The implications technology has for the way people obtain appreciation or status in society.

Recorded 12 March 2017.

With my friend yesterday we were talking about how you could visualize technological progress as the disruption of “asshole technologies”.

Cell phones used to be for assholes, and now it’s for everybody.

Helicopters used to be for rich assholes like Donald Trump, and soon, with self-driving helicopters, it’s going to be available for everyone.

One way to think of progress is that technologies that were once reserved for the very few become available to everyone. . .in the past the king could have an amazing life, but it’s only really an improvement when everyone has access to that same ability.

If you watch a movie in the 1990s the cliché is the asshole stockbroker is the one with the carphone or the cellphone, yelling “Buy!” “Sell!” into his cellphone. People just hate the guy with the cellphone, right? There’s never a positive character with a cellphone.

Hey Guys welcome to make the future I’m Michael Curry I’m coming to you from Bangkok Thailand joining us from America we have the same Connie and then also joining us from Germany we have Daniel punnets with Oh.

With my friend yesterday we were talking about how you could visualize technological progress as the disruption of asshole technologies cell phones used to be for ass holes and now it’s for everybody helicopters I’m thinking used to be for like rich assholes like Donald Trump and soon with you know cell driving helicopter is going to be available for everyone one way to think of progress is that technologies that were once reserved for the very few become available to everyone and that’s true technology right in the past McCain could have an amazing life but it’s only really like an improvement when everyone can have access to that same ability right it gets cheaper by selling a lot of products and improving the products you know and like all the economic typical stuff I guess in one way you could also say that the US holds up and our are paying for the developments like brought available technology they’re being assholes but you know like them and they can all mixes them which beats them.

So that the message of this podcast is thank you to all the assholes Thanks for nothing or suffer for something but I suppose you mean they do. Reach people I guess yeah if you watch a movie in the one nine hundred ninety S. Bickley Shea was like the asshole. The stockbroker is the one with the car phone or the cell phone you know yelling by cell into his cell phone people just hate the guy with the cell phone right there there’s never a hostage of character with a cell phone and then I feel like today like or you know a few years ago you know Donald Trump at the beginning of every episode of The Apprentice would like take a helicopter into the Trump Tower and all of that is designed to make him seem really important and great and everything but imagine if in the future thousands of people every day in Manhattan are entering work by flying in you know on a little self driving helicopters so suddenly that like status symbol of Trump It’s like you know just something that everybody does and it’s very normal Those are my two examples but I’m wondering if there are more that I’m missing that might be interesting to think about well yes I do want to comment I have is maybe not exactly relevant to the when your main team event comes to reach people online who people on staff I think it’s interesting to remember that for thousands of years people I perceive the economy as a static call I that who are has a larger slice of the pie of the economy it’s taking their part so you reach people they were considered as for a while people hated because they were having more and making them having less but then by the introduction of like capitalism like banking and financial revolution now days they’d be all courtesy of lay people like you know a mosque is like I don’t write high comes because they are making them. Come through high larger and it soon now we pursue late reach people who may even think stump brokers say you know.

I guess it’s different then just because they have their personal late money that they have there and so many different types of reached the people who. Make separations So there are some of them a good example is there is an M.P. Demi home.

There is a bowler and then suddenly the stocks of the two late pharmaceutical companies Moroccans So this is a pang the words to say again we need because we need to do that to make new medicine instead of like panicking in Silence of the new economy that you hate to be based on the stock market. Of our economy. He factored in like modern lives is a yes heavily dependent so you still need to start looking at like people in stocks more Christie people and more want to the future.

I just don’t know if that’s the point you were trying to make just from your use my mind can I say something I’ll go ahead and go ahead I just want to say that’s like you like what you’re doing it was just like reframing what we were saying like you know more simple language with the assholes are paying for making the technology available for everybody is a right.

Yeah exactly as wondering if that’s a fact that.

Yeah I think it’s interesting because I think there are excuse kinds of rich people that you’re talking about there is the rich entrepreneurs who are rich simply because they innovated and they captured a piece of that pie they don’t necessarily even need to be rich like I don’t know John Carmack or.

I don’t know there are some other guys like you who was the guy that did that famous presentation at Xerox PARC who we know who created the graphical user interface so those guys didn’t get rich off of their innovations or there is some some AI professors some famous AI professors better. Remain academics but nevertheless have really pushed forward the the envelope or are some famous Slike early Google employees that that are like you know architected G.-Mail or or page rank when you’re not page rank as that was that was Sergey and Larry but but all I’m trying to say is that innovation doesn’t necessarily.

To wealth but then so that’s that’s step that’s you know Category number one are the innovators often who are very rich and then Category number two which is what I was talking about who are people that are just rich they could be rich through inheritance they could be rich through stealing they could it doesn’t matter how they became rich they’re just rich and then they’re spending money on these these goods so they could buy cell phones they can buy helicopters they can buy the vaccines that I guess you’re talking about their highs so it seems to me like there’s two categories of of rich people here and I think I guess my point is we we I guess depend on both of them because we depend on the innovators obviously but also on the early adopters to to make the products financially viable in their early stages that’s very true minds know.

The age of the first issue of the super curse would reach the company and truism you know that’s that’s definitely a strategy of test I we see this also where they like try to roll it out or like some bigger amounts of Eventually many more and that’s also something I don’t know I often consider a slick my career plans to like first go where the money is to get a good education basically you know like to foster and from good people who are there because there’s money. Eventually to use it for for. Like.

People of you I don’t know I don’t know like maybe like for most social.

Times there’s other kinds of goods that people can spend money on to gain status that I feel like are basically dead weight losses to society I feel like there’s a huge segment of the population their entire social status and their their lives are basically they consist of conspicuous consumption of of goods that have no like. What is it relevance to the overall arc of innovation into the future so there’s people I don’t know like a lot of nouveau recent China and they spend a lot of their money on purses or fancy cards or clothing and I feel like it would be it would be useful if we could think of ways to sort of pull the that huge segment of the population away from basically just being dead weight loss is to the overall she wanted. Him to want some kind of relevance because otherwise like really all those people could be machine gunned away and there would be no difference to you know the future of society right so. And what can we do about that.

And that’s pretty pretty extreme I don’t know like I’m not proposing that of course I don’t know no no no that’s actually very interesting but that’s also like very subjective because it depends on your view you know like.

I don’t know like what it’s what which people are useful and which people are not useful in the future.

I don’t know that’s the question.

What are your thoughts on this.

I don’t know.

Do you I just want to some thoughts on this Michael. I actually I don’t know I don’t know how to bring these people into into the space of productivity maybe it doesn’t matter maybe at the end of the day you know you know when when Isaac Newton with alive.

He would he existed in a society many of whom were probably invested very heavily and like climbing some social ladder of the of the seventeenth century you know wearing the fanciest wigs or something and having the most powdered cheeks and and those thousands of noble men that that you know were focused on that and had a bunch of you know landed inheritance and fancy castles they you know they didn’t stop Isaac Newton from from you know inventing calculus and and pushing us into and into the modern age so maybe it’s not so bad as long as these people are not you know actively harming anything perhaps their presence is not a detriment and of course.

You know for every hundred people that are not interested maybe there have children and some of those children world will turn out to be anyone muscular Steve Jobs or or an innovator.

But also I guess I had just read their wealth the consumer.

I guess it’s also important because they are like you.

They didn’t push this standard.

Of living even though he looks like xterm mag and unnecessary but deep down every person needs to have and of this big.

Being pushed forward even. Two years things I.V. for production and growth of the economy I think.

And Michael would you also like I agree with house that’s basically like people which are still like building blocks of our economy in some way but. Do you agree or disagree Michael about for example.

Or home the innovators are dependent on those people because for example there are plenty of like so the comeback the startups target consumers and maybe target like passion consumers or whatever and in your way you’re saying that for example fashion for example I mean those are example I guess.

But that this is something like.

Like decelerating the growth or like into the future for people.

So and so I don’t know what you think because would you then say those innovate like those people who like make companies target targeting like consumers are not innovators and those people to which group belong those people then I don’t know.

I guess it’s all you’ve convinced me is that they’re not a detraction.

But I’m not convinced that they are a net positive and I want to be clear like we’ve just talked about early adopters so if some rich person is spending their money on new Oculus Rift or if they’re you know purchasing electric cars or something then by all means I think they’re contributing by being early adopters and making some of these innovative ideas less loss making at their initial stages which is important but if all they’re doing is spending their money buying purses which is my example or you have fashion items which I don’t believe. In qualities I think that the the capital that they they control and is is essentially wasted and I will. To be convinced that.

It’s not a detraction because after all you know wealth isn’t as good as Haas eloquently illustrated the wealth is not a zero sum game so it’s not like unless you’ve literally stolen a bunch of money from you on my list and then bought purses with it if it’s your own money then by all means spend it on you know paying a bunch of artist to paint your portrait of thousand times as as Warren Buffett once said he would do.

So you’re not you know about rich people buying purses but then again like any way you have like you can like what a person it’s maybe an object you know.

Express yourself and it’s also probably like you know like it has something that you can call like maybe like many things you can call the art as well and so in that way I think it will be very difficult to draw lines for example where like where it is maybe not useful because for example I can imagine when I’m rich to like you know like try I would like very expensive meals from like we’re a cost of cookies for example just be OK really interested in food and that’s you know like a passion of mine and like an art I like although it’s maybe not that you know if I don’t know also or are like music and I don’t know can I give us slightly better example and then Haas you can you can respond so you make a good point thank you you make a good point Daniel that purses have artistic merit and maybe you like purses because they’re beautiful and not because they enhance your social standing with the peers that say all of Birkin bag this girl must be you know really rich or must have really high status and you’re right maybe buying expensive things can have some intrinsic value in itself for the artistic merit but what about this I was in Dubai a couple. Years ago and our driver was telling us how license plates there can be purchased and it’s all in order from one to a million basically or to our many cars there are now the shake. The leader of Dubai has license plate number one and his immediate family basically have the license plates in the single digits. And and you can buy the license plates and obviously people want to have a very short license plate that’s the status right so the richer you are the shorter the license plate you basically But so it’s not enough to have like a super car that you a mother ID that you purchased You also have to then go to the license bureau or you know the private market and buy a ridiculously short license plate or else people will just laugh at you like what the hell is this guy with a six digit license plate on a Maserati like what does he think he is so explain yeah I want you to justify that expenditure as having any merit whatsoever I could justify that I think I can just buy that I can also like point you know like the finger of the other direction like I don’t think it would necessarily be the fault of the person consuming this license plate or buying this license plates it could be for example an innovator who meets the necessary power or influence who like you or like to innovation you know but I think it’s more like the use of people in this context are more the people who build this pressure or built this you know like this I do say this.

The fact that socially or not are oppressed by space status of the social order so I think there’s something well wrong that the racial would like more use of that’s going on in that direction.

Because it definitely you can benefit from such of ISIS but you know like. I don’t know.

Haas there any thoughts about this I won’t talk any more.

Yeah it’s interesting. I was thinking again that he’s my introductory statement that modern times.

Equaled to people even up on me. And going after power so I feel like the power and even social status is correlated with power because when people show off. Their status they are implying the fact that they have certain power over other people and make it distinction between themselves and the rest of the herd but then that’s where culture. Plays a key wrote. It is that in Saudi Arabia and some means of Eastern societies that channels.

Acquiring and showing no power. Yet so unique that because of the oppression.

Politically.

And economically.

Those. Status variations get really limited like so many meaningless.

From investment point of view.

Criteria is that it’s just ridiculous so obvious there are you know what I mean so it’s basically the same thing but it’s just in a different.

Dynamics. Yeah now I feel like we’re getting somewhere there in the sense a year basically saying there are channels to acquire power and some of them. Because everybody wants power I guess I mean it’s a fundamental human imperative for if we didn’t then I think that would be equally bad because we just be lumps on a log that would have no purpose right I mean. The the dust in space doesn’t have any desire to you know Iran’s itself in a hierarchy but we don’t want to be dust in space right when I go back just like throw in I don’t know. The correct word but maybe I think from like psychological perspective I think it’s more appreciation.

But I’m going to be appreciation or status.

I think so so I think that’s like you know what you said and which is like really similar right I guess yes so so if people are have this primeval all primordial desire for status and we’re not trying to say that’s a bad thing we’re just simply saying this is this is how things this is how you know it works I mean partly it’s about just you know the hedonistic consumption of pleasure that is part of the human experience it doesn’t matter if you have high status or not you just want to watch a fun television show sometimes but other times you want to make something of yourself in the world you want to prove to yourself you can you can do something amazing or you want to you know have a.

Have a grab a great life you want to impress the girl that you’re interested in and whatever right there is there is lots of reasons to want status and I think we I’m not trying to say that that’s illegitimate I’m I’m embracing the idea of seeking status but as Haas says there are there are channels in some societies there are there are very I think constructive channels to obtain that status like in an entrepreneurial society some someone like you on must has very very high status and he and that’s acquired by creating a better world for everyone else whereas in a society like in Dubai you can acquire high status simply by paying for. A low life since plate number that to me seems like a waste and maybe the idea of buying a fancy purse lies somewhere in between those extremes in that maybe it does have some artistic merit maybe if you buy a really you know. Really nice wardrobe your. Yeah you’re creating a more beautiful world so there is some intrinsic value there but it seems to me like what we want to do is create a society where there are as many constructive channels to obtain status as possible and and as we want to smash the channels that are sort of pointless like in Hong Kong when the daughter of the leader of Hong Kong buys two gold plated I watches for his dog right they cost a million dollars each like is this the way that we want our children to be attaining the status that they want or do we want them to like create businesses and give Ted talks or you know or start a seventeen room start up by accelerator right I mean this is the right way to get status am I right.

Yes I guess.

That’s really right that’s correct I just want to add to it. Again Coralie why I think status is Power because I think. What’s next what’s next after you have a house that is there you have power and you can use Think of like wherever like you know must you have a lot of status but what he actually like intrinsically has.

Influence People right now because of this that is.

The power he is the.

How to say he just comes with its side each can not have it you can’t have.

Embury high status but then.

Not have power so I guess it’s part of it it’s part of the social a mammal behavior of humans.

So that’s the point I guess Daniel specifically I wanted to make because I don’t think that power is there I appreciate and use every station it’s really interesting now you said that because. I was thinking again how really deep and dynamic is power system in human societies because. That’s nest again that’s where I emphasize.

You’re going to find what will be what gives the person is that it means that let’s say. Meant maybe a hundred maybe five hundred years ago if someone could leave it be in stone read five hundred kilograms everyone would just be so respectful to that person and I would be like a huge thing they like we have a lot of play machines that like you just use a machine and then there’s you sometimes it was just destroying the body.

Time and what gives like that’s a power that I had but to have power between the power it’s not how are any more socially. So it doesn’t he doesn’t give people status thing doesn’t usually have social So this is intrinsic power and there’s also this social and cultural power and it comes with this status I think OK so I was saying the appreciation because because Michael was was talking about like like I don’t know what the exact wording was but like psychology psychologically you know intrinsic needs and I feel like appreciation was the correct word there but very often that’s why I did the earlier example.

As an IT LIKE YOU seek status will power that’s better than absolutely something and a better would want to do it in order to innovate. But I really really like the abstraction like a bit of our examples of everything so I think that’s. So just just like Say it again so so this is so depending on the society and or or the culture of it like it’s. Highly culturally pendent thing if different channels two to six status and it also gets interesting because we we all kind of like belong to different societies know for example and at work two on society with your friends we have a society within your sports when troops could have a society and. So you seek say this is in different words sometimes you know and and I was just thinking about about if those kind of contradict each other for example what happens if somebody and Saudi Arabia wants you know like especially at about about entrepreneurship and wants to and this building a start up there like. I don’t know like bad then he would need to decide how much he you know like for example like the the Silicon Valley entrepreneurship you know like status structure where gold lumber Gini which I saw in Sept it’s go have November would be something you know like like with negative status and like the ridiculous consumption you might see in in the middle east yeah it would be laughed at or worse and more environmentally conscious area or something yeah I agree with everything you guys you guys have said and and therefore sort of what we want to do here if we have any role as innovators here I feel like our role here is to innovate around come lot of ties ing the degenerate forms of status seeking smashing and if you will and leaving people no choice but to seek out the constructive forms of Sadducee King like it seems to me like the ultimate will be if we’re all in a virtual reality at that point what the size of house we have or that the color of our Lamborghini or how many we have will be it will be like absolutely trivial because you can command any kind of virtual Scaife you want and there will be no no limit to the physical space you can you can use. Occupy So at that point the only way to gain status is through your own creativity your own uniqueness and that to me seems like a far better way to organize society a far better way to get a better society and just on the Lamborghini thing my friend and I were thinking about ways to smash that particular status like they already have knock off purses and knock off watches which helps to smash the roll ax and the purses as a as a status code because people can just more easily get them but and as far as these fancy cars go I’m surprised I was there isn’t more of an interest in creating a business that takes the the outside of a really fancy car and just puts it on the chassis of a really cheap car like a Hyundai or something and so you drive around in a car that looks like a Bentley or like a Lamborghini but the guts of it are just this pathetic little car and you can buy it for like a tenth of the price. If you could if you could I get enough people to buy those then all the sudden the status of having a Lamborghini is gone and I think that will make the world a better place.

That’s interesting with the promise for example with a car that like one of them like core. Values such a car gives you.

Like you know the inner values but it’s as a status symbol it gets more superficial I know that you’re referring more to the last part but if you like that’s something hard to you know imitates with you it would for you know like with the goods like with a convincing like to it’s a convincingly imitate that’s what I want to say so because because you would like if you would see like a low number G You know like look on the cheaper car you would be really notice that something’s very all you know what I mean the motor sounds like behavior of. The card.

I mean if you want to put such a thing in your in your backyard and don’t like turn it on maybe it could work but that’s actually yes some some people might be fooled but I agree it wouldn’t fool everyone yeah so there are degrees of fooling Yes.

But yeah and they also you know like it’s always very safe like I’m not a fan of like dictating people what to do or what status to seek But I but I see you know like that there certainly are destructive like for him by opening destructive. And maybe also for example consider you know like having as many slaves as possible I think that’s something which nowadays objectively you can say that’s maybe rather destructive state status to see.

But but yeah I don’t know might be hard maybe that’s I was thinking of you know like you could you could like colonize different planets and then like you know like.

Separate different people who were people would choose choosing to seek different states on different planets and so everybody you know going to have you with the status they are seeking basically. Well you know it’s already kind of something that is already like happening if you if you see the Jerry geographic separation in the world so so people right now can decide not to go to city or if you just to choose those save some of the big came and said Choose to go to Silicon Valley to to choose the status they want to have to achieve.

I just want to point out how silly kind of valley centric this whole conversation has been since we’ve assumed that the best possible way to be is to be an entrepreneur how. That’s what we are going. Yeah that’s the sort of level was like really disturbing me and yeah basically that’s what I wanted too. Why I never liked being subjective and I thought that was very subjective of course we hold our own values to be the highest of values but I think there is a difference between having this as an opinion and then still going so far as to say we should ban people from purchasing personal space or we should ban people from buying these license plate now notice that I’m not saying I’m not saying that I’m only saying that we should use our all in skills to like a lot of ties those things as I say to smash them through our own innovation rather than the low force things that anyone write so like basically we leave them no choice but not not at the point of a gun because that’s right I guess you can never know it’s me subjective so the only thing we can be easily thank larger groups of our own intersubjectivity So that’s all we can do I guess that’s what Michael is trying to do.

Because I think. He are on the same page as you write that sort of values that we like to be entrepreneurs rethink that’s the best way to include and then even that as a as an into subject perspective I think it’s important for us to focus on our need if the entrepreneur can also have impact on the world strong impact so it really is important where you spend like you’re you can be an art entrepreneur and market share company and you come with new ideas and selling.

His exploits animals so that’s also entrepreneurship so to tradition and if you think the capitalistic economy.

Make any impact but it’s not necessarily in accordance with each person’s value so I just hours then if you go.

Back again then we I guess we all believe that. I think that’s where we can have longer discussions that.

We want to. Remain where who are.

Who can be can come up with some.

Climbing.

Line is equal justice.

Can be.

Yeah all of this is I think to underpin your point or earlier highs which is that like what happens to people who have high status or who are appreciative people listen to them that’s basically the outcome of that so you know people listen to things that you on Musk says about the environment or about Mars or about various things or people listen to Bill Gates when he speculates about taxing robots like it if you’ve become influential for one reason or another or if you have status for one reason or another then you have the ability to influence other events going forward and so the question in my mind is what kind of people do we want guiding the world in influencing the world and making the world you know into the into its future state and if if it’s precisely those people that have status then we’d better care about what kind of people have high status and if it’s the people that have the Rolex watches on their dogs then I don’t think those are the right people to be guiding us into the future if it’s the people who have been the most creative or created the most. Innovative product that’s satisfy the great need in my mind those are going to be the likeliest people to come up with the best path forward for society so it’s it’s a Darwinian thing that I think we should we should be harnessing the right kind of people. To guide us in the. One last point I want to make you it’s really important to not fall for the purpose of because that’s what happens in you know right now for example the leaders of.

The region know that people who know nice things and then date him off most modern life as you can imagine might have been really really poor life this time but at the same time leaving and exploiting the whole economy and country they.

Just are political decisions so play and lot of people is before where it is thing that oh you look at the last serving contrie in what you have. Left is to have it really cheap car and I don’t fancy it so there are good people like when it’s not and these people have to date their values. Just past the usual Yeah it’s almost it’s almost like the leaders that steal from their country and that’s the only like basically kleptocrats like I don’t know E.T. I mean or Husni Mubarak in Egypt they were just there to steal basically or Moammar Gadhafi I think they were there to enrich themselves at the expense of the state and you can sort of understand that but when the guys are in there with like a totalitarian vision of how to organize their society and they don’t even care about enriching themselves those are the guys to really be scared of right Hitler Stalin and I guess maybe the leaders of Iran as you say like they’re there living as ascetics or Osama bin Laden right I mean he didn’t he was a rich playboy he could have lived a very very consumption driven life but instead he chose to live in a cave and direct terror attacks so I completely agree with you it’s very scary when someone chooses to radically follow in any ology So I think I think it’s really. Cool what you said about.

How we can maybe try to.

Status that will then make trying to motivate people to achieve that status or do like you can also reframe it as you know like like she was a measure that’s now gives you your status and now it’s the question whether wasteful like implement that and. I was thinking about for example you know how do you measure how wealthy a country is which is a very subjective measure as well but you introduce a measure which is called G.D.P. and people and the and the public rather the politics of the country try to try to you know that she was part of it always seems to improve that specific number that measure and that will yield you know like what people in the country you know. Are will or are motivated to do I don’t know how you think what you would implement its status to achieve. And you saw your media market. You know campaigns.

All sorts of things like that.

But in are you thinking about what metric we should be using to measure the goodness or progress of society and the like as opposed to just G.D.P. We could use like a gross happiness index like Bhutan uses or some other measure is that kind of what you’re thinking of like I’m metrics driven approach to to organize things was well that’s something you would need to think about about a measure you know yeah but you know like a measure for what is a high status and what not but also but the question was more about how would you implement for example that you have a community that you know like you would like to have a certain status to seek out you meant.

Well what about Bill Gates and he has this giving pledge idea where. You know the billionaires that sign up to this giving pledge commit to giving ninety percent or more of their wealth away in the course of their lifetimes and the so the billionaires the sign up to this they gain status and perhaps influenced by saying look I may be a billionaire and maybe you don’t think that’s a good thing because you worry that I will just you know fritter away my money on consumption good well look at this I’ve just signed on to this positive thing for the world and that’s going and going by creating this formal way of of of signing up to it perhaps Bill Gates has created a new form of status that’s better for the world so we could call you know would find and act to be a person which tries to implement order which tries to popularize certain status among people so I wonder if as entrepreneurs we could come up with some kind of credo or pledge for entrepreneurs to innovate in a way that makes society a better place rather than just to pursue creating the next social network for people that collects playing cards or something you know that could be a way for us to smash the current status hierarchy and to create a new one we’re basically talking about activism generally because I want to look at different for example Bill Gates your Bill Gates expense sample you could just say that he’s at it in his environment to believe there is he’s an activist who promotes to promote this certain lifestyle or giving pledge activists are convinced of something to be you know like a good thing basically or thing that gets changed and that’s basically a status they are seeking and they want others to see this well so I feel like we’re just talking about activists right Bill I think we can talk always.

Is really important how we can employ activism to entrepreneurship.

That’s it for this week on make this. Future Thanks for a Great conversation guys I really enjoyed myself it was fun it was a pleasure talking to you like always stands for it’s next week thank you everyone I mean I sweep.

And.

Then who all who.

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