[00:00:00] Katherine Druckman: Hey everyone, welcome back to Reality 2.0. I'm Katherine Druckman, Doc Searls and I are talking to Shawn Powers today who you know I'm sure. Shawn has been a frequent guest and he's a lovely person and has a blog and creates a lot of content on YouTube that you should check out, and we're gonna talk to him about, uh, some of that.

But, so stay tuned. But before we get started with that, I wanted to remind check out our website at reality2cast.com. That's the number two in the url. you to all of our Patreon patrons. Thank you to our newsletter subscribers. We do send out a newsletter every once in a while, so stay tuned for that.

And, uh, yeah. So Shawn, thank for joining us again. We love having you because it's, it's fun. 

[00:00:43] Shawn Powers: Thanks for inviting me. I always love to talk with people who I know, so

[00:00:48] Katherine Druckman: know. It's great. It's like a little party every

[00:00:50] Shawn Powers: fact, yeah, Doc and I were on a podcast together literally two days ago, so,

[00:00:55] Katherine Druckman: I know I only saw a clip of that. I haven't watched the whole thing or listened to the whole thing yet. Apologies. But the one clip was, uh, well I did engage with it a bit. , 

[00:01:03] Doc Searls: That was the 

[00:01:04] Katherine Druckman: I think I was,

[00:01:05] Doc Searls: right? That

[00:01:06] Katherine Druckman: Yeah, The why, why there aren't any more women involved in, in Linux development and, well, thoughts about that,

[00:01:13] Doc Searls: Pretty much it all was rounds to any 

[00:01:15] Katherine Druckman: Yeah, very few 

[00:01:17] Shawn Powers: think I called you out during the podcast. I said, I, I don't know why Katherine is not the co-host

[00:01:22] Doc Searls: Yeah,

[00:01:22] Katherine Druckman: Oh,

[00:01:23] Shawn Powers: seemed,

[00:01:23] Doc Searls: that

we knew that was gonna be the topic, we might have you know, swapped

[00:01:26] Katherine Druckman: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:01:28] Doc Searls: more of a round

table 

[00:01:29] Katherine Druckman: I have a lot of opinions about that, but we can get to that in either in a number, another episode or later because we have something a little bit more timely to talk about. And that is a blog post that Shawn wrote. We will link to it. I think Shawn's gotten a lot of attention in in the last week, and we wanted to ask him about that because there, there, there are a lot of angles here.

It's interesting for so many reasons. It's because of the, the topic and the nature of the, the content of the post itself. But it's also interesting to look at people's reactions and to see, to see, well, for example, how much more traffic it got than, than usual. But I'll let you talk more about that.

So tell tell us about it.

[00:02:05] Shawn Powers: yeah, so I think there's a lot of interesting nuance to through this week. Uh, uh, I mean, the very show version, I won't, you know, I won't rehash the entire blog post, but, uh, this is an audio podcast, so you don't know. But my hair is bright green and, uh, I dye my hair in solidarity because my daughter, she's an adult, but, uh, she was, I think, treated poorly because she had dyed her hair.

And, uh, I dyed my hair in solidarity because, you know, my, my loved ones being treated poorly is something up with which I will not put . So, uh, the blog post elaborates on that, but also about my take on, on faith. I mean, it, it gets pretty deep, to be honest. It's, uh, uh, one of the more vulnerable things that I've, I've written.

Uh, but it was, you know, retweeted by, I have a, a friend of mine, Jim Wright, he's far more famous than me, and he occasionally will retweet something that I've tweeted. This is one of those cases, I, I made the post and he retweeted it. But, uh, the traction that it got was, um, far more than. Just because it was retweeted by somebody with a lot of followers, right?

It, it, uh, it didn't just get a lot of, uh, likes and retweets. It got so much engagement. It got hundreds and hundreds of comments and, uh, you know, there were, there were retweets and comments on the blog post and follow ups and just everywhere, Um, and even followers on Twitter, right?

I mean, normally when you have a post that goes really popular, uh, it doesn't equate to more people following you because they care about what you're saying. You know, just that thing peaked their interest. So they like it and retweet it and walk away. But there's over a thousand more people now in the past two days who are following what I say on Twitter because of that post.

And so it was a. Interesting, uh, situation based on a, a sad premise, right? I mean, the reason my hair is green is a little bit sad that my daughter was treated poorly by, uh, the school that she graduated from years ago. Um, but I think it just speaks to a larger issue in general that, um, uh, people I think are afraid to be vulnerable with their, their thoughts and their, and their, um, perceived shortcomings or their, um, when they're, they don't follow the, the norm.

And, uh, I'm glad that I kind of put myself out there in a vulnerable way because it almost allowed people to, uh, express that, Hey, you know what, Yeah, I, I kind of feel the same way, but, you know, they never really. Had a voice to say it, a knew a way to say it, or, uh, knew what to say. So I don't know. I'm, I'm pretty happy with, um, not just the amount of engagement, cuz that feels pretty douchy, where like, oh, the numbers are so Uh, but rather the type of engagement and, and I'll end with this, I know I've been talking the whole podcast now, but, um, Twitter, right? Which is where, uh, garbage fires go for garbage or for dumpster fire entertainment, right? I mean, Twitter can be so incredibly horrible and of all the hundreds and hundreds of, uh, replies that I got on Twitter, not a single one of them was negative or nasty or, uh, even slightly, um, cruel or, or mean.

It was amazing to see Twitter be kind and empathetic and it was just cool. So, yeah.

[00:05:32] Katherine Druckman: I didn't realize When, when I first did our little intro, much tie in actually there is between the topic of your blog post and the topic of this week's FLOSS Weekly, or at least the, the subtopic, which was know, women in Linux and why, you know, why is there not enough diversity in the Linux community?

Because at its heart there are so many similarities. And my, my initial reaction to that was, was, well, you know, one of the reasons there aren't enough women is because the second a woman puts herself out there, or at least this was my experience with the Women of Linux Journal, the, the feedback is instantly about our appearance.

We get, you know, and we're alienated because of, for something about our appearance with me, it was, Oh my God, she's fat. Or with, or with, you know, somebody else, it was wa well, well she looks great in that dress, who's super hot and you know, neither is really appropriate or, or useful, frankly, especially when you're talking about technology cause it's not relevant.

and so, In this case, when the start of all of this, we're talking about a young woman being alienated on the basis of her appearance, and I have some very strong feelings about that. Anyway, I just thought I'd throw that out because this is all, it's part of the same phenomenon

and

um, yeah, when you start a conversation with your appearance doesn't fit for whatever reason, um, yeah, there are lots of negative consequences to

that 

[00:06:57] Shawn Powers: In this particular, And, and it's funny too because I think that it's, if it, the part that really got me going wasn't even that, And that in and of itself is, is a worthy conversation of having, I mean, you, you point out a great 0.1 that one that escapes me because it, it's not my experience, right. I'm a, I'm a straight, white, middle aged man.

So I mean, I, I, I mean, playing

[00:07:19] Katherine Druckman: dye your hair bright green for anyone to comment on your appearance.

[00:07:22] Shawn Powers: yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm playing life on the easiest setting, right? So I, I miss, I miss a lot of the nuance and, you know, I saw my daughter just gutted and crying, reliving the rejection that she got when she was in. You know, in the school that she's since graduated from, be because she looked different, she carried herself differently.

She had different thoughts and opinions. She's, uh, she's more liberal, uh, than the, the Christian conservative school that, you know, she went to. Uh, so yeah. And then this particular case was interesting because, uh, there was a rule that she couldn't have, uh, unnaturally colored hair and still be an official coach. I, I think that's a dumb thing. And like I said, that in its in and of itself is, is a worthy conversation to have about, you know, what does professionalism mean and should it, you know, be based on looks. But that wasn't even what was so upsetting for me. Um, if that's the rule, whatever, you know, So she decides whether she does or she doesn't want to volunteer.

She wasn't even being paid, uh, volunteer to be the coach. Um, but that rule was not even, uh, Told to anyone. She didn't even know that that was a rule until after she had already bleached and dyed her hair and come in and, uh, and was,

you know

[00:08:47] Katherine Druckman: Okay Sorry 

[00:08:48] Shawn Powers: being judged. And nobody even told her. She heard through the grape v that she wasn't able to be a coach anymore, which is just crappy in and of itself.

But I think that's more tacky than anything else. The whole like, don't tell about a rule. And then the rule happened, the real crux and, and the thing that caused me to publicly, uh, decry the situation is that she was allowed to still help in practice and teach the team. In private at practice, but public.

was not allowed to be an official coach. She could not sit on the bench during games where people would see her associated with the team, but it was deemed okay for her to help in private where nobody would see her. And that was the, that was the, the line in the sand for me. You know what I mean?

That it just seems like that is the absolute definition of hypocrisy. And that, uh, I just thought that was, that was too far. And so anyway, that's, that's the crux of the situation. And honestly, that wasn't even the bulk of the post. That's the part that has been difficult for my family this week because, uh, we've gotten a lot of, uh, unpleasantness.

Uh, from the, from the school. Uh, but that wasn't even the bulk of my post. The bulk of my post was about my own, uh, frustration with, you know, the standard American Christianity and, and how I fit into that. And I, you know, that's the part that I was vulnerable about. That's the part that the vast majority of people connected with and, and, uh, addressed.

So it was almost two separate topics and, uh, it, it was strange for me to see, uh, to see how many people resonated with me. It was great, though. I mean, yeah, we wanna, people wanna belong, right? And to, to see people who, uh, uh, share your, your struggles is almost more bonding than people who share your, uh, po you know, your publicly positive things or whatever.

[00:10:50] Katherine Druckman: wanna hear from Doc, but just really quickly, I wanted to point out one thing, and, and that is to anybody listening right now and we're a few minutes in and you're going, Hey Katherine, I thought this was like a technology podcast, but I swear this is relevant. We're gonna tie that back in because I think the technology, the, the way that we interact on the web is a social, but also a slightly technical conversation.

And I think that, is what leads to this increasing alienation and, and tribalism and, and, and people really digging their heels in on their positions and in ways that are potentially harmful. But anyway, I just wanted to kind of point out that there's some technology in here. we'll, we'll probably get to that, but I, now I wanna hear from Doc a little bit,

[00:11:32] Doc Searls: Yeah. Well, um, it's funny, I never thought of this as an exclusively technical podcast. Um, yeah. Reality 2.0 I think covers a lot of ground. Uh, but to me, reality 2.0 is that. We live technical lives now, and that that is, we are digital beings and not just physical beings. We are extended by our devices we live in these and, and, and yet there the, the fly wheels of business as usual and morals as usual, and religion as usual, and a lot of these other things as usual is still with us.

And they get spun. I think they get sped up even, by the, by the conversation that happens online and which gets isolated. And you know, we're all algorithmically nudged all the time to agreement with others who agree with us or we might agree with, or that the robot thinks we might agree with. And that drives us farther and farther apart through a process.

The sociologist called Homophily, the tend tendency we have to group with others like us in some way. Appearance is an interesting thing to me, in part because. Part of the human design is that we all look different and we all sound different by design. We, this is called, you know, we're, we're, we are heterozygotic.

Um, we're apples, so we're lots of other animals. But we all, we are all d we all differ. You could tell us apart. Dogs are all different. That's what they smell different to each other. Um, and we, know, we apply howly there. We want, we have a bunch of ideals and the, the way people should act and how they should be.

So something that struck me, especially about your case, uh, where you went into your religion in a way, I mean you talked, you talk about levels of faith and what faith means, and it struck home for me in some ways because I've been exposed to many different, mostly Christian religions in my life, have had a bunch of religious experiences.

One I've never talked about, but I might just throw in here just for the fun of it, is that I fell in with some Pentecostals when I was early in college and even spoke in tongues with them, then found out they were all racist and I punched out along with a bunch of other students at what was a Quaker college at the time.

And I really loved the Quaker approach to religion, which is that there's that of God and every person and that we're all preachers as it were. And if you go to a Quaker meeting, basically that's it. You sit in silence and don't speak until you can improve onto silence, as they say. And I've always thought that the most agreeable religion.

Then I married a Catholic girl , and now I'm in alignment with that. So, but I was raised in a Presbyterian and then, you know, uh, household, I wouldn't, don't think my parents even knew what Presbyterianism stood for or what a presbyter was if they cared. But then I was sent to a Lutheran academic correctional high school and got indoctrinated in that.

Where this goes for me, and, and this is to be the important part, is that in a technical world, we tend to think everything is science and everything is reasoned, and everything is deductible. And, and we lose what the soul is about. I think, um, I think the soul cannot be described. Um, scientifically, and yet I think we all sense that we have one.

There may be some among us who just denied that, that we were only brain activity and body But I think that there's, there is, you know, there is something of the soul that or may not survive our departure. Um, but, but is there and is unique and is different for all of us. And we all have something, in some cases, many things to contribute.

And so anyway, your post Shawn just basically moved me to think a lot more about all of that. About which I have no firm and enduring decisions, just a sense.

[00:15:41] Shawn Powers: And I, I appreciate and so, and you ended talk, you know, talking about like a soul and, and if, if, if the soul is a thing, and part of, part of my struggles are, are with, I mean, faith at all. Right. You know what I mean? If you read the, or listen to the, listen to me read, that's, you know, my blog is also available via audio on same page.

But the, um, I, I think that it's so easy for us to, uh, separate ourselves from people who share even a slightly different view of what must be true. Um, and it's, it's difficult to find, find a group of people who you, uh, agree with on, on things. This isn't just religion or, or anything. This is just in general, right.

It's hard to find a group of people who you, uh, feel close enough in your, your thoughts with, to. Be part of that group. And I think that we, we end up siloing ourselves into groups of people that are a lot like us, but then we're kind of stuck there, right? Because if, if, if the people in our silo with us knew that we had a slightly different thought on this, or, uh, we weren't quite as sure about that, you know, would we still be part of the silo?

And so I think we, we kind of struggle in silence. We rather say nothing than risk the exposure and, and possible know, getting kicked outta the club, so to speak. And that that's what I, what I saw on Twitter. I saw people who, uh, silent so as not to alienate themselves from whatever group they were potentially in.

And, uh, it, it, it's just strange. And I, I think religion is probably one of the most polarizing things in that regard. Uh, but. Just in, in general, in every, you know, every aspect of our lives. Sometimes we pretend to be who we aren't, so that we're accepted and that seems unhealthy on a lot of levels.

[00:17:38] Doc Searls: Yeah, for some reason I'm reminded of, um, something Garrison Keeler said, but when he was talking about. He was raised in a, in a very fundamentalist church that was very small. The, the sanctified brethren they were called, he said they were living proof that no sect was too small to split over, over doctrinal issues.

I'm very aware right now, or in this time, of a tendency that a lot of us have, if we're being careful to not say things, um, in, in the academy and of, of been affiliated with now four major universities, and in, in every one of them, I know that people who are politically or economically conservative are not speaking their mind it's dangerous.

You could get, uh, you could get canceled. Um, and I just, I'm, I'm not one of them because of, I don't have. Very doctrinal beliefs. A friend of mine has a, a blog called Strong Beliefs loosely held. Um, I'm kind of like that, but know, if you think climate change models are a crock or if you think that smaller government is good, or if you think that really only two genders and everything else is an opinion, you're not gonna say that

You're just not. And, and likewise, if you are, um, in parts of the country, you can't express your opinion that there are, you know, the gender is a major issue. That climate really is getting worse. That, um, government needs to, there's a lot the government needs to do that, uh, the market isn't going to do, and you can't say that.

And, and that's worse. And it's, it's getting real personal too, you know, in the sense that some of us are following Trump as if he were, you know, a God uh, and hating Biden for a whole bunch of things. And, uh, uh, on the other side, I, I don't know. I think they're, I, I'm, I sort of agree with Will Rogers who said, uh, he doesn't belong to any organized party because he's a Democrat, know, So that's sort of the other side.

But, um, but it's bad, you know? It's bad and, and you don't see the other very much. I try, I try to look across fences and I try to reach across them as much as I can. And it's really, really hard you're trying to do.

[00:20:20] Katherine Druckman: I, I saw an interview years ago. Well, it was during the 2016 election I guess. It was with Bill Clinton. And, you know, something you, you said, you know, about, having fear about, about expressing partisan political opinion, and what he said basically was that he saw the trend of it was order to win politically, you ha people were pushing themselves further and further to the extreme.

And the right had done it, as in his, in his opinion, the right had done it before the left. But now he was seeing the same thing on the left. He was sort of excusing why Hillary was maybe not doing as well or getting as much attention as people like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren.

Um, but what what's interesting to me is I agree with him. I you do, we, we do see politicians on both sides going further and further away from each other, away from center, uh, in order to compete, basically to get more attention. You know, you get more traffic, the more extreme you are, which is potentially harmful.

Um, but also, you know, something that you said also made me wonder though, many things that we now consider to be political positions, like your feelings about gender, your feelings about covid, your feelings about public health

these are things for which there is scientific consensus among people in those in.

Disciplines and that's the thing that concerns me the most. These are not political questions, I'll just take Covid. The fact that wearing a mask or taking a vaccine has become a political issue is honestly terrifying.

And the fact that it's now a political position to attack and go after scientists and physicians and, and, and all of these things is disturbing. And I, How much of that, how much is the way that Internet discourse works today a part of that?

Because to me it seems damn 

[00:22:18] Shawn Powers: Yeah. So it, it is, I, I, I think that the, the place we are currently in society couldn't have happened without a much larger audience. Right. I mean, because these, these things don't happen in small communities, I think because there's a little more, uh, respect when, when you know the person. But, uh, you guys brought up something.

So the same daughter, right? The same daughter with, with bright red hair. She's in college now, and, uh, she's taking a political science course this semester. And the course, I, it has a silly title. It's like, uh, uh, guns. Guns, shots and something else. Basically all of the controversial things in our, you political world today.

But the, she's frustrated now. This is, this daughter is, um, she's incredibly intelligent and very much involved with, uh, the current state of the world and politically in, in these things. So, I mean, it's not a, a fluke that she's taken a, a PolySci course, but she's particularly frustrated with this course because the entire premise is, uh, the instructor wants to have conversations about difficult things without it turning into an argument, which I think is a respectable desire for, uh, you know, a college professor to want, like, okay, how can we talk about gun control without, uh, it turning into, you know, monkeys throwing crap at each other.

Right? And the problem is, uh, the very first class, He, the teacher was using something that he assumed was going to be an absolutely clear, um, topic. He was talking about slavery being wrong.

[00:24:04] Katherine Druckman: That's controversial now.

[00:24:05] Shawn Powers: now, okay. that seem like,

that

seems like a, a good example of this is wrong, but there's an older gentleman in in the class who said, who started arguing, and this was, it was rhetorical at that point, right?

I mean, the, the professor wasn't looking for feedback. It

[00:24:23] Katherine Druckman: Obviously slavery is bad,

[00:24:25] Shawn Powers: Yes. And then the person in the class said at the time, it wasn't wrong. There was nothing morally wrong with it at the time. and and this point, my daughter was like, Oh God, what have I gotten into? 

[00:24:39] Katherine Druckman: It was definitely morally wrong.

[00:24:41] Shawn Powers: Yeah, I mean, and, and you know, and the teacher was like, okay, whether it was accepted or not, it was morally wrong. You know, maybe they didn't think it was morally wrong at the time. That doesn't mean it was morally right to enslave another human being. You know? I mean, that, that shouldn't have been in question whether or not it was wrong, morally wrong, but it was.

So anyway, my point there is, you know, that's why she's frustrated with, she doesn't, she's not looking forward to this semester because, I mean, if that's the group that she has to give equal, uh, value to that, that's, that's the issue, That's the struggle that I think she has and that I have, is that when you, two sides an issue that only works when the two sides are, uh, of equal.

Uh, I, I don't even know what the word I'm looking for here. I mean, if, if the two sides are, uh, human beings, um, have. Individual rights, regardless of skin color. And the other side is black people have fewer human rights because they're less human. That's, that's not two sides of a conversation. You know, that, that's not, you can't give equal footing in a conversation when the other side is slavery is okay.

And so that's where I think that our, our political discourse, our conversations recently have fallen apart because anytime there is an quote unquote, you know, scare quotes here in the video, an opposing view, if that opposing view is, is not up to intellectual and moral par with the premise. It, it's not equal sides.

Right. It's not like there's good people on both sides. I, I was trying that quote, but I mean that's the

point 

[00:26:31] Katherine Druckman: are. I, I actually, this is a, this is along those lines. Okay. First I have to say it. That person, if they had made the argument, not about slavery, about, um, viewing the past through the, the lens of the present can be problematic. I mean, it can, I get it, but

that's okay 

[00:26:51] Shawn Powers: because the teacher, uh, my daughter was telling me, the teacher tried every possible olive branch 

[00:26:57] Katherine Druckman: right. 

[00:26:58] Shawn Powers: to

sanity tho those things. Like Okay. At the time, perhaps viewing through those, and he is like, no. At the time it was

[00:27:06] Katherine Druckman: it was morally right

[00:27:07] Shawn Powers: It was morally correct 

So anyway, so I didn't mean to interrupt you.

just the teacher tried

[00:27:15] Katherine Druckman: I, I know, I, I know of teachers who have had to , um, research papers from students.

Not naming any names here, but , they had to accept papers from students, um, defending the Holocaust like as well. They had their reasons. It was okay. Um, and teacher who was also Jewish was not allowed according to the administrator of the school administrators to fail the student, or that she had to judge it purely on a re research because, you know, the parents at the school had enough influence that, um, yeah, that they could raise a stink if you fail their kid for having, uh, the, the opinion that the Holocaust was maybe justified because, you know, those darn Jews and all the trouble they create or something.

I mean, seriously, there are, I mean, there are communities around the world who, um, I'm not No, we've gone way too far into this topic, but yeah, there are a lot of people in the world who, who think it's totally okay to target a group based on the religion and I, I don't think that makes it morally Okay. Anyway, go ahead 

[00:28:36] Doc Searls: well, few thoughts about this. George Layoff wrote a book called Moral Politics in 1995 that it away began when he heard Dan Quail and now mostly forgotten Republican. But he was the vice president under George Bush, the elder, and a conservative, um, say about progressive taxation. Why should the best people be punished?

What did he mean by best people? He met the richest

[00:29:01] Katherine Druckman: lord. Oh, . 

[00:29:03] Doc Searls: see here's the

thing. There are moralities

[00:29:06] Katherine Druckman: mouths 

[00:29:06] Doc Searls: Yeah. Well, half the country or close to half the country believes the same thing. Why do they believe that? They believe that? Because to George, they see the nation as a family and they see a model of the family that is headed by a father, not a father and a mother, but by a father, strong character.

Because the world's a dangerous place and you teach by rewards and punishments, and you teach a moral, you teach a kind of morality morality has what? He calls moral moral order. Moral strength says this, strong is better than weak. Um, and you punish weakness. And you reward strength. We do this in school.

We have good students and bad students. That's a moral This one's better than that one. We're going to fail the bad ones. We're going to pass the good ones, we're gonna reward some. These ones are gifted and talented. These winds are in the AP class. These winds are whatever, but they're good.

They're better. They are literally better morally better frankly. And that's a moral Um, we lived in an era until very recently that Han Isler, who's still alive, I think in anthropologist who survived the Holocaust, I believe, um, called the Dominator era that lasted like 20,000 years is when Mike made right.

Men ruled, and um, the victors got the spoils and, the victims were losers. And there was a moral framework for this. And Trump talks about this all the time. He's a winner. Winners, winners are on top, losers are at the bottom, and you punish the losers. know, he said about, um, uh, John McCain, you know, I don't like guys that got shot down to him.

He was morally compromised that John McCain was morally compromised by the fact that he got shot out. He was a loser, and you punished the losers. And the Constitution was written by a bunch of men who didn't acknowledge that women had equal value, didn't need to vote. Slavery was okay. Um, there was a moral framework for that.

It's not one we're in now is not one any of us today who are sane would condone. But it was one that prevailed and it's when it still prevails some degree, to a large degree in the country. And it's a, it's what George calls a strict father morality. And the on the other side, when you might say is our side.

Um, is what he calls a nurturing parent, morality in which everybody's equal. world is basically a good place. You don't have re you don't teach by rewards and punishments. You help the weak, you help the poor. Um, and these are opposed, these are highly opposed they aren't very surfaced. Um, and we argue from these places, um, it's really hard to cross them.

And could in the past, I think, kind of get past it because we could ignore them. But now it's much harder and I don't think it's sufficiently explored at George. I haven't heard much from George Lee. He just does have a, something, tweets in his name, but he personally doesn't. He's older than I am, so that makes him pretty old, I guess, at this point.

But I think we need him like to help sort this.

[00:32:28] Katherine Druckman: Yeah.

[00:32:29] Shawn Powers: I hope

we can, I hope we can figure out that, because I, I think that technology is making this possible with, uh, you know, social media, not, not just the idea that people can connect. I don't think that in and of itself is the problem, but when algorithmically we are fed things that reinforce our, uh, you know, the, the obscure, I would argue incorrect.

Uh, moral views on things when it's amplified, because that's what we click on We think

yeah, and, and we think that it's more, uh, more real or, or more widespread than it is, which makes it more widespread than it is, you know? I mean, it, it, like, it nurtures the, the, the tiny seed of terribleness that, you know, we all have our own variety of, and when we see it, uh, constantly being, uh, echoed, we think that it's not just, um, we think it's okay because, you know, um, you know, might make right qu you know, major, the most people feel this way.

I knew I was right all along. And really it's not the majority of people feeling that way, that it's just the majority of people that they are fed. You know? And, and I don't, I hope that we, we can fix that because I think that's, that's just changing who we are. And a real level based on, uh, the, an inaccurate view of who we currently are, which is just so bizarre.

You know? I mean, be, you know, we're, we're, we're fed untruth, but then it becomes truth because, uh, that's what people think is true. I don't know. It's, Yeah. Technology. I don't know if we're gonna make it past the technology revolution.

Well. 

[00:34:18] Katherine Druckman: Well, that's the interesting thing to me is so many people are throwing out these technical solutions to all these problems. Doc and I had a conversation recently about a content authenticity initiative from Adobe, it, it's funny to me, and I mean, funny in the not

[00:34:31] Shawn Powers: In a cynical way,

[00:34:32] Katherine Druckman: Yeah. Funny in a, oh my God, this is terrifying way , which is not the meaning of funny at all.

But anyway, funny to me that it's, it's ultimately a bunch of nerds and marketing people and, you know, trying to, to work out these, these solutions and, and our own sort of little, uh, bubble. And I, it'll be interesting to see how the rest of the world accepts these solutions that we're throwing out there.

But if a bunch of nerds are responsible for, uh, saving the world, I mean, why not? gotta do it.

[00:35:04] Shawn Powers: Yeah, it depends on, on what brand of nerd they are. Are they the brand of nerd who wants to accumulate wealth or are they the kind of nerd who wants to make the world a better place?

[00:35:13] Katherine Druckman: Let's hope.

[00:35:14] Shawn Powers: Yeah. Sadly those people don't have enough money to make it happen, so it's pretty clear

[00:35:19] Katherine Druckman: Well, what if both? What if you could actually make some money making the world a better place? I don't know it's 

[00:35:25] Shawn Powers: know if anybody knows that recipe 

[00:35:27] Katherine Druckman: see. 

[00:35:27] Shawn Powers: Hook me up 

[00:35:27] Katherine Druckman: We'll see.

[00:35:28] Doc Searls: It's, tough cuz as, as long as we're in, in electronically mediated social environments that are rigg. To feed confirmation bias at all times. We're gonna get that. And, and I don't, I, I think the way to beat it is to actually obsolesce those media somehow. And, uh, I don't know. We have our own little project here in Bloomington, Indiana we're working on, but it's gonna be tough.

I mean, they're just sort of like trying to prove something locally that we may not be able to do. But, you know, we're trying to work it out. But I don't, I don't know. I mean, it's, uh, it's confirmation bias is a very powerful thing. And algorithms love it. Absolutely love it

[00:36:17] Katherine Druckman: Yeah,

[00:36:19] Shawn Powers: engagement,

which gets, know, ad sales. I mean,

[00:36:22] Doc Searls: gets hand And I mean, to me it it, one of the long term outcomes of this should a sane result happen, um, is that advertising as a whole just gets. Becomes the pariah that it needs to be, frankly. I mean, I think there's, there are kinds of advertising that are essentially harmless. They're the kind that's not you, but annoying people as a business model really is problematic.

mean, even on, on, one of the things I like about Sirius XM is I could listen to a, a show there I could go back and forth in time and like on a sportscast, I like to listen to sports stuff. You have to hit the little circle that says 30 in it, 16 times to get through 16 ads to get to the next part where people are talking and then there's still promotions and teasers and the rest of it.

And then you get like three minutes of people to say speaking substantively and then another ads. That's horrible. I mean, and, but at least, at least there I can skip over them. But what value are they to people who paid for that? For that, make product,

you know, 

[00:37:36] Shawn Powers: interesting for me too, be, and I mean, everybody who's listening probably knows if they follow me, you know, I'm, I'm working towards transitioning to a creator or like, Uh, career, right? I mean, I'm, you know, I'm still, I have a day job as assistant administrator, but you know, I'm on YouTube and, and blogging and all of these things.

It's interesting for me to, uh, figure out the monetization of, of how that works because right now, uh, and I'm just gonna be transparent with money and technology, hopefully that's okay. Um, there's, if there's revenue streams from the creative stuff that I'm doing now, and I'm very small, it's not like I'm supporting anybody, even myself.

But, uh, YouTube had revenue. Right now I get about a hundred bucks a. Okay. Um, and I have, I dunno what, I have over 5,000 subscribers, uh, but about a hundred dollars a month from those, like 5,000 subscribers on however many additional views from people who are not subscribers. And then the other revenue stream I have is, um, Patreon.

And in Patreon I have 10 patrons, like 10 human beings who have decided to contribute money towards me. And I get almost the exact sane amount of support, financial support from the 10 people as I do from all of the ads that play to all of the thousands of people that watch my. Videos, and I don't know if that's like the future of how content creation support is going to work.

Um, but it's fascinating. It's fascinating to me that, uh, you know, when people are the product, you know, the advertisers pay to get people's eyeballs or whatever, uh, how small and minuscule that ends up being, uh, for the person creating the content like myself versus somebody who, uh, you know, decides I like this person, I wanna support them.

So it, it's, it's a fascinating thing. I don't know if it's a trend that's going to like go one way or another. The other thing, and I'm sorry, then I do wanna hear what you have to say about that, but I'm also curious what ads play on my videos. I don't have any idea, but I'm curious. I mean, if it's targeted and based on the people who like what I do and how I do it, I'm curious what sort of ads play and that that information doesn't appear to be available to me as a, as a creator.

Um, Oh yeah.

[00:39:57] Katherine Druckman: you, can you opt out of specific ones? I from a hundred years ago dealing with Google advertising that you could say, We don't want this, these companies or these categories to appear on our content. Can you still

[00:40:08] Shawn Powers: maybe I could, I don't, I haven't seen that as a creator where I could do that. Um, but probably cuz yeah, I mean, if I was a company I wouldn't want my direct competitor,

[00:40:17] Katherine Druckman: Right.

[00:40:18] Shawn Powers: running ads and I stuff. But, um, yeah, I don't know what, And that is just general morbid curiosity, that it really doesn't have anything to do with the, uh, the whole premise of advertising.

I'm just curious what, you know, what am I, what do the people who like what I do look like to, um, advertising robots? You know, are they sort of

[00:40:40] Doc Searls: A couple things here. Um, one is, I wrong that you actually pay YouTube not to show you ads personally, Like you,

[00:40:48] Shawn Powers: I do. Yes, 

[00:40:49] Doc Searls: Yeah.

Yeah. So that's an interesting thing too. I mean, like , that, that it has value. YouTube is more value to you without ads than it does with ads. That's one thing. Here's another, at this moment in history, it's assumed that there are only two business models.

Um, sponsorship and In other words, sponsorship. It is an interesting fact that you get as much outta 10 people as you get out of God knows how many views, uh, and with ads on it, on YouTube, God knows how they're gaming that either, You know what, probably very little accountability going on in there.

know, not only the kind that you want, which is what kind of ads are shown to what people. Um, even what, I mean, YouTube runs the whole show. So, or Google read the whole show and they can show you what they want. And there's, there are no people in white coats with, with pocket protectors, uh, going in there saying, How are your algorithms work working like they would in saying nuclear power plant, even though data centers probably suck at, you know, as much grid off the power off the grid as a power plant might put out.

Um, it, it doesn't bother me, but I am quite convinced that we are, we are approaching peak subscription at the same time as we're approaching peak. Intolerance of advertising. Um, and everybody wants this subscription now, and the subscription game is And I've written about this a lot to absolutely no effect and pretty much no interest either.

Um, but I'm gonna keep doing it. I, I think that, I think subscription is completely broken. Um, trying that we have no way of our own to control all the subscriptions that we have. Um, and the company in to help us with it, like Google and Apple, um, don't do a very good job. And they only do it in a very limited way.

Amazon is the same kind of thing. You wanna subscribe to Amazon? Yeah. It's easy to turn on things on and off, sort of, why through Amazon? Why not have your own tool? That's like a spreadsheet that shows everything that you've got. And, and if and if a subscribe and if a, if a company, if a publisher changes their subscription deal, it automatically appears in your tool and you can.

that in some way. But they're all trying to game you. They're all trying to get more money out of you and, and game you in different ways. the cognitive overload is huge in, in the absence of a tool to control it. I think if you look at as something I, I learned when I was working as a board member for the Palo Alto Red Cross, which no longer exists, I think it's just a South Bay Red Cross, but as Personed who came in, it was really good at fundraising and said, Here's how the economy works.

You play value for value and the efficient thing is to have ways that people understand the value that they're getting out of this and that, and to make it as easy as possible for people to pay for that. And in 2007, a bunch of us came up with something called emancipate, which the idea behind, which is you should have a way to keep track of everything you listen to and watch and then throw money at those things in a way, you know, at the end of whatever period you want.

Where it's easy and it's on your terms and it's easy to do. In other words, make it as easy as possible for the buy side, to pay the sell side with tools that belong to the buy side, the buy side controls,

[00:44:15] Shawn Powers: Are you familiar with, uh, a basic attention token in the brave

[00:44:18] Doc Searls: Yeah, I am, but it, you have to do it in the brave browser and it's got the whole crypto thing in it.

It's like, it's too twists too complicated It's the same reason I didn't buy a hundred bucks of Bitcoin at the time. That would've made me a billionaire, but I didn't. And the brave attention token is like that for me. It also seems a bit gamey to me. And I like, I like Brendan, I like, I like brave.

I use brave. Um, I'm familiar with it. But why should I need a brave to do that? I want, know, I have my own word processor. I have my own tools for doing other things. I want a tool for doing for how I spend my money. Where did my money go? How do I spend my money? And nobody's got that and nobody wants to approach.

Solving this problem from the customer side or from the user's side. So, but I think people will eventually, because we're gonna run out of patients with both problems with, with, uh, uh, with, uh, subscription and with advertising. But it'll probably be happen after I'm dead. But, you know, it might be worth more now cause Oh, doc's dead, but he said this, you know, so that might work.

[00:45:24] Katherine Druckman: Um, well, I, I think we've, I think we've covered it pretty well. 

[00:45:29] Shawn Powers: What did What did we even talk about today? I don't even know.

[00:45:32] Doc Searls: I

[00:45:32] Katherine Druckman: I don't know that it was some deep stuff. I, I've probab I'm gonna have to go back and edit out all the, you know, controversial things I've said. I guess 

[00:45:38] Doc Searls: a, uh, I was on a call once with a guy, and it was, it was a business call. It was many years ago. And, and. And I held forth a little too long on one thing, this guy says to me, Well, Doc, I think you really nailed out one of the floor . know

I don't even know what that metaphor means, but it could be. We've nailed some things to the floor here.

[00:46:04] Katherine Druckman: Yeah, I think, no, I, I think, uh, it was good. I think, think that something like this, it, the content of your post was excellent, I, not, but sorry. And I think it provided a really good jumping off point. For a conversation that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with your blog post. But so that's, that's the interesting part because there's so much to talk about when you talk about that type of content.

Should it even be controversial? Probably not, but that type of content becoming so controversial because people, we are in this weird tribal mentality that is, that is amplified by the fact that we use social media as our of main communication tools these days. So anyway, there's, there's a lot to talk about and there was a lot to talk about and there will be more to talk about, but appreciate let us use you as 

[00:47:01] Doc Searls: human beings. are talkers.

yeah, 

[00:47:03] Shawn Powers: appreciate that cuz I like the idea of tribalism as a, as a conversation because, uh, you know, uh, we're a. We're a societal creature and I'm, and we have not scaled well,

mean

you know, we, we have all the tools to communicate now globally and our, you know, our, our village upbringing, uh, you know, our small group tribal

[00:47:30] Katherine Druckman: Yeah.

[00:47:31] Shawn Powers: there for each other has just not scaled.

[00:47:34] Katherine Druckman: Yeah,

And what and what do we do now that our own village turns against itself? I don't, you

[00:47:38] Shawn Powers: because it got too big, right? I don't know. It's.

[00:47:41] Katherine Druckman: I don't

know, 

[00:47:42] Doc Searls: a big species. And I mean, an interesting thing about human history is that, um, when we didn't get along with the next tribe, we just moved on. Right? That's how humans populated the world. You know, we we're, we truck, we move on, we, you know, we're ambulatory and we're migratory, and we nomadic and we go elsewhere where we can, know, try again to some really inhospitable places.

I mean, think of all the people that lived in, in the frozen waste. We could, was not the, an easy place to go, but people went there and stayed there and eventually, I guess, liked it there, but the, but. But now we have to get a, and now we're all together, , 

[00:48:23] Shawn Powers: Yeah

that's the thing. I

[00:48:24] Doc Searls: one non place where there's no gravity and there's no distance, you know, that's amazing.

You know, we're, we're all over the place and, but now we're so much united but exposed to each other, exposable to each other a constant basis. We can either solve problems with that or just make 'em worse. It's a whole lot easier to make, easier to make 'em worse than it is to, you know, to solve them.

[00:48:48] Katherine Druckman: Okay Well

[00:48:49] Doc Searls: gonna

that. We to talk to each other. know,

[00:48:53] Katherine Druckman: If I have one final observation so that we can end on a positive note. hair really does look great, Shawn. vibrant green is really holding up number one, and number two, it just suits you. I, you know, I find myself just staring at your hair. I little story 

[00:49:08] Doc Searls: seems plant based

[00:49:09] Shawn Powers: yeah, I'm also wearing an orange shirt, so I look, you know,

pumpkin like

[00:49:14] Katherine Druckman: no, it's great. it really works. Um,

[00:49:16] Shawn Powers: orange shirt day today. So if you don't know what orange shirt day is, you should google that. It's

Yeah

[00:49:21] Doc Searls: Oh it is.

[00:49:22] Katherine Druckman: I, I don't and 

[00:49:23] Doc Searls: didn't know that. I have one orange shirt

[00:49:25] Shawn Powers: the time people hear this, it will no longer be orange shirt but still Google

[00:49:29] Doc Searls: I get 

[00:49:30] Katherine Druckman: next year, um,

[00:49:32] Doc Searls: do the big round world with that one by any chance.

[00:49:35] Shawn Powers: With, with what?

[00:49:37] Doc Searls: With the orange shirt,

there's 

[00:49:39] Shawn Powers: not, I haven't done, I'm so behind on

[00:49:41] Katherine Druckman: Well, but shirt 

[00:49:43] Shawn Powers: blue. That's true. Blue. Blue is naked. He

[00:49:46] Katherine Druckman: could put a shirt on him though. Um, can I just tell a story really quickly? That's about Shawn's hair, . I mean, I'm sure Shawn

[00:49:54] Shawn Powers: maybe

[00:49:55] Katherine Druckman: that, OSCON we went to a million years ago, back when OSCON was a thing. I think it was both of our first trips to OSCON and we were in the hotel and, you going between events and somebody came up and, and stopped you and said, you're Shawn Powers from Linux Journal.

Right? And, and, and you're like, Yes I am. And you felt great. I could tell you were just like, it was bing and

blushing and all of these things. It was wonderful. And um, you know, they had seen your videos and they said, Yeah, I you from far away, from the back because I your hair

[00:50:34] Shawn Powers: Yep

Yeah, right. In fact, I, I do, I tell that story and uh, Yeah, it's funny. So, and my hair, I mean, that was a long time ago. My hair was far more in existence back then, , it was far less thin and far less receded and yeah, it was crazy. So maybe this is the next generation of recognizable Shawn hair.

Maybe I to go

with a 

[00:50:59] Katherine Druckman: think you should keep it, I think know, you mean maybe rotate the color, but I really like the green.

[00:51:03] Shawn Powers: I do too. I've, and I'm, I like it more than I probably should. It's really enjoyable to have

[00:51:08] Doc Searls: Yeah. . 

[00:51:10] Katherine Druckman: me happy. And you know what, what is the point other than making people happy? Right.

so 

[00:51:17] Shawn Powers: It's on brand for

me Right

[00:51:19] Katherine Druckman: It's good stuff cause yeah. Okay. Well anyway, so 

[00:51:22] Doc Searls: So too, but

[00:51:24] Katherine Druckman: thank you both for doing this again, like we do most, most weeks. Um, and thank you everyone for listening and we'll be back next time.

We, we may pick up this conversation about tribalism. You never know, or we may talk about something completely different. You'll just have to tune in and see.

[00:51:43] Shawn Powers: Yeah. If anybody knows how to scale society, let us know.

[00:51:47] Doc Searls: Society's already scaled. There's no scaling.

Lots of 

[00:51:50] Shawn Powers: Yeah.

[00:51:52] Katherine Druckman: Thanks all