David Byrne Shows How Crises Revive Dormant Ideas From Minsky to Rome

大卫·伯恩剖析危机如何唤醒从明斯基到古罗马的沉睡理念 制度性傲慢与学科壁垒常使突破性概念蒙尘，直到灾难性冲击打破主流预设，才迫使人们重新发现它们。 大卫·伯恩（David Byrne）与乔·威森塔尔（Joe Weisenthal）及特蕾西·阿洛韦（Tracy Alloway）共同探讨了“睡美人”现象——即那些曾湮没无闻，后因危机、代际更迭或重新探索而得以复兴的宝贵理念、艺术品与技术突破。对话梳理了海曼·明斯基（Hyman Minsky）金融不稳定假说的历史轨迹、赫尔曼·梅尔维尔（Herman Melville）在第一次世界大战后的文学复兴，以及麻省理工学院对古罗马自愈混凝土的重新发现。伯恩还反思了自身事业的起伏、歌曲创作的机制，以及当代流媒体与信息过滤机制如何塑造文化发掘过程。这场讨论最终强调了跨学科多元化的价值，并指出了任由革命性思想在专业壁垒中沉沦所带来的隐性经济、人力与艺术代价。 音乐人兼作家大卫·伯恩探讨了“睡美人”这一概念，即起初被忽视或遗忘，后来却在危机、文化转变或技术瓶颈期被重新唤醒的理念、艺术品和技术。 (5:00) 赫尔曼·梅尔维尔的《白鲸》曾遭遇评论与商业上的双重失败并摧毁了他的职业生涯，该作一直沉寂，直到第一次世界大战带来的心理创伤促使文化界重新审视人性的黑暗与自大。 (15:00) 麻省理工学院的材料科学家发现，古罗马混凝土的长久耐用源于石灰碎屑遇水时会溶解并重新结晶，这让古代建筑拥有自愈能力，不同于依赖易生锈钢筋现代波特兰水泥。 (29:45) 伯恩认为，尽管错失艺术层面的“睡美人”会带来难以估量的文化损失，但忽视物质与科学突破——如医疗洗手规范和耐用混凝土——的代价，则可以直接用逝去的生命和浪费的资源来衡量。 (49:15)

In his book Sleeping Beauties: Why Good Ideas Go Dormant and How They Wake Up, artist and author David Byrne argues that valuable intellectual, artistic, and scientific breakthroughs frequently sink into obscurity due to institutional arrogance and modern bias, only to be resurrected when systemic crises expose the shortcomings of prevailing orthodoxies. Crisis as a Catalyst for Revival (0:00) Moments of profound disruption serve as an intellectual clearing by breaking through narrow assumptions and narrowing the authority gap between established experts and newcomers. In economic crises such as the 2008 financial collapse, mainstream observers were forced to revisit previously sidelined frameworks, notably Hyman Minsky's 1960s behavioral hypothesis showing how prolonged stability breeds excessive leverage and eventual fragility. A parallel dynamic governs cultural works like Herman Melville's Moby-Dick. After debuting to commercial failure in 1851—partly due to a British printing that omitted the epilogue explaining Ishmael's survival—the book languished in obscurity for decades. It was only after the unprecedented slaughter of World War I shattered simplistic Victorian optimism that readers rediscovered Melville, finding that his dark, complex allegory resonated with postwar attempts to understand human violence, obsession, and authoritarian leadership. Overcoming Temporal Chauvinism in Material Science (23:45) Byrne identifies "temporal chauvinism"—the dogmatic assumption that modern methods inherently surpass older knowledge—as a primary mechanism burying durable solutions. Ancient Roman concrete enabled unreinforced structures like the Pantheon to endure for two millennia, whereas modern commercial concrete relies on steel rebar that corrodes and limits typical structural lifespans to between 50 and 100 years. Although the architect Vitruvius documented the Roman recipe around 20 BC, production ceased after the Western Roman Empire collapsed and resources shifted away from massive imperial infrastructure. Modern engineers long dismissed white mineral specks in Roman relics as evidence of sloppy mixing. However, materials scientists at MIT demonstrated that these lime clasts actively provide self-healing properties, dissolving and recrystallizing to fill cracks when penetrated by water. This rediscovery has prompted commercial efforts to revive authentic Roman formulations, offering a more durable alternative to carbon-heavy Portland cement. Cultural Cycles and Algorithmic Information Filters (35:00) Aesthetic appreciation fluctuates cyclically over time while the underlying work remains unchanged, a pattern Byrne experienced firsthand during career downturns in the 1990s as well as in the historical reception of painters like Sandro Botticelli. Although digital streaming eliminates the physical barriers that once required collectors to dig through obscure archives—such as Byrne's discovery of Brazilian musician Tom Zé on vinyl—it strips out contextual documentation like liner notes and production credits. Furthermore, the sheer scale of modern digital archives introduces an acute filtering paradox. Drawing an analogy to documented O-ring warnings prior to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, Byrne notes that critical insights can easily remain dormant simply because vast informational noise drowns out essential signals, leaving modern discovery dependent on algorithmic curation. Cross-Disciplinary Pluralism and Pattern Recognition (51:24) Byrne advocates for aggressive cross-disciplinary pluralism to counter the rigid academic and commercial silos that trap dormant ideas. He highlights biological models of cooperation, such as Lynn Margulis's endosymbiosis theory of eukaryotic evolution and Peter Kropotkin's evolutionary writings in Mutual Aid, which show that major breakthroughs often emerge from symbiotic integration rather than purely competitive, zero-sum dynamics. Hosts Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway reflect that modern artificial intelligence could accelerate the unearthing of "sleeping beauties." By analyzing vast, digitized knowledge bases, advanced models can identify isomorphic mathematical and conceptual patterns across disconnected fields, matching unsolved contemporary challenges with forgotten historical solutions. While Byrne notes that resurrections in qualitative cultural fields resist rigid predictive formulas, he emphasizes that the consequences of ignoring material and scientific innovations are starkly measurable in wasted resources and lost lives, as demonstrated by the historical resistance to antiseptic medical hygiene and durable engineering materials.

在彭博《Odd Lots》播客中，音乐人兼作者David Byrne与主持人讨论其著作《睡美人：好想法为何沉睡以及它们如何苏醒》（Sleeping Beauties），探讨为何诸多在经济学、文学与古代工程领域极具价值的思想会沉寂数十年甚至上千年。Byrne指出，制度傲慢、时代偏见与信息壁垒常导致突破性知识被长期埋没，而重大系统性危机、社会创伤与跨学科共生往往成为重新唤醒这些概念的关键催化剂。 危机作为范式转换催化剂与思想唤醒 (0:00) 主持人Joe Weisenthal与Tracy Alloway指出，常规时期主流思维常沿固定轨道前行，但在2008年全球金融危机或新冠疫情等重大破坏发生时，权威专家的认知壁垒迅速瓦解，为被边缘化的理论打开了受众空间。经济学界长期忽视经济学家海曼·明斯基（Hyman Minsky）在20世纪60年代提出的行为金融框架——即市场主体在繁荣期过度加杠杆并忽视潜在脆弱性，使得“稳定性孕育不稳定性”。直到2008年危机爆发，“明斯基时刻”才被主流舆论与经济学界重新验证与采纳。 Byrne进一步以赫尔曼·梅尔维尔（Herman Melville）及其著作《白鲸》（Moby-Dick）为例阐明这一复苏机制。该书在1851年出版初期的英国版本中漏印了叙述者以实玛利幸存的尾声，招致英国评论界对“全员覆灭却有第一人称见证者”的严厉斥责，引发商业惨败，梅尔维尔直至去世前均处于默默无闻中。直到第一次世界大战的惨烈创伤粉碎了西方社会原本简单的英雄主义冒险叙事，战后公众在反思暴力狂热与帝国傲慢时，重新读懂了书中亚哈船长（Captain Ahab）对极权人格的深刻预见，《白鲸》才作为探讨人性暗面的现代经典得以复兴。 古罗马混凝土的技术失落与自愈机制重现 (23:45) Byrne在书中梳理了古代工程材料的兴衰历程。约2000年前建成的罗马万神庙拥有全球最大的无筋混凝土穹顶且至今完好，而现代采用钢筋增强的波特兰水泥结构因水分渗入导致钢筋锈蚀膨胀，设计寿命通常仅有50至100年，同时生产过程伴随极高的能耗与碳排放。古罗马混凝土技术曾依赖中央帝国调配公共资源建造引水道与大型场馆，但随着公元476年西罗马帝国崩溃，其工程传统在欧洲中断。维特鲁威（Vitruvius）在公元前20年左右记录的配方虽在文艺复兴时期被重新发掘，却长期被现代工程师视作历史旧闻，甚至其样本中的白色矿物斑块也被轻慢地归因于古代粗劣的搅拌技术。 直到约15年前，麻省理工学院（MIT）的材料科学家重新检验这些被称为石灰碎屑（lime clasts）的成分，证实外部水分侵入裂缝时会溶解石灰并重新沉积钙质，从而使混凝土具备天然的裂缝“自愈”功能；该团队已于2023年成立衍生商业公司推进产业化。Byrne强调，这种技术遗忘印证了“当代知识必然优于前人”的时间沙文主义偏见；与主观艺术的冷落不同，忽视实用工程与医学突破（如塞麦尔维斯早期提倡洗手防感染遭到拒斥）所造成的代价，可以直接体现为现实生命与资源的巨大损耗。 数字化检索、语境剥离与信息筛选悖论 (40:00) 在探讨文化传播时，主持人与Byrne对比了物理时代与流媒体时代的发现机制。过去发掘先锋音乐或异端哲学需要真实的肉体劳动——跨国旅行、翻阅二手唱片或索取地下厂牌目录，这种方式虽阻力较大，却保留了唱片内页说明与制作名单构成的完整历史语境。而在当今流媒体平台上，海量历史作品与现代流行乐平铺排列，年轻受众摆脱了年代与标签束缚，直接将不同时期的曲目混合收听；去语境化虽然降低了预设立场造成的偏见，却也带来了严重的信息筛选难题。 Byrne引用关于挑战者号航天飞机失事的分析指出，灾难的根源往往不是信息缺失，而是关键的O型环预警淹没在海量运行杂音中而未能被识别。算法推荐并未消除信息过载，反而使真正的偶然发现变得更为困难。此外，文化产品的生命周期常随外部环境而周期性起伏。Byrne以自身经历说明，他在20世纪90年代尝试拉丁节奏遭到美国本土市场抵触，但后来重新在大型场馆演出同一批作品时却再度受到热捧，这表明受众冷遇并不等同于作品本身的失败，创作者需要在坚持艺术探索与体察受众预期之间维持动态校准。 跨学科多元主义与人工智能同构挖掘潜力 (51:24) Byrne在对话中指出，抵抗认知盲区需要推行广泛涉猎的“激进多元主义”（aggressive pluralism）。他结合演化生物学家林恩·马古利斯（Lynn Margulis）提出的线粒体内共生学说，以及克鲁泡特金（Peter Kropotkin）在《互助论》中的论点阐明，超越纯粹达尔文式竞争的合作与共生，往往是系统演进的核心驱动力；瑞士植物学家西蒙·施文德纳（Simon Schwendener）曾因提出地衣是由真菌与藻类共生而遭受同行嘲弄，但历史最终证实了其正确性。这种各自分离的单元通过共生整合成更高层级复杂体的演变规律，同样存在于经济组织与乐队创作之中。 节目结尾处，主持人进一步拓展了跨学科唤醒沉睡知识的路径。人类科研制度习惯于对专业知识进行僵化切分，阻碍了历史经验在实践领域的流动。随着人类知识储备被数字化索引，先进人工智能在模式匹配中的应用展现出特殊潜力。正如早期量化金融曾借用粒子物理学的数学工具一样，现代AI模型具备跨领域识别抽象结构同构（isomorphic pattern）的能力，未来有望在彼此割裂的学科档案间建立映射，系统性唤醒那些被困在专业筒仓中的技术方案。 尽管量化引文指标与算法工具有助于追踪部分沉睡学术成果的复苏轨迹，但Byrne与主持人提醒，如何破除对当代技术的盲目崇拜以及体制化的专业壁垒，仍是发掘被埋没智慧的核心挑战；从古罗马建材到现代宏观经济模型，唯有保持对非主流框架与历史文献的跨学科敬畏，才能在下一次系统性危机到来前储备足够的认知工具。

## Background 本期节目由彭博社（Bloomberg）旗下的《Odd Lots》播客于2026年10月17日发布在各大播客平台。节目简介指出，历史上充满了曾被抛弃却在日后重获关注的思想，本期对话传奇音乐人兼作家大卫·伯恩（David Byrne），围绕他的新书《睡美人：为什么好想法会沉睡，以及它们如何苏醒》（*Sleeping Beauties: Why Good Ideas Go Dormant and How They Wake Up*），深入探讨了梅尔维尔的《白鲸》、经济学家明斯基、失传的古罗马混凝土配方以及流行文化与音乐的周期性复兴。 ## TL;DR 节目围绕“睡美人”——那些曾被长期埋没随后在特定时代契机下被重新唤醒的伟大思想与技术展开讨论。从 2008 年金融危机中重新走红的明斯基理论，到一战后因人性反思而重获文学神坛地位的《白鲸》，再到麻省理工学院近期揭开并实现商业化的古罗马自愈混凝土，嘉宾与主持人深入解构了思想陷入沉睡与复苏的机制。大卫·伯恩还结合自己音乐生涯的大起大落、流媒体时代的文化沉浮，探讨了跨学科与共生思维在打破学科壁垒、重新发掘被遗忘思想中的关键价值，并展望了人工智能在未来跨领域结构匹配中的应用潜力。 ## Atmosphere & style 整场对话充满知性、松弛却又思想火花四溅的氛围，既有财经播客特有的宏观视野，又带着艺术家的敏锐直觉与哲思洞察。主持人 Joe Weisenthal 与 Tracy Alloway 与大卫·伯恩之间的互动默契融洽，时常穿插着对荒诞历史细节的幽默调侃与对自身职业起伏的坦然自省。从硬核的材料工程学到形而上的文学隐喻，听感如同一场在深邃思想森林里漫步的奇妙漫谈，富有启发性且耐人寻味。 ## Bulletin - `00:00` 知名音乐人兼作家大卫·伯恩发布新书《睡美人》，深入剖析“睡美人”（Sleeping Beauties）现象——即好思想在诞生初期被边缘化或遗忘，但历经数十年乃至上百年后因危机或语境转变而被重新唤醒的演进机制。 - `30:00` 麻省理工学院研究发现，古罗马混凝土历经数千年不坏的关键在于其内部的“石灰结核”，遇水后能溶解重结晶实现裂缝自愈，科研团队已于2023年成立商业初创公司将其推向现代建筑市场。 - `00:00` 重大危机往往是唤醒沉睡理论的最强外部催化剂：2008年次贷危机让海曼·明斯基沉睡数十年的金融不稳定假说成为显学，而一战的残酷浩劫则让赫尔曼·梅尔维尔生前惨遭冷落的巨著《白鲸》被奉为文学经典。 - `01:00:00` 人工智能在跨学科模式匹配上展现出巨大潜力，有望通过底层数学与解题结构的同构性打破学科孤岛，实现沉睡思想与历史解决方案的自动化打捞。 ## Key takeaways - `00:00` 系统性危机通过粉碎既有思维惯性并迅速抹平专家与普通人的认知差距，为原本边缘化、被长期遗忘的理论创造了重见天日的“林中空地”。 - `05:00` “睡美人”思想沉睡的根源往往千篇一律，源于机构傲慢、既得利益压制以及“现代人必然比古人更聪明”的时代偏见，但其唤醒往往依赖剧烈的外部环境震荡。 - `05:00` 海曼·明斯基的学术遗产体现了扎实的行为经济学底色，他在20世纪60年代揭示了繁荣期内生性催生过度负债与金融脆弱性的机制，直到2008年次贷危机爆发才获得学界与业界的主流认可。 - `10:00` 梅尔维尔早期凭借《泰皮》等自传性冒险小说大获成功，但受纳撒尼尔·霍桑启发转型哲学寓言创作的《白鲸》却因结构超前和印刷事故在英美市场遭遇毁灭性惨败。 - `15:00` 《白鲸》生前被弃而死后封神，根源在于一战的巨大屠杀粉碎了19世纪的盲目乐观主义，使得梅尔维尔笔下亚哈船长式的极端偏执狂心理成为反思现代极权与人性恶的先见隐喻。 - `25:00` 现代工业波特兰水泥因内置钢筋易受水分侵蚀锈蚀膨胀，额定寿命仅为50至100年，且生产过程产生海量碳排放，与罗马万神殿历经两千年无筋无裂缝的穹顶形成鲜明倒退。 - `30:00` 现代工程师长期将罗马混凝土中的白色小斑点误判为古代搅拌工艺拙劣的缺陷，MIT近年实验证实这些未熟化石灰结核实为自愈核心，打破了现代工业的技术优越感成见。 - `32:30` A24于2023年重映Talking Heads现场影片《别假正经》并引发轰动，佐证了艺术作品物理本体并未改变，改变的是代际交替与受众文化语境的钟摆回摆。 - `35:00` 创作者在面临被市场冷落的周期时，应秉持“别往心里去”的职业心态坚持前行，同时警惕在追求自我突破与彻底背离受众期待之间找到动态校准。 - `40:00` 流媒体时代虽消除了寻找小众异端文化的物理门槛，并培育出跨代际融合的杂糅审美，但也剥离了以唱片内页文案为代表的制作与历史语境信息。 - `45:00` 海量内容高可得性引发了严重的“过滤器问题”，正如挑战者号失事暴露出关键警示被数据洪流淹没，优秀思想当下面临的核心瓶颈不再是信息稀缺而是无法穿透算法噪音。 - `49:15` 科学与技术理念被冷落的实际代价往往是极其血腥且沉重的，如医学界推行洗手常识的迟缓导致产妇大批丧命，忽视罗马混凝土配方则加剧了现代高碳排放与基建损耗。 - `51:41` 从马古利斯的内共生学说到克鲁泡特金的互助论，生物与智力演化正日益被重新理解为共生融合而非单一的达尔文式竞争突变，个体通过共生重组构筑出更高级的运行单元。 - `55:00` 人类根深蒂固的信息分类本能造成了学科知识孤岛，唯有打破狭隘壁垒、采用激进多元主义视角，并在AI辅助下进行深层结构同构匹配，才能有效捞起更多沉睡的智慧。 ## Detailed walkthrough ### `00:00` 危机作为思想的林中空地与“明斯基时刻”的复兴 节目伊始，Joe Weisenthal 与 Tracy Holloway 探讨了重大动荡时期思想认知的转变机制。Joe 指出，每逢金融危机或 COVID-19 疫情等历史转折点，环境就会发生剧烈变化，宛如在原本狭窄的森林小径旁骤然出现了一片空地。在常规时期，人们沿着既定路径前行并依赖某些固定观念；而一旦系统崩塌，既没有现成的专家能够完全掌控全局，最博学的人与普通人之间的认知差距也会迅速收窄，进而催生出对新理念的迫切需求。Tracy 赞同并补充道，危机带来了一种认知上的“平民化过程”——2008 年金融危机爆发时，他们刚刚步入财经新闻行业，却发现自己与那些报道银行业数十年的资深同行几乎站在了同一条起跑线上。 正是在这种旧范式失效的真空期，长期被主流边缘化乃至遗忘的理论得以重见天日。最典型的例证便是经济学家海曼·明斯基（Hyman Minsky）及其学术遗产。主流经济学界与金融界曾长期弃置明斯基的观点，直到 2008 年次贷危机全面爆发，“明斯基时刻”（Minsky Moment）这一概念才迅猛席卷媒体与学界。Tracy 回忆称，自己 2008 年 9 月入行时这个词已随处可见，后续甚至泛滥成一种财经新闻陈词滥调。然而鲜为人知的是，在此之前，明斯基的整套理论体系曾沉睡了数十年。带着对被遗忘思想如何苏醒的疑问，本期节目请来了知名音乐人、作家大卫·伯恩（David Byrne），探讨他的新书《睡美人：为什么好想法会沉睡，以及它们如何苏醒》（*Sleeping Beauties: Why Good Ideas Go Dormant and How They Wake Up*）。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 危机中的思想复兴机制 accDescr: 展示危机如何打破常规思维路径并促成边缘或被遗忘思想的重新崛起 subgraph Normal ["常规稳定时期"] A["狭窄的思维惯性路径"] --> B["主流理论与既有共识主导"] C["非主流与边缘观点被长期搁置"] end subgraph Disruption ["突发重大危机（如 2008 年金融海啸）"] D["旧范式崩溃：林中空地显现"] E["专业认知差距瞬间抹平"] end subgraph Revival ["思想唤醒与再发现"] F["寻找新解释方案"] G["被遗忘理论复兴：如明斯基理论"] end Normal --> Disruption Disruption --> Revival ``` ### `05:00` 何为“睡美人”：从遗忘机制到明斯基的行为经济学洞见 大卫·伯恩在开场时阐明了“睡美人”（Sleeping Beauty）这一概念的核心定义。该词并非他首创，而是用来指代那些在最初问世时曾引起过些许关注，但随后便淡出公众视野、逐渐沉入水面之下的思想、艺术品、作家或学者。直到很久之后，由于特定环境契机，它们被重新发掘并引发共鸣，人们才惊呼其惊人的现实相关性。大卫·伯恩特别强调，他的研究重点不是“思想为何被遗忘”，而是“它们究竟如何被重新唤醒”。正如他所言： > “如果能够找出它们是如何被重新发掘的，我们就有机会顺藤摸瓜，去找出那些至今仍被掩埋在外的遗珠，那里肯定还有很多。” 关于被遗忘的原因，伯恩指出背后的叙事往往千篇一律——机构的傲慢、种族主义、性别歧视，抑或是当代人盲目自大地认为前人一无所知。相比之下，重大灾难（包括战争与经济崩溃）往往成为最强大的外部唤醒媒介。以海曼·明斯基为例，其关键工作主要开展于 20 世纪 60 年代，带有鲜明的行为经济学底色。明斯基直言人类并非完全理性的经济动物，也不会始终按照自身的最大利益行事：在顺风顺水的繁荣期，市场主体倾向于假设繁荣将永久持续，不断加杠杆、扩大投资，对潜伏的危险信号视而不见，直至脆弱性累积到临界点。此外，伯恩还分享了一则轶事：明斯基携家人前往意大利度假时，并未忙着打卡旅游名胜，而是走街串巷采访当地小商贩，探寻底层经济微观运转的真实逻辑。这种对微观运转刨根问底的“职业病”引来了 Joe 和 Tracy 的极度共鸣，也顺势引出了书中涵盖的《白鲸》（*Moby-Dick*）以及古罗马混凝土配方等其他典型“睡美人”案例。 - **睡美人的核心特质**：诞生初期曾有短暂曝光，后长期沉寂甚至彻底被弃，历经数十年乃至上百年后因新的时代语境（尤其是灾难与危机）被重新唤起。 - **明斯基的实地研究作风**：在意大利度假期间专注于访谈街头小商家，探究其实际经营状况与微观运行机制，而非纸上谈兵。 - **书中涵盖的标志性案例**：除经济学家海曼·明斯基外，还深入探讨了赫尔曼·梅尔维尔的文学巨著《白鲸》以及失传数千年的古罗马混凝土配方。 ### `10:00` 写作《睡美人》的构想与赫尔曼·梅尔维尔的南太平洋奇遇 在讨论如何总结提炼发掘被遗忘思想的普遍规律前，主持人向大卫·伯恩（David Byrne）询问了新书《睡美人：为何好点子会陷入沉睡以及它们如何苏醒》（*Sleeping Beauties: Why Good Ideas Go Dormant and How They Wake Up*）的创作与筛选过程。世界上存在成千上万个沉睡的点子，伯恩解释道，他的方法是先把素材写成初稿，随后发现这些案例会自然归入不同的“重新被发现与铭记”的机制类别中。他并不追求面面俱到，只要每个类别选出一组具有代表性的优质样本即可。激发他研究动力的往往是某些文章中漫不经心的一句话——比如在谈论作家赫尔曼·梅尔维尔（Herman Melville）时，作者往往轻描淡写地带过一句“《白鲸》（*Moby-Dick*）遭遇了惨败，他晚年在穷困潦倒中死去”，接着就转去讨论其他话题。伯恩对此大为震惊：“‘等等，你们把最重要的核心导语（lead）给埋没了！从我的角度来看，那才是真正的故事：这到底是怎么发生的？因为如今那部作品可是受到全世界膜拜的。’” 谈及梅尔维尔本人的早年经历，伯恩指出，真实经历甚至比小说更精彩。在全职写作之前，梅尔维尔曾作为商船水手出海，前往南太平洋等地捕鲸。那是一段极其残酷、非人的折磨体验。梅尔维尔最终和几名同伴决定在一座岛屿上弃船逃跑。那座岛屿风景绝美，唯一的缺陷是上面居住着食人族。逃离食人族后，他又流落到另一座岛屿上当起了种土豆的农夫，随后登上了另一艘船并辗转抵达夏威夷。然而，他当初逃离的第一艘船也停靠到了夏威夷，原船长当场将他逮捕，指控他犯有逃兵罪，在那个时代他根本无从抗辩。 亲身经历了鞭刑、恶劣的环境、残酷的虐待以及近乎疯狂的船长之后，梅尔维尔将这些真实见闻写成了第一部小说《泰皮》（*Typee*）。起初美国出版商认为书里的内容太过荒诞离奇，断定不可能发生；直到英国有人出面证实这些骇人听闻的残酷经历完全属实，小说才得以出版并迅速成为超级畅销书。随后，他又顺理成章地撰写了续作《欧穆》（*Omoo*），同样大获成功。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 梅尔维尔早年经历与创作轨迹 accDescr: 从出海捕鲸、荒岛逃亡到撰写畅销冒险小说，再到受霍桑启发转型严肃文学的过程 subgraph Maritime ["海上历险与逃亡"] A["商船水手 / 捕鲸船经历"] -->|"遭遇非人虐待与鞭刑"| B["荒岛跳船逃跑（食人族岛屿）"] B --> C["辗转海岛务农并流落夏威夷"] C -->|"遭原船抓捕"| D["积累真实海航素材"] end subgraph Success ["初期商业成功"] D --> E["出版自传式小说《泰皮》成为畅销书"] E --> F["撰写续作《欧穆》再获成功"] end subgraph Shift ["创作理念转型"] F --> G["结识作家纳撒尼尔·霍桑"] G -->|"建议脱离纯冒险故事，增加寓言性与幻想色彩"| H["动笔创作《白鲸》"] end ``` - 梅尔维尔早年在南太平洋商船上的水手生活充满身体虐待、极度恶劣的环境以及狂暴疯狂的船长。 - 逃亡途中，他在风景如画但潜伏着食人族的岛屿历险，后又在另一处海岛上靠种植土豆维生。 - 其处女作《泰皮》因内容过分惊险最初遭美国出版商质疑，在英国证人证实后出版并一举引发轰动。 - 随后出版的续集《欧穆》同样围绕南太平洋岛屿冒险展开，进一步巩固了他的通俗文学声誉。 --- ### `15:00` 《白鲸》的灾难性首发与一战后的现代重生 在写完前两部畅销书后，梅尔维尔不愿继续重复单纯的冒险故事。他在马萨诸塞州结识了著名作家纳撒尼尔·霍桑（Nathaniel Hawthorne）。霍桑建议他下一部作品应当以真实经验为基础，但风格应更具寓言性与哲学幻想色彩，而不仅仅是一部打发时间的冒险读物。梅尔维尔采纳了建议，花费大量笔墨详细描绘航海绳结与海洋细节，并创作了最初名为《鲸》（*The Whale*）的作品——也就是后来的《白鲸》（*Moby-Dick*）。 然而这部作品在商业和口碑上迎来了彻底的崩盘。在英国出版时，全书仅卖出约500本左右。雪上加霜的是，英国版印刷时遗漏了最后的尾声（Epilogue）——即主人公以实玛利（Ishmael）幸存获救的情节。当时的英国书评人发起了猛烈攻击，指责全书所有角色无一生还，却采用第一人称视角叙事，从逻辑上根本不成立：“‘这完全是一条写作禁忌，哪怕我们之前不知道有这条规则，你也绝不能这么干：全员皆亡，那这本书到底是谁写的？是谁亲眼见证的？’”由于当时的美国文学界对英国评论界盲目崇拜，即便后来补上了尾声，负面评价的风向已无法挽回。梅尔维尔身心交瘁，甚至痛苦地向霍桑抱怨对方彻底毁了自己。此后他转向严肃与小众创作，包括一部从南北战争双方视角审视战争屠杀的史诗长诗，反响寥寥；他的遗作《比利·巴德》（*Billy Budd*）在其去世后才在家中的面包盒里被发现。到19世纪末，梅尔维尔几乎完全被世人遗忘，当英国有人想撰写关于他的文章向美国同行打听时，对方甚至不知道他是否还在人世。 《白鲸》的苏醒契机出现在第一次世界大战之后。大战带来了前所未有的浩劫、杀戮与流血惨剧，摧毁了过去以西部拓荒和海上探险为代表的盲目乐观主义。人们开始陷入深刻的自我怀疑，迫切地追问：“‘我们究竟怎么了？是什么样的人性与心理构造驱使我们做出这种事？’”梅尔维尔在半个世纪前写下的关于种族、殖民主义、人性阴暗面以及近乎疯狂的偏执狂心理分析，恰恰解答了一战后整整一代人的困惑，《白鲸》由此被时代重新唤醒，最终被确立为美国文学史上最伟大的巨著。 - 英国首发时惨淡售出约500册，因出版疏漏丢失了以实玛利生还的尾声，导致第一人称视角的合理性遭到猛烈抨击。 - 梅尔维尔晚期作品日趋边缘化，描写南北战争惨烈杀戮的史诗长诗反响平平，遗作《比利·巴德》死后才在面包盒中被找到。 - 19世纪末期，梅尔维尔在公众视野中彻底销声匿迹，文学界甚至无人知晓其生死。 - 第一次世界大战爆发彻底击碎了传统英雄主义叙事，人们开始向内反思人性的疯狂与自毁倾向，使得沉睡数十年的《白鲸》重新焕发力量。 ### `20:00` 商业赞助与《白鲸》中的先知隐喻 本节开头穿插了 ChatGPT（Work Mode 功能）、Kesimpta（奥法妥木单抗，Jamie Lynn Sigler 代言的治疗多发性硬化症药物）以及面向小企业的财务管理与自动化平台 Xero 的播客赞助广告。随后，对话切入正题，主持人重提自己极度钟爱的一本书——C.L.R. 詹姆斯（C.L.R. James）所著的《水手、叛徒与漂泊者：赫尔曼·麦尔维尔的故事与我们生活的世界》（*Mariners, Renegades, and Castaways: The Story of Herman Melville and the World We Live in*）。主持人指出，詹姆斯在书中深入分析了麦尔维尔创造（或可以说发现）的亚哈船长（Captain Ahab）这一形象。亚哈船长的狂热偏执本质上预见了 20 世纪那些大独裁者，比如希特勒和斯大林；麦尔维尔在某种意义上早已看清了这种极权主义“新人”的雏形，后世极权人物的出现反过来让《白鲸》变成了一本令人无法释卷的必读之作。 大卫·伯恩（David Byrne）对此深表认同，但他澄清自己并不认为作家拥有预知未来的超自然能力，而是他们具备洞察人类人性的敏锐眼光。麦尔维尔在海上经历了大量不可思议的遭遇，见识过形形色色卑鄙险恶的人，他将这些经验内化，看清了恶也是人类本质的一部分。当人类在经历第一次世界大战并目睹文明堕入深渊后，人们才蓦然回首：“我们能否理解自身，从而阻止这种悲剧再次重演？” - 主持人引述 C.L.R. 詹姆斯的论点：亚哈船长的狂热象征着 20 世纪极权统治者的前身。 - 大卫·伯恩评价文学的先见之明：“我不相信像那样的作家能够预测未来，但我确实认为他们能够看清我们身上的某些本质。”（“I don't believe that somebody like an author like that can predict the future. But I do think they kind of — they can see something in ourselves.”） --- ### `25:00` 现代混凝土的寿命陷阱与罗马配方的消亡 对话转向了两人都极为着迷的话题——混凝土。主持人回忆自己年轻时前往印度或缅甸等偏远地区旅行，路边最密集的广告牌竟然全是混凝土品牌，这在欧美国家几乎不可想象。伯恩表示自己也有类似经历，许多地方原本优美独特的本土民居被像碉堡一样丑陋的现代混凝土建筑所取代，而这种材料却被包装为“现代化”的象征。伯恩提到书中一位来自迈阿密大学、原籍立陶宛的学者回忆称，在苏联时期的东欧，混凝土被大力宣传为未来生活的代名词：它意味着垃圾管道、洁净的厨房和宽大的窗户，告别破旧的老宅，迈向现代生活。 然而，现代混凝土与古罗马混凝土相比却存在巨大的质量倒退。伯恩以罗马万神殿（Pantheon）为例，这座拥有 2000 年历史的宏伟神庙至今仍保持着世界上最大的无筋混凝土穹顶记录，且历经两千年毫无裂痕。反观现代用于建造停车场、桥梁和高楼的钢筋混凝土，生产厂家自己给出的额定使用寿命也仅仅只有 50 年，运气好也顶多撑到 100 年。罗马帝国时期，混凝土是极其昂贵的国家工程产物，修建万神殿、罗马斗兽场和高架引水桥需要耗费惊人的财力与人力。随着帝国扩张，边疆资源捉襟见肘，许多偏远行省（例如建造君士坦丁堡圣索菲亚大教堂的工匠）更习惯使用砖石与砂浆，并不热衷于混凝土。约在公元 470 年西罗马帝国崩溃后，昂贵的罗马混凝土配方随之被弃用，并在欧洲陷入长达千年的沉睡。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 混凝土技术演变对比 accDescr: 展示古罗马自愈混凝土与现代钢筋混凝土的技术断代与差异 subgraph Roman["古罗马混凝土"] R1["公元前20年: 维特鲁威记载配方"] --> R2["2000年历史万神殿: 无钢筋却无裂缝"] R2 --> R3["公元470年帝国崩溃: 耗资巨大导致配方沉睡"] end subgraph Modern["现代波特兰水泥"] M1["19世纪英国发明波特兰水泥"] --> M2["法国发明加入钢筋增强抗拉强度"] M2 --> M3["现代广泛应用: 额定寿命仅50-100年"] end ``` - 罗马万神殿的穹顶没有使用任何钢筋，伫立 2000 年仍无裂缝。 - 现代商用钢筋混凝土的标准设计寿命为 50 年，极少数能维持约 100 年。 - 建筑师维特鲁威（Vitruvius）早在约公元前 20 年就在建筑学著作中记载了混凝土的制作配方；该书在 15 世纪文艺复兴时期被重新发掘，但当时帕拉第奥（Palladio）等建筑大师仅从中借鉴了比例美学，将混凝土视作历史陈迹未予复原。 - 19 世纪英国人发明了波特兰水泥（Portland Cement）并建立工厂；约 30 年后法国发明家提出了在混凝土中加入钢筋以提升抗拉强度的专利，奠定了现代工业建筑的基础。 - 现代波特兰水泥在生产中消耗巨大的能量，并释放出海量二氧化碳。 --- ### `30:00` 白垩斑点之谜：MIT 揭示的罗马混凝土自愈秘密 现代人在复原罗马技术时长期存在严重的认知偏见。过去人们普遍认为，罗马混凝土之所以牢固，纯粹是因为使用了维苏威火山（Mount Vesuvius）独有的火山灰这一“秘密原料”，其他地方无法复制；与此同时，现代工程师看到罗马混凝土内部散布着大量微小的白色颗粒时，盲目自大地下结论认为那是古代混合搅拌技术落后的证据。大卫·伯恩讽刺道，这种“我们懂得一定比古人多、比前人聪明”的偏见，恰恰暴露了人类非理性的一面。 大约 15 年前，麻省理工学院（MIT）的材料科学家开始系统研究这些被称为“石灰结核”（lime clasts）的白色小斑点。实验结果颠覆了认知：当水渗入现代钢筋混凝土时，水分不仅会引发冻融裂缝，更会接触到内部钢筋，导致钢筋生锈膨胀，从而将混凝土由内向外彻底撑裂；而当水渗入罗马混凝土的裂隙时，这些白色的石灰颗粒会自动溶解，发生化学反应重新结晶并填补缝隙，实现神奇的“自愈”（self-healing）。基于这一突破性发现，MIT 的科研团队于 2023 年创立了商业化公司，正式重新按古法生产罗马混凝土。 ```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: 罗马混凝土与现代混凝土遇水反应机制 accDescr: 比较水渗入现代钢筋混凝土与罗马混凝土后产生的不同后果 subgraph Concrete_Water["水分渗入裂缝"] W["水分/雨水进入"] end subgraph Modern_Failure["现代钢筋混凝土"] W --> M_Rust["接触钢筋引发锈蚀"] M_Rust --> M_Expand["锈蚀金属体积膨胀"] M_Expand --> M_Crack["内部结构胀裂/寿命终结"] end subgraph Roman_Healing["罗马石灰混凝土"] W --> R_Dissolve["白色石灰结核溶解"] R_Dissolve --> R_Reaction["矿物质重新结晶沉淀"] R_Reaction --> R_Heal["裂缝完成自动愈合"] end ``` - 关于现代人的技术优越感，大卫·伯恩评价道：“基本上就是认为我们更优秀。这是我们的一种偏见或成见——总觉得自己所知的一定比过去的任何人更好、更聪明。这只是我们能有多么不理性的又一个例子。”（“Basically, ours is better. It's kind of a bias, prejudice, whatever that we have that whatever we know is better than and smarter than whoever went before. That's just another example of how irrational we can be.”） - 现代混凝土的致命死穴：水分导致内置钢筋生锈膨胀，裂纹恶化。 - 罗马配方的自愈机制：被称为石灰结核（lime clasts）的未熟化生石灰块在遇水后溶解并自发重结晶，愈合裂纹。 - 商业落地：MIT 研究人员于 2023 年正式成立初创公司，将这种自愈合古代配方推向现代建筑市场。 --- ### `32:30` 文化沉睡与复苏：大卫·伯恩的艺术起伏与《别假正经》 主持人将“睡美人”这一概念从材料科学延伸至文化艺术领域。2023 年，独立电影制作与发行公司 A24 修复并全球重映了传唱摇滚乐队（Talking Heads）于 1984 年拍摄的经典演唱会电影《别假正经》（*Stop Making Sense*），该片引发了轰动，让完全没有经历过那个时代的新生代年轻听众重新为 Talking Heads 的音乐所倾倒。主持人询问伯恩，这算不算是他亲身经历的一个“睡美人”文化案例，当自己的艺术资产在数十年后突然重新爆发，他究竟是何种感受。 大卫·伯恩坦然承认这确实带来了关注度的激增。他感慨自己从事音乐行业的时间足够漫长，早已完整见证了职业生涯的几度沉浮。早在 20 世纪 90 年代，无论是因为自己探索的音乐风格变化还是时代潮流转换，他的声望曾跌入低谷，不得不重新回到容纳几百人的小型俱乐部演出，而此前他早已能在万人级的大型场馆巡演。如今，随着旧作的重获青睐，他又重新回到了大型舞台。面对这种戏剧性的起伏，伯恩感到欣慰，但也带着一丝冷眼旁观的豁达——因为他发现自己其实在舞台上演绎的是同一批歌曲，音乐的内核并未改变，改变的只是外在世界对它的感知与接受度。 - A24 在 2023 年修复重映了 Talking Heads 1984 年的现场音乐电影《别假正经》（*Stop Making Sense*），掀起新一代观众的狂热追捧。 - 伯恩回顾 1990 年代事业低谷，当时他从万人体育馆跌落回小型俱乐部卖艺，但多年后依然凭借相同的曲目重回大型舞台。 ### `35:00` 经历过气与创作摇摆：语境变迁下的自我校准 David Byrne 阐述了事物本身并没有改变，改变的往往是外部环境——包括受众、人口结构以及世代交替等背景语境。就像他在新书《睡美人：好点子为何沉睡又如何苏醒》（Sleeping Beauties: Why Good Ideas Go Dormant and How They Wake Up）中谈到的众多案例一样，波提切利（Sandro Botticelli）的画作几个世纪以来本身并未发生变化，但它们却在历史上反反复复地流行与过气。Byrne 坦言自己对这种起伏深有体会。主持人问及“过气”究竟是何种感受，以及随着周期的再次回转，当意识到潮流宛如钟摆时，内心是否会变得更加释然与从容。 对此，Byrne 坚定地表示，一旦经历过一次，当下一次低谷再次来袭时，你就能看开许多，并且“不要把它归咎于个人原因”（Don't take it personally）。他认为作品本身可能非常优秀，即便当时做出的东西可能平庸甚至糟糕，也绝不能轻易断定作品遇冷就代表质量低下。回想身处低谷的岁月，Byrne 强调当时唯一的办法就是埋头硬撑（slog on）、咬牙继续做下去；尽管如果在缺乏收入的情况下持续探底会面临严峻的现实问题，但在很大程度上，“你只能选择继续前行”。 主持人进一步追问了一个创作者和职场人士普遍面临的困境：当作品反响不如预期时，人们总容易归咎于外部因素，比如抱怨受众还没准备好、不懂欣赏，甚至陷入“不是我落伍，而是现在的孩子们错了”的借口；那么该如何区分究竟是时运不齐，还是自己确实没有创作出能与受众共鸣的作品？Byrne 直言“这两者往往兼而有之”。他以自己当年的经历为例：在某个时期，他与众多拉丁音乐家合作录制了几张充满拉丁律动的唱片，自己玩得非常尽兴，在拉丁美洲和欧洲部分地区也反响极佳；然而在美国本土，听众却觉得遭到了背叛，抱怨“这不是我们想从你身上听到的东西”。这让 Byrne 意识到彻底背离受众的预期注定行不通，创作者需要做出一定的自我校准与调和。 > “I do understand that, yeah, if you completely betray what your audience is expecting or hoping for, that's not going to — but there's a way to still do something interesting, something exciting, and acknowledge a little bit what they're hoping for.” —— David Byrne - 波提切利画作的受捧与冷落证明了：作品实体不变，变化的是外部社会的审美与语境。 - 面对市场的冷落，Byrne 坚持的信条是“别往心里去”（Don't take this personally），不要盲目推定没人买账就等同于作品拙劣。 - Byrne 探索拉丁音乐风格时遭遇了明显的地域与受众分化：拉美与欧洲反应热烈，但美国本土乐迷却认为他背叛了固有的音乐形象。 --- ### `40:00` 物理搜寻的消逝与流媒体时代的“睡美人”重见天日 对话切入到 Byrne 新书第一章中关于巴西音乐家汤姆·泽（Tom Zé）的故事。当年 Byrne 前往巴西，有人抱来一大叠唱片供他翻阅，其中一张唱片封面与众不同，Byrne 试听后惊为天人。虽然当时几乎无人知晓 Tom Zé，但 Byrne 最终通过自己的音乐厂牌将其重新推向大众并使其再度走红。主持人对比指出，在过去的时代，寻找任何前卫事物（无论是前卫音乐还是非正统政治哲学）都极其艰难：想读异端政治思想得去偏僻的小书店，想找独立音乐甚至得亲笔给唱片厂牌写信索取实体邮购目录，很多时候必须亲自跋涉到特定地点（如 Byrne 远赴巴西）。然而如今在 Spotify 上，主流流行歌手与极度先锋的音乐人之间仅隔着一次搜索。主持人询问：当挖掘“睡美人”的物理限制被彻底消除后，人们发现作品的方式发生了怎样的改变？ Byrne 对这一观点既表示赞同，同时也提出了自己的反思。他认为，并非所有事物都已经被数字化或上传到了网络。他提及著名记者鲍勃·伍德沃德（Bob Woodward）在为新书做调研时的一段轶事：伍德沃德意识到某些关键资料仅存在于某人的地下室里，装在满满几个大盒子的实体文件档案中；即使互联网时代早已到来，那些资料依然没有被数字化，研究者依然必须亲自下到地下室里去翻找。因此 Byrne 指出，现实中依然有许多宝贵的东西深藏不露。 然而，在流媒体音乐和电影领域，Byrne 承认数字化彻底重构了年轻一代的听歌习惯。现在的年轻人如果对老旧的事物产生兴趣，只需要轻轻一点就能收听并直接加入播放列表；他们的歌单里常常混杂着跨越数个年代、截然不同的音乐风格，这完全出于纯粹的喜爱，而不是为了追逐当下所谓的潮流趋势。不过，这种转变也带来了缺失：流媒体平台上提供的信息极度匮乏，昔日购买黑胶唱片时仔细阅读内页文案（liner notes）、查看制作人、词曲作者和封面视觉艺术的乐趣几乎不复存在。但 Byrne 同时也指出，这种缺乏背景信息的状态也有其独特的优势——当听众对创作者的背景一无所知时，反而不会被既有的标签或偏见所劝退。 > “I think not everything is on streaming or on the internet.” —— David Byrne ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 音乐发掘模式的历史变迁 accDescr: 对比传统实体时代与现代流媒体时代音乐发掘在搜寻方式、信息载体及受众体验上的差异。 subgraph PAST["传统物理时代 (Physical Era)"] A["高物理门槛<br/>(远赴异国/翻找书店/邮寄信件)"] B["丰富实物载体<br/>(唱片内页/制作名单/封面艺术)"] A --> B end subgraph PRESENT["现代流媒体时代 (Streaming Era)"] C["即时检索<br/>(一键搜索/算法推荐)"] D["跨流派杂糅歌单<br/>(打破年代边界/纯粹兴趣驱动)"] E["背景信息缺失<br/>(弱化制作信息/消除固有偏见)"] C --> D C --> E end PAST -.->|"数字化转型"| PRESENT ``` - Byrne 创办的唱片厂牌通过在巴西当地发掘唱片，成功将沉寂已久的巴西先驱音乐家 Tom Zé 重新推向世界舞台。 - 实体时代探索先锋文化需要极高的物理成本，如写信索取目录、淘二手唱片或亲历偏僻书店。 - Byrne 引用 Bob Woodward 的调查经历作为论据，说明大量未被数字化的历史文献依然深藏于地下室与档案盒中，互联网并未囊括一切。 - 流媒体时代打破了音乐的时代与风格藩篱，但也剥离了以唱片内页文案（liner notes）为代表的背景信息体验。 ### `45:00` 信息过载与“过滤器问题”：好想法如何在海量内容中被湮没 随着互联网与流媒体服务的普及，文化内容在脱离了原始语境后更容易被直接接触。受众不再需要知道一首歌是何时、如何创作的，或是当年获得了怎样的反响，只需以一种近乎“盲听”的状态去体会自己是否喜欢。然而，硬币的另一面是，全部信息的高可得性反而让“发现”（discovery）变得更加困难。 主持人在节目中分享了自己最近在洛杉矶郊区一家提基酒吧（tiki bar）的偶遇：酒吧里当时播放着一个“闹鬼冲浪提基”（haunted surf tiki）风格的歌单。在流媒体平台上，如果不主动输入特定关键词，普通用户根本无从知晓世界上还存在这种万圣节冲浪摇滚的细分流派；算法只会按既定轨道推荐成百上千首同质化的热门歌曲。这直接引发了一个探讨：在被过量信息与内容淹没的今天，旧思想的重新发掘究竟面临着什么？ David Byrne 赞同这一观察，并指出这种现象在历史上屡见不鲜。他在做相关研究时注意到，前美国国务卿康多莉扎·赖斯（Condoleezza Rice）在分析“挑战者号”航天飞机失事时曾指出，这场悲剧在很大程度上是一个“过滤器问题”（filter problem）。关于 O 型密封圈（O-rings）存在隐患的警告和数据早就摆在那里，并非无人知晓，“信息并不是不存在，它就在那里；但当信息量如此庞大，以至于它无法跳出来对你大喊‘看这边，注意这个’时，即使它们一直都在，你也依然会错过”。 ### `47:11` 音乐创作的物理质感：移调、吉他共鸣与人声的“最佳甜蜜点” 谈话转向了音乐人之间的纯技术探讨。主持人提到自己也有一支演奏经典/正统乡村音乐的乐队，由于自认吉他水平有限，写歌时往往固定使用 G 大调或 C 大调这类简单指法。他好奇地向 David Byrne 提问：在创作过程中，如果把一首歌移调（transpose）到不同的音阶，这首歌的内在特质是否会发生根本改变？ David Byrne 坦言，自己也是到了相对近期的创作阶段才意识到移调的奇妙作用。在写歌时，不断尝试将调性调高或调低，“你可以换到另一个调上，试着唱高一点，或者唱低一点，在不同的音高区间尝试，直到某刻你撞上它，心里惊呼：‘啊，这正是我嗓音的最佳甜蜜点（sweet spot）！’” 针对“移调后歌曲本身是否还是同一首歌”的问题，Byrne 分析了乐器物理层面的影响： - **开放弦与共鸣**：以吉他上的 G 和弦为例，由于包含多根未按弦的开放弦（open strings），弹奏下去会产生极其开阔、持久的泛音共鸣；而如果换成降 B 和弦（B-flat）这类封闭和弦，琴体振动和回响就会完全不同。 - **物理与音符排列**：即便通过使用变音夹（capo）去改变吉他琴颈的有效品位来还原开放弦效果，不同调式下吉他或钢琴上音符堆叠（voicing）的结构变化，依然会给演奏者和听众带来截然不同的情绪质感。 ### `49:15` 错失好想法的真实代价：从艺术遗憾到洗手救命与罗马混凝土 探讨进一步深入到“未能在当时识别出好点子”所付出的实际代价。文化艺术与科学技术在这一维度上展现出截然不同的代价衡量标准：在音乐或艺术领域，一位天才在当代被埋没，损失的是该作品可能带给世人的精神愉悦、心理疗愈和认知洞见，而这些体验是极其难以量化评估的。 但在物质与现实科学领域，未能识别先进理念所带来的代价则是血淋淋且极易量化的： - **医学卫生的代价**：在关于倡导洗手的历史故事中，产妇和病人仅仅因为医生不洗手而大批死亡。推行洗手这一简单常识的滞后，代价是成千上万原本可以挽救的鲜活生命。 - **工程建筑的代价**：如果世人能更早重新采纳古罗马混凝土的耐久配方，人类就可以造出寿命更长、耗能更少、碳排放更低的建筑，从而显著减缓全球变暖并节省天文数字般的维护成本。 ### `51:41` 警惕“沉睡的丑八怪”：内共生、无政府主义合作与共生演化 为了发掘被埋没的智慧，个体往往需要保持一种“激进的多元主义”（aggressively pluralistic）阅读习惯，跳出自己的专业舒适圈。然而，主持人提出了一个认知陷阱：当人的大脑极度擅长将一切知识“过度隐喻化”（over-metaphorizing）时，我们很容易产生一种错觉，觉得读到的每一本旧书都能完美对应当前局势，进而挖出一些生搬硬套的“沉睡丑八怪”（sleeping uglies）。 David Byrne 笑着承认自己也经常这样做，但他认为这种跨领域的类比思维大有裨益，并列举了科学史上的典型案例： ```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: 内共生与共生演化机制 accDescr: 展示原始生物与细菌共生融合成线粒体，进而形成全新演化单元的循环过程 subgraph Symbiosis["共生融合阶段"] A["早期生物体 (Thing A)"] B["外来细菌 (Thing B)"] A <-->|"共生合作"| B end subgraph Integration["演化飞跃阶段"] C["内共生融合体<br/>(产生线粒体供能)"] D["新物种基础单元<br/>(New Thing A)"] end Symbiosis --> C C --> D D -.->|"开启下一轮演化"| Symbiosis ``` - **内共生学说（Endosymbiotic Theory）**：女科学家（注：琳·马古利斯 Lynn Margulis）提出并最终被证实的理论表明，动植物细胞实际上是由远古宿主生物与细菌共生融合演变而来的。进入细胞内部的细菌最终变成了负责利用氧气和光能提供能量的线粒体。这一数亿年前的演化跃迁证明，合作在演化中扮演了关键角色。 - **克鲁泡特金（Peter Kropotkin）的互助论**：这位俄国演化论者与无政府主义哲学家早在多年前就提出，“合作有时是比竞争更好的策略（Sometimes cooperation is a better strategy than competition）”。Byrne 坦言自己当时立刻将这一概念当作隐喻模板，到处剪切粘贴以观察其解释力。 - **地衣的共生发现**：早期指出地衣其实是真菌与藻类共生体的学者，其观点在当时甚至荒唐到使他自己的名字在学术界变成了同行用来骂人的侮辱性词汇，然而历史最终证明他是对的。 - **共生演化与智能的本质**：结合当前大火的 AI 浪潮，主持人和 Byrne 探讨了《What is Intelligence?》一书的观点。该书指出演化本质上是“共同演化”（co-evolution）——事物 A 与事物 B 碰撞融合，如果产生良性运作，就会升格为一个更大的全新基础单元 A，再去与新的事物 B 融合，生命的演进与智能的涌现正是在这种层层递进的合作结构中得以发生。 ### `55:00` 共生、跨学科与唤醒“睡美人”的线索 讨论首先聚焦于世界复杂性的演进逻辑。传统的达尔文演化观往往强调随机突变，但对话指出，复杂性的增长或许并非完全由随机性驱动，而是表现出更有序、更具结构性的特征：新事物的涌现源于共生过程中的紧密合作。当不同个体在合作中形成共生关系时，这种结合体便成了全新的生命单位或经济单位。正如最初是单独的音乐人，后来乐队成为了一个独立的经济与创作单元。这种将共生与合作视作推动生命和创造力前行引擎的观点，在经济学和生物学等诸多领域正引发越来越广泛的共鸣。“Schwenderist”（施温德勒追随者）曾被当作一种侮辱性的指责，甚至听起来像一句经典的意第绪语俚语，但历史最终证明他是对的。 随后主持人询问 David Byrne，对于如今应该去哪里寻找那些沉睡的旧思想（睡美人）是否有直觉或第六感。David Byrne 幽默地回应：“If I knew that for sure, I'd be a very rich person.” 他指出，发掘被遗忘思想的关键在于打破学科壁垒： “One technique seems to be kind of a pluralistic, cross-disciplinary approach. Don't be too isolated in your silo.” 人类习惯于对事物进行贴标签和归类，这往往会把思想锁死在狭窄的盒子里。目前已有学者尝试通过数学公式与模式识别来寻找线索，例如追踪科学论文中的引用量走势，当上升曲线呈现某种特定斜率时，便预示着某些重要变化正在发生；然而，许多无法量化的领域要困难得多。 主持人接着提到 David Byrne 在二十多年前曾将微软的演示软件 PowerPoint 当作艺术媒介进行创作，询问当时的世界是否尚未做好准备，就像当年未能理解《白鲸》（Moby-Dick）一样。David Byrne 解释说，自己之所以选择 PowerPoint，是因为它像一个可以包罗万象的篮子，文字、图片、电影和声音都能被粗粝却生动地串联并制作成动画。当时人们觉得这十分滑稽，因为大多数人在日常工作中不得不使用 PowerPoint 且深恶痛绝。在加州大学伯克利分校（Berkeley）进行演讲演示时，PowerPoint 的原始开发人员恰好也坐在观众席中，当 Byrne 邀请他们站起来接受致意时，他们因为软件不受欢迎而害羞得不愿起身。 - 共生（Symbiosis）与合作正在取代单纯的随机突变理论，成为解释生命与创造力演进的新视角。 - 学科壁垒（Silos）与僵化的分类系统是导致优秀思想长期休眠的主要原因。 - 早期科学引文数据中微小且具特定斜率的跃升，可作为识别沉睡思想复苏的量化指标。 - David Byrne 曾将 PowerPoint 视为先锋艺术媒介，并为其撰写发展史并举办专场演示。 --- ### `01:00:00` 节目复盘：信息分类困局与 AI 跨学科发现的未来 主持人问及 David Byrne 在创作歌曲《Glass, Concrete, and Stone》时是否了解古罗马混凝土的秘密，Byrne 坦陈当时一无所知，随后正式结束了访谈。送别嘉宾后，两位主持人 Joe Weisenthal 与 Tracy Alloway 展开了复盘讨论。Tracy 戏谑地借用 Talking Heads 经典歌词感叹，没想到自己会“身处世界上某个随机角落的美丽播客里讨论混凝土”。他们指出，好思想被掩埋往往是由于既得利益集团的阻碍，例如早期太阳能电池板技术曾因石油工业等既有权力结构的压制而搁浅。 讨论随后转向更深层次的信息科学困境：人类天生倾向于对知识进行井井有条的分类与归档，这种分类学（Taxonomy）本能导致专业知识高度孤岛化，而成为一名优秀的通才极其困难。主持人以建筑行业为例探讨跨学科断层：建筑承包商（施工方）本应去阅读古罗马的工程经典文献，但现实中极少有人这样做。 对于未来如何唤醒更多的“睡美人”，主持人提出了乐观的技术展望：人类知识的数字化进程才刚刚起步，它彻底消除了过去检索信息所需的繁重物理成本；更重要的是，人工智能在跨学科模式匹配上展现出巨大潜力。即使没有精准的人工标签，只要不同领域之间问题的数学“解结构”存在同构性——如同理论粒子物理学的形态与股票市场波动的形态存在奇妙对应——AI 就能在人类探索全新问题时，从完全不相关的跨学科领域中检索并匹配出沉睡已久的经典解决方案，从而掀起一场发掘“睡美人”思想的全新浪潮。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Cross-Disciplinary Discovery Engine accDescr: 展现从信息数字化到利用 AI 模式识别打破学科孤岛并唤醒沉睡思想的过程。 subgraph Problem["传统知识困境"] A["知识分类与孤岛化 (Taxonomy & Silos)"] B["既得利益阻碍 (Vested Interests)"] A --> C["思想沉睡 (Sleeping Beauties)"] B --> C end subgraph Solution["技术驱动复兴"] D["全面数字化 (Digitization)"] E["跨学科 AI 模式匹配 (Structural Isomorphism)"] D --> E end C --> E E --> F["唤醒被遗忘的理论与技术突破"] ``` - 思想传播的阻力不仅来自认知盲区，也来自石油工业等既得利益群体对颠覆性技术（如早期太阳能）的权力压制。 - 知识的过度分类和专业分工阻碍了跨界应用，如实际施工的承包商与古代工程典籍之间存在严重脱节。 - 粒子物理学模型与股票市场价格行为之间存在着跨学科的数学形态相似性。 - 人工智能有望摆脱对人工标签（Tags）的依赖，直接通过深层问题求解结构的相似度，实现跨学科的“睡美人”思想自动化打捞。 ### `01:05:00` 自制古罗马混凝土的安全警示与节目尾声 在节目的尾声，特雷西·艾洛韦（Tracy Alloway）出于好奇，查询了自己是否能在家里复刻古罗马混凝土。查询结果显示，使用熟石灰（hydrated lime）、天然火山灰（natural pozzolan）、水和石骨料（stone aggregate）确实可以制作出古罗马风格的混凝土测试块。然而，系统也给出了极其严厉的安全警示：“It's telling me that I must not, under any circumstances, try the hot mixing method with quicklime at home because quicklime reacts violently with water and causes serious chemical burns.” 乔·维森塔尔（Joe Weisenthal）随即笑着叮嘱特雷西千万要小心，两人便顺势结束了关于古老配方与复活概念的探讨。 乔与特雷西随后向听众致谢并完成例行收尾，推荐大家阅读大卫·伯恩（David Byrne）的新书《睡美人：好想法为何沉睡以及它们如何醒来》（*Sleeping Beauties: Why Good Ideas Go Dormant and How They Wake Up*）。他们公布了各自及制作团队成员的社交平台账号，并邀请听众加入拥有全天候讨论氛围的 Discord 社区交流（里面还专门开设了音乐频道），订阅彭博社网站的《Odd Lots》专属简讯，或在各大播客平台留下好评。对于彭博订阅用户，在 Apple Podcasts 上关注彭博频道即可享受全程免广告的收听体验。 - 主持人与制作团队社交账号：特雷西·艾洛韦（@TracyAlloway）、乔·维森塔尔（@TheStalwart）、制作人卡门·罗德里格斯（Carmen Rodriguez，@CarmenArmond）、达希尔·贝内特（Dashiell Bennett，@Dashpot）、凯尔·布鲁克斯（Kale Brooks，@KaleBrooks）以及凯文·洛萨诺（Kevin Lozano，@KevinLloydLozano）。 - 社区与专属内容通道：Discord 社区（discord.gg），彭博简讯订阅地址（Bloomberg.com/OddLots）。 ### `01:06:21` 赞助商资讯：财务平台、地理空间分析、皮卡与 AI 研讨会 节目最后播出了一系列商业资讯与活动推广。播客主持人勒瓦尔·阿里顿（LeVar Arrington）介绍了面向小企业主的财务管理平台 Xero，该平台将记账、支付、薪酬与数据分析集成于可视化仪表盘中，并配备 AI 洞察功能，帮助企业掌控现金流。地理信息技术服务商 Esri 则呼吁企业关注“位置的力量（The Power of Where）”，通过地图可视化审视客户、供应链与市场分布，在纷繁的数据中洞察需求与供应商扩张潜力。 马里奥·洛佩兹（Mario Lopez）在随后推介了 2026 款丰田 Tundra 与 Tacoma 皮卡，强调其在力量、工艺和耐用度方面的硬核表现，并推介了经销商的 Toyota Trucks Game Day 促销活动。最后，彭博社宣布将于 10 月 28 日在波士顿举办由慧与科技（HPE）赞助的“彭博技术简报会：构建代理型企业”（Bloomberg Tech Briefing: Building the Agentic Enterprise），汇聚商业与技术领袖共同探讨代理型 AI（Agentic AI）时代的网络韧性与安全可信系统构建策略。 - 财务软件 Xero：一站式集成会计记账、付款、工资单和分析，内置 AI 辅助决策，网址为 Xero.com。 - 空间智能平台 Esri：提供基于地图与空间数据的业务全景分析，网址为 ESRI.com。 - 丰田皮卡活动：宣传 2026 款 Tundra 及 Tacoma，相关配置与优惠详情可访问 Toyota.com。 - 彭博技术简报会（Bloomberg Tech Briefing）：主题为“构建代理型企业（Building the Agentic Enterprise）”，定于 10 月 28 日在波士顿举行，由 HPE 赞助，注册页面为 BloombergLive.com/Bloomberg Tech Briefing。 ## Notable quotes > `05:00` 如果能够找出它们是如何被重新发掘的，我们就有机会顺藤摸瓜，去找出那些至今仍被掩埋在外的遗珠，那里肯定还有很多。 — 大卫·伯恩 > `30:00` Basically, ours is better. It's kind of a bias, prejudice, whatever that we have that whatever we know is better than and smarter than whoever went before. That's just another example of how irrational we can be. — 大卫·伯恩 > `55:00` One technique seems to be kind of a pluralistic, cross-disciplinary approach. Don't be too isolated in your silo. — David Byrne > `51:41` Sometimes cooperation is a better strategy than competition — 大卫·伯恩 > `35:00` I do understand that, yeah, if you completely betray what your audience is expecting or hoping for, that's not going to — but there's a way to still do something interesting, something exciting, and acknowledge a little bit what they're hoping for. — David Byrne ## Mentioned David Byrne, Joe Weisenthal, Tracy Alloway, Hyman Minsky, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, C.L.R. James, Tom Zé, Bob Woodward, Condoleezza Rice, Lynn Margulis, Peter Kropotkin, Vitruvius, Palladio, Talking Heads, Moby-Dick, Typee, Omoo, Billy Budd, Stop Making Sense, Sleeping Beauties: Why Good Ideas Go Dormant and How They Wake Up, What is Intelligence?, Glass, Concrete, and Stone, A24, MIT, Spotify, PowerPoint, Bloomberg, Xero, Esri ## Video description <p>History is littered with ideas that have been tossed aside, only for them to gain relevance at some later date. Think of Moby-Dick: forgotten in Melville's time, but now regarded as the great American novel. Or the work of economist Hyman Minsky, which became influential a decade after his death, when the 2008 financial crisis made &ldquo;the Minsky Moment&rdquo; a mainstream term. These are just a couple of the things we talk about with the legendary musician David Byrne on today's podcast. Byrne's new book,&nbsp;<em>Sleeping Beauties: Why Good Ideas Go Dormant and How They Wake Up</em>, looks to categorize numerous &ldquo;sleeping beauties&rdquo; - ideas that were lost but then rediscovered. Besides Melville and Minsky, we also talk about the lost Roman recipe for concrete and we get into Byrne's thoughts on how to write a song and his own experience of having his music rediscovered by a new generation.</p> <p><strong>Only Bloomberg.com</strong> <strong>subscribers can get the </strong><strong><em>Odd Lots</em></strong><strong> newsletter in their inbox, plus unlimited access to the site and app.</strong> <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots?in_source=oddlotspodcast"><strong>bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots</strong></a></p><p>See <a href="https://omnystudio.com/listener">omnystudio.com/listener</a> for privacy information.</p> [Source](https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/tracking.swap.fm/track/UVBrz8bN8aM2Xe47PEPu/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/8a94442e-5a74-4fa2-8b8d-ae27003a8d6b/80a8c551-836d-45b7-9004-b4e600024717/audio.mp3?in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

[5:00] 大卫·伯恩: 如果能够找出它们是如何被重新发掘的，我们就有机会顺藤摸瓜，去找出那些至今仍被掩埋在外的遗珠，那里肯定还有很多。 [30:00] 大卫·伯恩: Basically, ours is better. It's kind of a bias, prejudice, whatever that we have that whatever we know is better than and smarter than whoever went before. That's just another example of how irrational we can be. [55:00] David Byrne: One technique seems to be kind of a pluralistic, cross-disciplinary approach. Don't be too isolated in your silo. [51:41] 大卫·伯恩: Sometimes cooperation is a better strategy than competition [35:00] David Byrne: I do understand that, yeah, if you completely betray what your audience is expecting or hoping for, that's not going to — but there's a way to still do something interesting, something exciting, and acknowledge a little bit what they're hoping for.

[57:39] David Byrne: I decided that PowerPoint would be an art medium because you can throw everything into it. [46:42] David Byrne: The guitar itself sounds different, which gives a kind of different feeling depending on what key you're playing it in.

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Radio. News. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal. And I'm Tracy Holloway. Tracy, something that both of us have observed multiple times on the podcast by now, long-time listeners are tired of our – tired of some of our – Tired of our observations. Tired of our stories and stuff like that. No, but something that we both have observed and it relates to our career is that sort of big – times of big change. Mm-hmm. financial crisis, COVID, et cetera, anytime there seems to be some big turning point, it sort of acts as like a clearing in the woods where new ideas can be discovered and so forth. So we sort of go down some path. Typically, I like to think of it as a narrow path through a forest and certain ideas we sort of go with. And then suddenly something changes. Nobody is necessarily an expert on this moment. The gap in awareness between the smartest and the least informed to shrink about what's happening. And then there's a market for new ideas that emerges. Yeah, I think there's a democratization process, I guess, that happens in times of crisis or major change. And we've talked about it in relation to the 2008 financial crisis, where back then you and I were in the early stages of our financial journalism careers. But we were basically on the same footing as people who had been covering banking and finance for decades at And so as you say, this opportunity opens up. Yeah. And suddenly you start to see new ways of approaching it, new entrants discussing certain things, new ideas, maybe. Right. So, for example, you know, people like, oh, the works of Hyman Minsky, for example. Right. They're like, oh, maybe this guy who most people even in economics had not talked about very much. Maybe he he shed some light. antique Keynesianism, etc. It's like, let's go back and see what people who we'd long discarded were saying. And maybe this could be useful. Well, Minsky is a really interesting one. Because again, I got into financial journalism in September 2008. And people were already bringing up the Minsky moment. And ever since then, it's become almost a cliche to the point where if I see a financial journalist talk about a Minsky moment as if they just discover it, I kind of get a But what I didn't know is that basically up until 2008, a lot of Minsky's ideas had been discarded. That's right. So we have an exciting guest so we don't have to talk forever. We're going to be speaking with someone who is primarily known for rediscovering the works of Hyman Minsky. No, that's not exactly true. But someone who has, in fact, talked about Hyman Minsky. We're going to be speaking with musician and author David Byrne. called sleeping beauties why good ideas go dormant and how they wake up he has a chapter on the the [5:00] In ski revival. So, uh, David, Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Thank you. Thank you. And here's somewhere where I can – yes, I could talk about Minsky. Of course, you probably know a lot about him by now. No, look. Here's the thing. If we could spend the entire time in this conversation just talking about Minsky, as long as we also spend a minute talking about Moby Dick. I knew this was going to come up. No, but that's actually a legitimate example of what Sleeping Beauties is all about. Why don't just to begin? Give us the in a nutshell version of the book. What is the Sleeping Beauty and what are you trying to do here? It's not my term, but I stumbled on it. Sleeping Beauty is something that got a little bit of attention, when it was first done. It could be an idea, it could be a painter, it could be an author. then kind of faded from view, became kind of forgotten, maybe not entirely, but kind of, yes, sank below the surface. And then at some point, for various reasons. And got reappreciated and came back and was like, oh, yes, that is relevant right now. That's exactly what we're talking about now. And this person's already done it. Let's see if there's. some information, some techniques, some Beautiful artwork, whatever it might be for us to appreciate. The, yes... 2008. Yeah. The crash, whatever you want to call it. Yeah. I have a whole section of the book on how catastrophes including war, are kind of a way that these things get rediscovered. Um... I decided to focus on how they got rediscovered. as much as I could. Rather than how they got forgotten. How they got forgotten tends to be the same stories all over and over again that institutional hubris or racism or sexism or we think we know better than people knew in the past, all those kinds of things. But I thought... If we can find... how they got rediscovered, That gives us a shot. And finding the ones that are still out there, for sure. There's some out there. So for the Minsky example, let's just start with that one, given our audience. But what's... I think everyone knows what a Minsky moment is, but maybe talk a little bit about the time before that became a journalistic cliche and then also talk about what's the relevance of discovering Minsky post 2008 or maybe even what the relevance would have been discovering him before 2008, other than it makes convenient anecdotes for financial columns. he did a lot of his work I think it was in the 60s. I think that's right. Yeah. And, uh, His idea was kind of behavioral economics. He was kind of saying, well, we don't exactly behave rationally. We don't always act in our best interests. I'm kind of summarizing here. Some people already know this. When things are flush, we tend to assume that that's the way it's always going to go. We can just pile more, you know, invest more, do this. And we kind of ignore the danger signs and this and that. Needless to say, he's has been proven right. He's saying we're human beings. We behave differently. Uh... according to with these emotional experiences instincts, as opposed, we don't always act rationally. There was a nice story about him going on holiday with his family to Italy, And... Instead of going to see all the tourist sites, he started interviewing the people working in the little businesses in the towns they were visiting. He wanted to find out, how do you do this? How do things work here? Yeah. Tracy and I can relate to that sort of thing. I think both of us... It's probably this curse of like trying to learn so much about the world. I don't know. Maybe you're maybe you're a little bit better at turning off. No, I think we both have this curse. We go anywhere and like we just try to enjoy it. But also like, how does this work? And why is the price this way? How many hours do you work? And how did you find your way into this job? So you go through in this book, Sleeping Beauty is why good ideas go dormant and how they wake up. Many examples, including Minsky, including discoveries of Roman concrete, which we'll talk about, including the book Moby Dick itself, which we're definitely going to talk about. [10:00] As you talk about your conclusion, maybe we can find a pattern that helps us discover old ideas or forgotten ideas consistently. But before we get to that, why don't you talk to us about the process of assembling this book? Because there's thousands of Sleeping Beauties. How did you find the ones that you wanted to talk about, window them down, and talk to us about how this book arrived here? There's lots of them. Yes. I'd write them up, do a first draft of writing things up. And then, oh, this one – This was a good story. Or... I see they're starting to fall into categories of... how they got... rediscovered and remembered. And I thought, okay, If I can, I need a nice little sampling in each of these categories. And then I think I'm good. I don't need to kind of overdo it. I'm not trying to be complete and kind of like I'm going to tell you every single Sleeping Beauty I've ever stumbled on. Uh... Stumble on an article about something like you said, Moby Dick or whatever like that. It would be something, you know, an article about Melville. And they'd say, like in one sentence, they'd go... Moby Dick was a failure and he died penniless, something like that. And then they'd go on to talk about something else. It was like one sentence. And you guys go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You just buried the lead. Yeah. From my point of view, that's the story. How did that happen? Because now – Yeah, that particular – that book is revered. Wait, how did that happen? Yeah, let's – all right, let's jump right into the movie. Yeah, let's just do Melville. Yeah, let's jump right into the – my favorite book, by the way. Wow. You have to go back and wind back before that book, which makes the story kind of better. Before he wrote – started writing, he signed on as a kind of merchant sailor. And at the time, They would go whale hunting and hunting for all sorts of stuff in the South Seas and in the Pacific. So he was doing that. He found it to be a... torturous, horrible, horrible experience. He and some others... jumped ship on some island. And I looked after the island, of course, is Gorgeous. And you go. God live there. I got it. Except for the cannibals. Except there were cannibals. Yes, there were cannibals. But... He managed, he got away from that, got to another island. where he was... became like a farmer growing potatoes on the, this Island. And eventually the, he signs on with another boat. Ghost, I think, eventually ends up in Hawaii. Where the first boat, the one he deserted from... arrives and they go, You're guilty. If we're taking you back. There's not much you can do about it. And as in the book, he's witnessed the floggings and just horrible, horrible conditions and horrible treatment and insane captains and all this stuff. It's all there. So he writes a book. I think Taipei was the first one about his South Sea adventures. He didn't say it was him, but it was... That's what it was. And, um, the I think it was the American publisher said, No, this is completely... outrageous could not have happened uh but i think there was someone in england or who kind of was a witness who said yeah it did happen all these awful things all these often things this crazy stuff happened and so they published it uh And it was a massive hit. It's huge. It became like one of the most popular books. So he wrote a sequel. It was called, I think, Omu. another kind of made up island name. The detailed more of these adventures. He didn't want to do another one. And he has friends with, I think it was Nathaniel Hawthorne. They were friends upstate. or Massachusetts, Western Massachusetts, whatever. And Hawthorne said, oh, you should... Maybe the next one. Draw on your experiences, but maybe the next one should be more allegorical. You should get away from just the adventure yarn. You should still spend hundreds of words describing nautical knots. Yes. But a little more fantastical. Yes. And so we did. Uh... [15:00] Moby Dick. I think first it was called just The Whale. And it was... A failure. I think... Oh, in England, when it was published, I think they sold maybe 500 copies, which is – Not so good. He forgot. Or maybe he forgot, but he didn't put the epilogue. Yeah. The epilogue… Peace, we're here. Ishmael kind of survives. Yeah. And so the English reviewers said... No, no, no. You cannot tell a story like this if everyone dies. Because who wrote it then? Who wrote it? Who's the witness? This is a rule of writing, and we didn't know this rule existed, but you can't do that. You can't have it where everyone dies because then – Especially if it's written in the first person. Yes. Who's telling the story? And yeah, where's their information coming from? So right away, he starts getting bad reviews as well as not sewing too well. And the Americans were kind of they looked up to the British reviewers. I don't know if that still happens, but yeah, they did. And so even though he now put in the epilogue, where each male survives, It was too late. The bad reviews had kind of set this set the tone and, um, yeah I think he went back to Hawthorne and said what Have you done to me? I'm destroyed. Which he was. Yeah. He wrote other books. He wrote... Some weird stuff. He wrote an epic poem about the Civil War, the battles in the Civil War, kind of told from both sides. In some ways, it was kind of an anti-war. Thank you. But a poem. Telling stories of all the carnage and everything viewed from both sides. That did not do well. The last one that came out... was one called Billy Budd. And that was discovered after his death. in a bread box in the house where he lived. That's where I keep all my unpublished manuscripts. Exactly. Yeah, my bread box is just filled with manuscripts. So now he's done. He's done. I think it was mid-1800s when he was... you're publishing these. So And kind of around the turn of the century, he's like... nothing forgotten There were Someone was asked, I think, in UK to write an article about him, and the Americans said, Is he still alive? They didn't know. Anyway, so – One, we're going back to catastrophes and wars. Yeah. After World War I. People were asking themselves, how could we do this? How could we be so much killing, carnage, bloodshed? What are we made of psychologically or whatever else? that allows us to do this. His book kind of deals with that. It deals with kind of the psychology of all this stuff. stuff and It deals with kind of colonialism and racism and all sorts of stuff that. So after World War I, people are asking, who are we? Before that, it was just kind of adventures and seafaring stories and westerns and all this kind of heroic stuff. But now it's kind of like the doubt has been put in. And you go, does this book help us understand who we are? There are some market stories where you want every detail. Tracy and I have made quite a few podcasts on that basis, but sometimes you've only got 10 minutes and need to know what's moving markets and why. That's the Barclays Brief Podcast. Every week, experts from Barclays markets and research get you up to speed on what matters and what to watch next. About the time it takes to grab a coffee. So search Barclays Brief wherever you get your podcasts. Some people treat ChatGPT like some kind of smart search engine, and some use it to get work done. ChatGPT Work is a new way of working in ChatGPT that can take action across your apps and files, stay with a project for hours if needed, and turn a goal into finished work. So all the source materials, briefs, and scattered information that you have to grind through to turn into something useful can just become something useful. Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. [20:00] Get started at ChachiPT.com by selecting Work Mode, available on Plus and Pro plans. Hey everyone, I'm Jamie Lynn Sigler. When I got my diagnosis, I was in my 20s, and it turned my whole world upside down. But over time, I decided I wasn't going to let it hold me back from my life. I decided to take charge. And after talking to my doctor about my options, the choice for me was obvious. Boom. That's Kesimpta. Learn more about Kesimpta or Fatumamab at kesimpta.com. This is LeVar Harrington from Two Pros and a Cup of Joe. Let me tell you about Xero. That's X-E-R-O. Xero is a financial management platform that loves giving small business owners the clarity to have the confidence in their numbers. It puts accounting payments, payroll, and analytics all in one place. so you always have one clear picture of your business. With visual dashboards, Xero makes it easy to understand your cash flow, you know exactly what's coming in, and what's going out, so you can make smarter decisions that can help grow your business Xero AI can even offer insights to help you make your best move It powerful enough for an accountant and simple enough for you Zero is the all-in-one to get business done. Learn more at Zero.com. You know, I mentioned my favorite book is Moby Dick. One of my other favorite books is this book. I don't know if you've ever... Mariners, Renegades, and Castaways. The Story of Herman Melville and the World We Live in by the author C.L.R. James. And he talks about this a lot, that the Ahab character that Melville discovered – I mean he created him, but arguably he discovered the character – was this character that sort of anticipated essentially the great authoritarians or the authoritarians of the 20th century. that when we go back and we might want to like psychoanalyze individuals like Hitler and Stalin and so forth, that Melville in a way saw them coming, this new man sort of speak. Or at least it appears that way in retrospect. Yeah right right It appears that way in this sort of maniacal behavior And so the emergence of individuals later on suddenly makes Moby Dick such a compelling read I agree. I don't know if I have anything to add there. I totally agree. It's kind of amazing that something – I don't believe that somebody like an author like that can predict the future. Sure. But I do think they kind of – They can see something in ourselves. They can see something in ourselves. they've had these he's had these kind of really incredible experiences and encountered kind of these really despicable people yeah where he can incorporate that and see that this is part of who we are yeah and yeah so that yeah later on after we've all say or everyone after who was around for World War I, sees kind of how low can we go, you start to go, yes. Is there some way to prevent this? Can we understand ourselves so that this doesn't happen again? Can we talk about concrete? Love to talk about concrete. Another oblong. Yeah. This is something we've talked about. So I have an interest in concrete which is when I was younger and I was traveling to a lot of far flung places some of the most common ads and billboards that I would see in places like India or Myanmar would be for concrete brands, which you never see in the US or in Europe, you know, people aren't advertising by this particular type of concrete. So I was always really fascinated why concrete had this position in those economies. But you point out in your book that actually the way we produce concrete nowadays, the most common way, isn't really the optimal technology for doing this. And there's actually a very ancient concrete technology that might be better in some ways. Can you describe what you found? Yeah, I'm going to go back to your experience, because I had a similar experience. I've been to different places around the world and you see It seems kind of incongruous. Places where sometimes the vernacular buildings in one place are kind of beautiful. And then you see these concrete kind of bunker type things. And you go, that's what's being pushed on people as being, this is what it means to be modern. One of the people mentioned in the book is from Lithuania, I think. [25:00] And she said... She's from the University of Miami and she says that, yes, when she was growing up, same thing. Concrete was pushed as this is the... This will make modern housing. Yeah. Right. Trash chutes, clean houses. kitchens Big. Windows oh, yeah all the stuff you're not gonna have these falling little falling down. Oh We're going to enter the modern world and, in her words, we'll be living in the future. And so it was a big... campaign to sell the stuff all around the world um It happened in the U.S. too. There was all these books about make your house out of concrete. Anyway. Ugh. Yeah, the story is that the Pantheon, building in Rome, the temple in Rome This 2,000 years old has the largest unreinforced dome in the world. Still, it doesn't have a crack in it. Hmm. and 2,000 years old. The companies that make concrete now for parking lots and All kinds of stuff. Of course, it's it's reinforced with rebar. you They rate it themselves. to last 50 years. Five-zero. A hundred if we're lucky. So you gotta ask yourself, what happened? And, yes, did we just lose the recipe? Um... Sort of, but... It's a little more complicated than that. The The Romans used it a lot. These were big things. Civic projects. They Cost a lot of money. and to build. The Pantheon or the Colosseum, which is also made of concrete blocks, or the aqueducts, which are made of concrete blocks. All this kind of stuff costs a lot of money. A lot of manpower. And... In the course of empire, as the empire spreads out. more resources are going. to kind of keep the borders intact and all that kind of stuff. And the... Communities from the far-flung parts of the empire, they're not so interested in using concrete. The... Hagia Sophia in Istanbul is made of brick and mortar. It's a... They have their own way of doing things. Um... But... So when the Roman Empire collapses, Thank you. thinking 470 somewhere around there. That's it. They don't make it anymore. Uh-huh. Nobody makes it anymore. And so... It's not like the recipe got completely lost. There's this guy, Vitruvius, who wrote a book about architecture, and he includes... how to make concrete in it. I think it was in 20, boy, I'm remembering my dates. I think it was 20 BC that he did this. Um, It was rediscovered in the Renaissance 1400s. So that's quite a few years later. But it was considered – oh, this is an historical – Thank you. bit of curiosity. We don't need to do that. But they liked his information about proportions. So Palladia and all these other architects in that period kind of took information. inspiration from him. Now I'm I'm losing my date, but I think it's in the 1800s. A guy in England makes something called Portland Cement. Thank you. So we've really gone a long time. It makes something come Portland Cement, Starts a factory in the UK. And this is the Precursor. to modern concrete. Um... It's not as good as the Roman stuff. It takes more energy to make. puts out a lot of CO2 in the process. It doesn't last as long, but It is back and it's... Uh... It's a French guy. I forget his name. It's a French guy, maybe... 30 years later, comes up with the idea of putting rebar in to give it some tensile strength. So it's going to be better for bridges and all this kind of stuff. And yeah, so... Wow, by the... 1800s, 1900s, it's being pushed. It's like this is the stuff. You can build big things in. Bridges, highways, buildings, everything, you know, all this stuff you can build out of it. If... [30:00] And then I can go into it. I mean... What a huge energy. cost this is in this course the stuff as we know doesn't last So it's China does more of it than anything. pretty much anywhere else. Yeah. But – The guy who invented Portland cement, was he just... unaware of the Roman recipe or... Was he maybe thinking about other things like, you know, it's cheaper to build, we don't have to get special ash from Mount Vesuvius or whatever it is? Did he have other considerations? Yeah, there was a thought that – They'd look at the Roman recipe and think, oh, it's special because they use the ash from Vesuvius. They got the secret sauce, and we don't have that. So we have to do with what we have. They also saw the Roman stuff... Thank you. This is going to lead to the solution. The Roman stuff has all these little white specks in it. And I thought, oh, They just didn't know how to mix it well. They didn't have the mixing technology. We can do that. Yeah, we're okay. So ours is better, basically. Basically, ours is better. It's kind of a bias, prejudice, whatever that we have that whatever… we know is better than and smarter than whoever went before. Um, That's just another example of how irrational we can be. So but it was these little specks. They're called lime karsts. that... There was some material scientists at MIT. We started looking into it about Mm-hmm. 15 years ago or so. And... They did a test... where they had the Roman stuff and they had some contemporary stuff and they poured water on it. And the water eventually went through the contemporary stuff. Which leads to cracks, right? That's how cracks happen. Yes, especially if it gets cold. But even if it doesn't, and then with the Roman stuff, it goes in. And some of this lime car stuff, these little white specks dissolve. And the The cracks heal up. It's self-healing. But the other stuff, especially if it's got rebar in it, The water gets in. If it hits the rebar, the rebar is going to rust and crack and expand. The rusting rods expand and make more cracks. So... 2023... The folks at MIT started a company And they're going to start making, they've started to make the Roman stuff. Whether the world kind of beats the path to their door, it remains to be seen, but it has been rediscovered. I would have loved to hear the initial conversation that's like, what do you want to study at MIT? And I really want to look into those little, you know, like discolorations on Roman cement. That's the cool thing about universities. People can just have the time and space to find niche things. I'm curious. You know, obviously... You have been a famous, successful... artist, musician for a very long time. Recently, or back in 2023, A24 released, re-released the 1984 Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense, sort of re-energizing, maybe introducing a new generation of listeners to the Talking Heads and so forth. Is that a sleeping beauty? Is that like, to the talking heads but perhaps like there was like at least among some people some like re-spark of interest yeah it's definitely been that yeah increased interest what's been your experience of okay something happened someone says you know what this 1984 concert film maybe it would be relevant again maybe there's people who would appreciate it again what's been your experience or as with at least one called one specific cultural artifact of yours sort of gathering doing the whatever the music thing the music thing the music thing long enough that i've seen my career go up and down um in the 90s uh It might have been the music I was doing. It might have been whatever. But my career went down. I was back to playing little clubs in lots of places where I'd been playing much larger venues. Now I'm back to playing these bands. Thank you. sizable places again. That feels, yes. And I thought, But in some cases, I'm playing the same stuff. I didn't. I mean, I had gotten older. [35:00] It's all these other... It's all the context. the audience, the demographic, another generation, whatever it might be. Those things have changed. It's the... Just like a lot of the things in this book, uh, The paintings of Botticelli or whatever haven't changed, but they go in and out of fashion. And... I realized, oh, yeah, I've experienced that. How does that feel? How do you feel to go out of fashion for time? What's up? Uh, do you get, does it get more comfortable when you, when there's another wave? You're like, I've been here before. Like, this isn't as painful. I know that there's, this is a pendulum. I'm very curious about this. Oh, yeah. After it's happened once, if something happens like that again, you go, yes, I know. Don't take this personally. Yeah. Don't take it personally. Yeah. The work might be good. You may have done something terrible or not so good, but... Don't assume that it's because the work is bad. Yeah. But at the... I remember at the time, I just felt like, no, you just have to slog on. Just kind of keep going. Um... Obviously, you can only keep going like that for a while until and if things go lower, you go... I have no income, but... Uh... To some extent, yeah, I think you just have to... Keep going. How do you tell the difference between, oh, I was unlucky or the audience wasn't ready for this or the audience doesn't appreciate how special this is versus... I have failed to create something that resonates with my audience because I'm sure everyone has experienced this in their professional or creative lives at one point or another. If some if you do something or you make something and it doesn't get the result that you want or the reception that you want. The temptation is to, you know, just kind of, blame it on something else or excuse it away. You know, it's not that I'm out of touch. It's the children who are wrong, that sort of thing. So how do you how do you balance those two things? I realize it's a little bit of both. In that period... I did a couple records where I worked with Latin musicians and I was doing all Latin rhythms and all that. I was having a great time. It went down really well in Latin America and in parts of Europe. But in the U.S. in particular, it's like, no, you've betrayed us. This is not what we want from you. And I realized, oh, OK, I get I get that. I can maybe... I probably thought, I can maybe temper this somehow. Yeah, I do understand that, yeah, if you... completely betray what your audience is expecting or hoping for. Yeah, that's not going to – But there's a way to still do something interesting, something exciting. and acknowledge a little bit what they're hoping for. And I thought, okay, I can kind of self-correct a little bit. Some people treat ChatGPT like some kind of smart search engine, and some use it to get work done. ChatGPT Work is a new way of working in ChatGPT that can take action across your apps and files, stay with a project for hours if needed, and turn a goal into finished work. It's designed to help you move from a chaotic starting point to a reviewable first version. So all the source materials, briefs, and scattered information that you have to grind through to turn into something useful something useful. Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Get started at ChatGPT.com by selecting work mode, available on plus and pro plans. Hey everyone, I'm Jamie Lynn Sigler. When I got my diagnosis, I was in my 20s and it turned my whole world upside down. But over time, I decided I wasn't going to let it hold me back from my life. to my doctor about my options, the choice for me was obvious. Boom, that's Kesimpta. This is LeVar Arrington from Two Pros and a Cup of Joe. Let me tell you about zero. That's X-E-R-O. Xero is a financial management platform that loves giving small business owners the clarity to have the confidence in their numbers. It puts accounting payments, payroll and analytics. [40:00] All in one place. So you always have one clear picture of your business. With visual dashboards, Xero makes it easy to understand your cash flow. You know exactly what's coming in. and what's going out so you can make smarter decisions that can help grow your business. Xero's AI can even offer insights to help you make your best move. It's powerful enough. for an accountant and simple enough for you. Zero is the all-in-one to get business done. Learn more at Xero.com. helping to turn questions into business strategy. Speaking of your interest in Latin American music, you know, You tell a story about, and I think it's actually the first chapter of the book, the Brazilian artist Tom Zay. And you went down to Brazil and you tell a story of someone getting a big stack of records. And the cover of this one record was a little different. You checked it out and it was amazing, but it was an artist that not many people have been familiar with. You repopularized him from your label. But rather than just talk about that per se, I want to ask something that I've observed that has really changed in my lifetime. is that it used to be that anything that was sort of avant-garde, whether it was music, music, whether it was political ideas, et cetera, it used to be really hard to find. It used to be that if you wanted to read sort of heterodox political philosophy, you had to go to obscure bookstores. When I was younger, if I wanted to seek out a sort of indie music of some sort, I used to literally write letters to record labels, and then they would send back the catalogs. This was in the avant-garde musicians are both just one click away now. You just type in a different name on Spotify, et cetera. And so the digitization process of everything removes that sort of physical link that used to exist between sort of like you really had to put in work to find the avant-garde thing before. Physical work enough in many cases. Go to location, go to Brazil, etc. Now you don't. How does that change the sort of discovery of work? the Sleeping Beauty is when the sort of physical constraints are no longer there. Everything is just a search way. I'm going to agree and also push back on some of that. I... I think not everything is on streaming or on the internet. I remember hearing a talk, I think, from Bob Woodward or someone. Mm-hmm. We talked about some research he was doing from a book. Yeah. And he realized that there was something in somebody's basement And they had boxes full of files. And it was physical stuff. I mean, the internet was there, but... Those things just weren't on it. And he had to go and, go to this person's basement and I thought Yeah, there's still stuff that's kind of hidden from view. But that said, I definitely agree that... with streaming music. to some extent with films and other kinds of information. I know, especially with music. a whole generation, if they want to, if they're interested in something that, that's old, they can just listen to it. And if they like it, add it to their playlist. So they end up, I think, sometimes with playlists that mix all these different genres, They come from different decades, different eras. which is kind of great. They're just putting it in there because they like it. Not because, oh, this is the cool thing that's happening. right this at this moment. Um, on These services are There's very little information. Yeah. I mean, you can dig and get the information, but what's... But the liner notes used to be a really fun part of buying a record. Yeah. And you know, like, oh, this is produced by so-and-so. It's done by that. And this is who wrote it. Like the art and stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's very little of that. Which... I miss some of that, but it also has the advantage of when you don't know, then you're not kind of put off by... any of those factors. [45:00] like her How when it was done, the dates or whatever, you just you're just listening kind of blind. Yeah. And going, I like that. I don't know. How it was received at the time, where it fits in, it's kind of a lot of the context is kind of removed. Conversely, though. The fact that all this information and cultural content is now available on the Internet or on streaming services means... that in some ways discovery also gets harder. There's an information overload, I guess, like a curation process problem. So, For instance, I went to L.A. recently. I went to a random tiki bar out in the suburbs and they had on a haunted surf tiki playlist, which was a genre that I never knew existed. But apparently there are a lot of, you know, sort of like Halloween surf songs out there. I never would have thought. to put that in the search engine bar on Spotify. There's a playlist there, but I would not have gone looking for it. I would have been listening to any of the hundreds of other songs that the algorithm was recommending to me. Today, when we're sort of overwhelmed by both informational and content choices, what does that mean for the rediscovery of old ideas? You're absolutely right. When there's So much out there. As I was doing some of this research, I saw the condolese of rice. said that Part of the problem with the challenger explosion. was a filter problem. The information and the warning about the O-rings and all this stuff was out there. It wasn't like nobody knew. It was out there. But when there's so much information that it doesn't like... jump out and say, over here, take a look at this. Yeah, you can miss things. Even if they're still there. Can I ask a question from one musician to another? I have a band. We play country music. This is just a pure music question, actually. It has nothing to do with discovery things. Any particular kind of country music? No, I would say it's kind of like down the middle country, maybe a little bit classic, etc. But I'm like a very bad guitarist, so I write all my songs in G or C because those are easy chords for me to play. between scales so it's like if i write a song in g major and then someone else writes plays the song it's like i could have written it in c major or a major these are all easy chords to play in your experience is there a difference and does something change when you transpose a song into a different scale i only realized kind of recently that, Yeah, you can transpose a song. when I'm in the writing process. You can move it into another key and try it a little higher. Try it a little lower. Try it in different places. And eventually you hit one and you go, oh, that's the sweet spot for my voice. For your voice. For my voice. But is the song the same? That's a good question. I know that Sometimes, especially on guitar, you're saying like a G chord has a lot of open strings in it. That's right. So you hit it and it just rings out. Whereas if you're playing, I don't know, a B flat or whatever, it doesn't ring out the same way. Yeah. You might have to put a... capo, I think, to a adjust kind of where the neck of the guitar hits and all this kind of thing to get that kind of effect. You might be able to recreate that effect But I... Yeah, the guitar itself sounds different, which gives a kind of different feeling depending on what key you're playing it in. The way the notes are stacked on a guitar or on a piano probably has a different feeling too. Yeah. Well, the good news for me was you can, which I thought, why didn't I know this earlier? You can move stuff until it hits kind of the sweet spot for your voice. I don't have a music question. I'm sorry. But maybe it relates to musicians. What's the cost of not recognizing good ideas, good songs contemporaneously? So, okay, maybe Joe isn't recognized in his own time as a great country music singer, and we don't get... good country songs from Joe or more good country songs from Joe. Maybe in the example of concrete, if we had been using the Roman recipe before, we would have had longer lasting buildings, less energy expenditure, less global warming, things like that. Talk to us about the cost of not recognizing these things in their own time. It's a little hard to talk about the cost of, I think it's real. That cost is real. but it's hard to measure. [50:00] Um... the kind of pleasure and... joy and satisfaction you get from something like that and what it means for you, maybe giving you insights and psychological and other kinds of benefits you get to it, it's kind of hard to measure. So that kind of gets maybe pushed aside and disregarded to some extent. Whereas, as you said, something like concrete or the medical, medical things like there's a story on hand washing where people are just, people are dying. And... All they need to do is for the doctors to wash their hands. Yeah. So you realize, no... In many cases, it's very measurable. these lives could have been saved. these buildings could have been lasted, you know, less energy intensive and They could have lasted longer. That's pretty easy to measure. One way that new ideas... old ideas could be rediscovered and then applied is, I think, by an individual being sort of aggressively pluralistic about what they consume. So like read a lot of books that aren't necessarily in your beat. We cover markets, finance and economics, but I think we would be worse at it if we only read books about markets, finance and economics. On the other hand, and maybe this is this tendency to like read anything and i'm like oh that's really applicable right now and then i'll read the next book oh amazing that's really applicable right now and then i'll read the next book it's like wow the lessons of this book that's just sounds like what's happening right now and our brains can actually are very good at uh over metaphorizing maybe example so like i don't know if that's a word but it's tempting to like look at anything it's like wow How do we avoid sleeping uglies? Yeah, how do you avoid this sort of find every new thing you come across to say, wow, we should all be talking about that again. Because our brains are so good at maybe coming up with a tortured reason why this idea of old is actually very relevant to now. I have to say I do the same thing and I think it's pretty good. Okay. who basically ended up, she proposed, and it was later confirmed and proven, that the cells in our bodies, the cells in plants, are the result of a symbiotic merging between an early... kind of organism. And bacteria. The bacteria became the mitochondria that do provide the energy from oxygen or from sunlight or whatever. So this evolutionary big, big, big step. millions of years ago came as a result of a kind of symbiotic cooperation. Yep. And so I immediately go, ha ha. So, Cooperation is key. And there's another story about this Russian evolutionary anarchist philosopher guy Kropotkin, who also says sometimes Cooperation is a better strategy. than competition. Not always. But sometimes. And of course, I thought, OK, wow, that is a kind of metaphor that I can just cut and paste. all over the place and see where it fits. I like the lichen guy who very early on caught on to the idea that lichens were an amalgamation of, I guess, fungi and algae. And no one believed him to the extent that his name became an insult in the academic community. What was his name again? It started with like an S or something. Oh, I can't remember. It sounded like a good insult, but I mean, poor guy, because he was directionally correct. Schwarzkopf or something like that. Yes. But yeah, I can't remember the exact name, but yes. So he's proved right. But that's interesting to say I'm currently because AI is like everything right now. So I'm trying to learn a little bit more about that. I'm reading this interesting book. It's called What is Intelligence? Came a body year ago. And he says the exact same thing, that actually evolution is co-evolution, that if you look at the history of things, that basically the way the world emerges is there's thing A and there's thing B and they merge. and works, then that becomes the thing A again, that that becomes the fundamental unit. And then it's sort of like gets bigger and bigger. And then that new thing will merge with another thing B. And if that works, that becomes a thing. And that life is essentially or sort of like [55:00] The growing complexity of the world is essentially not necessarily a form of like random Darwinian randomness where like maybe something there's a bunch of mutations and some of them work out well. That actually it's a little bit more ordered and structured by which new things emerge because. They work out really well when they cooperate during that process of symbiosis. And that becomes the new unit of life or whatever it is. Maybe there were musicians, individuals, and then suddenly it turned out that a band could be a unit of economics or whatever and then so forth. So this idea of like – Yeah, I don't know where I'm going with this, but this idea that like, the merge symbiosis as the thing cooperation as the thing that drives life and creativity forward. A lot of people seem to be, um, um, This seems to resonate with a lot of people. Yeah, and it's coming from a lot of different areas, whether it's – Yeah. Economics or. biology or whatever. It's coming. Yeah. As a metaphor, it's kind of, you're springing up here and there and you go, oh, okay, this is this is a real thing now yeah schwenderist was the insult you're a real schwenderist but the guy was right it'd be unjust to his legacy it sounds like it could be like a classic a classic yiddish insult doesn't it it's like oh the schwenderist can i ask do you have any intuitions or a gut sense of where we should be looking for sleeping beauties today like us from seeing these old ideas. If I knew that for sure, I'd be a very rich person. Yes. I'd be coming on this show for a different reason. But like you mentioned earlier, one... One technique seems to be... kind of a pluralistic Uh, Thank you. Cross-disciplinary approach. Yeah, cross-disciplinary stuff. Don't be in your silo. You have to be to some extent, but don't be too isolated in your silo. Along the same lines... There's the idea of how things get... labeled and classified. That is That puts them into a box or a silo or whatever, and they – They can stay in there. Various kind of academics are trying to... use formulas and different things to find patterns. AI might be... I mean, it is good at pattern identification. So you might see that in academic things where something's measurable, like citations. In science papers, if you see a little tiny uptick, if the ramp of the uptick... takes a certain curve, you go, some... Alarm goes off. Something's happening there. But that's, again, something that is fairly easy to measure. Some of the other things are a little bit harder. 20-something years ago, you got into making art out of PowerPoint. Was the world ready at that point? Or is that the sort of thing that like in the year 2050, like how old was the reception to that? And maybe it was a little bit too early, like Moby Dick was. Yeah, I did. I decided that PowerPoint would be an art medium because you can throw everything into it. You can throw type, you can throw pictures, you can throw films, you can throw sound. And you can just, it's like this basket, you can throw everything in there. It'll animate them and do all these things in a very clunky way, but whatever. So I wasn't... I wasn't dealing with whether it makes a good and accurate presentation or not. I was dealing with it in another way and saying it's a creative medium. And, of course, a lot of people found this very funny because they have to deal with it in their daily lives. And they probably hate it. Yeah, they probably all hate it. Now, wait a second. I'm sure some junior analysts think that PowerPoint is indeed an art form. Really? You think so? I'm being facetious. Okay, okay. They treat it that way. So I did this kind of presentation about this idea. And I told, as part of it, I told kind of the history of the development of PowerPoint. And I remember doing it, doing one of these in Berkeley. And of course, some of the guys that... did it were there in the audience they came to see what was happening and i said uh they're here so and so will you stand up they wouldn't do it they wouldn't show themselves Yeah, it's not very loved. But I thought, oh, now you can have fun with it. When you wrote the song "Glass, Concrete, and Stone" by that point, [60:00] Did you know about Roman Concrete? No, I did not. David Byrne, thank you so much for coming on Outlaw. Thank you. Thank you. Tracy, that was a lot of fun. I feel like everything he writes about in his book resonates perfectly. With us both on the specific level as in the specific things he identifies are very interesting and very us like concrete, but also resonates with us in the sense of like just finding things that like other people have forgotten or ignored or looked over. Absolutely. I mean. The virality of ideas is something that we've talked about before. It's – It's funny to think. I never thought we'd be talking to David Byrne about... Concrete. And I had the song going through my head during the conversation. You may find yourself on a beautiful podcast in a random part of the world talking about concrete. concrete, it comes up in his chapter about solar panels where, you know, it turns out there was an early iteration of solar panels that could have been groundbreaking for the world. But obviously, there were vested interest in oil and things like that. And so there are these power structures that restrain a lot of good ideas from taking hold. I do think his conclusions... The sort of cross-disciplinary approach to resurfacing some of this stuff is really interesting and harder than it seems. This is almost a fundamental question when it comes to information science because the tendency of human beings is to want to neatly categorize everything differently. taxonomize everything, slot everything into neat little categories. Expertise is often very siloed. It's hard to become a generalist or it's hard to become a good generalist. And so really figuring out how to bring those different disciplines or approaches together, like that seems to be the real challenge here. Like why aren't contractors reading, you know, like ancient Roman architectural texts? They could have been. Some probably are. You know, I bet like, so for example, I bet if you went to like an architecture school, I bet they are. Like in the sense, There's some sort of course. I know a couple architects, so I'll ask them if, like, as part of getting a degree in architecture. I said contractor, not architect. Someone who's, like, actually using those building materials. No, you're right. I think the contractors need to be reading that stuff. Read the classics. Read the classics of engineering. It's interesting to think. So there's a couple of things that, like, I think – So digitization of almost all knowledge now is going to be really important. And it's still day one. The internet's only been around for a few minutes. And it feels longer. No, for real. In the grain history of things, we're just getting started. But digitization is going to be really important for a couple of reasons. Just because the physical effort that used to be required to find some sort of a song or whatever, that's kind of gone for the most part. Obviously, and I'm glad we didn't waste our time talking forever about AI, but AI is going to get very good at cross-disciplinary identification if the shape of one solution... If it's tagged correctly. No, but if the shape... Not necessarily because if the shape of one solution... I think this is actually what we're discovering with some of the math proofs, for example, is that if the shape of one solution... resembles the shape of an unknown solution it can then like fill it in and there are all sorts of things in science like this you know for example like um and this is obviously pre-ai but like you know the shape of particle physics turns out it resembles the shape of stock market behavior in certain ways yeah that's true and so forth and i think that like you know in a ai model like And like we may just sort of like, you know, we might get a flurry essentially of Sleeping Beauty rediscoveries as people pursue a different problem. People pursue some new solution to something and the model gets really good at sort of like pulling in something from a cross-disciplinary plane. It's like this shape could resemble the solution. Thank you. I just asked ChatGPT [65:00] if I can make ancient Roman concrete at home. It says I can make a Roman-style concrete test block with hydrated lime, natural pozzolan, water, and stone aggregate. It's telling me that I must not, under any circumstances, try the hot mixing method with quicklime at home because quicklime reacts violently with water and causes serious chemical burns. Wow. Okay. Be careful, Tracy. All right. Shall we leave it there? Let's leave it there. Another episode of the Odd Thoughts podcast. I'm Tracy Allaway. You can follow me at Tracy Allaway. And I'm Joe Weisenthal. You can follow me at The Stalwart. Check out David Byrne's new book, Sleeping Beauties, Why Good Ideas Go Dormant and How They Wake Up. Follow our producers, Carmen Rodriguez at CarmenArmond, Dashiell Bennett at Dashpot, Kale Brooks at Kale Brooks, and Kevin Lozano at Kevin Lloyd Lozano. And of course, you can chat about all of these topics 24-7 in our Discord, discord.gg slash We even have a music channel in there. 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