Calvin Higgins: Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls of all ages, please remain seated and keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. My name is Calvin Higgins, and this is my co-host Sam Rothenberger, and today we'll be b Today we'll be discussing how to learn after high school. Please sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. Sam. are you doing? You know what? Guys, we didn't handshake in the last episode. Maybe I'll just put that clip in the other one too. Well we're in the same clothes. We're in the same clothes, not because it's the same day. Maybe it is. Maybe it is. Would we tell you? Actually we did tell you in the last episode. They're on to us. But yeah, last episode, last time you guys were with us, we talked about America's 250th birthday and how it's summertime and that doesn't mean it's time to stop learning. It actually means we should keep learning. that's what our country was. That's the reason our country is a country. We had guys who knew how to think. So, how do you learn? How to think after high school soon. How do we do that? I mean, several several things. Wrong question. How do we keep learning? There you go. There you go. Yeah. I mean, I guess if you're from public school as your high school, it would be learning how to learn. But besides that. Go back to kindergarten. several things. First off, obviously keep up on your reading of the Bible because salvation is surrounded from within. yes it did just quote Shaw Shank Redemption. why are we not surprised? That was a guy who learned how to learn. He was stuck in jail for a life sentence. So what do you do? You read books. which actually is a decent segue into reading all sorts of books. I thought he was about to segue into go to prison. I don't think that's what we want to tell our listeners. Go to jail. You'll become ripped. You will read lots of books. Maybe you could get your family in prison. shoot. That's a little rough. You guys probably don't take all the advice you hear from us. But we're not offering that as advice in case you're wondering. Yeah. If you keep up on your Bible reading, obviously wisdom and knowledge comes from the fear of the Lord. You know, we read that in Proverbs. the beginning of knowledge, or the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. So all sorts of just Bible elements to actually learning, Bible knowledge, all sorts of stuff in there. for your life walk, your Christian walk, all sorts of that. alongside that, there's also tons of authors, Christian authors, secular authors that like were smart, knew what they were talking about for the most part. especially the Christian authors. The secular authors sometimes hit upon stuff that they didn't understand but got right. So like Plato, Aristotle. it's actually interesting because you can also read certain like dystopian authors that are You know, whatever, take that with a grain of salt because d d dystopian novels, while some of them are a fun read, most of them will just kinda end up giving you depression for however long you read that book for, you're like, Wow, I really need to go read like Narnia or something super happy to cleanse my palate here. but reading all sorts of books, all sorts of different authors, I would probably try to stay away from new authors unless they've been proven to kind of know what they're talking about, sort of thing. I guess C.S. Lewis is not in the category of a new author anymore these days. Douglas Wilson has some good stuff to read by him. He is He has a lot to say. that's a good one. If you if you want to have a good think on on some books from a newer author, Douglas Wilson's a definitely a good go-to. but what's her definition of new? He's kinda old. New as in probably I'm not throwing shade at Doug. I'm just stating Doug is I would say probably in the in the list of people who are still alive slash maybe nineteen nineties and newer. Maybe nineteen eighties and newer? Well I mean maybe nineteen nineties. Doug Doug's been around since the eighties. Yeah, yeah. But I don't know if he was writing really during the eighties, but But I mean as for actually learning, like it is just like yeah, keep up on your reading, keep up on thinking, and I think a a decent portion of it is compare that what you know in scripture and follow follow the lines of truth follow the lines that like figure out if what they're saying is legit or put it straight in the bin or something I don't know because thinking is yeah it is a lot of a lot of thinking just has to do with Is what this guy is saying true? Is what this guy's saying good and right? And then does it offer a fix for, you know, humanity, or does it offer a fix for my life? Like, do I need to change something about how I live in based on how this guy wrote his book or or whatever, right? or even it's not even sometimes has to do with your character. Like you could be learning. How to wire computers or wire different other electro like there's lots of hobby or just straight up work related learning. that is also just good for you and sometimes even just to keep you busy or to know more things that you should probably know. I mean there's always the funny saying the more you know. but it's not good to be idle and it's definitely not good to be ignorant. because while the saying ignorance is bliss is true, what that saying is not saying is ignorance is right. Ignorance is bliss, but ignorance is not right. I'll say that. Yeah, I mean innocence also though is bliss. So it depends on what you're talking about. I mean, like there's My dad has a Dad's got a funny thing he says where he's like, you know, there's a reason I never learned how to do the sound stuff at the church. So no one could ever ask me how to do it because he's got other stuff to do. So it's like there there is some level of like, well. Whatever it is, if it's gonna get you way more into it and you know you really shouldn't be, then don't maybe you should stay ignorant on that. But yeah, for the most part, not staying ignorant. And because I do think that most of the time when we're talking about ignorance, we are talking about purposeful. I don't want to learn that. I'm not gonna. I don't know that. I don't I don't need to know that. Right. Well Or even some kind of like moral implication of something. Yeah, and and usually it yeah, it seems like it's about morals or it's about some like actual just truth. Ignorance about truth. That's that's horrible. so yeah, that's you know, that's not good. And some of it is also like, well, what is the Lord calling you to? If you if you try to stay ignorant on everything, you're not gonna have a very good You're not gonna be very open to the doors that the Lord might be opening for you. So like if you don't know something, but he's opening a door. I mean, this is a thing that I have to work on is I get uncomfortable sometimes when I don't know how to do something because I don't want to look stupid. It's really surprising. because like in j in general, things that I do in public, I prefer to have practiced before multiple times. so I kind of know what I'm expecting. And You know. It's good. It's good to be practiced. It's good to prepare. But it's also good to admit that you don't know something. Not knowing something doesn't actually mean you're a retard. And if people treat you like you're a retard for not knowing something, well, that's their problem. You know, and and remembering that, like, well, actually, that's on them. If they if so if you're admitting, hey, I don't know this, but I want to learn it, and they're like, you're stupid. Well, that's dumb. If you said, I don't know this, I'm not gonna learn it and I'm gonna bunch up here and you get fired for that. well then that's your problem. You know I don't have any personal experience to draw from on that. but yeah, so there's there is a level of like, well, if you're ignorant about something, you can probably figure out how to not be anymore. And you should probably do that. So it is it's it's learn learning how to think means you're gonna need to keep finding stuff to think about and learn. I really Excuse me. Not everything is gonna be offered to you on a silver platter. The aida the public school system is lying. By trying to create some amount of feeling like, they're just gonna offer you stuff. We're gonna, we're gonna tell you what to think. So here are the things you need to think. That runs out eventually, because if you're done, if you're done after college, like if you're not doing any more schooling or that, you're done. Yeah. Then it becomes people out in the world who wanna tell you what to think, whether that's on social media or that's at your workplace or whatever. Yeah. yeah. And you're just gonna be pushed around. I mean that's that is unacceptable. Well if you're the young buck going into the workplace like that and there's not great coworkers that are working with you that, you know, you don't know how to think because you're never taught how to think. Yeah. You'll just start thinking kind of what they think. Yeah. If especially 'cause you're the young buck, so they you automatically probably assume that they know stuff. Mm-hmm. when they do when you know, maybe they don't actually. Yeah. And that's where yeah, America as the great it's the country of great possibilities, yay. but you know while that's true, Yeah, if you're willing to make it that. It's really not There's there is still opportunity, but there's actually not that much opportunity. If we were to just go with that. Like if we were if we were to just say, well, the public school system, if that was what everybody had for school, there would still be people who would get out and be billionaires. yeah. That is true. I actually know several kids who have gone through public schools? Not billionaires, but who have de who are definitely like Actually, we're fine. Decent yeah, decent people. Yeah. Now granted one of 'em's Mormon. actually the other one hasn't graduated yet, but he seems like a half decent kid. So was the Mormon kid your neighbor? He is. Yeah. Still, actually. really? Yeah. Nice. Yeah. He hasn't graduated or he didn't He has. He's graduated, yeah. Nice. But he is also still my neighbor. Nice. Nice kid. Why would I just started thinking of Sid from Toy Story? I'm sorry, Sam's friend. I d don't know if you're listening. I do not think you are Sid. I just I would be surprised if he was listening. You'd be surprised. I would be surprised. I don't know if he actually listens to podcasts. Let let's just put this d we should have put this disclaimer out. This is like episode sixty four, I think. We're not Mormons. We're not Mormons. In case anybody was wondering. In case I mean if you see all the Bibles on the shelf here. Well, but this isn't our office. Once again, thanks. Thanks, Sean Higgins for letting us use your office. We don't even know we're in here, but you're in Idaho, so no, this is I also work in here, so this is great. But yeah, so I mean it is it is a you have to be self-motivated, self-driven. you you can learn a lot by yourself. I actually think this is part of where some of it is really odd how social media Both ruins things but also makes some other things good. So like and YouTube isn't actually social media. I mean You can treat it like it's it is social media, but it's actually more just media. Right. The thing that is interesting though about that content, wh why would you go to college? I mean, there's the like medical school, yeah, probably you still need to go law school. Probably still need to go. Probably. If you want to go to seminary, like if you actually want to go to seminary, well then you should go to seminary. But like for everything else, you can pretty much just learn whatever you want online. Yeah. Also, most of these colleges offer online courses anyway. So it's like, why the indoctrination pieces are gonna be more if you go where those people are. If you just try to get the education, you're gonna be, you're gonna the teacher or the professor won't try to persuade you, but it's different. But I mean, the YouTube industry is killing some of these places because you can just get all this information for free. Yeah. With ads, sure. But like that, that's crazy. Ads are a small price to pay. I will say. So so a so YouTube and AI. Mm-hmm. I mean here's the thing. There's a little segue. In fact this should probably be a full episode at some point. Wealth of knowledge. So my take, and maybe I've said this a couple episodes ago, I know. But I was talking to my wife. I love you. Shout out. Hi. And sorry, my my computer. I have like a Jarvis system built into my computer. Like that I made. and so It's it's still going. I'm not sure what turned it on exactly. That's really interesting. That is really funny. I don't know why. I don't know why I thought now is the time to wake up. but it was it was operating. I could hear it through the headphones on the cable really quickly. We were like, what the heck is that? I was like, that doesn't sound like my voice. And then I realized, that's the British man who's talking to me from my computer. No, but so like my the It's so funny that we're talking about AI because I've made that with AI and it's not working properly right now. but I was asking Baze and I was like, Okay, 'cause I have 'cause there are people with s pretty strong takes about like, well AI is bad, like j overall it's bad. Okay, well, you don't really have e evidence for that, so no. AI is good, also don't have evidence for that inherently. Inherently, it's a tool, and thus you can use it poorly or you can use it well. And you know, I was telling Bates and I was like, okay, think think back to and not that she she's not opposed to AI, she's just not sold on it necessarily, and she doesn't see it like we were just talking about some of the application pieces of it. And I was like, okay, think back to when because we we had just gotten back from the east co east coast trip. We had gone to Mount Vernon. And Mount Mount Mount Vernon was 8,000 acres. George Washington had tons of slaves. that then obviously in his will it ended up that they they were free to go. So that was good. But I was like, what did we lose? No, I'm not, this is not, this is gonna sound weird, so just give me a moment. What did we lose when we got rid of slavery? Well, we lost a particular kind of guy, for the most part. We lost a kind of guy who was producing a lot of stuff, but also was educated and who read a lot and who wrote a lot. Because what slaves offered, because Again, they were people who were treated like tools. So again, I'm not this that is not good. But what I'm saying is, well, those those people that were treated like tools ended up making it where these guys could be educated, they could keep reading, they could keep writing, they could keep bettering themselves, and also they could conquer other nations or they could build armies and stuff like that and build countries. They were doing that and also still having 8,000 acres because they didn't have to manage 8,000 acres. They didn't have to do menial work. They, at that point, obviously, just treated other people as tools. So that that part is bad. But I'm like, well, this is what AI, if if used properly, this is what I want it to get to for me. I want a lot less menial work. A lot less of the what what currently I'm calling donkey work because of my my job description, which has that in there. Donkey work where it's like you're walking around in the circle, churning whatever the thing is, just over and over, one foot after another. You do this every day, you walk in a circle, you do this thing over and over and over. Okay, well, hello automation, hello, hello, hello, AI agent. You're gonna do that for me. Whatever it is. Teach it how to do that, it's gonna do that, and you set that process up. What time does that offer me for? That offers me creative time. That offers me things to do like art. That offers me things to do this kind of stuff. Where it offers me time to write, it offers me time to read, it offers me time to better myself on other things. So it is a tool. It's a tool to give us more time. so it slavery is capitalistic. I mean, in the worst possible way. But it it is. You're buying back your time by using other people. So yeah, would paid labor be better? Yes. But here's the thing: AI is paid labor, but it's way cheaper than actually paying somebody. So, like, let's say Sam could do all the things AI could do. I'd actually have to pay Sam way more per month than I'd be paying AI, because AI, I have a subscription. For whatever it is. And let's say I paid for a pretty high tier. So let's say I was paying a hundred bucks a month. If I was maxing out a hundred bucks a month worth of AI, I'd be paying Sam like twenty to probably probably a range between like ten and a hundred grand a month. I mean, depending on what I was running. Right. So obviously it's scalable, so there are different things, but like I'd have to pay him a lot of money. Why would I do that? Well, because obviously there are some things that are good to be able to offer people positions. Right. That that is true. But you need time to be able to build those things. So if your other littler things that are more menial, that are more repetitive donkey work, well, if those can get automated, well, why would you not? Why would you not do that? So that's that's kind of my that's my take is that actually we should be a more because people are like, it's gonna make us stupid. Why does it have to make us stupid? Actually, what it should do is we should be s we should be a smarter country. Right. If you're concerned about AI making people stupid, then you should just get on the horse of higher education. I mean, also, the stupid will become stupider with AI. Right. That's a fact. Yeah. The smarter will be well, or the educated are gonna be more educated, actually. And they're gonna get more stuff done, and they're gonna read more, and they're gonna write more, and we're gonna produce more. That is Like, use the tool for what it's intended for. The people that use AI that don't actually know how to use AI are the people that are going to continue to be dumbed down by it. Those are the people though who don't understand what it's made for. AI was not made for how dumb people use it. Dumb people use AI in a dumb way and it gives them dumb answers because you if you treat it dumb, it's going to act dumb. Right. Because all it is is pattern recognition. So I mean ca yeah, because AI AI was made so that hard working people can continue to work hard. Like you Because do you know when the first AI was? 1950, actually. Like you so well and you see it in all in like almost almost every AI commercial for like Google Gemini or some kind of Alexa or something. It's always someone is doing something and then AI can help them do more stuff. Yeah. You should be using a dot to do more work. They're not like you never see an AI commercial where they're just slacking on the couch and the AI is doing everything. Hey, hey chat to be team, bring me a drink for the fridge. Yeah. actually interesting because I I used to be and I should get back into it, but I used to be using Blender a lot, which is a 3D modeling software that mostly people use for animation purposes. I was trying to use it for Like 3D printer file. you're about to say what I think about to say, you should absolutely do this because this is crazy. Well it's not just that, because the guy I was watching for his tutorials was like, here's the thing. I am still doing tutorials on how to use Blender and how to like model and animate stuff. But we are in the age of AI here, and I know that my job as an animator is gonna change wildly because AI is coming through. He's like, At this point, I don't s view it as a problem that AI is gonna take my job because what I need to do is learn how to use AI so I can teach people how to use AI for animation, 3D modeling, all that kind of stuff. So like that he views his job as changing to that, not just AI took my job, now I'm just absolutely screwed for the rest of my life kind of thing, which some people view. Which I it's it's interesting for sure. well and maybe I'm about to blow Sam's mind. 'Cause he might not know about this. Do you know that Anthropic released a feature a couple months ago? Where you can connect Claude to Blender. Mm. And it will whatever you just explained in just plain English and it will hold it. And there's there's demos of it. Huh. Now Sam's life has been changed. I might not see Sam for another few weeks. Sam's about to get real into it. no, but anyways, this is this is the point. AI is just another tool. So instead of over-glorifying it, it's just another tool. And you can just say it like that. It's just another tool. Is it one of the Say it with me? That's just another tool. that can be that could be a segment. Just another tool. YouTube short. Yeah. There's there are a lot of tools. AI is just another one. So use it. But there there are a lot of different There's lot of tools and there's a lot of things you can do to get more educated. So figure it out. It's not it's not super complicated. It is It's a matter of hard work and what do you want? What are you willing to go do? What are you willing to go get it? and Use the tools you have access to. Use them well. And be more productive. Get more stuff done. I mean, max out, max out your tokens. Max your tokens out. I keep Feel I might be repeating myself. Probably I'll say it anyways. Redo all the time. That's right. I pay for the $20 a month, which actually is $17, because I paid for the year of it of Claude Pro. It's a whole three dollars a month. That's actually Yeah, it's like Imagine what you not even a gallon of gas. Not anymore, unfortunately. Yeah. Two months, that'd get you a gallon. I pay for the pro model of Claude. That's twenty bucks a month. There are some other plans. The next plan is the pro is the the Claude Max plan, which is like a hundred bucks a month. And I've seen people who are like, if you're not maxing out your Claude Max plan by noon, what are you even doing? And I'm like, are you kidding me? How do you max out? Because it's it's literally like 20 times more usage on everything on the max plan. And like I have a hard time maxing out my pro plan on a given day. The point is you should be building a bunch of stuff. So it's like, how how can you maximize it? And yeah, there's lots of maximize it. Just go find me like 500 YouTube videos real quick and put them in a watch list so I can watch them, dedicate them by categories of entertainment, learning, like that's how you I don't know. Make me the YouTube videos. Make me YouTube videos. All right, Sam Dadavice. dear. make sure that your kids know. that they are not governed by What people think. That's a horrible way to say that. word this. Yeah, that's a really weird way to word it. Mm-hmm. Hmm. Did you see that sky today? Talk about blue. Yes, Kronk riveting. While Sam's thinking about this, this will be distracting. I saw a reel the other day where this guy's like got a blanket wrapped around him and he's sitting in a chair leaning back and forth. The poison for Cusco. Cusco's poison. Poison chosen, especially to kill Cusco. Cusco's poison. That poison? Gotcha covered. The caption of the video is me when I'm ninety-seven and I have dementia and I'm in a home and all I remember are chronography. Yeah. dear. I was like, dang it, I think that's gonna be me. distill in your kids the importance of continued learning, discipline, and problem solving. Which I guess I'll just kinda go into one thing, but after school, after marriage, after you know, whatever. After, after, after. make sure they understand the importance of the wealth of knowledge, how knowledge can be used. pretty sure that book's called The Wealth of the Nations, not the wealth of knowledge. Yeah, I know, but wealth of knowledge has a nice ring to it. Yeah. Maybe that's the book we should write. Maybe we should read You know what I guarantee you there's a book. There's gotta be. The Wealth of Knowledge. The wealth of knowledge, intellectual capital, and the twenty first century what did that say? And the twenty first century organization. Hey, you know what though? I read somewhere that book titles are not copyrighted. And that's why the guy was able to write Well, also I would not use intellectual capital in the twenty first century organization. As your as your little tagline. Except actually now that I think about it, that actually is a pretty good title because we are in the twenty first century worth of intellectual capital. Yeah. I would rephrase it like I would use something different because I'd write something different, but Yeah. That book title sounds a little dry. It's about business anyways. I guess that makes sense after wording. Yeah. Well, cool. I guess we'll have to write a book. Yeah. Choice men. Choice men books coming so well, not anytime soon, but I got you. The wealth of knowledge, how choice men improve the nation, step by step. Step by step. Baby steps. Baby steps. Baby stepping out the hallway. I'm baby stepping. all right. That's it for this episode. We'll get better. We promise. And yeah, we'll catch you guys next time. Choice men signing off. Peace.