Latest / Prompt Air / A message from the King - Nimrod II

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A message from the King - Nimrod II · Prompt Air

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  Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we're talking
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  about, well, a kind of violent phase transition.
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  And not in a physics lab, I mean in your office
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  right now. We're seeing a shift from what our
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  sources call a Newtonian worldview to a volumetric
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  one. It sounds really abstract, I know. But it's
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  actually the defining conflict of the modern
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  workplace. You have this clash between... Old
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  school management industry 3 .0, maybe 4 .0.
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  Right. And the much more fluid, almost chaotic
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  reality of industry 5 .0. And the sources here
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  are pretty wild. We've got a standard accounting
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  textbook, a theory on fluid dynamics in business,
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  and get this, a deep analysis of the 2012 Wisconsin
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  Senate election. Yeah. So let me just ask you,
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  does your workplace treat you like a static number
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  on a spreadsheet or like a force of nature? Because
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  that difference is, well, it's everything. And
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  to really get it, we have to start with the old
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  way, what our sources call the Newtonian constraint.
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  It's mostly defined by how we count money. So
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  we're starting with an accounting textbook. That
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  sounds a little dry. It is dry. But the philosophy
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  in there is key. This book, using financial accounting
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  information, it pushes this transaction analysis
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  model. And what that does is it essentially freezes
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  time. It treats a business like a static equation.
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  Assets, liabilities, plus equity. Inventory people.
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  They're all just rigid blocks on a shelf. But
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  isn't that what a shareholder wants? A snapshot?
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  They want to know where the money is now, not
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  watch a movie about feelings. That's the argument,
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  for sure. But the source says this model uses
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  bounded sensors. Bounded sensors. Yeah, things
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  like financial statements. They measure solvency.
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  You know, do we have cash? But they completely
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  ignore human capital and, more importantly, dignity.
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  They see the price of things, but not the flow.
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  Exactly. So that's the 1D view. You're just a
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  line item. But then Nimrod Allen III comes in
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  with this volumetric mindset. And this is where
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  it gets weird. A 7D reference space. Whoa, hold
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  on. Seven dimensions. Most managers can barely
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  handle three. I know, I know. It's really about
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  shifting the metaphor. We're going from solid
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  blocks to fluid. And the core analogy, the thing
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  you really need to grasp, is that viscosity equals
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  dignity. Viscosity. Okay. Flashback to science
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  class. That's like how thick a fluid is. Water
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  versus honey. Precisely. So think of low viscosity
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  like water. It flows easily. Zero resistance.
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  In the workforce, that's the gig economy worker.
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  Easy to hire. Easy to fire. Flows fast. Right.
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  But water splashes. It makes a mess. It has no
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  internal cohesion. Okay. Now compare that to
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  high viscosity honey or oil. It resists being
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  moved. This is your old guard employee. They
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  move slower. They ask questions. The person who's
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  been there 20 years and pushes back on every
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  new project. And managers hate that resistance.
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  They see it as pure inefficiency. But that resistance
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  is the dignity. That thickness holds the shape
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  of the company. It lubricates the whole machine.
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  So in the old model, turbulence is an error.
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  Here, you actually need it. You need it. Turbulence
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  equals learning. Without that friction, there's
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  no innovation. Which brings us to the case study,
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  UPS. Our sources call it a debt fortress. It's
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  a perfect example. UPS brought in Nadia AI, which
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  is an algorithmic sensor. Its one job is to optimize
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  everything to the absolute mathematical limit.
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  The vertex of the parabola. I remember that from
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  math class. The absolute peak of the curve. Yeah.
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  where you get the most output for the least input.
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  Efficiency nirvana. Sounds great for the bottom
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  line. It is until you push past it. If you use
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  AI to increase the pressure, but you don't increase
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  the volume or the viscosity, the human culture,
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  the system overheaps. You get social friction,
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  a stall, like a plane pulling up too steeply.
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  Exactly. Because the algorithm only sees packages
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  per hour. It's binary, efficient or inefficient.
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  It can't see burnout. And that binary thinking
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  is where the 2012 Wisconsin Senate race comes
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  in, right? I was wondering about that. It's all
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  about breaking the binary. So in that election,
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  you had the Democrat and the Republican taking
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  almost all the votes. But Nimrod Allen III got
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  16 ,455 votes as an independent, about half a
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  percent. Which is just noise to a news anchor.
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  In a 1D binary system, it is noise. But in a
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  7D view, that was a signal. It was a signal of
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  sovereignty. Sovereignty. Those 16 ,000 people
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  rejected the binary choice. Just like Industry
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  5 .0 rejects the simple binary of profit or loss.
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  It was a little ping from the future. So this
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  all boils down to a move toward what you called
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  performance sovereignty. Right. The ability to
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  navigate this fluid world on your own terms.
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  Organizations have to stop playing what's called
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  a finite game, just winning the quarter. And
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  start playing to sustain the whole ecosystem.
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  And for you listening, it means you have to define
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  your own value, your own viscosity. Don't wait
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  for an algorithm to score you. So I guess here's
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  the question we want to leave you with. In your
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  own work, are you building a boat to navigate
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  this fluid reality? Or are you just locking yourself
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  in a debt fortress hoping the water doesn't get
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  in? Because eventually the pressure always wins.
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  Thanks for diving in with us. We'll see you next
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  time.