It's Just A Model

014 - It's Just A Model - Invigorated

• Peet Sneekes, Ron Kersic • Season 1 • Episode 14

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0:00 | 58:08

It's Just a Model is a biweekly conversation with Ron and Peet on the interstitium of innovation, tech, design, philosophy and behaviour.

Your hosts are Ron Kersic and Peet Sneekes.

In this podcast, we’ll be talking about the good, the bad and the interesting, all wrapped into an informal, unscripted conversation.

CHAPTERS

  • 00:00 — Intro
  • 01:50 — Twiddling Knobs
  • 08:20 — Information Wants To Be Free
  • 15:20 — Technology & Complexity
  • 24:20 — What's My Job Again?
  • 36:00 — Software Brain
  • 48:30 — It's the Mindset, Stupid

LINKS

  • Enshittification — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification
  • Teux Deux — https://teuxdeux.com/
  • Twiddling — https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/
  • Kafe Belgie — https://www.kafebelgie.nl/
  • WOO — https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/wet-open-overheid-woo
  • Active Apple Devices — https://appleinsider.com/articles/24/02/01/apple-has-one-active-device-per-four-people-on-the-planet
  • Everything is Amazing — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxgK2OjHA2Q
  • What's My Name Again — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEhYp73X29A
  • Reshuffle Book — https://www.amazon.com/Reshuffle-wins-restacks-knowledge-economy-ebook/dp/B0DTKW6NQV
  • Hans Klok — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Klok
  • Matt Rife — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Rife
  • Jimmy Carr — https://www.jimmycarr.com/
  • The Law of Conservation of Attractive Profits — https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/15-law-conservation-attractive-profits-peter-knol-nxsse/
  • Software Brain — https://www.theverge.com/podcast/917029/software-brain-ai-backlash-databases-automation
  • Programming as Theory Building — https://gwern.net/doc/cs/algorithm/1985-naur.pdf

ABOUT US

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SPEAKER_01

Okay, Ron, are you ready?

SPEAKER_00

Born ready.

SPEAKER_01

Alright, because this is It's Just a Model, a series of ongoing conversations on the interstitium of innovation, design, philosophy and tech with my friend Ron Kersik and myself, Peace Takes. And we we already started talking, Ron, because we started talking about incentification, which is such an interesting topic to me. I mean why is the most important question that my uh colleague always uh tried to pronounce like um oh man, what's the mathemat uh the the mathematician that uh unfortunately has died, the one in the wheelchair? Or uh Stephen Hawking. Stephen Hawkings, so he had this yeah, physicist, and he uh and he uh most of the time he uses of course his robot voice and it has this interesting colour interesting accent. So rather than why it says why. So he always said, Why, why do we have incentification? And we just talked about it. And to me, it's to pretty much everybody that has uh has a relationship with the physical uh products, like this, for example, these stands, these microphone stands, are perfect for the use that we have at the moment, and so they're finished. It doesn't need any upgrades, it doesn't need to change at all. If we like, we can customize it, but that's that's pretty much it. Yeah, and because we can seem to be the best reason why people still want to change even finished products in the digital space.

SPEAKER_00

Because they're never finished, right? It's uh well I I call it knob twiddling. Yeah, right. You have this knob that you can turn, right? Do this a bit more or a bit less. Yeah, yeah. And the knob is standing there and staring at you. And teasing you, and teasing you wanna turn me, you want to turn me and a thousand other knobs. Right. I mean it's the uh it's this this this this continuously tweaking of things.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and uh so is this like the where very fragile egos that just don't know w when they're done? I I I um or it's just a principle of it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I th I I think there is a very strong urge to do things. Yeah. Right? I mean, it's not that that this is done. I mean Job security. Yeah, or or yeah, I mean we come to that one as well. Or maybe that you think that the job is actually doing things in actu instead of uh curating or maintaining things.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Right? I mean it's the um uh when you were making my lovely espresso, I won I was gushing about my favorite to-do app oh yeah called to do. To do Lincoln Snow show notes of of of course. But it's a but it's a very simple sorry I made this connection. Lincoln the snow globes. Yeah, it's no snow globes. We're gonna from from now on. From now on, Lincoln the Snow Snow Globes. Snow globes. Yeah. And it uh uh it hard hardly changes.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, just like um AI writer has a similar tendency to never change. Fantastic. It's just finished, it's done.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I want it done and I want it to keep being done.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Because that's also the thing, I mean, uh this whole anchoration um phenomenon, for me, this is just the second law of thermodynamics.

SPEAKER_01

It's just entropy.

SPEAKER_00

It's entropy. I mean, entropy in a closed system will not decrease, right? I mean, so you actually need to put an effort to keep the thing as it is, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, okay. So that so once it's a product has been okay. Well, this sounds like maintenance, right? It is. It sounds like once the product is done and it's packaged and it's is that uh it changes ownership basically from that point on it's maintenance.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so I mean yeah, but but maintenance has this I don't know connotation that it is boring and not for creative people. I actually think that maintaining things is the create well, is a creative act. But it it's the longest act, right?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, but that's it's the most sustainable act.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, I mean so a sentence you didn't expect in this podcast. Oh, okay, and here it comes after this podcast, instead of having a lunch break, I'm gonna reorganize my clothing drawer, right? Because as always, I I keep my trousers neatly stacked, but they never stay neatly stacked, right? This is the same thing.

SPEAKER_01

Oh right, they seem to like a little like that.

SPEAKER_00

And then I mean so then it gets so after a while it's just this big bowl of mess, right? And you need to put energy in it to get it neatly stacked again. But I take Yeah, I'm gonna say this. I'm gonna take pride in actually making it neatly stacked again. Yeah. For me, that's that that is that is a very soothing activity.

SPEAKER_01

I think I think that that in particular is it. Like it's uh cognitively pleasing to have order.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and I think it could be cognitively pleasing to just to keep an app or a service as is. Yeah. Everything changes around it.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And it it keeps it pr it keeps presenting itself the way it did.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Right? Just like certain restaurants seem to persist over decades or ages.

SPEAKER_01

But they will call it tradition or uh like craft it and all kinds of other support.

SPEAKER_00

One of my favourite bars in the lovely city of Utrecht is called Belgium and Cafe Belgium. It seems like it is uh not changing. It does, but it's still Cafe Belgium. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

That's nice.

SPEAKER_00

And and and somehow with with software that we don't take pride in keeping things as is.

SPEAKER_01

Are we uh the are there are we not letting them playing into like our unease? So is it intentionally, you think? Like uh, hey, is there there's a great way to make sure our users or our customers uh are not settled, right? So, and the best way is to change all the all the time, just change for the sake of it, or not well, not for the sake of it, but basically to make sure everybody our customers are used to random change.

SPEAKER_00

Uh yeah, maybe for for certain people. I mean, I mean maybe you saw my my face change because I was thinking about keynote, my favorite app. I mean that for a long time.

SPEAKER_01

They had the decency to make it like a new version.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

That's not usable, not usable and all that.

SPEAKER_00

What I was thinking about because I mean, if you would have asked me before this version, yeah, what the version of keynote was I was using, I wouldn't know.

SPEAKER_01

No.

SPEAKER_00

Is it five? Is it six? Is it seven?

SPEAKER_01

No, it's just keynote.

SPEAKER_00

Just a keynote, and it didn't change. Because it was great, as is. Yeah. Magic move is great as is. Dissolve is also great as is. The large scale is. I mean, I can I can literally enumerate all the and and and somehow there is the I'm I'm I'm not sure if if it is that insidious, right? I mean, just just just keep them not uh uh keep them on their toes. Yeah, it's just that the knob is standing there, and you just want to turn it, just just just this once.

SPEAKER_01

So everybody is tempted, it's the uh and it's temptation, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And maybe there's something very uh uh um righteous in resisting temptation.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, well, yeah, and perhaps I mean, um I was uh looking into change in particular, and so the one thing that the digital seems to bring to us is scale, right? Everybody talks about uh when we do things digitally, then you can move faster, do more things at the same time, do more things with less people and stuff like that. And uh so in the Netherlands there's something that's called woe. Uh the the law that makes it possible for normal people like you and me to ask a specific question to our government and have them or uh yeah, make them answer openly. Yeah, it's like I think it's the oh man, there's this American law that's probably the Freedom of Information Act, yeah, only Dutch.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And so we are at this moment, people are thinking AI might be the answer to implement the voe, uh the so the Freedom of Information Act uh bureaucracy, right? At this moment, when I do such a request, a person starts working on it and um yeah basically does the entire uh uh research on what's the question, is this legal to answer, etc. etc. What kind of information do I need to have? Blah blah blah. And um, but unfortunately, people think that AI might be able to do the same job at scale. And so there's two things that are working, right? There's a I think there is since quite a while now, there's a mistrust of our government, which implies hey, more and more more and more people want to do a freedom of information act request, and at the same time the government becomes a little bit more hesitant to do so, and they're like two routes either hey, we need to automate this so we can so we can't be so we don't have to spend any energy. Because once you do a Freedom of Information Act request, one uh civil servant becomes useless, right? In the in the in the mind of uh uh of government, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

This joke right itself, but yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, indeed, yeah. The question was of course, were they useful in the first place, anyway? Uh so um and uh and people are now saying, okay, so I can do a couple of things with this uh with this Freedom of Information Act. I can one frustrate bureaucracy by uh basically DDoSing, right? Uh DDoSing uh government, yeah, and that makes the government really, really slow, yeah, which can be like one of the best things ever because there's no such thing as scary as a uh fast-moving uh government. Yes, um, so bureaucracy is a good thing in some cases, yeah. And the other thing is okay, no, no, no. I want to stagnate this push towards digital, so I want to get as much requests to the bureaucracy so they basically don't uh aren't able to uh automate this because it will go wrong and they won't have the capacity to correct it or whatever. And the final one is no, no, no, I I will force this topic into government by doing a lot of requests so that uh government will be forced to automate all this or use AI or whatever kind of thing. And funny enough, there are a couple of people that are actually doing this. So there is a mayor that's doing a uh basically has DDoSed his own um uh municipality with hundreds of uh letters and Freedom of Information Act requests, and basically swamping his entire municipality bureaucracy with his own uh and he did it anonymously, but now he's outed. So the mayor frustrated his own bureaucracy, which was very interesting. And his point was that it shouldn't happen, it shouldn't be automated, and it's and uh uh this this whole this uh notion of freedom of information act request is nonsense, it shouldn't it shouldn't be implemented at all. And at the same time, there is also a couple of um uh journalists that basically does the same but with different intent. So they say we're going to bomb uh DDoS the government with all these requests so that it will be automated and so that we force government to be open and transparent and etc.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, as it should be, right?

SPEAKER_01

Well, uh yeah, to sort uh to a certain point. I mean, in a in a phase where there's a lot of um uh secrecy, a lot of uh international movement, and uh, for example, conflict, there is something to uh to say for secrecy, yeah. But this is all already codified in our not by do by default, not by default, no, no, no, not at all, and not at all on local level. Most of the time, transparency is very inspiring.

SPEAKER_00

The fact that you actually needed a specific law for uh for this is rather telling.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And and uh and uh I think the the point against this is either capacity, but also it's like our the security with all the agreements and uh let's say human factor of our government, they don't want to be it exposed and by obscurity by not showing what kind of things are going on in government, they think it might be safer for government to uh to operate. And to me, it's like I don't know, I don't know what what the outcome is because so there are people doing exactly the same thing, DDoSing government with two intentions, and I don't know what's what's going to happen.

SPEAKER_00

Well, information wants to be free, right?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, but also governments are not the bureaucracies specifically are not uh I I don't think they're they're made to do that, to be transparent, in in specifically the Dutch government. But uh but but to me the the the behavior is is uh the most interesting thing. I just like I like like that people think okay, I we can use AI to be more transparent. And we're talking about AI and we're just continuously saying no no no, it's not there's it doesn't spit out reality, no per se.

SPEAKER_00

No, but digitization is uh uh I mean I think in episode 10, still my favorite episode. Oh man, yeah, yeah. I mean it's we should hard work harder. Yeah, but you you should work harder, absolutely. That one that that one was uh easy. No, no, but you know, about in episode 10 we had this literal rant about um whether technology increases complexity or not. Yes, and I think what you get with technology is that it releases a whole new um capacity to absorb um complexity.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, right?

SPEAKER_00

And uh so you be that was your conclusion. That was uh that was our conclusion, but certainly it was my conclusion, right? Every time you have a new wave of technology, and certainly digital technology, it's almost like you ratchet it up, click, you go one level higher, and you can absorb much more complexity, yeah, until the complexity is fully well, it's it's it's actually overfulfilling.

SPEAKER_01

Fully realized.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and uh yeah, and and then and then you get a new wave of technology that ratches the uh uh the complexity absorbing capability up again, and then we can go on creating more and more complexity until that one capacity is uh uh totally maxed out, and then we go to the next one.

SPEAKER_01

So you and you're saying AI might be one of those wretched.

SPEAKER_00

I think so. Okay, very similar that we can deal with complexity uh uh better, which means we we will start adding complexity and complexity and complexity until the capacity to absorb the capacity is exhausted and then we wait for the next wave. So this is how I see technology and complexity. It actually. I mean, look at the world, right? I mean, suppose this was still a world uh and our uh best communication medium was the telegraph.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Would we be with seven billion people on this planet?

SPEAKER_01

Uh well, we might be, but probably not. Probably not.

SPEAKER_00

Would there be a complex.

SPEAKER_01

I don't know. Is is information is the is the flow of information the the bandwidth of flow of information uh a factor in reproduction?

SPEAKER_00

Um downstream. I mean not directly. It's not people having more babies because they do to do right. But I mean, but having the telegraph, I mean um having a communication medium allows you to uh coordinate and orchestrate of uh over distance and and time.

SPEAKER_03

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Right? I mean the industries we we we built, could we have them had have them with just the telegraph? Could could Apple have done a Foxconn with just the telegraph?

SPEAKER_01

No, of course not. Right? Well would it be necessary?

SPEAKER_00

The telegraph? No, no, no.

SPEAKER_01

The the the Foxconn would have been necessary.

SPEAKER_00

No, I mean because it's it I mean it's not like everybody was uh looking for a Morsky. See? Yeah, but again, right? I mean uh a company like Apple. I I recently read there are two and a half billion Apple devices, active Apple, just think about it. Two and a half billion.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I don't want to.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's too much. Again, yeah, I mean, but that's but that's the complexity, that's the interconnectionness of things, right? That we that that our current state of technology brought forward. And maybe now we are at the cusp of a new wave of technology that will increase the complexity and the interconnectionness and the timeliness, etc. scale, scope and speed, yeah, even more drastically. And we will happily fill up that bucket with our uh with a whole new layer of complexity until then.

SPEAKER_01

So you're saying the scale the scale of information or the scale of the complexity is not things become more integrated or more how to call it more involved, but this but it scales and it's more connected, yeah. Yeah, and and and and it's because to me to me, like my instinct is like we were I think we were talking at in episode 10 also about dealing with the messy world, yeah. Right, we we tend to have uh we tend to organize our pants, yeah. Uh, but we might also be fully realized when we say, okay, let's just deal with a world where pants are at random in random places in our houses. That might that that might also be right, and so complexity might be also scaling in our own minds. It's like, well, sometimes things are just we we can't poke through the details because we don't want to, because we've or because we can't, or because we can't, yeah. And I feel like that tendency to go towards simplicity is way more viable than to try to hold on to all the complexity and build even more. No, I might it's it's like making it's not like knitting a sweater that becomes too big to wear.

SPEAKER_00

No, but when I say the increase our capacity to absorb uh complexity, is that it actually appears as being simple. Yeah, it's it's hiding complexity. It's it's it's absorbing complexity.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, I I prefer that term. I mean, if I just see just today, right, in uh in my daily work, the number of people I communicate with and where are they located.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's obscene.

SPEAKER_00

And it's it's obscene, and whether or not they are part of my organization. Some are, some, some are not. I mean, it's just the kind of things I discuss every day. It's the thing I do in my work, it's the thing I I discuss over my lunch break. This lunch break will be cleaning up my pant thingy, yeah. Right? I mean, it's it's just I mean, and it all feels very natural. I don't feel stressed about it. This is this is what uh what what I do.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I mean I I arranged three meetings while walking off from my car to the it's just a model studio, which is not a very long walk. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_01

It's three two minutes or something, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Two two minutes or something on my phone, almost bumping into people, but but but still, and it's very, very, very natural. I probably told things in in a previous episode. No, no, I told it to to somebody else. I mean, recently I was I wasn't in a hotel, lovely hotel. It's the uh but the elevator was a bit slow. Yeah, it happens, right? Everybody checks out and it elevates loud. So while waiting for the elevator, I was coding on my phone with my agent on my Mac Mini back home.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Just think about this.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's it's it's it's awesome, and I I guess that it's literally awesome.

SPEAKER_00

It literally it it is, and it does it, it was only when I mean, so the elevator opened up and I thought, oh about some, I was actually happily coded. Oh, wait a minute. It only then dawned on me what it actually is that I was doing.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, there's a doing things in terms of complexity and into.

SPEAKER_00

Connectness and the uh and and and and my total perception that this was a normal thing. Okay, I I admit I'm probably slightly weird in this, but for me it was very, very normal. It almost feels a bit like this Louis CK CK quote. Or CK. I mean everything is amazing, but nobody's happy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everything is amazing and we all take it for grant that we're gonna be able to do.

SPEAKER_01

You're in a freaking tube that's flying with 30,000 feet. You should be thinking, oh my god, I'm flying!

SPEAKER_00

And what are you doing? Oh, the Wi-Fi broke down. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Brilliant. But that's but but this is this is kind of this, right? In snow globes. In a slow globes for sure. But but but that is this. Yeah, right? Everything is just so massively interconnected, and it's the complexity is just fabulous, and we think, yeah, that's the way it is. You don't think for even um a second what it is that you're doing.

SPEAKER_01

And I think I think we're kind of like overstepping with AI. I think we're overstepping. We we might not have reached the ratcheting moment at this moment, but I think trusting AI specifically, like, okay, we we're we are so we we are the bottleneck at this moment, right? So being able to gauge whether or not something from AI, or even if some if a piece of information is coming from AI, and then gauging whether or not it's fully true and and useful, to me, it's like no, I I I'm not able to do that anymore. Yeah, I um yeah, it might we might we might even poison our own information facilities just by using AI.

SPEAKER_00

Um for sure we are not ratcheting yet. No. I mean that is that is so it's the uh and and and these things, right? These ratchet moments always come in in two steps as a challenge to the existing uh paradigm or status quo, and then the liberation from. Yeah, it's I mean it and and AI is not absolutely challenging the way we have been organizing things. Yeah, I mean this the whole helter skelter about AI taking jobs, right? For instance.

SPEAKER_01

You've you've been reading my notes.

SPEAKER_00

I haven't, but I could have. Maybe I should have.

SPEAKER_01

No, no, no.

SPEAKER_00

No, but this is I mean and it it's the uh but you can now no, I mean you can now see that certain jobs were invented for a certain context and a certain time and a certain age and a certain paradigm, right? And something else comes comes along, and then you apply the new medium to the old medium, and then it doesn't make sense, it doesn't make sense, and it actually exposes or asks you to reframe what's my job again, yeah. Right? A bit like that Blink 182 song, What's My Name Again?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Great song. Link in the Snow Globes. Snow globes.

SPEAKER_01

Snow globes, it's the uh it's the uh um but that but that in particular, I think most of the time we are thinking about oh my god, my job isn't relevant, what should be my job, rather than saying how did the world change and how how how might we be uh yeah, how how is this useful to meet or to a person or or peoples?

SPEAKER_00

Because in the last episode we had this uh a brief chat about uh Ben Affleck and this AI company. Yes, right? I mean, so he's not selling tequila or or or or gin, no, but an AI company, right?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, an ID of uh services, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And and again, what you you could say, but but but he's an actor, right? And but but what but what what's an actor about, right? Is that having a made I mean a nice square uh uh jaw or great great hair and having a rather emotionless expression continuously in all the movies you do, right? I mean it's the I really love Ben Affleck.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, no no no, he's micro acting.

SPEAKER_00

It's yeah, that that that's micro acting. That's uh but it's the uh um so I mean so so recently I was in a in a in a brief discussion uh about my favorite thinker on LinkedIn. Yes, there are thinkers on on on LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00

Uh Sanjeet Shudari or Shudari, I I always keep keep pronouncing his name wrong, but he's amazing. Yeah, and people that that work with me know that I use the word Sanjeet at least once a week. I love it.

SPEAKER_02

It's a verb now.

SPEAKER_00

It's uh uh no, he's a really original thinker. And uh he had this um he recently wrote a book called Reshuffle. Basically, is that uh uh if a technology comes along and changes a thing, it tends to change the system, yeah. Not the thing itself, but the system and yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01

It's not a new product, it's a new system where the product might live.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and yeah, yeah, he had a great example about magicians uh in the in that uh rant on uh LinkedIn, uh LinkedIn snow globes. And it's the uh I mean because magicians used to be very secretive about their their tricks, how it worked, and yeah, they have like this this organization and this oath or whatever kind of course nowadays with uh uh all the digital media you can pretty much every trick you get uh digested and dissected, yeah, and you can actually see how it is done, yeah, in a way that you could say, well, with a bit of practice or a lot of practice, I could do this, right? So in a certain sense, you're now I don't know, making the the the the the the job of the of the magician superfluous, you would say, right? It's not actually turns out. I mean, what you then learn, well, but wait a minute, if everybody could do this trick technically, what do I bring? I actually bring showmanship, yeah, I bring context, I bring suspense, I bring the narration, you know, the the long blonde hair and the wind uh uh uh uh blowing through my hair. Yeah, and so it's Hans Klock, yes. It's or Dutch pride, yeah. Very I mean, but I mean, but also I mean two weeks ago, three weeks ago, I was at the Ziggo Dome, yeah, that's a very large venue in the Netherlands with a uh stand-up comedian, Matt Rif. Okay, do you know him?

SPEAKER_01

No, no, no. Oh, he's uh he's great.

SPEAKER_00

I th I think he's great, he's very cute. How do I know he's very cute? Because half of the uh the room was filled with ladies, and they all told me that he was very cute. So it's the and of course the subtext is true, you are not. Yeah, no, I mean, but uh um um from a from from a comedian point of view, um other comedians and comedian critics tell me he's not great. Okay, but it's not original, or he's not original, and it's the uh but what I think his uh uh uh his skill is is that he uh talks with the audience. And he makes it really personal, even when he makes horrible jokes about you, it's still some somewhat nice.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00

So but I was in this fifty thousand, fifteen thousand people venue, yeah, and it actually felt like the is just a model studio with you and I and Matt Rife is just uh it's just make it just cracking up jokes.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

That's that's really that is a skill. That is a skill, and that is the skill.

SPEAKER_01

And that's also design, uh by the way. It's uh I mean the venue is probably also designed to make to make it so personal, to make it as con conductive, but still, I mean you you you probably know that venue. Um it's it's it's I'm I'm not sure if I've ever been, but uh it's big.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. 15,000 people, right? I mean, it's not the adjust a model a studio.

SPEAKER_01

No, it's slightly slightly bigger, slightly slightly bigger.

SPEAKER_00

But I think I mean you can get the jokes everywhere, right? I mean, you can spend weeks and weeks continuously just categorizing jokes on on YouTube, yeah. But his skill is to make it so goddamn personal. Yeah, that's the new skill.

SPEAKER_01

Sounds a little bit like uh Jimmy Carr. Jimmy Carr has a tendency to make it have a big audience, but also especially if there is a heckler, right? I mean, he's the king of it's it's it's like it's he he'd rather have like a room full of hecklers, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. He is we I mean, but again, I mean I I watch Jimmy Carr, never seen him real life, but I watch him online for the heckling bit. Okay, not really for the jokes, I mean, but every time somebody starts heckling him, the way he reacts to them, right? I mean, I think that is his skill.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so and and um why do I make this and make this as an interlude to the following? Um Clayton Christensen, right, famous business thinker, yeah. Uh author of the book uh Innovator's Dilemma. Um quite quite famous. I might have it in my uh yeah, that it's the it's quite it's quite a staple, right? Uh uh disruption theory, yeah, that kind of stuff. In that book is one paragraph about a law he observed.

SPEAKER_01

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00

And for me, the price of admission of the book is just that one paragraph.

SPEAKER_01

Ah, that's that's wonderful.

SPEAKER_00

That's uh um you should look it up.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, yeah, I mean, you know, don't cliffhang this.

SPEAKER_00

But the law is called the law of uh conservation of attractive profits. Uh huh. And it states that in a value chain, right, where you start creating a product or service, yeah, you have various stages. And some of the stages can be modularised and standardized, yeah, and some are more integrated.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Right. And when do you integrate? Well, well, well, when the modular and standardized isn't good enough yet, you have to package it and you have to organize it. And you typically make money in the integrating bit because in the standardized bit, economic theory tells us the price will be competed down to the marginal cost of production.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's it's becoming commodity, it's becoming a commodity and it's priced like that, like that.

SPEAKER_00

And of course, his law then says whenever technology comes along and modules, commoditize, standardized something that was integrated, yeah, yeah. Yeah, there go your profits, right? Yeah, a new pro uh opportunity to integrate will pop up elsewhere automatically in the event. It's a bit like like like this waterbed effect, right? I mean, commoditize here, poof, and there it is.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00

So that's why it's called the law of conversation conservation of attractive profits. You will always find another spot in the value chain to uh uh uh to make profits, which you saw with the PC, right? Before that one, hardware was the the profit driver. IBM makes made money with hardware, yeah, and they give the software away for free, basically.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00

And like OS2 and uh no even before that one, OS the 360. Okay, yeah. So on their on their on their mainframes and and and and and and uh mini c mini controls.

SPEAKER_01

Oh right, yeah, yeah. There was like uh yeah, the free upgrades delivered on tapes, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Because it's the so so and be because the hardware wasn't good enough, right? And then and then we got the home computers and you got the personal computers, and b computers started becoming good enough.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00

You got the x86 architecture by Intel, and uh uh but what's the next next point of integration? That's the operating system, yeah, exactly. And that's how our friend Bill Gates made his fortunes, right?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, definitely, and also Office, yeah, sure, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00

And uh and and IBM didn't, right? So they definitely didn't, so you can see that app flow in the whole value chain.

SPEAKER_01

But they but I think uh IBM went was a predecessor of uh uh like the cloud services of Microsoft. They went like they they skipped the entire software packages industry and they basically said okay, we're indeed the provider of the hardware, like the the server rooms, etc. And on there there is uh software as a service kind of uh business model, yeah. Although, but IBM doesn't seem to be able to really fully realize that, uh, like for example, Microsoft, Oracle, uh Amazon, etc. do.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean so but so typically, right? I mean the the the attractive profits go to another place in the value chain and typically to another player in that chain. Yeah, exactly, right? I mean but my my so my and and then I thought maybe there's also a law of con con conversation conservation of attractive skills.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_00

Right?

SPEAKER_01

That in your job Okay, so now we're re-wrapping. So yes, that's a shaggy dog story, if I ever heard one. But but please continue. So magicians and the attractiveness of uh conversation uh I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00

Conf conservation of attractive skills, yes. Yes, I I I made that one up, yeah, and ChatGPT tells me that it's not a great term. But it's it's fine, it's it's fine, it's fine, it's fine. No, I mean you you you thought this was my unique skill, this is where I integrated, right? The technical skill, the the slide of her off her hand. Yeah, now that becomes standardized, visible, legible for anyone to do.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So I find another spot. Yeah, right. Everybody can now crack a joke. So I find another way to actually make uh uh find another way of integrating uh but the interesting thing is everybody should be able to crack a joke.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, physically we are able, oh yeah, physically, but but you need to know the joke. But the thing is, and I think this is similar to accountancy and uh a lot of things that most of most people don't have that high uh high of a regard. They these jobs exist because nobody else wants them to wants to do it.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_01

Not because it's oh yeah, too complex or whatever. No, no, no, it's uh about risk, about boredom, about uh all kinds of things that we don't want to, yeah, we basically want to externalize.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, sure. I mean there's always a pool of people that want to do things but don't know how to, yeah. And there is the the the other pool or don't want to that don't know how to but also don't want to, yeah, exactly. Right? I mean, I mean, so with with vibe coding, people keep saying everybody wants to program. Well, I have news for you. I have a feeling that not everybody know, right, wants to program.

SPEAKER_01

Even though I know how to vibe code or whatever that I mean it is kind of like a I mean, I I guess it's a skill of a move of following a moving target, right? It's it's like uh you're focusing on different things in a very in a very short time. We've begun to coaching a blob uh of intelligence to write code that we want into now basically concepting an ID to uh to maturity, yeah. And that that to me, like that difference has been is in the past two years or something, two, three years. And to me, it's like so what's the skill of a vibe coder is basically following the trajectory on okay, what kind of things do I need to do to make this thing?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so I mean, so it it is making that that gap from idea to execution much smaller, yeah. Right? But even then, not everybody actually I mean because I I also uh read an article recently which I really love, it was about the software brain, yeah, yeah, yeah. And uh the the the the gist of that article is and of course link in Snow Globes, yeah, is that uh the software brain is a specific kind of brain that wants to flatten things, that basically wants to take reality and put it into a database, yeah. Right? And then think it abstract, and then think that the database is real, yes, right? That's yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the crucial but that's the trick, right? That's the cusual crucial trick.

SPEAKER_01

And but it's a trick, but it's also a handicap at the same time. It is the handicap. Because in this too loud. No, no, no. It's uh I think it's it couldn't be emphasized too much. So this is this is a just a little anecdote. I've been um uh being a guest at a certain um online event. This is about data and the government. I'm I'm I guess I'm just uh moving in go into government, yeah. And uh so these were nerds, right? These were developers, and I can call them nerds because I'm one as well. And so they were nerding about all this platform, and we can filter, and we've used like a new library and to self-test and blah blah blah. And I said, So who is editing the these texts? Because I saw this list of APIs, right? So there's there's uh the API database, yeah, and I saw like half of them I couldn't tell what it was from the name, and the other half I couldn't even tell what it actually does from the description, and it was horrible. So I said to them, It's like, you made something wonderful that nobody will be able to use just because the data or the things inside isn't written for normal people, yeah. And they were adamant that this is the best tool ever. That they they they uh they were finished, yeah, and they said so. The their retort was no no no, we don't need an editor, we have strict rules, what kind of things need to be in the field. So we have rules, yeah, and we impose those rules, yeah. We don't check them, but we yeah, and I said it doesn't work that way, yeah. Because and they said no no no the responsibility of it of clarity is from the single API developer, and I said, no, no, no, it's your def it's your responsibility for your tool to be clear clear, and um so to me it's like this very strict way of thinking about what's yours, what's ours, and trying to make rules and very strict, abstract mechanisms to make sure that the world doesn't crumble is very it's both rigid but also very um that it will it will crumble. It's it's very uh breakable, right?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean it breaks at the single king because I've probably said it several times now, but I think this is one of the reasons why software projects fail. Because of the kind of people well it's it's it's well let's let's call it or conditioned people. The kind of brain, yeah, right, that actually thinks that if you take reality and flatten it into a database, yeah, that that is sufficient.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And that all the messy things of reality uh are actually dead, messy edge cases.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and don't have and don't happen.

SPEAKER_00

And don't happen. And if they happen, it's the it's an edge case, it's an it's an anomaly. And it's the uh yeah, it's the uh it's irrelevant at at best. Or otherwise just classified as a uh as a as a bug, yeah. Right?

SPEAKER_01

I mean Yeah, in in reality. You're holding it wrong.

SPEAKER_00

I mean that kind of I mean it's the uh uh but it's and but that is a very specific kind kind of brain. And I can say that because I probably have that brain too.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Certainly ahead. No, Ron. Would you say yes? Okay. No, no, no, I but certainly in my in my younger days.

SPEAKER_01

I didn't confirm what your your kind of brain. Yeah, I confirmed that I I recognize that this might be the case because I have the similar, so I was a developer, and I've I totally recognized that it was comfortable and very uh soothing to have a world that's really understandable, yeah. And then at the same time with with your specific um uh uh so with your law that complex complexity will increase with every ability to uh to mask it or to simplify it, yeah is very challenging as a person, right? Because I made code that made things simple, I was at the core of the building blocks that made things simple, and now you're saying no no no, the complexity will increase and you will need to make things that you can't even oversee yourself, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And and then and then circling back to how we started, or that you actually need to put energy and effort in it to keep the things the thing unchanged, yes, but adapt it to the external environment that did change.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So just maintaining a piece of software in the current day and age, even though it doesn't change, yeah, but its environment change, I think that in itself is a creative and and noble exercise. Yeah, don't add any features, just make it persist.

SPEAKER_01

So I mean so we probably and to make it persist, you need to know what it is. So I don't want to Simon C neck it, link in the show, snow globes. Why, why, why? But what is the you know, it's not what about the why of the thing, but it's it's what is its nature, right? What are the rules that it needs to uh follow? And these rules will not say these are not rigids, like this is what it looks like, but it will say this is this is what it adds to the life of a person.

SPEAKER_00

Sorry for for keeping back.

SPEAKER_01

No, yeah, yeah. It's it's a very uh emotional topic, I know.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it is, it is. Yeah, I mean, but this is a nice one, right? Because of course now you have all these discussions talking about jobs again. I mean, yeah, what does a program, a product manager, do?

SPEAKER_01

Well, exactly. What does they do? What do they do?

SPEAKER_00

Because now that no know that know that software can be created in it's the uh uh in in such abundant scale, yeah. What's the role of a product manager? Can't your software developers do do it? Yeah, right? I mean, yeah, but can they or do they or should they do they want to? I mean it but then it should be developers with taste, what you just said, right? All these things. What is this thing? Yeah. In its fundamental nature, what is this?

SPEAKER_01

To me, that's a skill, right?

SPEAKER_00

So if that is that is the newly emerging skill. I mean, it always was about this, but now we see it more clearly.

SPEAKER_01

Well, and I'd also know people have more uh time to think about that.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, because. you got freed of all the other stuff that just and now you just gets absorbed right I mean so I mean so so so your capacity to absorb greater complexity is also liberating because now you can do more or you can see more you can see better.

SPEAKER_01

But what if you are Ron and a paid what what if your let's say your purpose in life is to be on that very rigid and very simplified flattened world yeah these people and so I I made a note and that's why it triggered me I think so people are thinking in terms of what are the new jobs one so we have vibe coders whatever and and also what kind of jobs are probably going away with all the news of Google and whatever saying that like 80% of their code is made by AI. I find that a little bit doubtful but let's say for the sake of it it's true. So that means that a lot of people basically lost their job and and to me it's like I think the question about what jobs are are being obsolete and what jobs are new is it are basically irrelevant. You need to be a basically say okay but what is the thing that we what is the nature of the thing that we do.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah and what is the nature of the job right it's the I mean if but if you identify it by one prominent task yeah right I mean then it bec you get this rigidity that when the task gets modularized you're actually gone. Exactly I mean is what you were all about coding or something else. Yeah there's a great paper I probably mentioned it but it's called uh programming as theory building yeah ever mentioned that one I think so yeah this is this right I mean um for the people for the for the few people that don't listen to all episodes what or have a or have a limited uh attention speed yeah I mean that's horrible damn genzy or listen to us in twice the speed but basically that paper argued that uh uh programming is not about the program yeah programming is about building a mental model a theory about the problem you're trying to solve yeah and by understanding that problem in intimate detail almost as a side effect you have a program yeah exactly and that is this right I mean it's this also so when they say I mean we got all these coders that are now superfluous well is that what their job was in the first place or have you have you just mistaken this?

SPEAKER_01

I mean there's also a great that's and that's that's the the fallacy of education at the moment right so we trained programmers but the the you're basically saying no no no programmer isn't a programmer a programmer is a per is not a coder but it's a theory builder yeah yeah I mean right and and then suddenly you have a whole other perspective on life but if you have a skill of typing I know and and your perspective of typing is my skill yeah then then that's a big shock.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah that's a big shock.

SPEAKER_01

Because all of a sudden you basically say okay you know the thing that you really rely on in everyday life to express yourself express your ideas in a simplified way they're gone. Yeah other things are do things are doing that I I now see that meme in front of me with a guy looking at planet earth and the guy yeah it always well it always was right link in yeah but so and to me like in education and I've I've said this to several educators in the in the Netherlands it's like you're offering the wrong perspective to people you're you're saying to these people like either they're UX designers yeah which is awful yeah it's basically implementing rules it's it's it's uh saying to people you are legoing yeah and and you are a legoer yeah which is fine but you're not yeah you're building things and at this moment Legos are the are the one yeah item to do that yeah and and they kept in kept insisting because the industries were asking for Legoers yeah it is it's horrible yeah I mean it's so horrible yeah so so so so when I taught my my class last last year yeah in my introduction I said um I'm I'm I'm here to help you build up a mindset yeah build up a perspective of the world and I will try my darnest best to give you a toolbox to actually make that uh perspective actionable but it it is about the uh the mindset on uh on the world view yeah so uh I also said maybe I shouldn't have said that but I said in theory you cannot fail this class yeah and nobody did by the way because you cannot fail showing up with a certain perspective other than not having that perspective yeah exactly but it's not like you have to learn complicated formula or on on or no trivia about what happened in January 1850 that kind of stuff it's you I mean so when I was uh at at university we had a course on functional programming yeah and my notes after one trimester of being taught functional programmer uh my notes were half a paper of A4.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah that's it well that's probably the essence of it yeah because the essence is having a a mental model for functional programming yeah exactly it's how you look at a programming changes channel functionally as opposed to procedurally nothing else was there to uh to be learned right I didn't have to know uh no uh API calls or this library or that library just having this perspective and I can I can still remember me looking at my notes and I said is this it yeah is this what this whole course is I kind of flunked this because it was literally just this half sheet of paper. Yeah and I have a very round so it it was also not not a very dense sheet of paper.

SPEAKER_01

No no no it's it's probably was also the the mind the mindset of the educators is like Yeah absolutely so either hey this is hey showing an example of this particular functional programming is probably a the easiest way to grasp the ID the concept or they thought yeah an actual functional learning an actual language is yeah is it and the reason why I still remember this one because the uh the actual test I believe it was three hours two or three hours.

SPEAKER_00

I mean I th that that one I I I forgot you needed write out you needed to write out code no no yeah yeah you you need to write two algorithms okay to a to a programming uh uh uh challenge uh but then functionally yeah and I was done within the hour yeah and I uh got a 10 so that was my awakening moment that oh there is this thing like this mindset yeah exactly or worldview yeah that you acquire and then you can start acting on that is what is what is being learned.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah exactly but it's not uh open for everybody yeah right it's it's some people find great great liberation for this simplified world for this spoon fat world view and um yeah to me I I I've been team lead to several uh developers like tens of developers and I had java java programmers and I had C developers oh lovely but I also had developers and developers were like people that didn't really care about the language because it was irrelevant yeah I can build exactly the same thing with the same fidelity because I'm using this paradigm of object oriented programming for example always freaked me out when somebody said I'm a Java programmer.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah yeah that's a C programmer for for that matter.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah to me it was like well you're limiting yourself because everything you learned in C can also be applied in Python object oriented Python.

SPEAKER_00

And in in retrospect not only limiting but misunderstanding what it actually is that you're doing.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah and that I didn't blame two people. Some I found out some people just really want to be a coder some people some people it and that's that has to do with satisfaction of work rather than that is totally fine.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah perspective yeah absolutely I mean I mean what but at least make that a conscious decision right yeah this is this is what I want to do.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah and to me it's like that's our responsibility to to make sure people have the capacity to switch and and have the liberty to switch right it's like sometimes you just need to open this little door it's like no no no you're not limited to Java or to C sharp yeah you can choose whatever is most uh prudent and that's what I meant with conscious right I mean at least make a rare there is this opportunity this this this choice for this well breakup perspective and if you then say no no no I'm totally happy in this uh curly braced uh semi-kolon language it's totally fine of course don't come complaining when that language goes away but that's then yeah well we still have uh Jason yeah we still have Jason and Mark on yeah yeah so it I really so but I don't I still don't have a real answer to me so I really wanted to find a challenge in okay just if we leave away all these limitations on the future and the past and what we have learned and this possible paradigm shift that this registry mechanism that you talked about yeah still find it interesting to okay so what what might new jobs be in essence and to me the only thing that I can find is oh shit we need to learn all these very strict thinkers into make them think about the essence and make them a little bit more creative they already have the capacity of being creative only their vocabulary is uh is not the right one at this moment in time.

SPEAKER_00

No I think if you have a software brain you had a really great run the past four or five decades.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Yeah yeah but also in creativity right so you are basically able to think about well we talked about it last time in manifesting ideas into the real world yeah and to me that's like that's that's the amazing skill that that's my main takeaway I can I from the moment that I started programming I knew I could manifest yeah ideas yeah into reality and that's that's and it's the thing that I still do only now I vibe code it and have like a shortcut so I don't need to do all the messy things before that.

SPEAKER_00

Or the busy work. Yeah yeah and and and nowadays I enjoy um working out the idea more than actually seeing the thing. Yeah sometimes have this vague idea when I'm just pinging back and forth with codecs which is now my my my best friend because 5.5 is is really good but I really enjoy just flashing out the idea. Yeah what is it actually that I'm thinking about yeah and then you can build it but really don't care about it. Oh this is what I was thinking or this is the gist of the problem.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah yeah yeah yeah I'd like that too but I also I find it satisfying to visualize it for other people absolutely right so that's kind of like the stage that we now have I really like to show this is what I actually meant. That's basically why I make like articles after an episode so I can offer this mental model that I had while talking that's why I love our snow globes I mean it's the uh that's that is my guilty pleasure. Yeah yeah what discussion was this really okay okay so going back to really the beginning because we were you said something which was the function of a really good magician yeah and I think the essence is storytelling. Absolutely and that's this is it so you so you said this the snow globes might be the best thing of this podcast. It's not this vehicle of storytelling is the way these things matter yeah these these uh items in the show notes that they actually are relevant for people to follow yeah so we're basically teasing external information that yeah it's like will enrich your life it's like steps in the in in the snow and you wonder what happened there. Yeah well very abstract I see we're over we already spent an hour it's it's really um it's going way too fast because I still have topics. Then we still have a next episode page yeah so um yeah let's uh let's uh let's uh go to the next episode and let's just sit down and do the other thing as well yeah yeah so uh thank you so much thank you and uh thanks everybody for watching uh go to it's just the model.com for all the snow globes and um yeah see you next time see you next time see you next time

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Peet Sneekes

Host
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Ron Kersic

Host