Everything Is Fake, Now What?
Entrepreneurs WILL Be The Ones Who Keep Innovating As Things Collapse
In This Edition of The Dandelion Report…
✏️ Some Tactical Advice
Everything Is Fake…. Now What?
🔥 The Hot Take
What’s The Big Deal With 2 Degrees Of Warming?
❝ Quotes + Biteables
Three Traits You Must Have For The Future
✏️ Some Tactical Advice
Section: The Social/Economic World
Title: Everything Is Fake… Now What?
Last week, the largest defamation suit and monetary settlement came down the courts between Dominion Voting and Fox News. $700M and counting.
In 2023, before AI tools were launching by the 100’s per day, we were already in an epidemic of fake news, misinformation, and algorithm fueled viral videos and articles.
Then AI showed up and said, hold my beer.
During the 2020 election, people way smarter than me said that America especially (but lots of places around the globe) were standing on cliff’s edge and civilization was going to collapse soon if we didn’t right the ship socially and politically.
The question I ask myself right now is this:
When you live in a world where you have to assume that everything is fake, how do you figure out what’s real?
It’s time to fight lazy thinking.1
What is lazy thinking?
Have you ever scrolled social media, read a headline and description, but didn’t bother to read the article before sharing?
Do you skim articles?
Do you read and accept vs read and question?
Do you choose video vs print writing because your eyes are tired and you’d rather watch?
Don’t feel bad if you answered any of the above with a yes. We all have. Lazy thinking is a direct result of content overwhelm.
Our brain is constantly trying to weed out unimportant information and catalog that which is important for our survival. It would make sense that in an abundance of information, you would learn some lazy thinking habits.
And when everyone starts doing it, herd mentality kicks in and amplifies it.
Researchers trying to understand HOW and why fake news and misinformation travels so fast determined that one of the issues is we just resort to laziness.
Yes, the algorithm works against us.
Yes, big tech has a vested interest in keeping us addicted.
Yes, negative emotions pull us in quicker than positive ones.
Yes, we have confirmation bias.
But more than not, the majority of people (not withstanding the scammers, the devious charlatans, and the like) are just lazy thinkers.
The best way to combat the deluge of fake stuff online? Exercise your brain’s reasoning capabilities.
Here’s a list of habits when consuming content online + following online personalities:
Curate your feed. Pick people who have a pattern of being trustworthy (not perfect). Follow only those people and don’t let the algorithm feed you bullsh*t.
Read more. Yes. READ. Not watch. More fake news is in video format than in print (though that is NOT a rule across the board) because videos tend to evoke more emotion.
Resist just the headline. Headlines are written to bait people. Which means a lot of headlines don’t actually explain the full scope of the article all that well.
Find trustworthy people who aren’t on your “side” of an issue and observe their beliefs over time. It takes time to find these people because if you go for the loudest person in the room, it might not be the most trustworthy. Remember that the skill of getting attention does not always mean they have the skill of understanding.
Look for patterns. Humans are predictable. They are also not perfect. Perfection is a sign of synthetic. What you want to see is someone who generally acts the same way over long periods of time, and shows remorse when mistakes are made. If there are no mistakes, that’s a warning in and of itself.
Adopt a “medical diagnosis” philosophy about issues you read about. When you go to the doctor with a symptom, the most likely diagnosis is the one they try to find and eliminate first. They don’t go for the most rare and unknown possibility. Same goes with online information. Conspiracy theories will weave CONVOLUTED webs. This is how you fall down rabbit holes.
Maintain an open mind. Especially in the fields of science, theories will be wrong. New evidence will emerge. The ability to change your mind in the face of new evidence is a sign of intelligence, not wishy-washyness.
Lastly, be with people in person. Go to events. Hang out with friends. Talk to people eye to eye, face to face… in real life. Keep the human touch alive. In the next 10 years, this will become even more important than ever.
🔥 The Hot Take
Section: The Natural World
Title: What’s The Big Deal With 2 Degrees Of Warming?
Wherever you are reading this right now, chances are - you’re sitting in a room that is controlled by some sort of heating or cooling system.
We humans like it anywhere from 60-80 degrees Fahrenheit.
Our world of course has an extreme swing of its temperature. Here in Connecticut where I live, the winters can get as cold as -10 and our summers can climb over 100.
Despite this, it’s normal to hardly think about the temperature. We simply turn our thermostat up or down, not really worrying at all that electricity, heating, and air conditioning is the reason we can calibrate our environment...and stay alive.
During storms or power outages, there’s a glimpse of that dependency we have. But again, no one expects the power to stay out more than a few days. And insulation, fireplaces, cool lakes and pools… there’s plenty of things to help us.
This is why I think when climate scientists and news personalities start frantically warning people of a 2 degree Celsius warmup of the planet and the catastrophic implications of it, it doesn’t have the intended impact on society that it should.
We’re just thinking about 2 degrees on our little thermostats, even if we logically know it’s different than that, we can’t “get there from here” emotionally. And therefore we don’t get it.
So let me see if I can help people understand why YOU should care about the temperature outside.
When temps rise too much…
It ruins the crops growing outside. Less food, higher prices, scarcity mentality.
The workers who are in the fields and orchards can’t work as long or as hard to harvest the food during the scorching heat.
Livestock (that we eat) die.
More people turn on their A/C and strain electrical grids and make power outages more likely.
When the power goes out, people don’t have a way to cool themselves down.
Water resources get tapped out.
Warmer oceans mean stronger storms.
Insurance companies may stop providing coverage in certain areas.
Places that are habitable now become less desirable and demand for other land goes up.
If a strong heatwave kills a lot of people quickly, there’s massive interruption in that local society.
In the book Ministry for the Future, the opening chapters depict a terrible heatwave in India where millions die because the wet bulb temp (which is the heat coupled with humidity) gets too hot and without A/C, people die of heatstroke.
The tale is harrowing, and yes it’s a fictional depiction but a very feasible and probable scenario we’re facing…and not just in hot places like India.
Climate change means it’s more likely, more often, and in more places.
So what to do?
The most practical thing you can do is to consider buying land North of the 45°N parallel.2
If you’re shopping for a vacation home, a starter home, a place to get away, or prepping for the future, many scientists think that areas north of 45°N parallel will become more and more desirable.
Some good reads to help drive home the point of what 2 degrees of warming actually does to our planet:
❝ Quotes + Biteables
Section: The World Between The Ears
Title: Three Traits You Must Have For The Future
Three things you will need in the years to come (and honestly, need them now too).
Decisiveness
Focus
Grit
Storms upend and blow over everything that isn’t bolted down. To that end…my three favorite quotes that are easy to remember (and repeat to yourself).
“Bulls make money. Bears make money. Pigs get slaughtered.”
The above is an old financial saying that warns against greed while trading the stock market.
But it applies to business as well.
If you’re consumed with scattered thinking, constant flip-flopping, heaps of indecision… these are traits known to derail business owners. And the reason for this behavior may have nothing to do with greed at all. And yet, slaughter is inevitable when you let too many open loops occupy your brain (like a computer with too many tabs open).
Become fierce with your focus and your mission, especially as the times race towards more uncertainty and unpredictability than ever before.
“When everything is a priority, nothing is a priority.”
It sure does feel good to have a laundry list of to-do’s that make us feel productive and strategic. But that is busy, not strategic.
Think of your day or your week with a ruler. 70% of your time (or 8.4 inches) of that ruler should be dedicated to the #1 priority in your business. 20% of your time on priority #2 (the distance from 8.4inches to 10.6inches). The last 10% is for your 3rd priority.
“Trees that grow tall have deep roots. Great height without great depth is dangerous.”
- Henri Nouwen
A tree with shallow roots that grows tall will be completely blown over in the first storm that comes.
Don’t despise your small beginnings, the grind of building a business without a huge audience or platform. You are creating a foundation that will help you stand tall when you grow.
Character traits like:
Building in quiet while not getting instant approval from thousands of raving fans
Failing and falling because these lessons provide more wisdom than success
Learning when to fight for something and when to let it go
