The Lion and The Ox

What do these two key characters in the animal kingdom have to do with one another?

Once upon a time, in the lush green savannah of the Animal Kingdom, there lived a lion named Leo and a cow named Daisy. Leo was known far and wide for his fierce and powerful nature. He was the bravest and strongest lion in the entire kingdom, and all the animals respected and admired him. On the other hand, Daisy, the cow, was known for her gentle and dependable personality. She was always there to help others and was loved by everyone for her kindness.

One sunny morning, as Leo was basking in the warm rays of the sun, he noticed that the waterhole where all the animals drank was drying up. The kingdom was going through a severe drought, and water was becoming scarce. Leo knew that he had to do something to save his fellow animals from suffering.

Determined to find a solution, Leo decided to embark on a journey across the savannah. He roared loudly, calling for all the animals to gather around him. "My friends," he said with a fierce determination in his eyes, "we cannot sit idle and let our kingdom suffer. I will venture to the mountains and bring back water for all of us!"

The animals cheered, impressed by Leo's courage and willingness to help. But Daisy, the cow, felt worried for her friend. She knew the journey to the mountains would be long and arduous, and she didn't want Leo to go alone.

"Leo," Daisy said, gently approaching him, "I know you are strong and fierce, but even the mightiest lions need help sometimes. Let me come with you. Together, we can face any challenge."

Leo hesitated for a moment, unsure if Daisy, with her gentle nature, could handle such a dangerous journey. But he also knew that she was right - having a dependable companion would make the task easier.

"Alright, Daisy," Leo agreed, "but promise me you'll stay close to me and be careful."

With that, Leo and Daisy set off on their journey to the mountains. They faced scorching heat, crossed vast deserts, and climbed steep cliffs. But Leo's fierce determination and Daisy's unwavering dependability kept them going.

Finally, after days of hard work, they reached the top of the mountains, where a grand waterfall awaited them. Leo roared triumphantly, and Daisy beamed with joy. They filled their containers with water and started their journey back to the kingdom.

As they returned, Leo and Daisy were welcomed as heroes. The water they brought saved the animals from the drought, and everyone was grateful. The lion's fierce nature and the cow's dependable personality had made an incredible team.

From that day on, Leo and Daisy became the best of friends. Leo learned that sometimes, being fierce also meant being compassionate and caring for others. And Daisy discovered that her dependability was not a sign of weakness but a great strength that could help others in times of need.

And so, the lion and the cow continued to work together, proving that a combination of fierceness and dependability could make a world of difference in the Animal Kingdom, where they all lived happily ever after.

-GPT

🦁🤝🐮

Ah I love a little narrative.

Lions have traits that make them prefer to hunt with high intensity followed by periods of rest, while cows have traits that make them prefer regularity. As humans we have traits that make us love to categorize. For millenia in the animal kingdom one’s expectation of the future was largely predictable. Now, for the first time, our future is not.

Lex Fridman recently had Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens, on his podcast. This segment made me think about the future of learning and work.

Lex Fridman

(02:23:43) The way to peace is through boredom. That applies in more ways than one. What advice would you give to young people today in high school and college, how to have a successful life, how to have a successful career?

Yuval Noah Harari

(02:23:57) What they should know, it’s the first time in history nobody has any idea how the world would look like in 10 years. Nobody has any idea how the world would look like when you grow up. Throughout history, it was never possible to predict the future. You live in the Middle Ages, nobody knows. Maybe in 10 years the Vikings will invade, the Mongols will invade, there’ll be an epidemic, there’ll be an earthquake, who knows? But the basic structures of life will not change. Most people will still be peasants. Armies would fight on horseback with swords and bows and arrows and things like that. So you could learn a lot from the wisdom of your elders. They’ve been there before and they knew what kind of basic skills you need to learn. Most people need to learn how to sow wheat and harvest wheat or rice and make bread and build a house and ride a horse and things like that.

(02:24:57) Now we have no idea, not just about politics. We have no idea how the job market would look like in 10 years. We have no idea what skills will still be needed. You think you’re going to learn how to code because they’ll need a lot of coders in the 2030s? Think again. Maybe AI is doing all the coding. You don’t need any coders. You are going to, I don’t know, you learn to [inaudible 02:25:26] languages, you want to be a translator. Gone. And we don’t know what skills will be needed. So the most important skill is the skill to keep learning and keep changing throughout our lives, which is very, very difficult. To keep reinventing ourselves. Again, it’s in a way a spiritual practice, to build your personality, to build your mind as a very flexible mind. Traditionally, people thought about education like building a stone house with very deep foundations. Now it’s more like setting up a tent that you can fold and move to the next place very, very quickly. Because that’s the 21st century.

My take is that the future of value output for many people will shift from a cow like consistency to more of a lion like hunt. As efficiencies grow in the economy, we’ve seen that fewer people are needed to produce the same quantity of goods. Contrary to thoughts at the time, it didn’t mean a reduction in labour force, in fact more people are employed now than ever in history (because there are more people than ever in history). Instead, people wanted more and different things and so the economy grew.

When you think of your own life in the future, do you think you’ll want more or less than you consume now?

I’m guessing that more people say more than people who say less, and that the amount that those people want more of is higher than the amount that anyone who wants less will reduce their consumption by.

Our understanding of self as a collective is deeply tied to growth. Whether that’s cultural, or biological, or a bit of both, is up to interpretation.

Why lions?

As our desires and consumption habits grow, we will skew towards novel and customized goods and experiences. The most capable vehicle to deliver those creative goods and experiences are smaller organizations that have little to no bureaucratic bloat. A whole universe stands between a deal with two people and a deal between trillion dollar corporations. Your 9th customization on the list is best fulfilled by the independent entrepreneur with world class AI tools than a large organization trying to build catch all solutions for the largest cross section of the market they can capture.

-Max

Links:

https://lexfridman.com/yuval-noah-harari-transcript/

https://www.statista.com/statistics/269959/employment-in-the-united-states/