Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech 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 How the Tech Are You? Yesterday? Which was October four,
Speaker 1: two thousand twenty two, for those of you listening from
Speaker 1: the future, I finally got around to watching the Folding
Speaker 1: Ideas YouTube video titled line goes up the problem with
Speaker 1: n f t S and I cannot recommend that video enough.
Speaker 1: It is a phenomenal piece of work, and it's substantial.
Speaker 1: It is longer than two hours. I think it's like
Speaker 1: two hours and eighteen minutes of information about n f
Speaker 1: t S, cryptocurrency, blockchain, There's a bit about Web three
Speaker 1: in there, and more. Host Dan Olson presents a meticulously
Speaker 1: researched and well thought out take down of all of
Speaker 1: these things. And I imagine he could and maybe will
Speaker 1: do something similar with metaverse concepts, which tie in into
Speaker 1: a lot of these concepts as well. And I think
Speaker 1: it's really darn amazing when you consider that his challenge.
Speaker 1: His channel is supposed to be about quote deconstructing the
Speaker 1: craft of visual narrative end quote, and a lot of
Speaker 1: His videos are about things like how editing can make
Speaker 1: or break a movie, and how certain narratives become hopelessly
Speaker 1: muddled because of bad editing, and that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: UM really interesting to see him branch out into this.
Speaker 1: He's using his incredible ability to put together substantial arguments
Speaker 1: to focus on things beyond narrative storytelling and those those videos,
Speaker 1: by the way, are also great. I've learned a lot
Speaker 1: by watching his videos. Anyway, Dan, I would say, is
Speaker 1: even more opposed to cryptocurrencies and n f t s
Speaker 1: than I am. And if you are a frequent listener
Speaker 1: of tech stuff, you already know that I'm not exactly
Speaker 1: a hype man for n f t S and cryptocurrency. Now,
Speaker 1: I couldn't possibly cover the material more thoroughly than he has,
Speaker 1: so I'm not gonna I'm not gonna go through and
Speaker 1: regurgitate the points he made. He makes them very well,
Speaker 1: and like I said, the video is fantastic. If you
Speaker 1: are at all interested in learning more about cryptocurrencies, blockchain,
Speaker 1: n f t s, all that kind of stuff, it's
Speaker 1: well worth a watch. Line goes up the problem with
Speaker 1: n f t s. So instead, what I want to
Speaker 1: talk about is related, and it's something that he touches
Speaker 1: on in the video, which is critical thinking within the
Speaker 1: context of tech evangelism in general. So let's start off
Speaker 1: with the origin of the word evangelism, because that's the
Speaker 1: tricky one already. It's rooted in religion. Specifically, it's rooted
Speaker 1: in christ Yanity. The concept of evangelism is to spread
Speaker 1: the Gospel, with the end goal of this effort being
Speaker 1: to bring more people into the fold of the religion. Now,
Speaker 1: in more recent times, some folks use the word evangelist
Speaker 1: to describe an enthusiast who speaks about or writes about
Speaker 1: or you know whatever. They communicate in some way they're
Speaker 1: chosen focus of devotion and an effort to get more
Speaker 1: people to get into it. So you could be an
Speaker 1: evangelist for lots of different stuff, not just religion, although
Speaker 1: that again is where the word has its origin. You
Speaker 1: could be an evangelist for a sports team and try
Speaker 1: and get more people into watching a sport you like. Now,
Speaker 1: to be clear, being an evangelist isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to suggest that being enthusiastic and communicative
Speaker 1: about stuff is a bad thing. If it were I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be a host of a podcast, because that's essentially
Speaker 1: what podcasting is. You could be an evangelist for a cause.
Speaker 1: For example, you could be spending time and effort to
Speaker 1: get more support for a worthy cause, and you might
Speaker 1: believe wholeheartedly in it, and any support you help build
Speaker 1: contributes to that cause. That's a good one. But an
Speaker 1: evangelist can be a bad thing too. But it definitely
Speaker 1: can be a bad thing as well. The tools that
Speaker 1: someone uses to attract people to support a good cause
Speaker 1: are the same tools that can be used to attract
Speaker 1: people to supporting something less altruistic or predatory. Scam artists
Speaker 1: depend upon this. They use an evangelical approach pretty regularly,
Speaker 1: although they frequently target things like people's greed or fear
Speaker 1: in order to do it. And even folks who are
Speaker 1: not scam artists, who might actually believe in something because
Speaker 1: of their own investment, may use these tools to get
Speaker 1: other people on board, probably because they've already invested so
Speaker 1: much into this particular technology. So crypto is a good
Speaker 1: example of this. Now, I will not go so far
Speaker 1: as to say that crypto is a scam. Dan Olson
Speaker 1: might go that far, um and you know, he makes
Speaker 1: a very strong argument, but I would say that cryptocurrency
Speaker 1: is just not a very good system. It's definitely not
Speaker 1: a good system for replacing currency. It does not do
Speaker 1: a good job of that. I think that's pretty clear.
Speaker 1: It's really not that good of a system for building
Speaker 1: wealth unless you were wealthy to begin with, or you
Speaker 1: just happen to get in on the ground floor and
Speaker 1: when there was no expectation for it to go crazy,
Speaker 1: and you just happen to make a ton of money
Speaker 1: that way. But for most people, it's not a good
Speaker 1: way to build wealth. But if you wander into crypto forums,
Speaker 1: you're gonna see a lot of folks championing the philosophy
Speaker 1: of cryptocurrency in general and then debating with one another
Speaker 1: which cryptocurrencies are great and which ones are garbage, And
Speaker 1: boy howdy, there's an awful lot of disagreement on that topic.
Speaker 1: I bet you can guess what the the defining factor is.
Speaker 1: Whichever cryptocurrency you've invested in, that one, gosh darn better
Speaker 1: will be a great one. And that's the thing, right,
Speaker 1: Like a big driver of cryptocurrency value is demand for
Speaker 1: that cryptocurrency. If there's a greater demand for the currency,
Speaker 1: then you typically see the currencies price go up. And
Speaker 1: it's a little more complicated and sophisticated than that, but
Speaker 1: that's kind of at the heart of things, at least
Speaker 1: for cryptocurrencies that are not directly tied to some fiat currency.
Speaker 1: So if folks get scared about a cryptocurrency, demand typically
Speaker 1: goes down and the value will go down too, And
Speaker 1: the more scared they get, the more it goes down.
Speaker 1: It becomes kind of a self fulfilling prophecy does this
Speaker 1: in both directions, not just when it goes down. So
Speaker 1: let's take a scenario. Okay, let's say that you have
Speaker 1: sunk tens of thousands of dollars your life's savings into
Speaker 1: a particular cryptocurrency. And let's say that you bought into
Speaker 1: this cryptocurrency when each unit of the currency was like
Speaker 1: five bucks, so five real world dollars to one of
Speaker 1: these cryptocurrency units. Now, when this unit first launched, before
Speaker 1: you got into it, its value was that fractions of
Speaker 1: a penny per unit, So if someone got into it initially,
Speaker 1: then they would have seen their investment grow to incredible
Speaker 1: amounts by the time it gets to five dollars. So
Speaker 1: if you had bought it when it first launched, you
Speaker 1: would be wealthy beyond measure, but you didn't. You're in
Speaker 1: now when it got to five dollars, and in fact,
Speaker 1: that was when you bought in. Now we're a little
Speaker 1: further along, and let's say that right now that value
Speaker 1: has actually dropped down to three dollars. Now you hope
Speaker 1: this is just a momentary depth and that the cryptocurrency
Speaker 1: is going to increase in value again, maybe increasing at
Speaker 1: that exponential speed it did when it first got huge,
Speaker 1: but there's no way to really know if that's going
Speaker 1: to happen. Well, you would have a pretty strong incentive
Speaker 1: two talk positively about your investment. For one thing, there's
Speaker 1: the dreaded sunk cost fallacy. This is a tendency to
Speaker 1: stick with a strategy because you've already heavily invested into
Speaker 1: that strategy, and you stick with it even if it
Speaker 1: becomes obvious that if you jump ship you would be
Speaker 1: better off. By the way, while we talk about sunk
Speaker 1: costs a lot in financial matters, I argue that the
Speaker 1: same thing is true with like emotional investment. If you've
Speaker 1: ever been in a relationship, whether it's a romantic relationship
Speaker 1: or a friendship, but you knew, you kind of knew
Speaker 1: you would both be better off if you kind of
Speaker 1: split up. But you've already invested so much emotional capital
Speaker 1: into this relationship that you can't bring yourself to to
Speaker 1: do that. That's very similar. That's essentially the sunk cost fallacy.
Speaker 1: So if you invested tens of thousands of dollars into
Speaker 1: this cryptocurrency and then this cryptocurrency drops in value by
Speaker 1: forty percent, well that means you lost your investment, right,
Speaker 1: Your investment is down, And while you could get out
Speaker 1: with the sixty percent remaining minus any transaction fees, that
Speaker 1: doesn't really feel good, right, It doesn't feel good to
Speaker 1: get out of the system was significantly less money than
Speaker 1: when you went into it, especially when you know that
Speaker 1: folks who jumped into this cryptocurrency wagon before you did
Speaker 1: had made up like bandits. People who bought it when
Speaker 1: it was fractions of a penne per unit, they made
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of dollars. Don't you deserve that money too?
Speaker 1: Don't you just served to be a bandit? Huh? Smoky?
Speaker 1: So that's one incentive that you know you have invested
Speaker 1: this money, so you you have an incentive for you
Speaker 1: to stick with it and try and get it to
Speaker 1: turn around. Maybe you actually really believe in this cryptocurrency.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's not just a here's an opportunity, I'm going
Speaker 1: to jump on it, but that you actually believe in
Speaker 1: whatever the cryptocurrency stands for. There are people who do
Speaker 1: that um, but there are a lot more who are
Speaker 1: just kind of opportunistic. So you might start to feel
Speaker 1: sick because you've lost so much money in your investment.
Speaker 1: Maybe you go into the crypto forums and you're really
Speaker 1: cheerleading the currency. You're trying to get other people excited
Speaker 1: about it, and if others do, they might buy into
Speaker 1: the currency, and maybe that will drive out the value,
Speaker 1: which means those lost investment dollars would start to filter back.
Speaker 1: If you could build enough momentum, you might push the
Speaker 1: value further than the five bucks it was at when
Speaker 1: you bought it, and then it's to the moon. Baby,
Speaker 1: You'll be rich in no time. But here's the thing.
Speaker 1: This kind of operation is frightening lee similar to scams
Speaker 1: like pyramid schemes or multi level marketing schemes. Now I
Speaker 1: use the word scams, and I use the word schemes,
Speaker 1: because in my mind, that's kind of what they are.
Speaker 1: But MLM businesses, technically, if they're actually selling a real thing,
Speaker 1: are viewed as a legitimate form of business. I just
Speaker 1: find it really similar to scams to the point where
Speaker 1: I'm very uncomfortable by them. Now, if you aren't familiar
Speaker 1: with what mL M schemes are, I'll fill you in.
Speaker 1: So essentially, you make money in one of two ways,
Speaker 1: or in both ways. So one is that you get
Speaker 1: recruited into an mL M. Someone convinces you that you
Speaker 1: should join this business, and then it becomes your job
Speaker 1: to sell something to people. Let's say it's cosmetics, because
Speaker 1: a lot of MLM companies are in the cosmetics business.
Speaker 1: So you start to sell cosmetics to folks, maybe mostly
Speaker 1: through word of mouth and like selling it to friends
Speaker 1: and family, and you get a portion of each sale
Speaker 1: you make. Now you might actually have to spend your
Speaker 1: own money to get your supply, though obviously you know
Speaker 1: you're buying supplies at a lower cost than what you
Speaker 1: sell them to to other folks. So that's method number
Speaker 1: one of how to make money. Method number two is
Speaker 1: that you recruit other people to join the company. You
Speaker 1: essentially become their sponsor. So you are now sitting upstream
Speaker 1: of those recruits who are downstream from you, and now
Speaker 1: you get a little piece of every sale they make.
Speaker 1: When they make a sale to someone else, you get
Speaker 1: a little You get a little portion of that sale.
Speaker 1: Upstream from you is your sponsor, the person who recruited
Speaker 1: you into the MLM. They get a little piece of
Speaker 1: every sale you make. And you do this so on
Speaker 1: and so forth until you get to the very top
Speaker 1: of the chain, where a precious few are reaping in
Speaker 1: lots of these little slices of pie from all the
Speaker 1: recruits who are downstream. These are the people who are
Speaker 1: actually getting wealthy off this, because they're getting a cut
Speaker 1: off every transaction, and even if that cut is teeny tiny,
Speaker 1: it adds up as the organization grows, and that means
Speaker 1: for the folks at the very top, there's this huge
Speaker 1: incentive to push for more recruits. Now, you do still
Speaker 1: need to sell stuff, or at least have recruits buying
Speaker 1: supplies from you, otherwise you don't have revenue coming in.
Speaker 1: But the more active people you have in the system,
Speaker 1: the more money you can make. So a huge part
Speaker 1: of your business strategy comes in the form of recruitment strategies. Similarly,
Speaker 1: with crypto folks who have large holdings in the currency
Speaker 1: would love more people to come on board because it
Speaker 1: can boost the value of the individual unit and it
Speaker 1: can make their own substantial investment grow significantly. It's also
Speaker 1: not nearly as easy to extract yourself from a cryptocurrency
Speaker 1: market as you might think. That means that once you
Speaker 1: bought in, you might not feel like getting out is
Speaker 1: a good risk. You might feel like if I get
Speaker 1: out now, I'm gonna lose out on future growth. Or
Speaker 1: I might have to spend so much in transaction fees
Speaker 1: that I'm really cutting into whatever profit I made. Or
Speaker 1: with certain cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, the transaction process takes long
Speaker 1: enough that it's possible you'll actually see a significant loss
Speaker 1: of wealth from the moment you start a transaction to
Speaker 1: the moment it finally concludes. Okay, we've got some more
Speaker 1: to talk about when it comes to critical thinking and
Speaker 1: tech evangelism, but first let's take a quick break. All right,
Speaker 1: we're back now. One of the things that you'll here
Speaker 1: in cryptocurrency forums whenever a given cryptocurrency is having a
Speaker 1: rough go of it is you'll have a group of
Speaker 1: folks telling everyone to hoddle or h o d l
Speaker 1: or hold on for dear life. Essentially, what they are
Speaker 1: saying is, hey, don't dump your coins now, just hunker down.
Speaker 1: You can wait this out. Things will be fine, they'll
Speaker 1: get better and then to the moon. And that sounds
Speaker 1: like good advice, right, but it's really reinforcing that sunk
Speaker 1: cost fallacy. There's no guarantee that things will get better.
Speaker 1: Maybe they will, maybe they'll get better than they've ever
Speaker 1: been before. We've seen that with Bitcoin several times where
Speaker 1: the value grew too incredible heights crashed and then grew
Speaker 1: even more. Um if it does that again, then that
Speaker 1: means we're gonna see bitcoin go over sixty dollars per
Speaker 1: unit if it repeats that cycle. The problem is there's
Speaker 1: no guarantee that cycle will repeat. There's nothing inherent about
Speaker 1: cryptocurrency that makes it reliable for this sort of cycle.
Speaker 1: It could happen, but maybe it won't, and so that
Speaker 1: sunk cost fallacy really starts to weigh on you. A
Speaker 1: lot of people will give this advice because they have
Speaker 1: their own significant investment in that virtual coin, so they
Speaker 1: don't want to see people jumping ship, because every time
Speaker 1: that happens, there's the potential for the coin's value to
Speaker 1: decline even further that would hurt their own investment, So
Speaker 1: they have an incentive to keep people on that currency
Speaker 1: and try to convince more people to join in. They
Speaker 1: there's also the phrase by the depth, meaning when cryptocurrencies
Speaker 1: go low, that's when people should be buying more because
Speaker 1: that's when they're going to see the biggest return when
Speaker 1: the cryptocurrency recovers its value. If it recovers its value,
Speaker 1: then yeah, sure, if it covers its value, and it
Speaker 1: may be that you know, again, you bought it at
Speaker 1: five dollars, it's now at three dollars, so you're telling people, hey,
Speaker 1: by now because it's gonna go up. You're kind of
Speaker 1: trying to create a self fulfilling prophecy to make that happen.
Speaker 1: So my point here is it's always good advice to
Speaker 1: think critically about tech evangelist claims. And I know I've
Speaker 1: picked on cryptocurrency a lot so far in this episode,
Speaker 1: but it's really true for pretty much all technologies, particularly
Speaker 1: ones that are early on in the hype cycle. That
Speaker 1: might be the metaverse. In fact, I would say the
Speaker 1: better verse is a really good one to think critically about.
Speaker 1: VR A R. Both of those are good to think
Speaker 1: critically about. I'm not saying they're bad technologies, but that
Speaker 1: you have to critically evaluate claims about the technologies. The
Speaker 1: same is true for A I or really any given
Speaker 1: tech product. Now, I am not saying that tech is
Speaker 1: worthless or anything close to that. I'm saying that you
Speaker 1: need to examine the motivations of tech evangelists to understand
Speaker 1: where they're coming from, what is incentivizing them to evangelize
Speaker 1: this particular technology, and to keep that in mind when
Speaker 1: you start to evaluate their claims. It may turn out
Speaker 1: that their claims are perfectly valid, but it may turn
Speaker 1: out that they're somewhat biased or really biased. So if
Speaker 1: someone comes up to you and says, hey, the mataverse
Speaker 1: is gonna be huge, look at how many companies are
Speaker 1: getting into the metaverse. Well, that's true. There are a
Speaker 1: ton of companies that are all trying to get into
Speaker 1: something related to the metaverse. But you might want to
Speaker 1: ask questions like, how is the person who's telling you this,
Speaker 1: how are they connected to the metaverse, what is their
Speaker 1: investment in it? Maybe they're just an enthusiast, so it's
Speaker 1: an emotional investment, it's not a financial investment. And it
Speaker 1: might just be that this is a person who's been
Speaker 1: swept up in a lot of height. Honestly, that's very
Speaker 1: easy to have happened. I've had it happened to me
Speaker 1: lots of times. I am not immune to it. I
Speaker 1: think I'm getting slightly better at recognizing it early on
Speaker 1: and then adjusting expectations, but I'm not perfect by any means.
Speaker 1: Or maybe it's that this person runs a virtual real
Speaker 1: estate business and they're kind of hoping you're gonna PLoP
Speaker 1: down some real world cash to buy some virtual plots
Speaker 1: of land that may or may not ever be connected
Speaker 1: to a notable virtual landscape in the metaverse. Assuming we
Speaker 1: ever get something like that, then you know, maybe it
Speaker 1: would pay off in the long run, but there's no guarantee.
Speaker 1: And again, like we're still in a space where metaverse
Speaker 1: doesn't actually mean anything yet. There's too many conflicting ideas
Speaker 1: and definitions and approaches, so buying into something specific right
Speaker 1: now is really taking a long shot. Like, if you're
Speaker 1: gonna do that, you might as well just be ready
Speaker 1: to say goodbye to that money. Maybe it pays off,
Speaker 1: which would be fantastic, but there's a real good chance
Speaker 1: it won't. So just like if you go into a
Speaker 1: casino where the house always wins in the end, you
Speaker 1: need to just sit there and say, all right, this
Speaker 1: is money I am comfortable losing. I am not going
Speaker 1: to suffer if this money is gone forever. I might
Speaker 1: as well just assume that it is gone forever, and
Speaker 1: if it turns out otherwise, that will be a huge bonus.
Speaker 1: Or maybe a tech evangelist might out a particularly interesting
Speaker 1: aspect of a technology, but they might fail to mention
Speaker 1: the whole story, or maybe they don't even know the
Speaker 1: whole story. So for this I'm gonna touch on something
Speaker 1: that Dan Olsen talks about in that video I mentioned
Speaker 1: at the top of the episode. So with n f
Speaker 1: T S, one of the benefits you'll hear of. This
Speaker 1: is a benefit that's often marketed towards artists, is that
Speaker 1: the person who meants and n f T, which again
Speaker 1: stands for non fungible token, the person who ments a
Speaker 1: token can get a piece of every future transaction involving
Speaker 1: that n f T. So let's say you are an
Speaker 1: artist and you create a work of digital art, and
Speaker 1: you meant an n f T to represent this piece
Speaker 1: of art um which by the way, exists independently of
Speaker 1: the n f T. The n f T itself isn't
Speaker 1: the art. It's a smart contract that represents the ownership
Speaker 1: of that art, and by ownership I mean of that
Speaker 1: instance of that art. It gets really granular. So you
Speaker 1: sell this n f T to someone for ten whole dollars,
Speaker 1: they now have a token that says they own that
Speaker 1: instance of your digital art. Good. But then let's say
Speaker 1: that there is this this crazy n f T boom, Right,
Speaker 1: people just go nuts speculating on n f T s.
Speaker 1: You've already sold your n f T for ten dollars.
Speaker 1: The person you sold that too then goes on and
Speaker 1: resells that n f T, but they sell it for
Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars. In the real world, if this were
Speaker 1: to happen, if you were an artist and you sold
Speaker 1: your painting for ten bucks, and then later on the
Speaker 1: person you sold it to were was able to offload
Speaker 1: it for ten grand, you probably wouldn't see any of
Speaker 1: that money, right, because you already sold the painting. You're
Speaker 1: you're out of luck. Now, the best you can hope
Speaker 1: for is that there would be a jump and interest
Speaker 1: in your work, and that future sales that you would
Speaker 1: make wouldn't met you more revenue. But with certain n
Speaker 1: f T market places, like whichever marketplace you initially meant
Speaker 1: the n f T n the creator can get a portion,
Speaker 1: a royalty, as it were, of each future sale of
Speaker 1: that token. So let's say you sell your n f
Speaker 1: T to buyer one. Buyer one sells to buyer two,
Speaker 1: and some of that sales price will actually go to you,
Speaker 1: the person who minted the token in the first place.
Speaker 1: Buyer two sells the same n f T to buyer three,
Speaker 1: and again you who minted the token, gets a little
Speaker 1: cut of that. It's ongoing passive revenue, which is the dream.
Speaker 1: You hear about that a lot online. Ways of creating
Speaker 1: ongoing passive revenue. That, by the way, that's a that's
Speaker 1: a phrase that should always raise red flags and prompt
Speaker 1: you to think critically about what is being sold to you.
Speaker 1: But that's another topic for another time. Here's the thing
Speaker 1: about the n f T model, because I mean that
Speaker 1: is true, Like if you if you have this in
Speaker 1: this marketplace, yeah, you can you can keep on getting
Speaker 1: little cuts of each sale, except it only applies to
Speaker 1: whichever n f T marketplace you minted the token in
Speaker 1: the royalty system isn't built into the n f T
Speaker 1: s themselves. It's built into the marketplaces where the n
Speaker 1: f T s are bought and sold. So nothing stops
Speaker 1: somewhere from taking an n f T out of one
Speaker 1: marketplace and then putting it up for sale into another marketplace.
Speaker 1: So if buyer one purchases the n f T for
Speaker 1: ten bucks from you, but then they move the n
Speaker 1: f T to a different marketplace and they sell it
Speaker 1: for ten thousan dollars, well then you're not getting any
Speaker 1: passive revenue because it's no longer on the marketplace where
Speaker 1: you minted it. And the royalty system doesn't work across
Speaker 1: marketplaces yet. I say yet, because it potentially could in
Speaker 1: the future. It just doesn't. Now, you might think, okay,
Speaker 1: but how often does that scenario pop up? I mean,
Speaker 1: usually it's just going to stay in the same marketplace, right. Well,
Speaker 1: there's another issue at play here, and that's transaction fees.
Speaker 1: And this is how marketplaces make revenue. They put on
Speaker 1: a transaction fee for any transaction that happens within that marketplace.
Speaker 1: The same sort of thing is like credit card transaction fees, right.
Speaker 1: This means that someone has to pay a little bit
Speaker 1: extra for this transaction to actually happen, so that when
Speaker 1: Buyer two buys from buyer one, this transaction fee also
Speaker 1: has to be covered. So a lot of buyers would
Speaker 1: prefer to do private transactions but directly between digital wallets
Speaker 1: and just avoid marketplaces entirely, and that way the transaction
Speaker 1: is just for the actual transaction, there's no fee on
Speaker 1: top of it. That way, you don't have to spend
Speaker 1: extra money just to cover a fee. And when you
Speaker 1: switch to private transactions, the person who mented the token
Speaker 1: is left out of the whole process. No royalties. In
Speaker 1: other words, so while the royalty idea is great and
Speaker 1: it addresses an issue that digital creators encounter all the time,
Speaker 1: the execution is actually not that great and it doesn't
Speaker 1: really solve the problem. But it sure does come across
Speaker 1: as a cool selling point for n f t s.
Speaker 1: And if you're someone who is dependent upon making money
Speaker 1: by selling n f t s or by driving up
Speaker 1: the value of n f t s so that your
Speaker 1: own purchases aren't a sunk cost, you are likely to
Speaker 1: talk up this feature even if it doesn't you know,
Speaker 1: works so good. Now, all that being said, there are
Speaker 1: folks who are constantly working on evolving these smart contracts
Speaker 1: within eno f t s so that it might be
Speaker 1: possible that one day this will be fixed, it will
Speaker 1: be addressed, the royalty system will be more robust, and
Speaker 1: n f t s will fulfill the promise that people
Speaker 1: are making right now. It's just that right now, they
Speaker 1: don't do that right, not in every case, not as
Speaker 1: long as anyone can take something off of one marketplace
Speaker 1: and put it on another. So I would say, don't
Speaker 1: count on the problem being addressed right away, and keeping
Speaker 1: that in mind so that you don't just fall into
Speaker 1: a system that doesn't work as well as what people
Speaker 1: are promising. All right, Let's talk about a different scenario
Speaker 1: in which critical thinking comes in really handy, and this
Speaker 1: is one that I totally failed. Ultimately. I did come around,
Speaker 1: obviously because I'm talking about it now so I have
Speaker 1: awareness about it. But initially I did not consider the
Speaker 1: big picture properly. I did not think critically when it
Speaker 1: came to this topic. And I'm talking about autonomous cars
Speaker 1: around a decade ago, I was really, really hyped for
Speaker 1: autonomous cars. I was convinced it was right around the corner.
Speaker 1: We were going to have driverless cars, that no one
Speaker 1: would ever have to drive again, that traffic accidents would
Speaker 1: become a thing of the past, that we would have
Speaker 1: these incredibly efficient systems all across the world. And when
Speaker 1: I was thinking about the discrete components, I could see
Speaker 1: why I was all swept up into the idea. But
Speaker 1: over time the veil fell from my eyes, and I
Speaker 1: realized that this is a much harder challenge than I
Speaker 1: gave it credit for when I was first thinking about it.
Speaker 1: All Right, I'll talk about that whole process after we
Speaker 1: come back from this quick break. Okay, let's talk about
Speaker 1: how I got swept up into the hype of autonomous cars.
Speaker 1: My thinking was, well, of course, the computer would be
Speaker 1: better at driving a car than a person would. I
Speaker 1: was thinking about driving a car strictly in the sense
Speaker 1: of reaction times and perception. Right, a person has limited perception.
Speaker 1: You can only see a certain field of view, and
Speaker 1: that's just whichever direction you have to be facing. You
Speaker 1: can only hear so much, right, There's an entire world
Speaker 1: around owned you that you cannot directly perceive all the time,
Speaker 1: anything that's outside of your peripheral you can't directly see it,
Speaker 1: and you have to rely on things like mirrors to
Speaker 1: compensate for that when you're driving, right, that's why you
Speaker 1: have side mirrors and rear view mirrors, So you use
Speaker 1: the mirrors to help compensate for the fact that you
Speaker 1: don't have eyes in the back of your head. Even
Speaker 1: if you are a mom, I'm onto you, moms, I
Speaker 1: know you don't have eyes in the back of your head. Now,
Speaker 1: these mirrors have blind spots, right, just because the way
Speaker 1: the car is designed. So even with the mirrors and
Speaker 1: even checking mirrors frequently and being alert, you're going to
Speaker 1: have flawed perception. You cannot have perfect perception. It's just impossible.
Speaker 1: You can be really, really careful, but even the most
Speaker 1: careful driver is going to have blind spots. But a
Speaker 1: car with a sophisticated set of sensors, well, in my mind,
Speaker 1: I was like, well, it could have three sixty degree
Speaker 1: vision all around the vehicle at all times. In fact,
Speaker 1: it could even have it so that it has vision
Speaker 1: above the vehicle, well beyond what we humans can do,
Speaker 1: and that would be phenomenal. I mean that the car
Speaker 1: would be able to detect every possible obstacle all around
Speaker 1: it constantly. Then when it comes to reaction times, you know,
Speaker 1: we we have a problem with latency when it comes
Speaker 1: to perceiving something and then being able to act not.
Speaker 1: It all depends upon the sensory input we get. Uh,
Speaker 1: if it's by touch, we actually are able to react
Speaker 1: much faster than if it's visual. I think by touch
Speaker 1: it's like a hundred fifty milliseconds. Visual stimuli, it's like
Speaker 1: two fifty milliseconds. It's a quarter of a second. Now,
Speaker 1: a quarter of a second is fast, don't get me wrong,
Speaker 1: But if you happen to be traveling in a vehicle
Speaker 1: that's going seventy miles per hour, then a quarter of
Speaker 1: a second lag between seeing something and being able to
Speaker 1: react can potentially mean the difference between avoiding an accident
Speaker 1: or being in one compute. As obviously, can react much
Speaker 1: more quickly than humans can. So of course, in my mind,
Speaker 1: an autonomous car would be better at avoiding accidents than humans. Right,
Speaker 1: that just makes sense. They're able to see everything we can't,
Speaker 1: They're able to react faster than we can. That was
Speaker 1: my thinking, But I didn't take into consideration that the
Speaker 1: decision making process is a really, really complicated one, and
Speaker 1: that perception is more than just seeing. Perception is more
Speaker 1: than just I recognize there's something in front of me.
Speaker 1: It's recognizing the nature of that thing in front of
Speaker 1: you and then being able to decide what to do
Speaker 1: about it. So we humans, we can make decisions really quickly.
Speaker 1: We're good at that. Generally speaking, it's not always the
Speaker 1: right decision, but we're really good at making them. We're
Speaker 1: also pretty good at adapting to new situations. We can
Speaker 1: draw on experience from even situations that might only be
Speaker 1: remotely similar, and be able to use that to guide
Speaker 1: us into a course of actions. We're good at discerning
Speaker 1: the difference between a threat, such as say, a piece
Speaker 1: of a car's bumper laying across a lane of traffic,
Speaker 1: and something that's not a threat, like some leaves that
Speaker 1: are on the road. But computers do not have this
Speaker 1: native capability, and so one huge challenge with autonomous cars
Speaker 1: is training systems to recognize situations where emergency measures should
Speaker 1: be taken versus ones where things should just proceed as normal.
Speaker 1: If a car applies the brakes suddenly because it thinks
Speaker 1: that a floating plastic bag ahead of it is a
Speaker 1: solid obstacle. The car might cause an accident on the
Speaker 1: roads because it stops short when it shouldn't. Similarly, if
Speaker 1: a car fails to detect that a semi truck is
Speaker 1: crossing lanes of traffic, tragedy can strike. We know this
Speaker 1: because we've got examples of autonomous vehicles or least vehicles
Speaker 1: operating an advanced driver assist modes where the vehicle failed
Speaker 1: to detect a semi truck that was crossing lanes of traffic,
Speaker 1: possibly because the system misinterpreted the side of the truck
Speaker 1: to be the horizon, and as a result, the autonomous
Speaker 1: car crashed into the truck and the driver in the
Speaker 1: autonomous car died. And as time has gone on, my
Speaker 1: initial enthusiasm for driverless cars has been tempered by the
Speaker 1: reality of how complicated this challenge really is. I've learned
Speaker 1: to be a bit more skeptical about autonomous car systems.
Speaker 1: And it's not that I think we aren't going to
Speaker 1: get there. I think that we will eventually, but I
Speaker 1: now realized that my initial perception of the nature of
Speaker 1: the challenge was way too narrow in scope. I was
Speaker 1: being naive. I was thinking of the typical situations that
Speaker 1: you might find yourself in when you're driving down your
Speaker 1: average road. But the truth of the matter is that
Speaker 1: driving conditions very greatly from place to place and at
Speaker 1: different times of year, and unusual events can happen at
Speaker 1: any time. Now, that unusual event might be something really dangerous.
Speaker 1: It could be like mud slides or rock slides, that
Speaker 1: kind of thing, or it might be something more benign,
Speaker 1: like some leaves are being blown across the road. But
Speaker 1: while we humans can interpret those things very quickly and
Speaker 1: then react appropriately, computer systems don't magically have that ability.
Speaker 1: That was just something I did not consider. Now, I
Speaker 1: definitely use critical thinking when I consider driverless cars today,
Speaker 1: and I recognize that there are some really sophisticated systems
Speaker 1: out there that, within restrictive parameters, work incredibly well. But
Speaker 1: they still need those restrictive parameters. They're not capable of
Speaker 1: operating in every region, in every condition with incredible accuracy
Speaker 1: and reliability. But back in those early days, I was
Speaker 1: really a tech evangelist. I love the idea of driverless
Speaker 1: cars virtually eliminating car accidents. I mean that means tens
Speaker 1: of thousands of people would not die from traffic accidents
Speaker 1: each year if we had reliable driverless cars, hundreds of
Speaker 1: thousands of people would not be affected by the sudden
Speaker 1: loss of a loved one, and then the benefits ripple
Speaker 1: out in ways we can't even imagine those people continue
Speaker 1: to be able to contribute to society. We don't have
Speaker 1: these these uh hits, financial hits that come with the
Speaker 1: fact that we have these traffic accidents. You have all
Speaker 1: these different things that are are great if you're able
Speaker 1: to eliminate accidents. So of course you would want that
Speaker 1: kind of future. I mean, that's a future that that
Speaker 1: I think everybody would long for. But as beautiful as
Speaker 1: the potent chill is, that doesn't necessarily make it any
Speaker 1: closer to reality. Just because we want something to be
Speaker 1: true doesn't mean it is true, or that it's even
Speaker 1: close to becoming true. In fact, that's when we really
Speaker 1: need to use critical thinking to make sure that the
Speaker 1: thing we want is in fact possible and not just
Speaker 1: some diversion. Like just because you want that cryptocurrency to
Speaker 1: go up doesn't mean it's going to go up. Just
Speaker 1: because you want two buy an n f T and
Speaker 1: and make a huge amount of money. Doesn't mean that's
Speaker 1: gonna work either. Just because you want a web system
Speaker 1: that is divorced from the massive companies that currently dominate
Speaker 1: the web Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: the new system won't have its own pillars of centralized authority. Right.
Speaker 1: Just because you change one thing doesn't mean that it's
Speaker 1: actually better. It made us be different anyway. If you're
Speaker 1: someone who loves tech and gadgets and whatnot, I think
Speaker 1: that's awesome. I mean, I still do love tech. I
Speaker 1: love gadgets. I love learning about technological systems and how
Speaker 1: they work and sometimes how they don't work in quirky ways.
Speaker 1: I don't think we should just give up on tech.
Speaker 1: I don't think we should be unenthusiastic about technology. I
Speaker 1: don't think we should just automatically shut down if we
Speaker 1: hear someone talk a technology up. I don't think that that's,
Speaker 1: you know, the right course of action either. If someone
Speaker 1: comes up and says, hey, I really love this new phone,
Speaker 1: you don't just automatically just say ah, chill and turn
Speaker 1: around and walk away. But you should engage in critical thinking.
Speaker 1: Ask yourself and ask others questions about the various claims
Speaker 1: and promises, look into them, really examine them, find out
Speaker 1: if the things that are being promised are even possible.
Speaker 1: Like Saraos should have taught us all that this is
Speaker 1: something we need to do on a regular basis. That
Speaker 1: company reach the levels it did because people failed to
Speaker 1: ask realistic, critical questions and a lot of people lost
Speaker 1: a lot of money because of it, and some people
Speaker 1: are going to jail because of it. If the tech
Speaker 1: holds up to whatever level of scrutiny you've given it
Speaker 1: when you started to ask these tough questions and all
Speaker 1: the answers are pointing to great things, holy cats, you
Speaker 1: are onto something. Hold on with both hands. That's awesome.
Speaker 1: Maybe it doesn't hold up entirely, maybe it fails in
Speaker 1: a couple of respects, but really that could just mean
Speaker 1: that your expectations are now more realistic. Maybe you still
Speaker 1: want to adopt the technology, but now you know what
Speaker 1: it's limitations are, and so you're not disappointed when you
Speaker 1: run up against them because you're aware of them. You
Speaker 1: ask the right questions and you're you're you're not expecting
Speaker 1: it to do something that it cannot do. Or maybe
Speaker 1: you find out the thing you thought sounded cool really
Speaker 1: has nothing going for it, and you avoid stepping into
Speaker 1: a trap. Whatever the outcome, you benefit from the use
Speaker 1: of critical thinking. I really do think critical thinking is
Speaker 1: something that needs to be taught formally, and I think
Speaker 1: it needs to be taught early. I did not really
Speaker 1: encounter it until I was well into high school and
Speaker 1: really more into college, and I feel like I would
Speaker 1: have benefited from that perspective much much earlier on than
Speaker 1: when I was exposed to it, because well, especially as
Speaker 1: a teenager, I was resistant to ideas that I didn't
Speaker 1: already have because you know, that's awesome. Uh. I'm not
Speaker 1: proud of that, but it was a phase and I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people go through that. So if
Speaker 1: it had been introduced earlier, I'm not saying I still
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been a little jerk as a teenager, but
Speaker 1: maybe I would have been a critically thinking one. Um Anyway,
Speaker 1: I know, I just did a rerun where I talked
Speaker 1: about critical thinking, and I know that people can get
Speaker 1: a little tired of this topic, but when I see
Speaker 1: examples pop up over and over that really reinforce the
Speaker 1: idea that folks are failing to think critically. I feel
Speaker 1: like I need to talk about it again just to
Speaker 1: reinforce that and to remind people. And it's okay if
Speaker 1: occasionally you fall short. I still fall short all the time.
Speaker 1: But it's good to try and keep it in mind
Speaker 1: because it might mean you avoid calamity in the future,
Speaker 1: or it might mean you actually find the next big thing.
Speaker 1: But if you don't think critically, that becomes way more
Speaker 1: a matter of luck than of actual determination. All Right,
Speaker 1: that's it for this episode. If you have suggestions for
Speaker 1: future topics, there are a couple of ways you can
Speaker 1: get in touch. One is you can go to the
Speaker 1: I Heart radio app. You can navigate over to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: The app is free to you. Is it's free to download.
Speaker 1: Just go to the tech stuff part. You know, use
Speaker 1: little search engine. Go over to tech Stuff. There's a
Speaker 1: little microphone icon you click on that you can leave
Speaker 1: a voice message up to thirty seconds in length. And
Speaker 1: at least for the time being, you can still go
Speaker 1: to Twitter and send me a message tech stuff. Hs W.
Speaker 1: I'll be talking tomorrow about Elon Musk again and Twitter,
Speaker 1: because that story has changed again. In fact, it changed yesterday,
Speaker 1: but it changed after I had already filed my podcast,
Speaker 1: so that's the thing again. We'll talk about that tomorrow,
Speaker 1: but anyway, Yeah, get in touch with me, let me
Speaker 1: know what you would like, and I'll talk to you again.
Speaker 1: Release soon. Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production.
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