by Nathan Coumbe

Bringing about our own extinction

David Meerman Scott published a fascinating article a few days ago. It compares modern AI companies to Enron and that company’s financial scandal that broke in 2001. 

But one paragraph in particular stood out to me that warrants quoting in full:

Altman says there’s a chance that so-called Artificial General Intelligence (which is still years or decades away) has the possibility of turning against humans. “I think that whether the chance of existential calamity is 0.5 percent or 50 percent, we should still take it seriously,” Altman says. “I don’t have an exact number, but I’m closer to the 0.5 than the 50.” (Source)

Terrifying, right?

I would argue that if you are creating something that has anything other than a 0% chance of wiping out humanity, you probably shouldn’t do it. 

For example: marketing Pepsi to be consumed in massive amounts, while definitely bad for humans, doesn’t run the risk of causing mass extinction.

On the other hand, bringing Tyrannosaurus rex back to life definitely has a greater than 0% chance of doing just that.

Now, I’m not a doomsday prepper by any stretch of the imagination… But when someone tells me there’s even a small chance that what they’re making could turn out like The Matrix, I start to worry. 

It’s as if they never watched I, Robot or read Jurassic Park (which is actually about runaway technology, not dinosaurs). 

These companies have a responsibility to guarantee that this doesn’t happen. We already made this mistake with nuclear weapons. And that threat still looms large over our heads, especially right now during the Russo-Ukraine War. 

We have enough threats to deal with. Let’s not create more of our own volition.

I’ll leave you with my favorite quote from Jurassic Park:

“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

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by Nathan Coumbe

Do you actually need more information?

…or do you simply need to act on the information you already have?

Often, research is a symptom of fear. After a certain point, gathering more data is just procrastination. 

It’s worth asking this question when you’re feeling anxious to start something new.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Writing changes how we speak

I sent my mom a hilarious video the other day. One portion contained tons of Gen Z slang she didn’t understand. 

Now, me being a millennial, I knew what it all meant (even though I don’t use it myself). She asked me to translate, so I did. 

Now, as hysterical as this scenario sounds, it actually brought up a good point. 

Members of Gen Z speak the way they text rather than texting the way they speak (which is what us “old folks” do).

Nearly everything said is a shorthand for something else… because it’s faster to type the slang or shorthand than it is to write out the word or sentence. 

Now, even though my generation had AIM (that’s AOL Instant Messenger for you youngsters), Napster, MySpace, and the like, we never adopted shorthand as a way of speaking in person. I would argue that’s because only a small portion of our communication happened in shorthand using this technology. 

We spent most of our time hanging out in real life, talking on the phone, chatting in class (and being punished for it). In short, most of our communication was through spoken, rather than written, word.

But since Gen Z was the first generation to grow up with the ubiquity of cell phones and social media (rather than having it introduced later in life like it was for Millennials), it’s completely changed the way they communicate. 

A huge majority of their time is spent “writing” in the since that they are using written communication in some form. 

Texting. Messaging. Making Reels and TikToks. Creating snippets of text on SnapChat.

Which brings me back to the original point of this post. 

Language changes as writing changes, so writing changes how we speak. 

It’s a fact of history: our vocabularies expanded exponentially because we started writing things down. And the more we wrote down, the more clarity we were able (and needed) to create about what we were trying to say.

So when you spend all day writing as your main form of communication, the spoken language changes to reflect your writing.

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by Nathan Coumbe

It’s not an absence of passion

It’s a presence of fear. 

That thing you were considering—now you feel you aren’t “passionate” enough about it to pursue. 

The business you thought of starting. The video you were going to film. The degree you thought about getting.

You’re telling yourself you aren’t passionate about it. And therefore it’s not worth doing. 

You’re wrong. 

Passion has nothing to do with it. You’re just scared. 

Scared of starting. Scared of failing. Unsure of what it will look like once you commit. 

To paraphrase Seth Godin: if it scares you, it’s a pretty good sign you should try to do it.

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by Nathan Coumbe

The new way of getting jobs

I used to create and edit resumés as a side hustle.

I learned soon after I started that it wasn’t the best business to run. Not because I was bad at it (my resumés were gorgeous and well-made), but because no one who could hire my clients ever got the resumés I made. 

By the time I started that little business, resumé screening software had taken over the business world. And most job postings were getting anywhere from 200 to 1,000 applicants a piece. No one was seeing my clients’ resumés.

Someone would get those jobs, but it was unlikely to be the person I was helping. 

If you read books like What Color Is Your Parachute? or 48 Days to the Work (and Life) You Love, you’ll learn that sending out resumés to companies only works about 4% of the time. 

That means you’d have to apply for 25 jobs to get one response (just a response, not a hiring decision). And those are just basic statistics—you wouldn’t actually get a response 1 in 25 times. You might have to send out 100 applications and only get responses on the last 4.

So what to do?

I’ve been asked recently by numerous people if I could help them fix their resumés. And I’ve declined every time. 

“I don’t do that anymore,” I say, “because it no longer works.”

What does work is simple: connection.

The old saying is, unfortunately, true: it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. And in the connection economy of the 21st Century, that really is the only thing that matters. 

By connections, I don’t mean the hundreds of people you barely know on LinkedIn. People who are creating content to (maybe) entice the platform’s algorithm in the hopes that someone will see them and say, “Let’s hire Jane.”

I mean real people that you know: friends, family, coworkers. The barista who knows your name. The husband of the banker who handles your mortgage.

If you want a to get a job in the modern economy (and 88% of those available are never posted online), you have to talk to a lot of people. 

Every job I’ve ever had, I got because I knew someone. Every. Single. One. 

Half the time I wasn’t even looking. The other half, I asked for help. I told lots of people with whom I’d built relationships that I was looking.

Now, I also know that’s probably some of my privilege showing. But it’s the advice that I’ve given everyone who’s asked me over the last couple of years. And for those who have listened—and taken ACTION—it’s worked out. 

Now, I’m no networking expert. Nor do I “network” in the slimy business sense.

I’ve just read a lot and built relationships with people.

In addition to the couple of books I recommended above, I’d also tell you to check out:

Both of these books have strategies on how to TALK to people in ways that will (eventually and without being sleazy) lead to jobs. 

Resumés don’t work. Connections do. 

But resumés are easier—a way to hide from the difficult, but effective, work of having meaningful conversations with real people. 

Do the thing that works, not the thing that’s easy.

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by Nathan Coumbe

I can’t do that…

…right now.

Those are the two missing words in that all-too-common statement. 

  • I can’t play the guitar
  • I can’t hit a baseball
  • I can’t write good content
  • I can’t speak Spanish
  • I can’t dance the salsa

…right now.

Because you can learn how to do just about anything. And I don’t mean that in some fantastical, “you can do it”, Disney-movie sense.

Because it won’t be easy. It might feel painfully uncomfortable. In fact, it definitely will. 

But the human brain is capable of learning anything with enough time and deliberate practice.

But if it’s a skill, meaning it can be learned and isn’t some genetic issue (and most skills aren’t), it can be done. By you. 

The question becomes whether or not you 1) have the time and 2) want to put in the effort.

But if the answer is, “No, I don’t want to do that,” then fine. No harm, no foul. Don’t worry about it. 

But change the language. “I don’t want to…” is much different than “I can’t.”

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by Nathan Coumbe

If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing slowly

Rapid results rarely last. Everything worthwhile takes time and patience.

  • Parenting 
  • Marriage 
  • Reading a difficult book 
  • Getting a degree 
  • Learning a new skill 
  • Building a business 

Rapid weight loss is dangerous and usually leads to a reversal.

Speed reading might let you get through more books… But more books isn’t the goal. 

The goal is mastery, not rapidity. Deep understanding, not casual interest.

In a world obsessed with speed, be a tortoise.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Solar panels and parking lots

In the spirit of yesterday’s post, I wanted to share one of my “genius ideas” to get the ball rolling. (Whether this is genius or not is up for debate). 

In my city, like many around the United States, there are huge swaths of land that have been completely paved over for parking. Miles and miles of parking lots with no cover whatsoever. 

Here are the problems I’ve identified with this:

  • They make the area miserably hot (especially your car)
  • You have to walk a LONG way in the heat or pouring rain to get inside whatever building you’re aiming for
  • They serve no purpose other than just “being there” for parking

So my “genius idea” was this:

What if we put “coverings” over all the parking lots in the area? ALL of them. And THEN, put solar panels on top of all the coverings?

The benefits, in my mind, are outrageous!

  • Covered, shaded areas that keep you dry and cool
  • A beneficial, second-order effect of creating clean energy from something that was once basically useless open area
  • That clean energy could then be used to power the buildings nearby, cutting down on carbon emissions and fossil fuel usage and potentially saving them tons of money on their energy bills

My wonderful wife also came up with the idea that you could power giant fans hanging from all the coverings with the solar power to keep things breezy and cool as well. 

Now, I currently don’t have the means to make this happen. And as much as I would love for this to be my million dollar idea, I don’t yet see how to make it happen. 

But I’m sharing it with you so that you might start thinking about your own genius idea. AND so that someone with more knowledge, means, and abilities than me could make this into a feasible project. 

Have you starting ideating yet? Have you come up with your million-dollar idea?

by Nathan Coumbe

Kramer is a genius

Okay. He’s an idiot, but I’m trying to make a point here. 

If you’re familiar at all with the TV show “Seinfeld”, you know all about Cosmo Kramer—the wacky neighbor who lives next door to Jerry. 

One of his quirks is his constant ideation around new inventions and business ideas. 

  • A giant rubber bladder on ships to contain oil spills
  • A periscope on the top of a car to see upcoming traffic
  • A tiny studio apartment full of “levels”
  • A pizza place where you make your own pizza

Okay, that last one is actually a brilliant idea, if you ask me. Who wouldn’t pay for that?

The problem with Kramer is that 1) he never executes on any of his ideas, and 2) most of them are completely unfeasible. 

But how is that any different from you or me? 

How many ideas have you come up with this week? This month? This year? 

Probably quite a few. And most of them are (forgive me) completely stupid. I know many of mine are. 

But a handful of them were (and are) not only feasible, but outright genius! 

This is the creative process at work. You have to come up with tons of bad ideas to make room for the few good ones. 

Volume is your friend here. Spending a little time each day asking yourself, “What about this? What if I tried this? What could I do with this? What if someone did this?”

Most of your ideas (like Kramer’s) will be completely useless. Throw them out—don’t give them a second thought. 

But when you find one (or two or three) that could actually be useful to the rest of the world, write them down. Better yet, do something with them!

I think it was Jim Rohn (but I might be wrong) who said something like, “Most people have 3 or 4 ideas every year that, if acted upon, would make them millionaires.”

So your obstacles here are two-fold: 

  1. You need to come up with LOTS of ideas (which means spending time getting bored and walking while thinking and not drowning out your thoughts with music, TV, podcasts, or books)
  2. AND you need to take a little action on the ideas that you think are winners

Keep a notebook nearby, or a note open on your computer. And just throw stuff into it. 

Later, go back and separate the chaff from the wheat. 

Who knows? You might have your million-dollar idea sitting on a sticky note on your desk. 

by Nathan Coumbe

Mississippi elections are broken

Tuesday was the Mississippi Primary Election, and like a good citizen, I turned out to vote. 

I hate voting in primaries in this state. But this week, it was especially humiliating. 

As usual, I drove to the church, walked inside, and approached the table to check in. And like usual, I had to identify as either Democrat or Republican (even though I was hoping things might have changed).

Now, I’m a staunch independent and do not believe that either side is always right all the time. And in Mississippi, you are not required to register to vote as either one party or the other. You’re just registered to vote. 

But at the polls, they FORCE you to publicly declare your allegiance to one party or another. Out loud. Surrounded by a room full of people. Before you can get a ballot. 

Now, being a white man in the Deep South, I shocked almost everyone in the room by saying, “I guess Democrat.” The demeanor of the woman who was checking me in completely changed. The smile vanished, the friendly tone turned to ice. She handed me a ticket and said, “Over there,” pointing to a table at the back of the room.

I walked over with my ticket… and was informed they had no ballots. I was required to vote electronically. 

So here I am, already having lost my secret ballot (because everyone knows who you’re voting for if you say, “Democrat” as there’s only one option for each position). Now I had to stand in the spotlight with a group of other “self-proclaimed Democrats” with no privacy whatsoever. 

The voting machine was this huge, bright screen that had no coverings to keep your choices hidden. And you could feel the eyes on you and see heads shaking the whole time you were waiting. 

And because I had to cast my ballot electronically, while all the Republicans got to do theirs on paper (sitting at tables with privacy covers of course), I’m pretty sure my vote will get conveniently “lost.”

(I’m a little bitter, so maybe I’m wrong about this, but I’m venting). 

I don’t like being forced to vote on party lines. And no one should be forced to tell a group of total strangers which way they’re voting, whether they’re Democrat OR Republican. It’s no one else’s business. 

I know some people will say, “That’s not the point of the primary election. You have to pick one side or the other to get them to face off in the general election.” One, that’s not the point of this rant. And two, you shouldn’t EVER be forced to vote in black and white. But I digress.

The whole point of an election is to have a choice in who represents you and to make that choice secretly, privately, and safely. 

But do you really have a choice when you can only vote one way? And can you really feel safe during the process, especially as someone voting Democrat in a deeply red, über-Conservative state? Or as a Republican voting in a liberal one?

The point of this rant is to point out the evils in the system that exist to keep people from voting.

How many people turned away from the polls this week when they discovered they had to identify one way or the other? Republicans in the handful of mostly Democratic areas? Democrats in just about every part of this state? 

(You have to be one brave soul to declare yourself a “bleedin’ liberal” in a Deep South state like Mississippi.)

And, of course, independents like me who hate labels and hate having no real choice!

How many of them left the polls thinking, “Well, my vote didn’t count. Why did I even bother? Why should I come back at the general election? Or the next primary?”

Ask voters from other states—it doesn’t happen this way for them. And they are shocked when they find out this is how we do things here.

Regardless of your political leanings, you can’t honestly say that being forced to tell other people how you’re voting doesn’t feel just a little slimy. 

If that was the only change they made—a private way to get your (extremely limited) ballot rather than shouting it from the rooftops—that would be something. 

But the point, it seems, is to make voting uncomfortable, difficult, and frustrating. Because that lowers voter turnout. Which means nothing changes. 

The extreme people who shout the most, spread the most shit, and make people the angriest, are the ones who stay in power.  

Meanwhile, the moderates who want to get things done, who want to work across the aisle, who care about their PEOPLE rather than their CAREERS, are never heard from.

But again, that’s the point. Maintaining the status quo.

“You can have any color car you want,” Henry Ford once said of his Model T, “as long as it’s black.” 

I suppose we should change it here in Mississippi to, “as long as it’s red.”

(I genuinely don’t care what party you voted for—this isn’t right. If you want privacy and confidence in your vote, let me know. I’m working to figure out how, and to whom, to submit a petition to have this changed. I’ll need your signature.)