TrueLife - Dr. David Salomon - AI: The last Invention Humanity Will Ever Need

Episode Date: January 12, 2023

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/http://www.davidasalomon.com/https://davidsalomonblog.wordpress.com/In todays episode we talk about the future of AI. With the acceleration of technology, specifically thinks like ChatGPT, what may the future hold for mankind? One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. Hears through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Seraphini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ladies and gentlemen, it's such a beautiful day. I hope that the sun is shining, the birds are singing, the wind is at your back, and I have brought to you an inspiration, An inspiration that goes by the name of Dr. David Solomon. For those who may not know you, Dr. David Solomon, I know we do this every week, but I kind of enjoy it.

And I think the people should know where they can find you. So would you be so kind as to introduce yourself? Absolutely. Thanks for having me back on. Good to see you again. I have been in the higher ed world, most of my adult life. I've been a professor of medieval literature, religion, and culture for close to three decades. Currently, I am the director of undergraduate research and creative activity at Christopher Newport University in Newport, Newport, Newark, Virginia. I still teach classes in our honors program and our museum studies program, originally from New York City.

So, in Virginia, I'm in, for what a good New York boy is the deep south. Yeah, it's the deep south, the ideas of what? where we come from and the way in which geography is changing. So too is technology changing. And you, Dr. David Solomon, have written an incredible blog. And this last week's topic was about the last invention ever by mankind. You want to kind of, maybe you could pull on that thread a little bit. Well, I mean, there's been so much in the mainstream media,

just in the last really two or three weeks about artificial intelligence, AI, particularly with the reporting about this new chat bot called ChatGPT, which has the education world going bananas, because it threatens to eliminate and put the end to homework because it will theoretically, students will be able to do their homework just using an AI chatbot, tell it what it wants, and spit it back out. But it's a bigger discussion, of course, that's been going on for many years about artificial intelligence and its role in our society and in our lives.

And it's probably, you know, coming to something of a head in the last few years between the use of algorithms to tell you what movie to watch on Netflix and, you know, all of the bots that we have. I mean, you can't go to a doctor these days without being annoyed for three days afterwards with text messages asking you to fill out a survey. It's a lot. It's a lot. And, you know, part of it is just a fundamental question about what is this going to do to us as a species, as humanity. You know, science fiction has long threatened us with the idea that the robots will take over someday. And, you know, I mean, as we all know, lots of science fiction has become science fact. So who knows?

Right. The moon is a cruel mistress, you know? Yeah. You know, it's speak on the topic of medicine. It seems to me like this is one area where we see tech and government and community trying to find a solution. Because there's so many problems with an aging demographic. There's so many problems. with disease.

And more than that, there's so many problems trying to pay for these things. And it seemed like I have gone to the doctor recently for a checkup and I was, I just did it online. You know, I was able to talk to my doctor one time.

Another time I just sent like an email. And they go, oh, it sounds like you need these drugs. Here you go. Bada bing, Bada boom. And, you know, it's the part that really bothers me with, well,

there's many parts, but one part that maybe we can, we can kind of dance around a little bit is this idea that the technology is not really built to, help people. It seems built to generate profit. And that seems to be the rub to me. Well, it's, it's, it's that fundamental question, which we brought up last week, which is, you know, can AI create? It seems like AI can reproduce, but I don't think it yet can create. And when it

comes to something like medical care, sure, I mean, I think there are really fantastic applications for artificial intelligence in the world of medical care these days. But there's always the danger that we're going to allow it to, you know, take over, if you will. If you think about the, you know, and you think about telemedicine. A telemedicine is exactly AI, but it's the involvement of technology in medicine. Yes, incredible movement to telemedicine, which, you know, of course, COVID really precipitated. And I mean, you know, thank God for it because most of us, I mean,

we wouldn't have been able to go to the doctor. I mean, I remember during the initial lockdown, I felt ill and called my doctor. So before we all had tests at home. And I did a telemedicine visit with my doctor. And, you know, she was able to say, I don't think you have COVID. I think you have a cold. you know and amazing but my current primary physician primary care physician has now certain days of the week that are devoted to just telemedicine calls so i was in the office having a visit

with her a couple of weeks ago and um i had i have to go back and the uh receptionist was scheduling an appointment for me and i said well how about a tuesday he said well tuesday she only does telehealth calls. Like, okay, that's a little weird. You know, it just, that strikes me as odd. Now, telemedicine is something which is not new. In fact, my gosh, in the late 90s, I had a visit by really the pioneer in the field, a man named Daniel Carlin, who did just incredible work with this field. I mean, before it really existed, he had famously, he had a company, he worked out of Boston, and he had a company that helped people who were traveling around the world to places where medical care probably wasn't really accessible. And he would be able to talk with them through a tele kind of portal.

We didn't have the internet the way that we do now. I'm talking about 1997. 1998. And I found out about him first because there was a story, I think it was on 60 Minutes, famous story at the time about a guy who was doing around the world trip, solo trip in a boat. And in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, I forget the situation of what exactly had happened, but his arm, his arm eventually became infected. And Carlin, through telemedicine visits with him, and it was very complicated to set up at the time, actually helped the guy to amputate his own arm because he had, it was, gangrene was setting in,

and he was stuck out in the middle of the ocean. It was an incredible story and prompted me to get in touch with him, and I had him actually visit with a class I was teaching at the time through through an online setup, which was very complicated to do in those days. So, you know, Telemedicine is an interesting idea, especially when it's helping people who don't have direct access to health care. But when I want to go see my GP on a Tuesday and the response is, well, she only does telehealth calls that day, that just strikes me as kind of odd. I mean, I'm not living in the middle of, you know, sub-Saharan Africa. I'm living in Newport News, Virginia. Yeah.

I would be willing to wager it has to do with price structure. You know, it seems like when I go into the doctor, they only have a few short minutes where they can be in there. They're on a clock almost. Like, I got seven minutes to figure this out. And then I'm at it. And then I got another one. And so if you can, you know, I don't know what that price structure would look like or how it works. But I would imagine the more patients, you know, if you're one of the big boys like Kaiser that's mixed with the insurance companies, the more people you see, the more money you're making.

But I think that, you know, this idea of telemedicine. and the idea of chat GPT, and in your blog, you brought up a question that I can't stop thinking about, and it's the question of why. Computers don't answer that question. In fact, that seems like such a logical left brain, just figure it out. Don't worry about why. Just do it.

And so many of us, like the human condition, maybe not all of us, but I love that question why. And I can't even figure out math problems unless I know why they wrote it that way. When I look at the word problem, I'm like, but why did they choose that word? And I remember my teacher would be like, it doesn't matter. I'm like, it matters to me because maybe they want something else. But it's this question of why. Maybe you can.

Yeah, I mean, AI is artificial intelligence is good with what questions and where questions and when questions. They really can't deal. It really can't deal very well yet with why questions. Because why questions really require a level of thinking that, really is, I will say as a non-neurroscientist, I think it's unique to human beings. I don't think machines can function at that level. Now, maybe someday they can, and maybe the folks at MIT would disagree with me that they're working on it. You know, but I mean, you know, in a kind of funny kind of way, I mean, I would respond to that with, well, why? Why do we need that? You know, and I'm not

sure why we need it. I really don't still understand yet why we need it. I don't want to go and have surgery performed by a robot, which is where, you know, there are projects that are aiming at that at this point. And there are some situations where it almost already is a hybrid robot and surgeon operating. I don't want to take people out of the law. loop this morning. I'm sitting in my office here and I heard all this racket outside. What the heck's going on outside my office? And I got up and there was a whole team of people standing there and they are considering installing the robotic vacuum cleaners in my building. Yes. And so two of the people who were standing there were current housekeepers who were watching this. And I'm just thinking,

you know, well, this is going to take away their jobs, isn't it? And I joked with the sales rep, and I said, I could see kids riding that thing all over the place, you know, if we were to get that. But why do we need that? And again, you know, so much of it unfortunately seems to be driven by cost. It will be more cost effective. Who cares about cost effective when you are affecting human beings in their lives? in such a negative way. Because, you know, let's face it, the folks who are vacuuming in my building

aren't going out and getting a job with Merck. You know, they have a certain skill level. And it's the same argument that's been made for years about the cashiers and grocery stores and Walmart's and the like. I saw a funny meme the other day where someone said that they went into the break room at Walmart And somebody said, well, you don't work here. What are you doing here? And he said, well, I just check myself out. So I'm taking the people, you know, and so much of this has been about taking the human element out of the loop in the name of efficiency. But that efficiency question is problematic because what kind of efficiency are we talking about? Yeah, it seems to me that, you know, I think in Steve Jobs' biography, they asked him about cycles of success, especially in corporations. And what he said is that, well, corporation begins as an idea with the visionary people that started.

And they run it up and they build it and they follow the vision of the person that has the idea. And they build it to a giant success. But after a while, after it gets to a certain level, the only thing. thing that moves the needle forward on profits is like the marketing and sales team. So the visionaries kicked to the side. The sales guys are brought up and marketing becomes the main strategy. And it seems to me that's what we're seeing in the world of technology. You know, you can bring in vacuum. You could bring in a thousand rumbas. But what happens when the plane shut down and you can't get a battery because you can't send batteries on the planes? What happens when the electricity goes out?

Now all of a sudden you have the rats pile up. And, you know, I could understand. understand the quick hit to the group of CEOs and boards of directors when a guy comes in and says, you no longer have to pay these people vacations. But that reminds me of the idea. It was Henry Ford and, you know, one of the great union leaders of that time. They were walking down the newly minted Ford assembly line. And Henry Ford leans over and he says to the great leader, the union guy that time, I can't think of his name, but he says, how are you going to get all these robots to pay union dues?

And then the gentleman replies back, how are you going to get all these robots to buy your cars? You know, like we need each other. And when we're so top heavy and we're trying to find out ways to secure profit in the name of humanity, we've gone too far. Yeah. No, I agree. I mean, it reminds me of something that we've talked about before, which is that scene in Chaplin's modern times. when they bring in, the guy brings in this machine that supposedly is going to feed the workers

while they're on the assembly line so they don't have to actually take a break for lunch. They continue working and it will automatically feed them. The whole thing goes curfluy, but the greatest last line is from the boss who says it won't work, it's just not efficient. You know, nothing about the way that it's affecting the worker. Right.

It's just not efficient. Right. And so I think that, you know, this question of of efficiency, and I think you're right. I mean, you know, the split between R&D and sales in most corporations is really quite interesting, isn't it? Yeah. And we see it even in higher ed.

You know, I mean, in higher red, I mean, most admissions offices are not staffed by academics. Those are marketing folks. Yep. They're salespeople. You know, and I don't, I don't befall them for any of them. I don't begrudge them. I mean, that's what they do. I mean, they are salespeople.

But I think the thing that worries me a lot of the times is when they're only salespeople. You got to know your product, right? And I worry that in some cases at some institutions, the admissions folks don't really know their product. They're just selling a thing. You know, as we've mentioned, I had a bookstore in the 1980s. And now when I go into, you know, the only chain bookstore that still exists, you know, oftentimes I'm really aggravated because the folks in there, by and large, most of them don't know a hell of a lot about books. They could just be soon selling burgers, you know, it's just they're selling an item. And so you ask them a question about something and they oftentimes can't respond without having to look it up because they don't really know anything about the product.

Whereas, you know, back in the day when I had my store, we knew every book that we had in the store. You know, it was funny because my colleague and I, who ran the store, customers used to come in and ask us whether or not we had something in the back. And, you know, we would joke and say, there is no back. This is the back. We didn't have a stock room. Everything we had was out on the floor. And so they would walk up to us sometimes and ask us for a title and we would automatically just say, no, we're out of that. We have it on order. And they're like, how do you know?

Because I know. I know what's in the store. You know, and that kind of care really gets kind of flushed down the toilet when you go to AI, right? I mean, I think it's interesting that for many years, this big bookstore chain, which we all know, had computers in their store where you, with a customer could look something up. They got rid of those a couple of years ago. So now you, if you want to look something, if you have to talk with somebody, a clerk who's there, I'm not sure what the rationale was behind that.

It would be kind of interesting to find out. If any listeners know, maybe they work for said chain, they can shine in. Yeah, that's a curious thing. You and I both have a similar outlook, I think, on AI, but I want to challenge our thinking here. I want us to, maybe we can try to steal man the argument that AI is going to be good for the people who have the least opportunities.

Is it possible to steal that in that argument? Can you give an example? I can. So because the world of technology has become so profit-driven and so narrow, it is leaving open wide gaps for people on the bottom that are being pushed out of jobs to use technology in a way that people in boardrooms haven't thought of yet.

And that would be like say there's someone that was recently a housekeeper at the Hilton here in Hawaii. And they've gotten Rumba's to replace them. Now this person has found a way to use chat AI and the Dahl E program

to put out books about art. I'm not sure that's exactly. that's all I can come up with as an idea. As a creative way. The problem with that is that it's the same problem that we've been talking about for decades. Not everyone should go to college. Not everyone is suited for that kind of work. Yes.

There are, and there's no shame in being the person who cleans up. And when we get rid of that person and replace them with AI, I honestly don't know what the hell they're going to do. I mean, to say, you know, oh, well, you know, you no longer have a housekey. job so now you're freed up to go and paint. What the hell am I going to pay my bills? Where's my health insurance going to come from? And so I think that what the threat is that it's going to really damage the lower class,

that it speaks largely to the middle and upper class AI does. and you know, I mean, the lower class, I mean, we talk about the politicians like to talk about the middle class being under threat. I mean, hell, the middle class, look at the lower class. I mean, they're really under threat. Yeah. They've always been under threat. Yeah.

And this is just one more thing that I think they have to worry about. Yeah. It's on some level, I think that it's, you know, the acceleration of problems. that nobody wants to deal with, you know, and we've put it off for a long time. It's not like these problems haven't been evident since before technology started really coming up. Like we have, we have a war on drugs, but we don't have a war on poverty. And we could with all the money we're printing and all the money we're putting out there. It seems like none of that money makes its way to the people that need it the most.

Well, supposedly LBJ was warring that, leading that war on poverty, right? I mean, it just, it, it seems to have gotten swallowed up. I mean, as you and I have talked about before, I mean, the situation with poverty in this country, never mind the world, let's just focus on this country, is really kind of horrific. I mean, all you have to do is go to any large city and you'll really see the effect of it. I mean, you may not see the effect of it in your small town, but go to a large city, go some place that is a place where you normally normally. wouldn't go, likely because that's outside of your sort of socioeconomic parameter, and you will really see how much people are hurting. I mean, I've told you that story about the students in South Dakota going down to the

Lakota reservation and getting off the bus at the end of the day and just saying, I didn't even know poverty like that existed. To see it firsthand is rather shocking. And yes, we do need a war on poverty. I don't think we're going to get it because we have too much of a focus on wealth. And, you know, I mean, I read last night that Elon Musk now has lost more money in the first quarter of this year or something like that. It's going to put them in the Guinness Book of World Records. And I'm reading the article and like, let me get out my violins.

you know, how much is he worth now? I mean, he lost some ridiculous amount of money, but I mean, it's nothing because the man is just disgustingly wealthy. You know, and again, not begrudging anybody their success and their wealth, but what do you do with it then? And what are you doing with it for humanity to help people and to advance things? I don't think that sending people on pleasure trips to the moon is really in the long run going to have a tremendous impact on us as a species.

And it's just it's really troubling that some of the folks who have the financial ability to make real change are not doing it. They're not stepping up. And maybe it's a difference in generation. Because, you know, I was reading about, I was reading a book about Susan Arlene's book about the library. I think I mentioned this last time. I think so. But the Los Angeles Library Fire and the history of the Los Angeles Library.

And she mentioned, she kind of gave a little thumbnail sketch about Andrew Carnegie in the late 19th century when he gave all of that money to open up libraries across the country. I forget the number. Some incredible number of libraries. And it was, you had these folks who were true philanthropists. They had made a lot of money, but they also gave a lot of it away. You know, I mean, I used to teach at Russell Sage College in upstate New York. Now Russell Sage College is named after Russell Sage, who was a big train magnate in the late 19th century, made his money through the trains and through transportation.

and when he died, he left all his money to his wife, Olivia Slocum Sage, Mrs. Russell Sage, and she gave it all away. And if you look around the country, you'll still see little things in parks, public parks that are named after Sage. And that was her money. She gave it all away.

That was what she became. She was for a while, the richest woman in the country. But she was a great philanthropist. and I don't know who the great philanthropists are today. I don't think I could name a single one of them. I mean, at one point, we would have said the Sacklers, but that's gone out the window. You know, I mean, but it's true though.

I mean, you know, I'm reading a book written by the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a new book that just came out called Why the Museum Matters. And he's mentioning when the Met decided that they were going to take sackler name off of their galleries. And I think there were seven galleries that had the sackler name on them because they'd give it money. But I don't know who the big philanthropists are today.

It's not Jeff Bezos. It's not Elon Musk. I mean, it's not the people that we think of as being the most wealthy. You know, there was a move several years ago, this philanthropist club, of which folks like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are part who, who, dedicated themselves and said they're going to give away a large part of their fortune and they have. But the money that they have is it pales in comparison to the kind of money that that Amazon is making for Bezos. I mean, it's just, the money is just, it's, it's unthinkable.

It really is. It's unimaginable. And the way that it has put so many independent businesses out of business, it's really just absolutely striking. I mean, you know, I was thinking about this last night that, I mean, you literally can go on to Amazon and order just about anything and get it the next day. And sometimes they'll even deliver it the same day. Yep.

And so, you know, what is the motivation for me to go down to the local mom and pop store and buy something if I can do it like that? And, of course, in most cases, I mean, the local mom and pop store, which barely exists anymore anyway, they can't stock the kinds of things. I don't know how Amazon has what they have in stock, in stock and at hand to ship out like that and get it to me the next day when it's just, you know, the oddest things that you would you would order. It's a, it's it, I mean, it really is amazing. And of course, a lot of what

Amazon is doing is involved with AI, right? I mean, a lot of it is driven. by AI. But, you know, as we've heard story after story, it is not certainly helping any of the employees at Amazon who apparently, you know, have a pretty lousy work condition. Yeah, it's, you know, maybe maybe that's part of the, maybe that's something that AI could do. I don't think it would unless it was programmed that way, but, you know, maybe no one should be, no one can handle the pressure of being a billionaire. Like that must change you in so many ways.

Oh, I can't imagine. Right? It's got a fundamentally. Saturday morning because I'm going to win the mega million. I hope you do. I hope you do. It would be, it would be in some ways,

like you've heard the curse of the lottery. Like people win this and all of a sudden, people want stuff from you. You probably don't have any friends. We have over here, the guy that Larry Ellison, who owns Oracle, He bought one of the outlying islands from Hawaii called Kauai.

And he took the four seasons. That's his main home because, you know, why wouldn't you? And he's got like this giant aircraft carrier that sometimes he'll sail over to a Wahoo and park it where the cruise ships park. I was reading up on him. And he's just to give people an idea of how money can change you. And I don't know if this is 100% true. I just read this in an article, so it may or may not be true. But the article was saying that he has a number system around people in the

It's like one through five. And if you're a five, you can't make eye contact with them. Like if you work there, if you're a four, you can make eye contact, but you can't talk to them. You know, and if you're a three, you can have superficial conversations. Long story longer, like some of the people in his immediate family are like twos. But then I started thinking like, why would someone institute that system? And like, why would you even do that? Like, what are the conditions that make you come up with a system like that?

It must be horrendous, you know? Well, it sounds like a Howard Hughes thing. Yeah, exactly. And it is this. I mean, I think that, you know, depending on a person's background, you know, that level of wealth can probably be incredibly isolating and kind of strip you of your humanity in some ways.

I mean, I think that's why it's interesting that that philanthropy project with Gates and Buffett, you know, that they've decided that they're going to do that. Now, I mean, you know, of course, as, you know, I mean, Gates, I mean, started out in his garage, you know, I mean, he came from nothing. And I think it's interesting to see that versus somebody like Elon Musk who walked into it, you know, largely from his family, was wealthy from the start. Yeah, it's maybe that's the problem. Maybe money, maybe we can use AI. And in some levels, that's, I think the vision of crypto is to take away the corruption out of money.

I'm not obviously, they haven't done it with things like FTA. or all these things crashing. But I think that for some of them, I think their hearts in the right place and the idea is that, look, we don't deal well with money and it's destroying our society. But I don't think we can ever take the corruption out of money.

I mean, you know, that just may be the nature of it. I mean, if you go back and look at the history of, you know, bartering and then when we move to, you know, trading things like gold for services, and it became, you know, was very different kind of thing you know it was i mean bartering is i was going to give you something that was equivalent in in in the the value to what you're going to give me whereas with money it's just a strange weird thing i got this piece of paper yeah that has a number on it and i'm going to

give it to you and you're going to give me goods it's it's a very odd psychological thing about how money works. And of course, we've got a generation now that's growing up in a cashless society. And that's also having tremendous impact, right? It's that they,

you know, we always used to joke, you know, old people would say, oh, we don't understand the value of money. Well, they really don't understand

the value of money because they don't have any money. Everything is electronic. Everything is a credit card. Everything is something that they pay for with their phone. And, you know, the idea of having cash on hand

is pretty much going the way the Dodo Bird. And I think that for kids, that probably is not a good thing. I think it's, I mean, there was something too. I mean, George, you know this, you and I. I mean, growing up about having a certain amount of cash, I mean, you had that cash. And when that was gone, that was it. Now, I know myself, when I first got my first credit card, that was a bad thing. Yeah, me too.

Because I'm not stupid, but I ran it up. Sure. Because it was really easy, really convenient. You know, and I had a huge balance then to pay off eventually. I'd really run that up. And as I say, I'm not stupid, but it was just, it was convenient. And it was almost like, you know, getting the dopamine hit from a like on Facebook, right? Yeah. Because you were able to buy something that, you know, here's my credit card.

Sure. That's not a good thing. I mean, I would love to get rid of, and we've gotten rid of most of our credit card. We just have a few. We really paired it down to what was just absolutely necessary because we had too many. Yeah. It just wasn't necessary. It's almost a complex system in itself.

Like if, you know, there's so many points involved in these different derivatives of money that you could build up for flights. And, you know, I read a pretty good book a couple years ago by Thomas Pickety, who's a French economist, books called Capital. And in that book, he makes the argument that the state of capital coalesces into two areas, super wealthy and none. And what we've seen over the last 200 years is like this little blip on the scale of mankind where there was a middle class. And if he points to all these different societies and says, there's never a middle class. What we've seen is just this weird anomaly.

And he makes the argument and really well, he makes the argument that this is what we're going back to. There's going to be really wealthy people and really poor people. And as my mind goes down this incredible rabbit hole, it's almost like a speciation. Like if you look at who Jeff Bezos was when he was selling books, if you look at pictures of him then and pictures of him now. Like he looks like a different person. Like just it's and what kind of medicine can you? You can buy the, you know, your growth hormones, your testosterone and all these gene therapies. If you have money, you can buy youth at least to some degree.

Whereas if you don't have money, you may be on hold with the telemedicine people. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, there was a story last night that I heard on the news that this new drug that has come out or that I guess it hasn't come out. I think the FDA is still testing it. The new Alzheimer's drug. The cost of something like $25,000 a month. Wow.

I mean, who's going to be able to afford that? It's nuts. So, you know, you may be right. I mean, it may be a point where, you know, we, the species gets sort of, you know, survival of the fittest, right? I mean, it's only the wealthy that survive. And you've got the really poor or the people who have nothing who are there for no other reason than to serve the wealthy. A digital feudalism of sorts. Yeah, I mean, that's a frightening vibration scenario.

But I mean, it doesn't seem so far from possibility, given the world that we're living in. I mean, I think back to the way that what we, our generation, knows as the middle class, which really kind of took root after World War II with the baby boom generation and, you know, those folks getting back from the war. And if you look back at, as I have in the last couple of days, I've been looking at ads from the early 1950s, particularly ads from the New York City area where all these housing developments were going up. A lot of them on Long Island, which were being pitched towards the GIs who were getting back from the war. And it was promising them, you know, the American dream. You know, it was this little house with a white picket fence.

And it's interesting to see how the whole question of the American dream has shifted so significantly. We have so many students who write about the American dream and the Great Gatsby, you know, but it would be interesting to look at, you know, what happened to the American dream? Because I'm not sure, I don't know if it exists anymore. I mean, what do you think? Do you think it exists today? that's a if if we're looking at the american dream as maybe getting further along than your parents and buying a house and having 2.2 kids I think it exists for a smaller and smaller group every

generation you know and I guess that would be the maybe people are beginning to wake up from that which they thought was the American dream but it's it can be done I think but you have to work hard and you must sacrifice and I think you have to get lucky. I think that those are the three things you need to have it. What do you think? But economists have predicted now that this is a generation, the first generation that's going to not be better off than their parents. Yeah.

Which is just baffling. I mean, I think the American dream may still exist. Ironically, I think it exists for non-Americans. I mean, it's folks who want to come here with this idea of what the American dream is. I'm not sure Americans have the American dream anymore.

You know, and I would, I see some of the, at my work as a truck driver, I see some of the younger kids or some of my friends who have kids. And it seems like on some level, you know, they just don't want to do it. And I get it. Like, I get it. Like, on some level, it seems that the level of, oh, I don't know, the level of, of, what is it called when? you when you when you when you loyalty like there's no real loyalty to a company and and nor should there be because there's no loyalty from the top no no no actually rots from the head down and so when you see all the college people just don't want to work all these people don't want stuff

well neither are the people at the top they've sucked out all the resources at the bottom it's like a big game of jenga they've just taken all the resources and stacked it right on top but the difference is that the the the previous generation was willing to make a sacrifice yeah I agree And now a lot of people are not willing to do that, partially because there's no loyalty. Yeah. And partially because I think they have really reflected on what the cost of that sacrifice is. Yeah. You know, I mean, you always joked about, you know, the House of the White Picket Fence and the 2.2 kids and the station wagon and the driveway.

And I think there's a generation that came along and kind of took a step back. and looked at that and said, is that really worth it? And they, and largely they said, no, it's not. And, you know, I think maybe that's part of what put an end to the American dream, is they sort of looked at it and said, you know, the American dream that my parents had, that's not my dream. And thinking about what my dream might be in a society where, there's such a distinction between the haves and the have-nots.

I mean, there were always poor people, right? There were always people struggling. But if you look at the statistics, I mean, in the 1950s, and let's say there after World War II, people were doing very well, and they were very comfortable and seemed happy, at least if you watch 50 sitcoms, right? And then, you know, we get to the 1960s and after the Kennedy assassination and then Vietnam, it just seems like it chipped away at that dream. I think that that's something, that that's the significant thing about the moon landing, right? Yeah.

Is that somehow it brought some of that back to Americans. It brought that dream back. I mean, that's what Kennedy had aspired to when he predicted that and said. by the end of the decade, we'd put men on the moon and bring them back safely, is that that would somehow restore some of that dream. I mean, if you go back and look at the Kennedy years, and I'm not saying that that was, you know, all golden and wonderful, but, I mean, it was Camelot, right?

I mean, it was this, I mean, here was this young couple in the White House. It was, you know, they were still living in the, in the kind of the glow of post-war 1950s America and then it just the rug got taken out from under everybody after his assassination and I

I mean I don't think largely it's the country's ever recovered from that I think that the Kennedy assassination and then Watergate undermined Americans confidence in the government to such a degree

that it was irrevocable. And I don't think that's ever come back. I really don't think it's ever come back. It's, I mean, you know, if you ask kids today, you know, what they aspire to be, I mean, you know, kids used to say, I want to be president, right? I don't know kids say that anymore.

I can't imagine that they would. I mean, I know growing up as a kid, I mean, I wanted to be president. That was my aspiration. it was Watergate that really kind of tarnished that for me because I had lived as a young kid with the idea that the president was somebody to be admired and he had all this power and you know he would always do the right thing and then you realize that that wasn't true I think that that really chipped away at a lot of people's belief in any kind of an American dream

it soiled it. Yeah. I think it's, it makes me think of the question, like where do dreams come from? And, you know, when you think about yourself growing up or when you think about a kid growing up,

you know, sometimes dreams come from a happy home. And if you look at our country in the, in the 50s, it was like we were this wealthy family and everybody had opportunity. Like all the brothers and sisters, hey man, little Bobby can go out

and do the fireman. or Ginny can grow up and be the first woman senator or there was all this hope. And we were a big family that had so much that we had so much promise. And we had all these dreams. And we could get better. But then as we age as a family, like, you know, it seems like, you know, with Kennedy or the Watergate, like all of a sudden, the family hit some hard times. And now, hey, maybe my friend can get Bobby a job at the sewer plant. You know what I mean?

It seems like we fell. A lot of the hope and the optimism kind of got rung out of the country. I mean, it's interesting that people like, you know, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama both tried to bring that back on their campaigns. I mean, you know what? Clinton was the boy from hope, wasn't he? Yeah, yeah. You know, and Obama's motto was, you know, yes, we can. It was optimism.

But it just doesn't seem to be panning out that way. I think we've got a very cynical generation coming up. And I don't know, again, bringing us full circle, whether AI is going to do anything to rescue us from that, that cynicism and that lack of hope. We really do need to restore that. But, I mean, it's difficult in our country. It's difficult globally right now, right?

I mean, if you, you know, look at what's going on around the world. But somewhere along the line, it just strikes me that we jump the track. You know, everything was going well and something happened to derail it. And, you know, in my mind, it starts with the Kennedy assassination and goes forward from there. because the Kennedy assassination and the Leeds of the Warren report, which a lot of people didn't believe, you know, so it was just,

it was just a snowball effect. Have you read the book, The Fourth Turning by Neil Howe? No. It's a fascinating book, and it talks about the seasons of life. It's really good. You would love it.

I've read it a couple times, and it goes into the idea of seasons, like giant cycles, and each human being, gets to see the seasons, but they get to see it from a different point of view, because when you were a young person, you get to see the summer. And maybe that means when you, before you die, you get to see the spring, the winter, and the fall.

But because we go through it at different seasons, the people that understand how to deal with the crisis that season, by the time that season comes around again, they're too old to deal with it. So that knowledge is gone. And it makes, the more that I see the world playing out, the more that I'm able to see the model that these gentlemen represented. And, you know, maybe that's what we're going through. Maybe we're getting ready to go through winter.

And those that have gone through the winter, the silent generation, there's not too many left. And so these crises that are happening, the people that are dealing with them are dealing with them from the first time. And it may not be the right generation in charge. But it can be a positive thing. I mean, when you're talking about that whole idea. It's necessary. I mean, it reminds me a Johnny Mitchell song, both sides now, right?

I've seen, I mean, the line is I've seen love from both sides now, but I mean, you know, I used to do this exercise with a class where I showed them a video because of course everything's on YouTube now, a video of the very young Joni Mitchell singing that song and then of her singing that song some 40 years later and about, you know, the difference in meaning for the song given her age, that it takes on a whole different tenor. And I think you're right. I mean, you know, my folks who are in, my friends who are in classical history like to tell me when we talk about this, that history does go in kind of cycles. And, you know, we talk about, oh, well, this is the, you know, we had a good run and this is the end of it. And they're like, well, you know, but we've seen this before, right? I mean, the Roman Empire fell, right? I mean, and things worked out. but and maybe that's true.

I don't know. I mean, the cynical Jew and me wonders and I'm not sure I buy that, but think about how much of a Brit, like you are one of the most, my favorite people to talk to. And you have such a depth of knowledge in so many different areas. Like I sometimes I see,

see what you're doing as a bridge. Like you are as a teacher, as an instructive, as a creative influence. on young people. Like you are one of the only people that you has this bridge between, you know, your book,

The Seven Deadly Sins reaches back so far into history and the Renaissance. And like, look at the material that you're putting out there. You're putting out material that people can resource in order to rebuild something. I get goosebumps talking about it. For those that don't know, David Solomon has written a lot of books, but the one that I recently read is the Seven Deadly Sins.

And I would urge everybody listening to this or watching this to pick it up. It'll blow your mind. But it's a bridge. It's here's how people grew up. Here's how people solve these problems. And I don't know if you see yourself that way, but I think it's beautiful, man. Well, and I appreciate that. And, you know, for me, that was the shift, right?

I mean, I say growing up as a kid, I wanted to be president, and I'm not saying that as a joke. I mean, my only aspiration was to go to law school and go into politics. That's what I wanted. That's how I saw, I saw myself making change. And through a sequence of events as an undergraduate, I realized that there was no way in hell I was going to do that. Because in some ways, I think I realized that I was idealizing the system. And when I found out what the reality of the system was, I realized that the change I wanted to affect was not going to be able to happen. And so I changed tracks and went this route and thought, you know, well, I'll teach.

And maybe that will affect that kind of change in some ways. And you do see it. It's just, it's slower, right? I mean, we want everything to happen quickly and it's not quickly. I mean, I hear from students from decades ago, which I love, you know, and hear about what they're doing and things. thinking and and and things they remember from from things that I taught them. And, um, you know, yes, that's where I see that I'm affecting change.

I don't think I would have ever been able to do that if I have followed that original route of, of law school and then politics. Yeah, that reminds me, you know, what was the name of the Jesuit professor you had that you sort of looked at? What was his name? Father Lagrin. Father Lagrin. Oh, no, no.

Father Sweeney, Father Sweeney, my history professor. Yes, yes, yes. So Father Sweeney, who was one of the most brilliant teachers I ever had, but was hard as nails. And he was the one who said an A means I don't have anything to say. If you were on a paper, he just wrote an A on the cover, and there wasn't a word inside because he said, I have nothing to say. It's an A paper. Yeah, I mean, that just, that, it's funny because last night. I had a former student come to my museum studies class because this year she's acting as the project manager for the class.

And she had on, I showed you, I give them pins that say a, that have an A on them if they get an A on a paper, because I rarely give a solid A on a paper. Because I go on Sweeney's philosophy. And she was wearing her A button, which I thought was hilarious. Yeah, well that that's like that is the type of influence that I'm talking about and it's you know generational like that particular person or that particular archetype is someone who creates change through the generations and when you real I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts on that book because I it really made me think a lot about it. It's it's a great one and it comes down it ties in the archetypes with young and seasons and

It's like this, it's that missing puzzle piece that fell under the table that you're like, I can't find it, man, you know, and finally there it is. But I think a lot of that bridging is done also by people. I mean, you know. Of course. So Sweeney was the bridge for me, right? Yes. And now maybe I'm serving as the bridge for somebody going.

It's that making those connections and allowing that to happen. Yeah. You know, I so wish that I had had the opportunity to tell him this. sadly when I finally tried to get in contact with him he had passed not that long before but I mean he would have never remembered me because I was I was nobody I mean this was a Western Civ class

I wasn't a history major I took him for one maybe two classes and that was it and I mean he you know he would have never remembered me but it still I would have and I did I tried I wrote on a letter which they sent me back and said

that he had passed to try to explain the incredible, incredible influence he's been on my life as an educator. Well, I think that there's a beautiful poetic justice there. Like, he may have never remembered you, but he probably imagined you, because I guarantee you imagine inspiring people that you may not even know. Yeah.

You know, like that's even better in some ways because you think about giving the tools to someone or inspiring people that may not even know your name right now that are going to continue to build the bridge over the next chasm. Like that's, that is it. Like that is real wealth. That is real structure.

That is moving the ball forward. And that is the kind of work that I'm proud to get to sit here and talk to you about because that's where it's at, man. That is where it's at. Yeah. I mean, I hope so. I mean, that's my goal as an educator and having gone into this field is to,

to affect change for the future in this. way. And you do. It's just, as I say, it's slow and it may not, you know, I mean, it's been, what? It's been, good Lord, it's been 40 years since I sat in Dr. Sweet, Father Sweeney's class, you know. So it takes a while, you know, that, that, that, it has to percolate, right? It has to, it has to cook. And, you know, too often we want to see the, the immediate thing. I mean, we were talking about this a couple of weeks earlier when we talked about the, the power of a liberal arts education. Yeah.

Problem with that is you don't often notice that until decades later. Yeah. You really have to follow people to be able to see how it has affected them and how it's been successful. You're not going to see it next year. Right. It just doesn't work that way. Yeah.

It's in my darker moments, you know, when I'm, when I find myself with my hand, my head and my hands on my knees and I'm cynical and I'm thinking about like, what am I doing? I often find this weird humor that bubbles up. And it's like, you're not supposed to know. And I started thinking about these ideas of like, maybe you influence somebody 10 years from now that you've never even met. And I start laughing. And it kind of brings me back out of it.

I'm like, yeah, you're right. Like, what am I doing? What am I talking about? You know, it's beautiful to think about. But it's even more beautiful when I get to see it in other people and get to hear stories about it and understand that maybe we are making the radical change, but it's so incremental that you don't see it. And maybe you're not, maybe you're not supposed to see it. Maybe it's not for you to see. No, I think you're right.

I mean, it is incremental and it is gradual. And, you know, I guess you have to have faith that, that you're, that you're making a difference. I mean, certainly there are times when it's difficult, right? I mean, when you're sitting there with your head and your hands and thinking, you know, geez, you know, what a lousy day this was. And I didn't, you know, at the end of the day, oftentimes when you're looking in the mirror, you kind of reflect on, well, you know, did I sort of justify my existence today? Yeah. You know, and of course, most days, you're like, well, I didn't really do a whole hell of a lot. And then, you know, you kind of reflect on it. But I think you're right. And part of that speaks to something else, which we've talked about often,

which is, you know, where ego gets in the way there. Yeah, absolutely. And what, you know, what motivates us to do those things? Is it because it's feeding our ego or is it really helping others? Yeah. And I, this may be a little woo-woo, but I think you'll, I think you may understand and maybe even. I'll just talk about there. So the same way the butterfly comes to visit you when your aunt passes away, I have found, too, that through some of my darkest times, whether or, you know, if I'm having a tough time at work or if it's just been one of those days, I get a message, you know, whether it's the tree brushing up against me and then there's the

caterpillar right there. And I just busted out a caterpillar metaphor in my last podcast. You know, it's like there's something bigger. There's something reaching out that's trying to get your attention. And I find, and to everybody listening, I promise you, if you just open your eyes, to everybody watching, pay attention to what's happening to you when you're outside because I think there's something trying to get your attention. And if you listen to it, it makes sense.

sense. I know it's kind of a generic all-around thing, but it's there. There's a language there. No, I think you're right. I mean, it's it's it's the importance of looking for symbols. Yes. I mean, it's not going to smack you in the face and say, here it is. Right here. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Brilliant book. Beautiful. That's a beautiful copy too. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's the importance of recognizing symbols. Yeah. And thinking about, you know, well, what does that mean? you know, scratching the surface, right, looking a little bit deeper, that, you know, that butterfly is not a butterfly, right? And, you know, like you say, you know, I love your, your, your, very accurate way to say we're getting too woo about this. But, you know, on one level it is because it's kind of like you say, oh, well, come on, you know.

But that's where symbols are about, right? That's right. And meaning, right? Like, you can't control the events that happen in your life. But you and you alone get to control the meaning of that event. And that's all we have is the meaning of it. If you start choosing the meanings, you're choosing your life. You're choosing to build the bridge.

You're choosing to take your life in the only direction that you can. And that's where the meaning comes into. But as we're getting ready to land this plane here, Dr. David Solomon. You know, I don't know if you saw some of the comments on LinkedIn, but one of the top ones was more David Solomon. So what are you got comments? coming up. What's up with the new books? What else? Do you got any speaking gigs coming up and where can people find you? And what are you excited about? Yeah. My website is David A. Solomon, S-A-L-O-M-O-N-com and links to all my books and speaking engagements and the blog and consulting are all there. We just started the new semester here. So I'm excited about that. Met with my class for the first time last night. We had a great time and I'm very excited about this exhibition that they're going to be. going to be curating.

It's a museum studies course. Still plugging away at the books and working on two new things that hopefully will be out, I hope next year. But it's writing is a struggle, right? You know, was it, I forget, it's either Hemingway or Dorothy Parker. It's spilling the blood on the page, right? It's hard. You open up a vein, you know.

But happy to be on with you and talk to you every week, George. Yeah, me too. I really enjoy it. You're one of my favorite people to talk to, and I like us hoping to solve the world's problems in our own small way. At least in our world problems. That's true. So that's what we got for today. Ladies and gentlemen, check out the books.

Go to the blog. I would point everyone to the blog to read more about the chat GPT. There's a lot of stuff in that blog that we just barely scratched the surface on. It's a fun read. It's entertaining. And you guys should subscribe to it and check it out. And reach out to me or David. We'll be back next week to continue to solve the world's problems for everybody.

Thank you all for your time. Aloha.