1: and in the meantime we see a lot of leaders
Speaker 1: making decisions the result in enormous increases in wealth at
Speaker 1: others expense. Now, why did I bring all that up
Speaker 1: in the first place. Well, I did it to show
Speaker 1: that by taking a particular stance or claim, in this
Speaker 1: case Zuckerberg's explanation for why Facebook shouldn't weigh in on
Speaker 1: whether or not something is accurate or true, we can
Speaker 1: actually ask ourselves questions and look at the subject on
Speaker 1: a deeper level, and at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: you might find yourself agreeing with Zuckerberg's decision, even if
Speaker 1: his explanation for that decision is not the full truth. Now,
Speaker 1: I personally do not agree with his decision, but that's
Speaker 1: my own point of view, and I don't wish to
Speaker 1: argue that my point of view is the quote unquote
Speaker 1: right one. It's just the one I happen to have.
Speaker 1: I do think it's important to get as full and
Speaker 1: understanding as possible before weighing in with opinions. Now, this
Speaker 1: is a skill, and like all skills, we all need
Speaker 1: to practice at it to get better and I include
Speaker 1: myself in that, and you've likely encountered messages that reinforced
Speaker 1: a previously held belief. These are very easy to accept
Speaker 1: as the messages we see fall in line with what
Speaker 1: we already believe. We're more inclined to accept those kinds
Speaker 1: of messages right, and we're more likely to dismiss a
Speaker 1: message that conflicts with something we really believe. This is
Speaker 1: a natural human response, and that means it's also the
Speaker 1: type of response other people can count on when they
Speaker 1: craft messages. For example, i hold some pretty liberal beliefs,
Speaker 1: and I'm not asking any of you to subscribe to
Speaker 1: my beliefs. Some of you might have very conservative beliefs,
Speaker 1: and I'm not going to tell you to change. Rather,
Speaker 1: I'm framing it this way so that we understand where
Speaker 1: I'm coming from. So, if I encounter a message that
Speaker 1: indicates the President of the United States has said or
Speaker 1: done something particularly upsetting to me, I am predisposed to
Speaker 1: accept that that report is absolutely true. And partly that
Speaker 1: has to do with history. The president does have a
Speaker 1: very long record of saying and doing things that I
Speaker 1: find upsetting, so precedent has conditioned me to expect such
Speaker 1: things from him moving forward. But the rest is because
Speaker 1: I hold certain biases, and if a message reinforces those biases,
Speaker 1: I'm likely to buy into that message. And that's precisely
Speaker 1: when I need to employ critical thinking. When I encounter
Speaker 1: these messages, I actually do research to see if they're
Speaker 1: true or relevant. Like I see a lot of messages
Speaker 1: that contain quotes supposedly said by the President, and I
Speaker 1: try to do research to make sure that those are
Speaker 1: things that he actually said, to verify that somewhere the
Speaker 1: President is recorded as saying that quote, and also to
Speaker 1: see if there's more context around the quote and that
Speaker 1: it's not something that was pulled out that by itself
Speaker 1: is really awful, but within context isn't. And sometimes I
Speaker 1: can't find any evidence of the quote outside of the
Speaker 1: original message I saw, and then I'm just thinking, well,
Speaker 1: this could just be made up because it's it's playing
Speaker 1: to my expectations, and that's not enough. Likewise, I could
Speaker 1: encounter a message that praises someone from the liberal side
Speaker 1: of the spectrum, and once again, my bias means I'm
Speaker 1: predisposed to accept that as fact because it falls in
Speaker 1: line with my personal world view. But I also research
Speaker 1: these messages to make sure they are real and within
Speaker 1: the proper context. I do not want to blindly accept
Speaker 1: that a message aligns that happens to align with my
Speaker 1: personal worldview is true and then go on to perpetuate misinformation.
Speaker 1: Doing this is not always easy. I find that, especially
Speaker 1: when I'm particularly emotional, it's really challenging to remember to
Speaker 1: apply critical thinking. But I also think that's when we
Speaker 1: need to rely on it the most. On the mild side,
Speaker 1: it might mean you're less likely to spread falsehoods, but
Speaker 1: on the heavier side, it could mean you helped diffuse
Speaker 1: a dangerous situation. When we come back, I'll go into
Speaker 1: some more elements of critical thinking and compassion that are
Speaker 1: applicable in the tech world and beyond. But first let's
Speaker 1: take another quick break. In past episodes, you can hear
Speaker 1: me get really emotional about instances in which opportunistic people
Speaker 1: have used technology to take advantage of other in various ways.
Speaker 1: The schemes all tend to fall back on the common
Speaker 1: failures that we have as humans, and honestly, there is
Speaker 1: nothing really new about those schemes. There are tricks that
Speaker 1: con artists have been relying upon for centuries. The tools
Speaker 1: of the trade are the same. What changes is whatever
Speaker 1: is being sold and whatever platform you're using in order
Speaker 1: to sell it. And it doesn't matter if we're talking
Speaker 1: about a gadget or a philosophy. And I think all
Speaker 1: scams are reprehensible, but I get particularly angry at those
Speaker 1: that are taking aim at already vulnerable targets. For example,
Speaker 1: people who are looking for a job. This is a
Speaker 1: population of people who are seeking a means to earn
Speaker 1: a living. They might be trying to land their first
Speaker 1: steady job ever, or they might be trying to transition
Speaker 1: from one job that's not so great into something that
Speaker 1: they hope is better. Anyway, they are putting themselves out
Speaker 1: there in search of opportunities, and that means they are
Speaker 1: a vulnerable population, and some people find that irresistible. There
Speaker 1: are numerous individuals and shady companies that take advantage of
Speaker 1: job seekers. A common tactic is to advertise a job online,
Speaker 1: but the advertised job is just bait. There is no
Speaker 1: intent on offering that job to an applicant. In fact,
Speaker 1: the job might not even exist. The goal is to
Speaker 1: lure people into a job interview and then pull the
Speaker 1: bait and switch, saying oh, you know, we already filled
Speaker 1: that position, but we have a totally different job that
Speaker 1: we would love to offer you. And thus they offer
Speaker 1: up a different job to the applicant, and typically the
Speaker 1: offered job, the new one is less desirable than whatever
Speaker 1: was originally being applied for. It might have lower pay
Speaker 1: and might have fewer benefits or both, but or it
Speaker 1: may just be you know, less desirable in job duties.
Speaker 1: But but the person doing the hiring knows that if
Speaker 1: someone has taken the effort to go to a job interview,
Speaker 1: and if they are looking for a job, if they're
Speaker 1: in that place, they could be in need enough and
Speaker 1: emotionally vulnerable enough to agree to this switch, even though
Speaker 1: it wasn't what they were told when they first applied. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's one way to make me really angry, really fast.
Speaker 1: And it is hard out there. I've been in a
Speaker 1: steady gig since two thousand eight, and even from this
Speaker 1: cushioned position, I know it's hard out there, and people
Speaker 1: looking for a job fall into a category of people
Speaker 1: who cannot afford to lose. They're looking for that chance
Speaker 1: to land something steady. They're hopeful, and unethical jerk faces
Speaker 1: will pounce on that there are other groups that are
Speaker 1: even shadier, that are really just trying to get as
Speaker 1: much personal information as possible and they have no job
Speaker 1: to offer whatsoever. Or they are part of a pyramid
Speaker 1: scheme that requires the job seeker to pour some of
Speaker 1: their own limited money into that scheme, and the lure
Speaker 1: is that if they bring other folks into that organization,
Speaker 1: they will get some of the money of the people
Speaker 1: that they they bring in. But those schemes are entirely
Speaker 1: dependent upon convincing more and more people to join further
Speaker 1: down the chain, and typically only a few folks towards
Speaker 1: the very top ever really make anything, and it's at
Speaker 1: the expense of everyone below them. That's classic pyramids schemes.
Speaker 1: Now you've probably picked up on the fact that a
Speaker 1: lot of this all has to do with catering to
Speaker 1: what people want to believe is true, and that is
Speaker 1: a huge part of it. But another is relying upon
Speaker 1: people interpreting information incorrectly. For example, Moore's law. This is
Speaker 1: a great one. Now let's begin by saying Moore's law
Speaker 1: because came from an observation. It wasn't that Gordon Moore
Speaker 1: declared this, you know, inherent law of the universe. Rather,
Speaker 1: he was making an observation about how semiconductor companies were
Speaker 1: able to fit more components on an inch square inch
Speaker 1: of silicon wafer UH, and that there was a market
Speaker 1: demand for doing more of that, which allowed them to
Speaker 1: invest in the process of making, you know, the chips
Speaker 1: that had even more transistors essentially on them. He was
Speaker 1: he was looking at market trends that were supporting this
Speaker 1: overall technological trend. But generally speaking, these days, we say
Speaker 1: that Moore's law means that computers today are twice as powerful,
Speaker 1: meaning faster at processing information as computers from two years ago,
Speaker 1: and the computers from two years ago are twice as
Speaker 1: powerful as the one from two years before that. So
Speaker 1: every two years computer processing capabilities double. It's not a
Speaker 1: hard and fast rule, but it's close enough to what
Speaker 1: we observe to kind of serve as shorthand. But that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean other technologies keep up at that same speed.
Speaker 1: Battery technology, for example, doesn't. But because we've become accustomed
Speaker 1: to computers evolving so quickly, it is easy for us
Speaker 1: to make the mistake of extending that quality to other technologies.
Speaker 1: And if you're an unscrupulous person you can jump on
Speaker 1: that by making a spurious claim that sounds like it
Speaker 1: could be possible and raking in the benefits. You guys
Speaker 1: probably remember that I've done episodes on the company Thoroughness.
Speaker 1: That's a company that aimed to produce a machine capable
Speaker 1: of running hundreds of diagnostic tests on a single droplet
Speaker 1: of blood. The ambition of the company and its founder,
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Holmes was to create a device that would revolutionize medicine.
Speaker 1: With a machine the size of a desktop printer, it
Speaker 1: could become a household appliance and would allow people to
Speaker 1: run a test quickly, and then they could share that
Speaker 1: information with their doctors. They could lead healthier lives. They
Speaker 1: can micro manage their health. It's kind of in line
Speaker 1: with that whole quantitative approach we were taking for a
Speaker 1: very long time with all this stuff like fitness tracker
Speaker 1: that would give us detailed information about things like how
Speaker 1: many hours sleep we got, how many times do we
Speaker 1: toss in turn, it's in that same vein, and potentially
Speaker 1: this would mean that a user would pick up warning
Speaker 1: signs early enough to be able to take action before
Speaker 1: things get really serious. It could save lives, and it
Speaker 1: would make a crap ton of money. But there was
Speaker 1: just one small problem. The technology didn't work, but a
Speaker 1: lot of people believed it could work. I mean, we've
Speaker 1: got some phenomenal technology at our disposal right now. Right
Speaker 1: if you have a smartphone, you've got a computer that
Speaker 1: fits in your pocket. It's got a ton of processing
Speaker 1: power compared to even old mainframe computers, and it could
Speaker 1: connect to the internet. It can give you amazing communication
Speaker 1: abilities as well as access a truly enormous amount of
Speaker 1: information that's been gathered around the world. It's a relatively
Speaker 1: mundane piece of technology at this point, right And when
Speaker 1: the amazing comes mundane, the impossible starts to sound plausible.
Speaker 1: So why couldn't a machine use a tiny amount of
Speaker 1: blood as a sample for hundreds of tests? I mean,
Speaker 1: why couldn't it return accurate results in a matter of hours.
Speaker 1: We've got technology that lets us shoot ultra high resolution
Speaker 1: video using a phone. We've got tech that we can
Speaker 1: talk to and give commands too, and it responds to us.
Speaker 1: It stands to reason that we should be able to
Speaker 1: run these sorts of tests on that small at sample
Speaker 1: of blood, And that leap of logic is the problem.
Speaker 1: Our capabilities in one area can lead us to believe
Speaker 1: we are equally capable in unrelated areas. It would be
Speaker 1: like if I were a world class athlete in a
Speaker 1: specific sport and I thought, just because of that, I'm
Speaker 1: automatically equally as amazing and some other unrelated sport. Even
Speaker 1: very intelligent people got caught up in this promise. Very
Speaker 1: successful people were caught up by this lie, and the
Speaker 1: promise was just so darn positive. It would be amazing
Speaker 1: if we could run that many tests on such a
Speaker 1: small sample of blood. And it would be even more
Speaker 1: amazing if we could come up with a consumer version
Speaker 1: of that technology that the average person could have in
Speaker 1: their home. That kind of gadget could potentially save millions
Speaker 1: of lives. Of course, you want that tech to exist
Speaker 1: and to work, but wishes don't make things true. So
Speaker 1: we've got a technology that would be awesome if it existed.
Speaker 1: We've got a culture and business that revolves around risk.
Speaker 1: We've got a startup culture that glorifies the concept of
Speaker 1: fake it until you make it, which means you come
Speaker 1: up with a goal and then you raise a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of money, and then you flail around trying to
Speaker 1: achieve that goal and hopefully something you do sticks somewhere
Speaker 1: along the line. You manage some level of success before
Speaker 1: your money runs out, and while the money is rolling in,
Speaker 1: you might as well live high on the hog. If
Speaker 1: it doesn't work out, well, that's a bummer. But in
Speaker 1: the startup world, failure is common. Fail fast is the
Speaker 1: name of the game. Now. I don't know if Paronisis
Speaker 1: founder Elizabeth Holmes genuinely believed she was going to be
Speaker 1: able to create the tech that she envisioned. If she did,
Speaker 1: that wouldn't really surprise me. Like I said, the idea
Speaker 1: is really attractive, and our technology is already so incredible
Speaker 1: that you could be swayed to think this could be possible.
Speaker 1: I also don't know if she's still believed in it
Speaker 1: by the end of that whole story, when numerous investigations
Speaker 1: and leaks revealed the extent to which this technology definitely
Speaker 1: did not work, and the extent to which the company
Speaker 1: moved to hide that fact. But I do know this,
Speaker 1: just because you believe in something super hard doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that thing is magically true. Holmes herself is currently in
Speaker 1: the middle of a legal battle over the entire Theonis
Speaker 1: fallout with a new odd charge that was filed against
Speaker 1: her recently, like as of the week of the recording
Speaker 1: of this, but for more than a decade her company
Speaker 1: was able to get significant investments from numerous wealthy individuals
Speaker 1: and organizations. The promise of a truly huge payout was
Speaker 1: tempting because if the technology worked, this would be a
Speaker 1: gold mine. Better than that, it would create a return
Speaker 1: on investment that would be impossible to guess at. You
Speaker 1: might be thinking, Wow, I'm gonna pour a hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars into this, and I'm gonna be breaking in ten
Speaker 1: million dollars in no time or more, and that was
Speaker 1: enough to shut down critical thinking. The message of Pharaonos
Speaker 1: had multiple vectors of appeal. It appealed to your sense
Speaker 1: of innovation. It appealed to the idea of democratization of medicine,
Speaker 1: so sort of an altruistic appeal. Simultaneously and somewhat uh conflictingly,
Speaker 1: it also appealed to greed, and lots of people allowed
Speaker 1: themselves to be swayed by this. Now need to wrap
Speaker 1: up this episode, but I said earlier that I would
Speaker 1: take some time to talk about sponsors and ads that
Speaker 1: I run on this show. Now. Most of the time,
Speaker 1: our sales department here at I Heart runs potential ad
Speaker 1: deals by me for my approval, and I take this seriously.
Speaker 1: I try to look into each company and product or
Speaker 1: service before I give my approval. I don't want to
Speaker 1: pass along something that's misleading if I can help it.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I don't get a choice in ads, but that's
Speaker 1: a rare thing. So if I voice an AD for
Speaker 1: something that's misleading or whatever, chances are the fault is mine.
Speaker 1: I try to avoid it. Sponsors and advertisements are a
Speaker 1: necessary part of what I do because without them, this
Speaker 1: show would be an expense, but there would be no
Speaker 1: way to generate money for it. We would just be
Speaker 1: spending money to make the show and get nothing back,
Speaker 1: and that means this show would go away. So I
Speaker 1: try to balance the financial responsibilities I have as an
Speaker 1: employed ye with my responsibilities I have as someone communicating
Speaker 1: to you guys. And I wish I could share with
Speaker 1: you a list of some of the deals that I've
Speaker 1: said no to, but that would be really unprofessional of me.
Speaker 1: Let's just say it's not a short list. But even
Speaker 1: with all that said, I encourage people to think critically
Speaker 1: about all messaging. You don't have to deny stuff right
Speaker 1: out of hand, just question it, even if it aligns
Speaker 1: with your beliefs. Heck, especially if it aligns with your beliefs.
Speaker 1: In the long run, it can help your case. If
Speaker 1: you're able to suss out the truth from the lies,
Speaker 1: you can build your argument for your side more effectively,
Speaker 1: and you don't leave yourself open to attacks on credibility. Moreover,
Speaker 1: we need to exercise those skills to make sure we're
Speaker 1: just being good humans, that we are taking care of
Speaker 1: ourselves and of each other. Using those two things, critical
Speaker 1: thinking and compassion, we can recognize when others are truely
Speaker 1: in need. Then we can also help identify the best
Speaker 1: ways to help them. If we think critically, we might
Speaker 1: realize that changing a profile picture or tweeting a message
Speaker 1: might not really be enough. It's more of a performance
Speaker 1: than an action, and that we can and should do more,
Speaker 1: even if that's just to shut our yaps and listen,
Speaker 1: and guys, I'm listening. I promise if you guys have
Speaker 1: any suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff, whether it's
Speaker 1: a specific technology, maybe it's a company, maybe it's a
Speaker 1: personality in tech, maybe it's just a trend in tech
Speaker 1: in general. Reach out to me and let me know.
Speaker 1: You can get in touch on Facebook or Twitter. The
Speaker 1: handle at both of those is text stuff H s
Speaker 1: W and I'll talk to you again really soon. Text
Speaker 1: Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from I Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1: H