Freedom To Break Laws vs. AI Surveillance and Enforcement Control

Trust Factor with Rob Greenlee focuses on all aspects to building human trust in online communications.

On episode 9 of Trust Factor, trusting tech-based enforcement of human laws, human freedom to break laws or socially accepted rules versus tech AI surveillance and enforcement control will be one of the main topics today. And do you trust climate change is real or just exaggerated to create fear? What can ruin trust in your audio and video podcast listening experience? We're going to talk about that from a listener perspective and your comments from episode 8. So Rob Greenlee here again, and thank you for being here. The trust factor in your life is essential and profoundly impacts your happiness, security, and safety. And this week I'm going to cover one big topic. I ran through them a little bit there at the beginning and some recent hot topics from last week. These topics raise and lower your level of trust in our lives or as content creators, as I'm going to talk about the listening side of being a content creator. So let's just jump right into it. There is a conflict and a huge choice in our world today around human freedom. And so as we move into this new era of technological developments, artificial intelligence, it's going to push us into areas that we have really never been in before. And but one of the big conflicts, it really gets back to the human factor of freedom, right? So the freedom to break laws and basically risk getting caught and facing some legal or social consequences from those activities. Now granted, human freedom gives us that choice, right, of what we can do and what we can't do versus using technology and artificial intelligence and surveillance technology to control and enforce compliance with the laws and the social rules that may be created as a result of having this kind of surveillance and almost like a pre-crime type of technology, and so this conflict is complex and multifaceted, as you might imagine. It falls under privacy rights, freedom, surveillance, and the role of technology and artificial intelligence in our modern society. So on one hand, human freedom to break laws, risk getting caught, and face consequences is a reflection of the inherent free will and personal autonomy that we've all really experienced in our life. If you've lived more than just a couple of years, that has been the norm, but it also signifies that humans should be able to make choices even if they're ill-advised or even illegal, so the subsequent risk of getting caught serves as a deterrence. That's what the historical aspect of this, and the consequences imposed or upheld by social norms and laws. This approach respects personal privacy and individual autonomy, but it also permits antisocial or harmful behaviors to go undetected, posing possible harm to other members of our society. And that is what our history has been, and that's why we have police, that's why we have a court system, that's why we have law enforcement, is we have social accepted laws and responsibilities that all of us have to choose. And a terrific example of this is when we drive our cars on the roads today. There is speed limits and people drive however— I'm seeing this increasingly— people drive however they want to drive, really regardless of what the traffic laws are or the speed limits. So this is one of those areas that I'm seeing the potential of an electric car that has internet connectivity that can monitor your driver activities. Can maybe set limits to how fast you can drive your car. So technology starts coming into our lives as a way of restricting our freedoms to break the law, which would be if the speed limit's 55 or 65 miles an hour, you can drive 80 or 85 miles an hour. And you're only limited on that based on your ability to basically evade the police or get a radar detector to detect when the police is supervising your activities or seeing what you're doing or tracking your speed and will pull you over and give you a ticket, and that's where the consequences come in. But increasingly, with advances in technology and AI and population surveillance, it has become possible to predict, detect, and prevent unlawful behavior like driving over the speed limit, and you can actually prevent it from happening because it can put a speed limiter on your vehicle through internet connection into your vehicle that has a computer built into it that has certain restrictions in your ability to drive above the speed limit. So this is increasingly capable with these— with the AI platforms and the surveillance that is coming with technology into all of our lives. And so this can actually prevent rules from being violated. There is a good side of this. This can make society safer and help enforce the laws more effectively. However, it brings about concerns related to privacy and potential extreme or dangerous enforcement or misuse of these technologies. So maybe it doesn't matter, you're adhering to the speed limit,, but since the software has been coded in a predatory way, it can still flag you as driving over the speed limit, even though you're not. So these technologies have to have somewhat limits to their ability to be misused as well. So that's where the challenges come in. And this can be applied to a lot of different areas of our lives, from monetary transactions to our overall behavior in the world that's detected online, because really intense surveillance can infringe upon our personal freedoms and create an atmosphere of distrust, right? There are also fears about biases in the software and in AI technology around its accuracy and its, really its truthfulness. That could be embedded in the AI systems. There could be racial bias, there could be gender bias, there could be all sorts of things that could be in this software that you don't know about, so it could result in unfair treatment of certain groups or individuals, and that's where I'm getting back to this, is that there's a tug-of-war of our freedoms versus surveillance and how those situations can be taken advantage of and create mistrust or distrust. There are also fears that this unfair treatment could be at the heart of conflict in our society around these technologies and how, and are these technologies good for society? Can they best be trusted to uphold the rule of law? And can we eliminate police? Can we eliminate the court system? Can we eliminate the need for laws that have to be enforced with jails and all this kind of stuff? So I think it raises a lot of questions around how our society has been organized and maintaining safety, but while at the same time, can we maintain our personal freedoms? And privacy, and that's the ethical question really around the use of this technology in surveillance that will, if it proceeds down this path, will subvert our freedom to obtain lawful enforcement of the laws and actually social rules and economic rules and priorities of our governments around climate change and around social justice and other things. There's a lot of ways that this technology can enforce society, but it can also create harm. However, from an inherent morality of action, this is really, really what it gets back to. It's the AI doesn't really care about the outcome, right? It's what it's programmed to do, and what it's programmed to do might not be justifiable, and morality might argue that infringing on personal freedoms and privacy is inherently wrong. It's not moral to actually do this, even if it can lead to a better outcome or a safer society. Really, in addition, there's a perspective of rights-based ethics and the importance of fundamental human rights, that are really at stake. This viewpoint might consider invasive surveillance or misuse or abuse really a violation of your right to privacy without proper oversight. So these tools have to have the ability to have oversight and control over them, and this is a broader topic I've been talking about on this program for a while now, Also, it can target specific groups, it can reinforce systematic biases, or it can enable authoritative practices, which could lead us down to having more of a dictatorial government that is all about pre-crime and trying to enforce an authoritarian view on the world. But societies must have an open and ongoing discussion about these issues and considering various ethical perspectives and practical implications to determine the most appropriate course of action or how we want to proceed with this, and the balance between security and our personal freedoms must remain a pivotal focus of trying to find what that balance is. Should we trust that any outcome will create a more positive outcome? Really, that's the bottom line here. Is the outcome going to be positive and not authoritarian, communist-like in its outcome, right, where our freedoms are being eliminated, we're being forced to live in a way that we don't want to live, and therefore trust in a more positive outcome is not given? And really, that trust has to be earned over a period of time. Also, we will probably see a revolt against this type of technology. I would like to see— and this is just my personal opinion— is that I like technology. I'm a fan of technology, and I would love it to be something that would bring positive things to all of our lives and improve human life and add to our experience. And not be weaponized against us. But I also am a pragmatist, and I also understand human behavior. And human behavior tells me that there are powers that be that want to take advantage of other people and take advantage of technology to their own personal gain or their own control and their own power over other people that may be giving them reasons to have them clamping down, just like what I'm seeing on the freeways. There's people that are driving 55, 60 miles an hour down the road that are, that's within the speed limit, but there's other people that are driving 90 miles an hour or 90 miles an hour on the freeways. And our government's gonna look at that and say, we have to crack down on those people that are driving at 90 miles an hour on a freeway that's only 55 miles an hour. So We're giving them, by us being irresponsible in what we do in the world and breaking the law and not really doing what's right for society, we are giving the government the ability and the justification. This applies to a lot of things in our world that we as humans are not taking care and not taking responsibility for what we bring to others and what we bring to our society and we're just handing over the ability and the justification for governments to essentially crack down on us and say, since I have the technology to crack down on you, to get you to comply to that 55-mile-an-hour speed limit, I'm going to use it because I have justification for it. And that's the real danger. And for us to get there— and I've talked about this, I think, in past episodes, and maybe it's redundant to some degree, but we need to have transparency with our government and corporations must be open about their use of surveillance and technologies and AI systems as part of this process, and there needs to be accountability on all sides. There needs to be accountability at the government level, corporate level, which is typically where the technology comes from and is deployed to the individual citizen, And I think what this is really going to bring to the fore is all of us to decide whether or not, you know, the rules and the laws that we have in our world today are something that we agree with and we're willing to follow. Because if we do, we may truly create that world that we want to live in and that will be fair for as many people as possible. And, but accountability comes with strict regulations that should be in place to hold entities accountable for misuse or abuse of surveillance and AI technologies. This includes domestic law and international agreements. There should be also independent oversight bodies to check the adherence to these regulations. But first of all, we gotta have some regulations around AI 'cause we don't have any right now. And so it's a wide open thing right now. And that, that's why I'm all over this, that because this is our opportunity and if we grab it and we could create a better world for ourselves, but we as humans need to take responsibility. We as humans need to, take control of this and create a world that we want. Because if we don't, we're going to have a world that we don't want. That's the real choice. And public participation, all of us as citizens, we need to be involved in discussions about how these technologies are used and regulated. This can be facilitated through public consultations, referendums, and inclusive policymaking processes that is fairly typical in the law creation process, but I do believe that our governments have been moving away from that because increasingly they've been feeling empowered by special interests and not feeling the requirement to listen to the people where these laws are being enforced upon because they think that they know better and that the population isn't paying attention. So this is going to challenge these next— I believe these next 8 to 10 years are going to challenge all of us to come up with a society and a culture that, that we can really make what we should have had all along. So there needs to be legal safeguards, strong legal frameworks that protect individual rights and freedoms are really crucial in all this. These include protections against arbitrary detention, unjustified searches, which I believe we have most of that law already in the books, but to have it described in a way that applies to surveillance technology and other abuses of power and control. And then the last part here is education. The public understanding and awareness of these issues can be a powerful tool to ensuring the technology and surveillance are used ethically and responsibly. And that's— that— those are the 5 key factors of making this happen, and I agree with them 100%. It's not going to be easy, it's not going to be simple for us to do this, But in the end, whether any outcome is positive or not, or not, largely depends on how these issues are managed by all of us, the government and corporations, and whether or not we can trust all those parties to be transparent, have accountability, and have public involvement and education, and not have an evil agenda. And of control and wanting to do something that is not in our or anyone's interest really, other than a very small majority of people, which I increasingly feel could likely be happening here. And so all of us as citizens of whatever country that you happen to watch on this, we need to really be paying attention be paying attention to what our governments are doing and what corporations are achieving, are doing to achieve a balance that respects both public safety, individual freedoms, and are less likely we are to end up in a state of excessive control of our lives. So I got on a soapbox today on this one. I would love to hear your thoughts and your feedback on this. I don't think that I'm underemphasizing this. I think this is what I just outlined for you is the question of our time. And as humans on this earth with this kind of the power of the kind of technology that's just on the horizon here, that's coming into our lives, these are the issues that we have in front of us. That we have to deal with. The next topic I want to cover is also a little bit on the controversial side, is do you trust climate change is real? Now, I'm not passing judgment here. What I'm doing is laying out what is out there, how this topic is being discussed in a variety of places and voices. And is climate change being exaggerated? I don't think there's any question that the climate always changes. The, the historical record proves that. The question gets back to, is it a crisis? That's the bigger question. Is it justifying massive and rapid changes in our world? That's the question. So I have a couple of video clips that I want to play for you that will show the dilemma around this topic. It's really easy to just trust what you hear from one side or another, but I think it's really helpful to hear both sides of this topic. And I want you to decide what you believe. Now, granted, it's really easy to believe that because we had a hot day today that climate change is a problem. It's also easy to believe that if we had a huge snowstorm or a hurricane come through, that makes climate change a big problem. But what if this is being exaggerated? What if it really isn't? So I'm going to play you a couple of video clips that will basically enable you to decide what you think is believable or not. So this clip is from a woman, Katie Hopkins, who lives in the UK, and she posted this video that I'm going to play for you, and we can talk a little bit after I played it. And then I'm going to play another video, and then I'm going to play another video.

The Met Office are warning that in the UK it was the hottest June on record since time began. And that heat has the fingerprints of climate change all over it. I didn't even realize the climate had fingers, that's how far behind I am. They say it helps explain why there's a water shortage, why so many people in the UK are on hosepipes, and how thousands might die from heat this year. I also think, having worked inside the UK Met Office, and I understand how they're financed, how they need there to be climate drama so that they can get government grants for climate in order they can employ the thousands of people they have there sat on their ass, the full pension. But yes, people, be very afraid if there is another day where it goes above 21 degrees in the UK and it stops pissing down. Just for one second, please know it's got the fingertips of climate all over it. The Met Office warning.

All right, I'm gonna stop sharing that one. That kind of paints one picture that maybe this is— the climate change is based on really an economic motivation. So let me play another clip for you that will tell another side to this. And this one is from the director of the WHO, which is under the, the UN, and it's Tedros, who's the director general of the, of WHO, which is the World Health Organization. And he's doing a presentation about, of all things, climate change, which I don't think he's really an expert on. But he seems to be putting in his two cents.

The climate crisis is now one of the major factors determining human health outcomes. El Niño, which has now been announced by the World Meteorological Organization, together with global warming, is already driving record temperatures. On Monday, the world recorded its hottest day on record. Over the coming months, We expect a range of extreme weather events, including droughts, floods, hurricanes, and heat waves, all of which harm human health.

Yeah, it was a fairly short clip, but it just gives you a flavor of what's going on there. If you really think about the list of climate activities that he listed, those are normal activities in our climate. On a global scale. I don't believe that he gave us any evidence that there was anything that was out of the norm, really. Sure, if we have a storm or a flood or something like that, that's horrible. And I think everybody would agree that's horrible. But does it warrant the high action and the seriousness of the changes that are being proposed right now is the big question. And I'm trying to be objective about it. And look at what the facts are. And so I'm gonna play you a little bit longer clip next of a person that is looking at the climate from the perspective of more of a science-based approach and has given, this is a little bit longer clip that I'm gonna play on this one. It's from an author of a book called "The Inconvenient Facts About Carbon Dioxide." So I'm going to play this and it'll give you a little bit of things to think about. So this is a show called Counterpoint. And what they're talking about here is kind of what this climate scientist is saying about what's going on with the climate and what's going on with CO2 and what he's seeing is really going on. So I'm going to play that right now for— it's about a 10-minute clip.

Welcome back to Counterpoint. Joining me now is Gregory Wrightstone. We're unpacking climate change and specifically purported benefits of CO2, which we've heard contrary to that for the last number of years. Let's unpack that, Gregory. We frequently, as I've said here, that CO2, carbon dioxide, is harmful to the environment, that it increases climate change. Yet you suggest again in your book here that we are in fact benefiting from an increased CO2, and that sounds like a radical concept.

So could you please explain Well, the easiest thing to point to is really is what we call the greening of the Earth. Vegetation, again, we just talked about photosynthesis requiring CO2. So the more CO2, actually, the better. The plants and the crops that we rely on for our food, these evolved at times when CO2 levels were 4 and 5 times as much as they are today. So these plants evolved needing and requiring more CO2 than we have. So The more CO2 we have, the faster they grow, the bigger they grow. Other things like they can fight drought better with more CO2. There's more soil moisture because they're taking less soil out of the— or less water out of the soil. Lots of benefits. We can see that crop growth and crops are by virtually every country around the world, from the coldest to the warmest, are benefiting from modest warming. And just think about this. It's easy to think if you're in Norway or Canada, if it's warming, it's warmed about a little less than a degree in one century, but that warming lengthens the growing seasons. So crops are killing frost and earlier in the spring and arrive later in the fall. And so if you're in Alberta or Saskatchewan, that wheat crop you can grow, you can plant it earlier and you can maybe get a couple harvests in. And then the CO2 is just turbocharging that with CO2 fertilization effect powering plant growth.

Now, as a Canadian, of course, I will not complain for an increase in temperature, but what about those who live in equatorial countries? Is there a drawback to even raising the temperature by 1 degree, as you said, in this past century?

Yeah, the fact of the matter is it's the subtropical regions around the equator that see the least amount of greenhouse-driven warming, and it's the poles that get the most. Where they really need it the most. And we see countries— we've got a research associate, Vijay Jayaraj, lives in southern India. He writes a lot about crops in India. And even a warm, really hot country like India, my Lord, there's just crop after crop is just breaking records year after year. That's to be celebrated, and we should welcome that. Because of modest warming and increased CO2, we're able to feed a much larger and growing population. Again, that's something that we should celebrate.

So then why is CO2— why has it become demonized by climate change activists? Why did they latch on to CO2 if there seemingly is no negative based on what you've said?

Because all of the fossil fuels— our economies, the Western economies, capitalism, it's based on inexpensive, abundant, reliable, affordable energy.. And we get that from coal, oil, and natural gas, somewhat nuclear, but it's these renewables that don't, that are not reliable. That's the main drawback with renewables, wind and solar. They're not reliable, they're not abundant, and they're not affordable. If you look at the full cost of the life cycle of these renewable facilities. And you ask me, why are they basically, what your question is, why are they lying to us? And I don't, You can't really— I can't look inside men's and women's souls to see what their motivations are. What I can do is say, okay, this is what they're telling you, and this is what the facts are. And as a scientist, that's my role. And so we just heard it last week with Greta Thunberg that didn't attend the COP conference. She said this isn't really about environmentalism. It's we need to get rid of the capitalist system and remake it. We just saw over in Egypt, Sharm el-Sheikh, talking about the same thing, the Great Reset, and how COVID— he actually stated that COVID gave us a great model that we should be using for climate crises and climate control. We saw how easily people were manipulated by using the COVID crisis to do this, and he came out and said— he put the words out there and actually stated that this is a great model that we should use for climate.

Oh wow. And then for our viewers, John Kerry, former Secretary of State, or is he still currently the Secretary of State?

No, he's the, what they call the climate envoy for the United States. I'm not sure exactly what that is, but it probably is not anything that's beneficial to the economies of the United States or Canada.

Okay, we're going to pick up this discussion in just a few moments when we return. Stick around. Welcome back. We're discussing CO2 and climate change, and joining us, Gregory Whitestone, He's the executive director at the CO2 Coalition and a geologist with over 40 years of research experience. Thanks again for joining us today, Gregory. Here in Canada, because we have such a large polar landmass, if you will, many Canadians are concerned of what they hear in the media about the melting polar ice caps and of course the related rising sea levels.

Is this a threat? Actually, we could melt the entire northern polar ice cap, and it would scarcely have any effect at all on sea level. And you're going, what, what is that? And that's because the northern polar ice cap is ice floating on the surface of the ocean. And when you do that, if you can imagine the Titanic, and again, 90% of an iceberg is submerged, and you can melt that ice and it really doesn't raise sea level. You can do that experiment at home with put ice in a glass and melt it.. And when that ice melts, the level of the water remains the same. It is true that the glaciers, land-based glaciers, as they melt, contribute to global warming. But in fact, I was just doing a chart yesterday on this. I was taking a look at Glacier Bay in Southeast Alaska, right up against Canada. That, that started— the ice there started to retreat in the late 1700s and really started retreating in the early 1800s. So we had, now bear in mind, we didn't start adding CO2 to the atmosphere in any significant measure until the mid-'50s, 1950 or so. But yet we had 200-plus years of retreating glaciers prior to us adding CO2 to the atmosphere. So we had naturally driven glacial retreat and increased CO2 before we started to add any CO2 to the atmosphere. So they'll tell you that 200 years, that's natural, but that all changed in the middle of the 20th century. No, it didn't.

No, it didn't.

So then why did they melt?

Why were they retreating rather? That's a big question. We've got to, we see that there are series and cycles of warming and cooling going back 5,000 years to the first great civilizations. We saw the Hittites, the Assyrians, Babylonians, those great empires rose up during a previous warm period. And then there were other cycles of warming, the Roman warm period, the medieval warm period. And they were— each period was separated by cooling, and it was horrific. The cooling periods were associated with crop failure, famine, pestilence, and nasty population. Just opposite of what we're being told. The warming periods, history tells us we should welcome the warmth and fear the cold. Just opposite of what they're claiming. I think we need to look what happened throughout history over the last 5,000 years, and that's what I do.

Okay.

Now I'm scared to ask this question, but are we in a warming or cooling period right now?

We're in a—

it's—

it looks like we're still in this warming trend that started more than 300 years ago in the depths of what was called the Little Ice Age. So we've been warming in fits and starts for more than 300 years. One of the interesting things was when we remember, I just said we started adding CO2 in the mid-20th century. Just as we started adding CO2, we went into a 30-plus year cooling trend. How does that work? I thought CO2 was supposed to be the warming effect of the atmosphere, but then we had 30 years of cooling instead of warming. And since the late 1970s was the end of that cooling trend, it's warmed and it looks like it still is a little bit. Although since 2016, it's been, that's only 6 years. It's not a long time, but we, it's really been flat level of temperature globally since 2016. We had a, there was a big spike in 2016 and then it cooled down again. So yeah, we're on a warming trend, and it may last for another 50 or 80 or 100 years. I don't know. I like to look at the past warming trends to figure that out. It's tough to make— one of my favorite quotes is from Yogi Berra. He said, it's really tough to make predictions, especially about the future. It's easy to look back and see what happened, but what's going to happen in the future? It will eventually cool down again. I'm sure of that. And when it's gonna go, I don't know. I mean, when it does occur, it's gonna be harmful to crop growth.

I'm nervous about that because we're entering our winter here and I'd loathe to have a very cold winter up here in Canada again. Do you think we're in for some more extreme weather?

We only have 30 seconds to commercial. Yes, we are in for extreme weather, but that's, we always have had extreme weather. The good news is extreme weather's not increasing. In fact, MDAT database shows that there's been a 10% decrease in extreme natural disasters since the year 2000. We've seen a 98% decline in extreme weather-related deaths. Well, then that surprises—

In the early 1900s.

And I think that'll surprise a lot of viewers because we hear frequent media reports on the contrary. We're gonna pick up this discussion in just a few moments.

Pause this. And I just wanna pose to you, based on what we just heard in those 3 videos, Which account of this do you trust? That's the big question, right? Who looks like has the facts understood? And maybe it's not really a question of whether or not we have global warming. I think what I've heard is that people agree we have global warming, but does that mean that it warrants a crisis or it warrants this aggressive action or that it warrants moves that compromise our economy and our social safety? Those are the questions that I have, and trust comes from reasonable people that are sharing reasonable thoughts on this topic and not extreme fear-based thoughts. I think this past— this last video, it makes sense. What he's saying, and it feels reasonable. But I'm not— it's up to you to decide. Let me know in the comments what you think about what he said and what the earlier guest said. I know this was a long video, and I appreciate you riding through that, because what I wanted to do was paint that contrast between the messages that we're getting out there about this topic. And that's what the purpose of this show is, to raise those questions about What do you trust? Where is— where do you want to put your trust, your confidence, your feelings about these topics? Now granted, these issues are going to be pushed on us regardless of what you or me think, but as a collective, we might be able to temper this urgent response to something that may not be as urgent as it's being portrayed. So that's all I'm trying to do here. I'm not trying to create a problem. And I'm not trying to get banned or anything like that. I'm just trying to paint the picture and let you decide, because that's really what we all need to be doing is just sharing the facts, sharing perspectives, and all of us need to decide what we believe and what we don't believe and what we trust. But next thing I wanted to do is I wanted to mention the sponsor that supports this program, and it is StreamYard. And it's a leading video, live video and on-demand video, and local recording, high-quality audio recording service, taking your content creation to the next level. So I'm actually using StreamYard to produce this program, and now you can effortlessly produce low-cost audio and video podcasts or live streams, perfect for YouTube, podcasting, and all social media platforms if you want to go live. Actually, StreamYard just announced AI-based audio filtering to eliminate background noise. So the company keeps innovating. And so if you have an interest in signing up and giving StreamYard a try, start your own show or your own podcast, just go to streamyard.com/robg and use my personal promo code, which is RobG, to sign up. And this will get you a free trial. And a lifetime discount to StreamYard because StreamYard is where content begins. So thank you so much, StreamYard, and thank you so much for watching this program. So I wanted to also mention that this video show is also available as an audio podcast on Apple Podcasts and a lot of the other podcast listening platforms. So just do a search for Trust Factor with Rob Greenlee, and I'm sure you'll find me in there. And then also, if you're watching this on YouTube, which you probably are, you can like, subscribe on YouTube. Channel. Been increasingly putting programs over on Rumble as well, just because that's a growing video platform too, and we seem to do pretty well when we put our programs over there across the whole network. But the last topic I wanted to cover, and I know I'm— this is a longer episode than what I did, what I normally do with this show, but I wanted to cover some important topics. And this last one is what can ruin your trust in your audio and video podcast listening experience? And this is an interesting question for podcast listeners as well as podcast creators or content creators. You know, podcasts have become a beloved medium for entertainment, education, and storytelling, from true crime mysteries to comedy shows and everything in between. Podcasts offer a diverse array of content to suit every possible taste or wish, not unlike what YouTube does. You do a search in YouTube for any topic that you want to get informed about, and they probably have a video on it. But however, just like any other form of media, some factors can ruin that experience and leave listeners feeling disappointed or disengaged and ruins a podcast for you as a listener. So I'm gonna run through some really quick here and then we can wrap this episode up and get you moving on with your day here. But one of the big ones is too many ads. Now granted, this program has some ads in it too, so I get it. As long as we don't overload it with too many ads, I think that's the key here. But podcasts can be as bad as TV commercials, or it can be as bad as that experience. So it's really important. Like when I talked about StreamYard, it has to be authentic and real and come from someone that uses the tool and understands it and really believes in it. And but yet some are shifting away from podcasts and prefer like platforms like TikTok or listening to audiobooks. These are other pulls on our time when it comes to this kind of stuff. And then bad audio. If your audio quality isn't great, and also being a host that has a big ego is another turnoff for a lot of people. So I think you have to be kind of a real person. You have to speak to people like they're, they're sitting right there next to you and that you want to obtain their respect and their potential friendship. And a lot of podcasts have too much banter at the beginning that don't have a lot of value, don't get to the point, and the host isn't knowledgeable enough or aware of all the facts, getting the dates, getting the persons, getting the details confused. Things like that can give a poor listening experience. And the other one too is too many inside jokes that make you feel like you're not part of what's happening or part of the program. A lot of podcasts will have that. They'll have co-hosts that will banter about, about something that's between them and the audience doesn't really care about. It's also talking about like US holidays when half your audience is listening in Australia or in some other country around the world. You just have to be careful about talking about things that are just not relevant to your audience. So these are factors that content creators need to think about. And I do think that listening audiences need to evaluate the shows that they listen to based on some of these factors. And too many references to things too niche and not everyone knows about. This is kind of a gray area one a little bit. It's hard to really define that one. Very definitively. And then the next one here is volume levels. You know, don't make me, don't make the listener turn up the dial to be able to hear you. Your audio needs to sound good. It needs to be at a good level. And like I said before, don't take forever to get to the point, you know, of what the topic of the program is. I think you need to get into it. I think you need to drive the value so you're not wasting your listeners' or your viewers' time. And then swearing is another one. I'm not a big proponent of swearing. As you've heard in this program, I don't swear. I don't use those kinds of words. Now, granted, some podcasters think it's cool and think that it's okay, and I'm okay with that, but I don't feel like I need to use those words to be able to better communicate. But some people do, and I do respect that. And I do understand that there are certain words that drive emotion and drive connection and drive a feeling of passion for something. And that's what swearing can do. And I also understand why many should get into video podcasts, because when they talk about things, they don't always say, especially if it's an audio podcast, they don't always say who the guest is, give their name repeatedly as well as the host, like in this program. I had up on the screen visually, you could see the names of the people that were speaking. My name is on the screen at all times. So there is some distinct advantages to video in being able to communicate at a deeper level than just audio. But it is up to me, and maybe I didn't do as good a job of saying who was talking on the audio side. And but I will put information in the show notes for the audio listeners. So if they do want to go see the clip from this, on their own and see who those people are. You will have access to that. And some people prefer banter on many topics and prefer to have it done live. So there's no edit, editing or skips or robotic sounds or movements. Like I do this show like it's live. I could actually do this show live and it wouldn't be any different because I don't do any post-production editing other than maybe clipping the ends on this. I really like doing live. It's taken me a little bit of time to get back in the mode of being able to do live really as good as I want to do it. But to, to be able to do this really well takes practice. It takes effort. It takes time. And to get it perfect can be costly. It can be difficult. It can be a lot of hard work. A lot of very popular video shows and podcasts have teams around them that optimize the process. I'm doing this as a solo creator. I'm operating all the knobs and buttons and software that make this show happen, which is what I prefer to do. And for— and you all sometimes can forget the most essential thing here as you think about what show that you wanna listen to. Is, does the host love the show that they're doing? Do they have the passion to keep you engaged in that show? And I believe that the shows that are very popular on YouTube and also very popular as audio podcasts have that passion, and the hosts love the show that they're doing, and they love the connection that it makes with audiences. That is very powerful. And then the other aspect too, that can give a bad experience is the music and intro are too long. There's no introduction of the host, which I didn't really do an introduction of myself. That's all in the description of this. And I'm a long-term podcaster. I've been doing a video show called The New Media Show for many years. So if you wanted to follow that show in addition to this show, that'd be great. That's at newmediashow.com, and that's live every Wednesday at 3 PM Eastern, noon Pacific. So we'd love to, to see you over there. And then another one is lack of preparation. Like, I do a lot of preparation for this show and a lot of focus on how I'm going to talk about these topics, and it's just not me pulling up a microphone and just riffing it, right? So though I do love to have that part of where I'm just talking like a, like a normal person talking to you. And that's powerful too. And I will always introduce the guests that I have on this show as, as best as I can. So let me move in. That's the final, that's the third hammer in my list of topics today. So I, I appreciate you spending time with me on that as well. I think it's an interesting kind of deep dive into being a content creator. So if you are contemplating creating a show yourself, would love to have you join the online podcast and video creation kind of ecosystem. It'd be great to get your voice out there as well. But I wanted to mention some of the show comments that I got after episode 8, which was a fairly popular episode that, that I put out talking about how trust is being seen in the news headlines. Can you trust some of the things in the news headlines out there? And as Michael Lambi wrote in regards to last week's, or the last episode that I did, Episode 8, about Joe Rogan putting out the challenge to Dr. Holt, about who's an expert in vaccines, and RFK, Robert F. Kennedy, to come on The Joe Rogan Experience and talk all about vaccines and misinformation and all that kind of stuff like that. It got up to over $3 million to a charity for going on the Joe Rogan podcast. And Michael wrote, if I were a charity that was involved with him, I'd be questioning Dr. Holt's credibility. And he said, great objective show, keep it coming. Thank you, Michael. I appreciate the feedback on that, and I agree with you. There's no reason why that doctor shouldn't have joined RFK and talked about these topics. It— I don't know why people are so scared to talk about the— these topics around the vaccine and the efficacy and the facts around it, because it's all about our health, right? And then Aldwyn Alltoony, a media queen out of Australia, said Great show, good work, Rob. I thank you, Altwin, for giving us a comment and tuning in to last week's show. I appreciate it. And Ellie Mae Clampett 2810 also wrote, the fact that Hotez refused to debate and discuss the vaccine issue with Kennedy is for me an admission of guilt that he's got the wrong information. And Kennedy is the most qualified candidate across the board for president of the United States. He is heaven-sent. He has my vote.

Okay.

Okay, Ellie, thank you for your comments and your feedback. And I appreciate that. And I do tend to agree with you that Dr. Hotez should have, like I said earlier, should have actually done that program, especially for the charity. And really come on and talked about these issues and was really open. So that kind of wraps up the whole show this week. I know I went almost an hour here. I can be found on Twitter @RobGreenlee and on LinkedIn as well at Rob Greenlee as well. And you can see the spelling of my name right there on the screen. And but it's Rob and the last name is G-R-E for all those listening. And so I certainly appreciate you joining me here and let me throw up a couple of links here. So this is my email address and my Twitter handle and also my LinkedIn as well. So if you wanted to reach out to me and give me feedback, that would be fantastic. I would love to hear from you. And then this is also my StreamYard link. If you wanted to sign up for StreamYard, that would be fantastic. So thank you for joining me here on, on episode 9. I appreciate you being here and come back and join me for episode 10. I appreciate it. So thank you so much. And we'll see you next week.

Trust Factor with Rob Greenlee focuses on all aspects to building human trust in online communications.