0:00:00 - 0:00:28 So I woke up way too early and uh my basement's freezing. I wanted to work out. I got to keep this place up. So I started a fire, the uh blower is going so hopefully it's not too loud in the background, probably is whatever. Um So, um I got a message from someone uh Thanking me for uh doing the last 0:00:28 - 0:00:55 few videos on themes related to value and um I figured it would probably be a good time to share another thought uh Along those lines that, that's been on my mind for quite some time. So that's this concept that I call anti value. I'm not sure this will again get into the books. It really should, but 0:00:55 - 0:01:19 maybe this will help me process it. I don't think it's in there yet. Um So there's a whole lot on value that's gonna be coming out in these books. So, um and the reason for that is that it turns out that what you value and by how much you value it is, um it's pretty critical, it's a pretty critical part 0:01:19 - 0:01:44 of the gospel that no one that I know of has ever talked about. I mean, it's all over the scriptures but people don't see it and they don't get it and it's pretty messed up because it's very central. So this concept of anti value, it's probably a better name for it. Um But the natural man is an enemy 0:01:43 - 0:02:14 to God. And part of that is that we desire things that we should not desire by nature. And when I say we should not desire, that's not at all an argument for arbitrary uh moral assignments, we'll say. Um So the things that we desire do not deliver what we imagine they will. And that's why they're a problem 0:02:13 - 0:02:37 if you actually wanted the things for what they were, and you actually understood the true value of what you opt out of by choosing those other things. Um It'd be a different story, but that's not the case. Uh So people choose lesser things because they're not aware of greater things. And that is a huge 0:02:37 - 0:03:14 problem. So when the dust settles, uh after God's full judgment is applied to his creation, there are going to be, there will be a lot of people who find themselves in a surprising shift of value and that is uh an extremely um significant component of what the torment of the dams is or will be. Um I 0:03:14 - 0:03:43 guess it's more accurate to say and um this shouldn't come as a surprise or mystery to folks who have thought about it, although I'm sure it will um, because it's hard to find someone who has not experienced a taste of this during life where, uh, they put their hopes in someone or something only to find 0:03:43 - 0:04:09 that their understanding of that person or, or thing was vastly, um, incorrect and that either that person or thing was way less than what they thought or there was something else available that was way better and they didn't know that. And, um, that's a hard thing to deal with in life with just narrow 0:04:08 - 0:04:38 uh application. But in the illumination of Resurrection, it's gonna be uh orders of magnitude worse. And so it pays to try to understand what's valuable and by how much it's valuable and uh getting your appraisal of value, correct is absolutely essential to having joy, finding joy, maximizing that joy 0:04:38 - 0:05:04 and doing so in a way that you actually get to keep it. It's not taken from you in the sudden realization of how wrong you were, uh when everything gets rolled up. So anti value back to that. So anti value is a theme that and like I said, it's probably a better word, but anti value is this theme that 0:05:03 - 0:05:36 I've noticed, we like, you can, you can study a group of people and you can identify things that they uh associate value with. And because human nature is the way it is, um what is popular is actually more likely to be not valuable than it is to be valuable. So I'm, I'm trying hard not to use the words 0:05:36 - 0:05:55 good and evil because sometimes the best way to explain something is by going around it. And that way you avoid preconceived notions. Um And then you can come back to it later and then, and then you use the words and you say, oh, this is actually what those words mean and you've been using them wrong 0:05:55 - 0:06:23 the whole time and uh wrong isn't the best word to use there. It's more like we've elucidated a better way. So let's go with the better way now. Um Anyway, so uh here are some examples of anti value that are really simple. So if you go on youtube and you look at videos that have like 100 million views 0:06:22 - 0:06:46 , you're going to find some themes that are common. So, so for example, um there's this guy, Mr Beast, if you don't know who this guy is, you should look him up on youtube because I think it's hilarious what I'm about to say, but he kind of cracked the code. Uh As far as he was one of the first people 0:06:46 - 0:07:09 that did these like seriously overemotional thumbnails. You'll see there's a very particular style to all of his thumbnails, right? I've never actually watched one of his videos, but youtube really pumps this guy's videos and so it's on everybody's recommendations all the time. Um But uh this kind of 0:07:09 - 0:07:29 overly emotional thumbnail idea. So, um my kids watch my videos and they make fun of me because the thumbnail pictures are always some weird posture that I've got and that they're like, how do you find the weirdest face you make in the whole video and make it the thumbnail? And actually it's kind of 0:07:29 - 0:07:51 scary youtube has algorithms that will actually suggest like three panels from your video and you can just click on one of the three and believe it or not actually pick the least ridiculous one. Um You could also upload a thumbnail and that it takes time to make those right. And I just, I really, it's 0:07:51 - 0:08:14 hard to justify the time I've done it on some videos. And um the reason I've done it is because people seem to need that or else they won't click. So that's all kind of long winded. I apologize. But let me try to get to the point. The point is if people really understood value, they would not click on 0:08:14 - 0:08:38 overly emotive thumbnails because who cares? That has nothing to do with the value of the video. I've been astonished. I saw this video which I'll talk more about if not in videos than I know for a fact, I've written about it uh in books to come on this topic of flint napping, which is where you take 0:08:37 - 0:09:01 a, a particular kind of rock and you hit it in a particular kind of way and you produce points like arrowheads or spearheads out of rock and uh historically, that was a really big deal and it will probably be a really big deal again in the future. But that's not why I find it interesting for the purposes 0:09:01 - 0:09:23 of the, of the books and, and such. But, um, it, it's a useful allegory for a few things that are really important. But, um, I had like a vague awareness of this and I thought for, for the book and also just for life, it'd be important to kind of know more about it. So I put it in my brain that I was 0:09:23 - 0:09:42 gonna, when I had a free minute, I was gonna look this up on youtube and see if there's a tutorial. It's sure enough in like a half a second search, I found a video and it, it's like, it's like 30 minutes long I think. And if I remember and it was perfect, it showed you from start to finish basically 0:09:41 - 0:10:03 everything you need to know. Now the guy that made it, he's one of these like historical not actors, but I guess you could call them historical craftsmen or tradesmen. And he does this at camps and things and this is kind of his thing. So as far as foot napping goes, he's kind of an expert, right? It 0:10:03 - 0:10:23 uh compared to the general population, he knows what there is to know. And I thought to myself, this guy, it's cost him his life to get this kind of experience and when you choose to do something like flint napping, like you're not making money, right? So he's, he's basically sacrificed his life to keep 0:10:23 - 0:10:42 this craft alive. And then he's been kind enough to make a youtube video about it and it's a good video. It took time to produce. It's not like these things where it's just a um I'm not saying these aren't valuable, but I don't, I intentionally don't spend time making them try to do it as quickly as 0:10:42 - 0:11:06 I can and I try very hard not to make them at all. So, um, anyway, but this guy made this video and it's there and you can go and watch it for free, right? And yet no one does. There's very few views on this video and uh for the, for the value of what it is. But if Kim Kardashian gets up and shows her 0:11:06 - 0:11:27 butt or something, then that's got millions of views. So that's of course appealing to different facet of human nature. Um, but, you know, Mr Beast can make his soy face like his over exaggerated smile and make a v some video and some stupid thing. Like I got hit in the head with a pizza and it's got 0:11:27 - 0:11:53 100 million views and that's because humans do not know what is valuable. They are incorrect in their assertion of value. It takes something to come to the point where you have any idea what's actually valuable and by how much now phrase in the scriptures for that is learning to discern, excuse me, learning 0:11:52 - 0:12:16 to discern good and evil. Now, we incorrectly think of that as some kind of binary process. Like you learn up from down or left from right. And that's not true because, well, for a lot of reasons left and right and up and down never change. But the value of something can, can go up or down and it can 0:12:16 - 0:12:38 change radically. And I've made videos about this, I've used this analogy of having buckets um or dots on a chart that has two sides and the dots can increase in size, which would be like increasing the degree of value or decreasing it and then they can change uh which side they're on because things 0:12:38 - 0:12:58 can change from being valuable to costly, beneficial to costly, right? Depending on how much of the picture you see. So like if you marry this, this guy and you think he's a quite a gem. And then, you know, after 10 years of marriage and you think everything's hunky dory, it turns out he's a serial killer 0:12:58 - 0:13:22 and your, your dirt basement is full of bodies. Um Your value of that guy is gonna change radically to the negative, right? So um it, it can also go the other way I think I've shared with you before this um recollection uh from a friend of Winston Churchill and she said about him with most people, you 0:13:22 - 0:13:42 see their worst qualities immediately. Uh, I'm sorry, with most people, you see their best qualities immediately and then through time you see that they're actually a much worse person than you thought. But she said Winston Churchill was one of the rare people where you saw the worst about him at first 0:13:41 - 0:14:03 and then the longer you knew him, he just kept getting better. Not that he was changing over time, but that he was a very deep person whose value was significant enough that it could not be immediately recognized that's obviously a paraphrase. Um But um it, it's also a deep truth that uh has very little 0:14:02 - 0:14:29 to do with Winston Churchill specifically and actually has a lot to do with people who have greater light anyway, um back to anti value. So when we, when we see things like uh emotive thumbnails or like, you know, like somebody's like all surprised or they're pointing at something or um you know, someone's 0:14:29 - 0:14:59 using uh uh a guy's six pack or a woman's cleavage or whatever to try to get you to click on something. Odds are that the information content of that video itself would not um would not justify the time required to watch that video because everything is a choice that's based on prioritization. We have 0:14:59 - 0:15:33 limited time and we have to choose how we're going to spend that time. So one way we can get better at prioritizing, which means that the time we spend yields greater value than it otherwise, would we can, we can learn to choose the most valuable uh media to consume as we um learn tricks to better estimate 0:15:32 - 0:16:03 the value of what we haven't yet experienced. Right? So um so like a rule of thumb that I have, this is now we're not talking internet rules but face to face rules. If, if someone I know recommends that I look into something I do it, period. So I might not do it right that second, but I do it pretty 0:16:03 - 0:16:35 damn quickly. Um, everyone begins with, in my, in my model of things. I, um, everyone starts with an investment of credibility and it's theirs to lose and you can lose it pretty quickly. Like if you send me to watch some cat videos, you know, the bar drops pretty quickly. But, um, I never degrade someone's 0:16:35 - 0:17:00 credibility in my mind without telling them. So, and that's a weird thing. It's a very unusual thing. So, um, if you recommend a book to me and I absolutely hate it. I will tell you that I hated it and I'll tell you why because I will also tell you that I'm not going to go read the next one that you 0:17:00 - 0:17:20 send me because I want you to know that, uh, I'm not going to take your recommendation seriously. And, uh, or that, you know, I don't use these words, but essentially like your, your credibility is on probation. So you better be really careful with the next one or else you're gonna lose me in terms of 0:17:20 - 0:17:40 credibility. So it's, it's yours to lose and it goes up and down and, and this is an idea that actually I got from a guy named Ray Dalio. I know at least one of you have read this book Principles because you mentioned it to me. I think it's an utterly amazing book Principles by Ray Dalio. Um I bought 0:17:39 - 0:18:01 it thinking it was a business book and I found out that it's actually chock full of really deep philosophy that it's, it's not that the whole book is true, but the quantity of what is true and the value of those things is astronomical. Um So it's just all the more surprising that it's, it's couched in 0:18:01 - 0:18:26 a book that's allegedly a business book. The guy is a business guy. Um But it's not a business book at all. It's, it's a wonderful philosophy book. Um Anyway, so, so he had this idea at his company of believability, which is just a fancy way of saying credibility. Um But anyway, the, his idea with believability 0:18:25 - 0:18:47 was that everyone is sort of a running, you know, you could, you could plot people on a graph as far as their running credibility. If they were right on something that everyone else opposed, then they'd get boosted high in credibility because their perspective was, was valuable. But also, um, contrarian 0:18:46 - 0:19:07 And so, um, their perspective is very valuable. Uh And if they really got it wrong, then you go the other way. And um he actually literally they made software that would plot people's credibility over time because it was important to him that no matter where you were in the company, your voice was the 0:19:07 - 0:19:33 , the weight that they gave your voice in making decisions was based on your track record. And I was really impressed by that. I think doing it in software is a little extreme. But um I've tried to do that in life um with, with sources of information and with uh people in particular. And so that's one 0:19:32 - 0:20:00 way of assessing value. Um So some other aspects of anti excuse me, of anti value. I I said of assessing value, I mean, estimating value. So um by keeping score of what leads to value, so you can only click on so many emotive icon, you know, thumbnails. Um there's this fake profit out there and, you 0:19:59 - 0:20:25 know, I give people a chance. So I watched one of his videos uh sponsored by I, I watched one of one of his videos and uh it was clear to me he had no idea what he was talking about and uh it made me mad because um not mad. I, I was uh I regretted having spent the time because um from personal experience 0:20:25 - 0:20:46 , I know sometimes you have to jump through hoops to communicate value. In the window of value that people are willing to recognize. That's just a fact of life. Um So the fact is that there is a, an enormous segment of the population that will never take a video like this seriously. That's just a fact 0:20:45 - 0:21:12 of life. It's a fact of life that most people will assume that an older youtube video has less value than a newer youtube video. So I have tons and tons of videos on this channel and uh the old ones are really valuable. There's tons of stuff in those slideshows, tons of stuff. I I'll just say it as tons 0:21:11 - 0:21:31 of stuff. There are other things I could say that would be true, but those descriptions would probably be too much for you to handle. Uh So it would, it would reduce my credibility in your eyes instead of increase it. And then you wouldn't take the information seriously, which is the point. But, you 0:21:31 - 0:21:49 know youtube recently, I noticed they took away. There used to be, if you went to somebody's channel, you could sort by number of views, highest to lowest or the the reverse. You could also sort chronologically and you, if you wanted to, you could systematically watch every video on a person's page from 0:21:49 - 0:22:12 oldest to newest and you can't do that anymore. They took it away. So now I think the option is uh just most recent to least recent or you can sort by most popular to least popular and that's it. And that's very bad because what that does is it highlights all the stuff that other people found most valuable 0:22:12 - 0:22:34 . Right. And most people are idiots when it comes to value. Um, a AAA better way of phrasing that I guess a more measured way is to say that most people's system of value is incorrect or, um, yeah, there's a lot of different ways you could say it or you could just say most people are idiots and that 0:22:34 - 0:23:05 is true. So, um anyway, um so yeah, it's unfortunate because uh there is no correlation between release time were released recently and value. So um I think it would be very rare to encounter someone who says, hey, Rob, I made a list of every video you've ever put out and I'm systematically going down 0:23:05 - 0:23:33 the list watching every single one. And um lest you think that an extreme thing um no one should ever do a thing like that unless they find value in the thing they've already experienced, right? But if you found value, excuse me, um If you found found value in, in the first thing you watched, the absolute 0:23:32 - 0:23:58 rational thing would be to go look at one more thing and then you go and you look at one more thing and then you go and look at one more thing, right? And over time you build up this uh residual expectation of value where now your your value can withstand one video that's absolutely worthless. Right 0:23:57 - 0:24:19 . And, but you just keep watching because you're like, well, maybe that's a dud, I've seen 10 that contain things that I've never heard before that have extraordinary value. So I'm just gonna give him one more shot and then boom, it hits again. So this sort of thing is the rational way to go and yet 0:24:18 - 0:24:38 very few people operate this way, very few. And it's sad, but it also explains why most people are miserable because they're not actually sensibly searching for the greatest value in life. And uh when you make a video or blog post or whatever else, and this is just a microcosm. It does doesn't matter 0:24:38 - 0:24:57 , videos, blogs, it doesn't matter. I'm talking about life, right? But I'm putting this in specific terms. So it's easier for you to understand. So if I want to get a lot of clicks, I could just put uh polygamy in the title and a bunch of people will watch or just say something uh overtly controversial 0:24:57 - 0:25:22 in the title or say, oh I had a vision of this or um whatever, there's Clickbait things you can do. And when you appeal to people's uh carnal interests and that's what all those things would do. Um You'll get a lot of clicks. But if you overtly demonstrate that what you're about to do is show someone 0:25:22 - 0:25:43 that they're not as good as they thought they were, you're not gonna get any clicks. Right. And that's what I do. Um That's kind of my, my mo is to help people repent, which means to help them see how they can improve in ways that they didn't see before or that they didn't have as many reasons to do 0:25:43 - 0:26:08 before. Um, because that's what it's all about anyway. So those are some thoughts on anti value and I could go on and on and on about this. But I think that's a good sampling and it's enough to get you started and uh to propel you forward in your search for value as I continue to uh raster through these 0:26:08 - 0:26:15 topics and text with hope of releasing them at some point. Take care.