Fits & Starts (SIM #77)

Self Interest vs. Special Interest

The ebb and flow of my responsibilities, my schedule and how much time I believe I can and should allocate to writing has kept me away from hitting send on musings since September of 2022, outside of one in January (SIM #76 - My Identity). I sincerely miss writing for personal expression, thought synthesis and the engagement that it catalyzes with some of you; just because I’m not connecting with you doesn’t mean I’m not missing you. I'm not surprised that my ability to prioritize writing has been compromised given I took an interim executive role late in 2022 that layered on top of a few other engaging professional projects that warranted significant attention. Unfortunately work is also a hobby for me, something I need to improve upon as I cross 50.

Having recently dropped the interim from my leadership role, I've come to appreciate how much I enjoy the puzzle of business performance, particularly when I'm working with an aligned group of people and can lean into my experience and relationships in an authentic and what I hope and believe is a value-add fashion. The reality is I'm now often the oldest or one of the oldest members of my respective teams. I’ve always been borderline naive to my age and surroundings, so I don’t often feel old, but the reminders of being older are more frequent now. 

I recently visited the spot that was the inspiration for Saturday Iced Mocha several years ago, that being a coffee shop in downtown Tempe where I spent many a Saturday morning after dropping my young daughter off at acting class; visiting Cartel Coffee was bittersweet as she graduated from high school last week (reminds me of the time I wrote SIM #48 - My Daughter for President) and I’m now realizing that my time being part of her everyday is short lived. Being back at Cartel with some quiet time and a mocha inspired me to share a few thoughts about topics I want to write and think more about. Consider this a quick rant.

First, the rise of these large language models and AI (ChatGPT) has been ever present in my various news and information sources. Although I have some concerns, the thought that keeps occurring to me as I watch how technology has stratified our consumption of information into echo chambers – largely using early versions of AI in the form of algorithms to know what captures and holds our attention – is that I might welcome our AI Overlords compared to the power structures that are using whatever means necessary to protect and enrich themselves today. Our brains can't keep up with the profit and power incentives to hold and monetize our attention with fear, humor and tribalism. It seems like everyone I talk to or read has someone else they blame for why we are where we are (it's Biden's fault, it's Trump's fault, it's because of racism, sexism, the Fed, etc.) and that we’d all just be better off if not for the others (insert your version of the stupid, naive, cruel, etc.). Maybe our AI Overlords will actually see the bigger picture of humanity and how important having community, being social and authentic is to our health and motivation as a society and as individuals.

Second, I have a few different versions of draft musings going deeper on the topic of our identities and how our move away from focusing on strong, local communities has us more tolerant of inauthentic and dishonest people and what manifests as a lack of accountability when people exhibit those behaviors as long as they’re not pointing those traits directly at us. I believe this is interwoven with the overall breakdown in trust. In a small community, you usually learn efficiently who you can trust and who you simply tolerate. It feels to me that we're so focused on how we "identify" people, we've gotten away from the best classification for people... are they an asshole, which I tend to define as generally inconsiderate of others, or more narrowly a willingness to tangibly harm others if it’s of benefit to themselves? We all judge people and as I've reflected, I realize that my biggest judgments on others in a positive light are around kindness and related positive intentions (I value conscientiousness) and in a negative light, are around dishonesty and a lack of intellectual curiosity and energy. I also have little patience for what I perceive to be entitlement and its cousin, victimhood.

To take this to what often becomes a controversial space, I'm much more worried about whether someone is good people as opposed to what sex, race, nationality, fanbase or whatever other categorization they fit in. An equal-opportunity asshole is still an asshole and I'd rather not be told to support businesses and/or people based upon their categorization (labels), but rather their values (back to My Identity). I realize my preferred values are personal and biased to my experiences, but I also think they're effective for humans to get along and collaborate with one another. And this isn’t based on some naive view of a world of sunshine and rainbows; I believe in market-based solutions and the very tangible human motivation that’s core to self interest. Defending against harm is very different than unnecessarily creating it. 

And last, in light of the recent “felon” news, it seems like our current politics is a toxic mix of self-interested narcissism and power structure protectionism (special interest). I come across a lot of opinions from folks whose insights I generally respect, yet they play into the binary narratives that are hyper critical of whichever side they dislike the most. Complaining about what’s wrong is so easy (and unfortunately effective); I’d love to see more visibility and amplification given to folks that have a potentially achievable positive vision for the future. The dominant ones that I hear are 1) a technology-driven utopia of anonymity and individualism and 2) a centrally-planned, government-resourced utopia of equality and collectivism. Both of these ignore history and the human condition. I suppose the blend of the two brings me back to crossing my fingers that our AI Overlords may figure things out better than our compromised leaders. 

Josh