Future is Networking, Hierarchies Dead (Seminar in Skopje, North Macedonia)

Summary

Professor Sam Vaknin's lecture covered the following key points: 1. Networks are fundamentally different from hierarchies, with their own characteristics and life cycles. 2. The study of networks has advanced significantly in the past two decades, largely due to the proliferation of computer networks. 3. Networks organize people based on time rather than space, with early participants often reaping the most benefits. 4. Information and power in networks flow horizontally, as opposed to the vertical flow in hierarchies. 5. Networks empower individuals and are constructed on equipotence, while hierarchies disempower and are built on impotence. 6. Networks are more susceptible to external shocks due to their homophilic nature, which can lead to a lack of diversity and resilience. 7. The life cycle of networks includes a mimetic phase (introduction of ideas), an externality phase (network growth and benefits), and potentially a decay phase if the network fails to innovate or maintain internal value. 8. Networks that are self-contained and provide comprehensive value to their members are more likely to succeed and grow. 9. Weak ties within networks, individuals with loose connections to many groups, are crucial for the dissemination of information and innovation. 10. The future of networks likely involves multiplex (multiple types of connections), multimodal (various roles for participants), and multilevel (hierarchical structures) characteristics.

We are going to discuss the recent advances in network theory.

A lecture seminar is going to be divided into three parts.

The first part would be general introduction to the characteristics of networks compared to the characteristics of hierarchies.

Then we are going to discuss the life cycle of networks, which is where it becomes interesting.

Then we are going to discuss how information, goods and benefits flow in networks and how you can increase these benefits, information and so on, according to the most recent studies, as late as 2016.

The study of networks started in the 1940s, believe it or not, but we didn't make much progress until I would say 20 years ago.

The reason we didn't make much progress is that until about 20 years ago everything was organized in hierarchies, not in networks.

Then 20 years ago people started to experiment with networks.

Can you tell me why? What happened 20 years ago?

Yes. Internet, computers, computers more precisely, computer networks.

It was the first case where we could study networks in an isolated laboratory-like environment and also the first case where we could study networks with millions of participants.

In the past 20 years we have learned more about networks than we have learned in the preceding 50 or 60 years.

So now we know a lot about network, but still very little.

I'm going to introduce you to the current state of knowledge, but you must realize and understand that if I were to give this lecture 10 years from now, if I'm still alive, then I would say different things, probably.

The other option is that I will carry on talking for 10 years and then we see what happens.

So it's up to you.

Someone smiled. He wouldn't mind.

It was faster than I see.

Faster than you see, but... Okay.

We all come across networks, obviously.

Producers, suppliers, consumers, users are all organized sometimes.

Not always. All organized in networks.

In human society there are two ways to organize people.

One way to organize people is hierarchy, and the other way to organize people is network.

Networks are not hierarchies, and hierarchies are not networks. They are diametrically opposed ways to organize people.

They have nothing in common. Nothing, as you will see.

They are mirror images of each other.

If you have network mentality, network mind, you don't function well in hierarchy.

If you have hierarchy mind, what the Japanese call salary men, if you have a hierarchy mind, you don't function well in networks.

So one of the first questions you should ask yourself, "What kind of mind do I have? Do I have a network mind or do I have a hierarchy mind?" Are you born with such a mind? To some extent, yes.

We discovered that there are genetic components.

But the biggest part is influence of the environment.

Social expectations, peer pressure, what your family told you, how society is organized, in which country you live, how you can progress in society, social mobility.

In some countries and societies, you can progress only if you go into a hierarchy, and if you go into a network, you end up in prison.

In other societies, if you go through hierarchy, you are nobody, one of tens of billions of nobodies.

If you go into a network, sometimes, not always, you make a lot of money, and the future for yourself depends on the society.

The more entrepreneurial the society, the more it encourages initiative, entrepreneurship, risk-taking, the more it is network-oriented.

So, welcome to that.

Can you give me an example of the only organizational unit, only social unit, which is both hierarchy and network?

The only one. There's no other.

The family. Yes, the family.

The family is the only social unit that is both hierarchy and network.

The mother and the father are a network.

Well, in most modern societies, the father and the mother are a network.

The father and the mother, compared to the children, in relation to the children, are hierarchy, if they are lucky.

So, this is the only social unit that is both.

Why do we need to organize people at all?

What's wrong with this? You're not organized.

You're sitting in each one's chosen place.

No one told you where to sit, what to do.

Not as a network and not as a hierarchy.

This is a random organization of people.

Self-assembly, it's called.

Self-assembly or self-organizing.

Why can't we self-assemble, self-organize?

Why do we need hierarchy and network?

Because we need to regulate the flow.

Flow of what?

We need to regulate the flow of information.

Flow of power. Flow of benefits. Flow of property.

We need to organize flows.

We need to organize flows across space.

For example, if there's money, how do we divide it?

If there is access, how do we divide it? How do we allow it?

So, we need to regulate across space.

But we also need to regulate across time.

From one generation to the next.

Inheritance. How do we pass on our property to our children?

And so on and so forth.

Part of it to the state. Big part of it to the state.

Very little is left to our children.

So, this regulation of flows is why we need to organize people.

And so we organize people and we regulate the flows to management, shareholders, workers, government, consumers, collective, communities.

We organize flows.

The main social activity, the main activity of society is not governance, is not education, is not healthcare.

These are minor, tiny activities.

The main activity of society is regulation of flows.

Regulating flows. That's the main preoccupation.

What's happening in Venezuela right now? It's a fight over power. How to regulate flows.

What are taxes? Regulation of flows.

Why are you accumulating property? To pass it on to your children.

It's a flow. Everything is about flow.

And how to regulate flows.

When we operate within a society and we regulate these flows and so on and so forth, we accumulate something called social capital.

So, I'm beginning to use professional terms. You will do well to remember them because we're going to use them later.

The number of connections between people that are used to regulate these flows is called social capital. It's a relatively new concept.

It's a few decades old.

Let's start with the differences between hierarchies and networks.

By the time I finish, you will realize that there is a war between hierarchies and networks.

Hierarchies feel threatened by networks.

Networks are threatened by hierarchies.

Wherever there is hierarchy and network, the hierarchies try to destroy the network.

And the network, by its very existence, is undermining the hierarchy, destroying the hierarchy.

It is a war. And the war has never been stronger in human history than it is today.

This is the moment of war between hierarchies and networks.

Who is going to win? We're going to discuss this too.

Because networks have life cycles. Hierarchies have life cycles.

We're going to, together, try to make a prediction who is going to win for you to be on the winning side.

Let's start with a few differences between hierarchies and networks.

N is networks, surprisingly. H is hierarchies.

Positioning, interactions, information, power, and benefits.

Now, later.

Positioning is your position within the structure.

There is a structure. You have a position in that structure.

So, your position in the hierarchy is determined by space.

Hierarchy is like a tree, or like a ladder.

Where you are, where you are, gives you your status, your power, your access, your benefits.

So, in hierarchies, space determines your positioning.

In networks, time determines your positioning.

How early you enter the network.

The earlier you enter the network, the more benefits, power, access, and information you have.

This is the first crucial difference between hierarchy and network.

If I join now, if I become the Prime Minister of Macedonia, obviously in Hungary, so if I become the Prime Minister in Macedonia, that's not what the government is.

If I become the Prime Minister of Macedonia tomorrow, I spent zero time in the government, but I am immediately number one.

My positioning in the hierarchy is determined by space, not by how much time I spent.

But if I join a network now, I am a nobody, because I just joined.

I have no contacts, no access, no information, no benefits, no nothing, because I just joined.

So, space and time.

First major difference.

Second difference.

How networks and hierarchies interact with the outside.

How they interact with the outside is exactly opposite.

Notice your position inside the system is temporal in networks, spatial in hierarchy.

How the structure interacts with the outside is exactly opposite.

In networks, what determines the power of the network is space.

Space.

What do I mean space?

How many people there are?

How they are spread geographically.

Hello. People in space, people in networks are called nodes.

So from now on I'm going to say nodes.

And each one of you should begin to feel like a node.

It's a very psychedelic experience.

So, network, the power of the network, the efficacy, the efficiency of the network, the network's ability to operate on the world and in the world is determined by space.

How many nodes? How they are distributed?

The geography of the network. Clear?

How the hierarchy operates, the efficiency of the hierarchy, etc., depends on how long it existed.

How long it existed. If I establish right now, right now, I establish a hierarchy.

For instance, I say, "Zogan, you are number one, you are number two, you are number three." I just establish a hierarchy. Of course I'm... I'm the zero. I'm the zero.

I just establish a hierarchy, but it will take time.

It will take time for them to accept number one's authority.

It will take time to make regulations. It will take time to act on the environment. It will take time for you to listen to them, etc., etc.

Hierarchies require time to be efficient.

Networks require space to be efficient.

The more nodes, the more powerful the network. Never mind how long the network existed.

If I establish a social media, new social medium right now, competing with Facebook, and I have four billion members on the first day, I will be more powerful than Facebook, even though I started one day ago. Clear? Right.

Let's continue.

Information and power.

Information and power in hierarchy flow like this, and in network flow like this.

In network, information and power flows horizontally.

In network, information spreads like this. Everyone has equal access.

There's no secrets. Secrets are the key to hierarchy.

Information that is withheld is the key to hierarchy.

On the Internet, there are no secrets. There is WikiLeaks.

So, hierarchy, information flows upward.

Power flows downward. Vertical.

In network, information and power flow like this, equally distributed to everyone.

We'll talk about it in a minute, because there are some very important concepts that are connected to information and power, and I think you will be amazed how it is possible to see networks in a new light.

You're all part of a network. You're all part of a network.

But I don't believe that many of you thought about the network.

What is it that you're doing? Who are you when you are in the network?

How can you see yourself differently, and this is the aim of this lecture, to make you reconceive yourself, to make you look in the mirror and say, "Wow, I never thought this is who I am."

Well, in some cases, don't look anywhere.

So, benefits.

Exactly the opposite.

In networks, benefits flow to the first ones, to the initiators of the network, to the ones who are first members.

Do you know the statistics?

In MLM, for example, MLM is the network.

Not a good example of network. It's not a beneficial network.

But MLM, in MLM networks, the first initiators, the first 1%, the people who joined the network, the first 1%, make 92.6% of the income, the first 1% who joined.

This is the situation in networks.

The first 1% make the most. Zuckerberg makes more money than you.

You are both on Facebook. Well, than some of you.

There's no one, I mean, putting aside.

So, the earlier you joined the network, the more income you have.

Any type of network, by the way, doesn't have to be MLM or social media or whatever.

Any type of network. The first one make much more money and benefits than the later ones or the last ones.

In hierarchy, it's not like that.

In hierarchy, the benefits are determined in advance according to your position in the hierarchy.

And everyone on that position gets the same.

So, if I joined as the manager of a factory now, and someone else was manager of the same factory for 15 years, we will get the same salary.

Time doesn't matter. Your position matters.

So, benefits in hierarchies are horizontal.

Benefits in network are vertical.

You can already see that network is a mirror of hierarchy.

It's like left-right. It's like looking at a mirror.

Time, space, space, time.

Horizontal, vertical, vertical horizontal. It's exactly mirror.

This is why hierarchies feel very threatened by networks.

Because what is the network telling the hierarchy?

The message of the network to the hierarchy is, "I can do it exactly opposite to you and have much better results."

It's a frightening message.

If you are government, if you are police, if you are military, if you are prison system, if you are healthcare system, it's a frightening message.

"I can do it exactly opposite to you, exactly where you use space, where you use time, where you are vertical and horizontal, where you are horizontal and vertical." Exactly opposite to you, and I will be more successful than you.

It's a frightening message.

So, hierarchies suppress networks, fight them.

And in some countries, for example, China, Russia, in prison, people who are in networks.

Because, of course, religion is a network, as we will discuss later.

So, you are beginning to see the differences.

Now, let's talk a bit about the implications of what I'm saying.

The reason networks compete with hierarchies, and the reason hierarchies feel threatened by networks, is that hierarchy is constructed on impotence.

In hierarchy, you are increasingly more powerless as you go down.

I mean, the lower level of hierarchy has zero power, a little more power, a little more power.

So, the whole structure is based on impotence, lack of power.

We say, in professional terms, that hierarchies disempower.

In hierarchies, the main role of hierarchy is to take away your power.

Networks empower.

Networks give you power.

Hierarchies take your power.

Networks give you power.

So, we say that hierarchies are constructed on impotence.

And networks are constructed on equipotence.

Equipotence means everyone has, theoretically, the same power.

So, wait a minute, if everyone has the same power, why doesn't everyone make the same money?

Time.

And, as we will see later, number of connections.

We'll talk about it later.

But time, essentially, because number of connections is dependent on time.

If you join a network and you do nothing, of course nothing will happen.

If you join a hierarchy and you do nothing, most of the time nothing will happen.

But in hierarchy, tenure, the amount of time that passes automatically promotes you.

By the way, the result is that in hierarchy, most people, most people are incompetent for their position.

That is not me.

So, what I'm saying.

This was discovered by a guy called Peters, and it's called the Peters Principle.

In hierarchy, most people, listen well, are not competent for their positions.

We know they are in Macedonia.

Well, Macedonia is the exception.

Macedonia has these delusions that they have a hierarchy.

I don't know why.

In networks, dependent only on your work, you can be equipotent.

You can reach the same level of power as anyone else, depending on work and number of connections.

We'll come to that when we talk about information flow and so on and so forth.

So, networks are symmetrical.

Hierarchies are asymmetrical.

In networks, there is symmetry.

In hierarchy, asymmetry.

In networks, there is isomorphism.

Isomorphism means every part of the network looks like every other part of the network.

If you are on a network, let's say, and I separate this quadrangle and that quadrangle, you look the same.

As far as function, as far as structure, you're identical.

Identical.

Not the same people, but the same structure and the same function.

Do you know what this is called?

Did you hear the concept "fractal"?

Networks are fractals.

Every part of the network is identical to the total network.

If you cut the network, take a network, and you cut it in half, each half will be identical to each other.

Quarter, each quarter.

Sixteen, sixteen.

Two million.

If you cut it to two million, each part will be identical to the totality of the network.

That is called fractal or isomorphism.

So networks are fractals.

Hierarchies are heterosexual.

Sorry. Heteromorphic.

I wanted to wake you up.

Some of you are already falling asleep.

We will discuss sex. You have my word.

Sex in networks, sex in hierarchies.

Don't go there. Don't go there.

Don't go there.

Sex in networks is what we know as group sex.

No.

Thank you. We'll go into details in the second part of the lecture.

It's my way of keeping it here. I'm a Jew. We are practical.

So network hierarchies are heteromorphic.

Networks are iso.

Izo means in Greek.

Sorry. Apologies.

Izo means in Greek.

Same.

Izo, morphic.

Same shape.

Same form.

So networks are same form.

Whenever you cut them, each piece will be like the whole network.

Hierarchies are heteromorphic.

Hetero means other shape.

In other words, if I cut the hierarchy at the top, if I cut it at the bottom, of course it's not the same.

Each part is totally different.

So hierarchies, what hierarchies do, they take your power away.

They take your power away by not being the same everywhere.

So by being heteromorphic, the hierarchy takes your power.

Hierarchy tells you, listen, I am not the same in every point.

If you want power, you have to come there.

There. Only there. There is power.

Here there's no power.

That's a hierarchy.

Only there, there's power.

Network is telling you, never mind where you go.

Never mind where you sit in this salon. You have the same power.

Same opportunities, same power, same access, same information, equipotence, empowerment.

Now what happens is that in networks, we have something called opinion leaders.

So in hierarchies, we have leaders.

They are called normative leaders or regulatory leaders.

These are leaders in hierarchies that rely on the law, on regulations, on something written and on violence.

What is typical of hierarchies?

They use violence.

And I'm kidding you're not.

There are many forms of violence.

If you work in a company, the boss can fire you. It's violence.

If you go against the state, they can imprison you.

That's violence.

If you serve in the army, that's violence.

Hierarchies are constructed around if you go to a hospital.

What happens in a hospital?

The doctors and the nurses decide what you will wear, where you will, in which bed you will be, what medicines you will receive.

It's violence.

I'm a medical doctor, so I'm not against doctors.

But it's violence.

The state is telling you what you can and cannot consume.

If you want to consume heroin, you end up badly.

Why? Because the state told you, you cannot consume heroin.

Now the state changed its mind. It was not legal to consume marijuana in the United States, in Canada.

Now they changed their mind. It is legal.

For a vision, it was not legal to drink alcohol.

Then it was legal.

Why? Because hierarchies use aggression and violence to regulate the behavior of members.

It's a very important distinction.

And consequently, they have normative leaders, leaders that rely on norms, rules, laws, regulations outside the hierarchy.

It's like the hierarchy reflects some written code, obeys some written code.

Networks rely on opinion leaders.

That's a very huge distinction between leaders, normative leaders, and opinion leaders.

Normative leader can use violence if you don't obey him.

He can fire you, he can imprison you, he can... Normative leader has power.

Opinion leader needs to convince you. He has no power.

You follow him naturally because he convinces you.

He has no other power.

I didn't want to say, but yeah, in this hall it would be Zorg.

Seriously. Zorg is an opinion leader.

In a minute I will describe opinion leaders and you will see.

Of course, the best opinion leaders are Jews who have eyeglasses.

These are the best of the leaders.

But when they are not there, someone will do.

Zorg is an example of an opinion leader.

If you think of him as a phenomenon, not as a person, you will more or less begin to understand what is an opinion leader.

But we will analyze it.

So opinion leaders are first movers.

First movers mean they hear some idea and they immediately adopt it.

And they begin to work and so they are first movers.

They are early adopters.

They can be early movers or early adopters.

Some of them are first movers.

Some of them are early adopters.

Early adopters are people who adopt technology the minute it is out.

This new technology, they run to the shop or whatever and they get the newest technology.

So they are the first ones to have iPhone X, iPhone X, iPhone X, iPhone 11 before it came out and so on.

They always have the newest technology.

Early recognizers.

Early recognizers, these are opinion leaders that recognize trends.

They see trends before it happens.

So they are early recognizers.

And they are pioneers.

Like Tito.

So because they are all these things, they are there.

They are in the network long before there is a network.

Normally they accrue the most benefits.

Opinion leaders always have much more benefits than members of the network.

Not because the network is unfair.

Not because the network is asymmetrical.

But because they are the ones who actually made the network.

They created the network and the network compensates them for creating it.

Which is totally normal.

There is no hierarchy. They have no power.

But they bring so many people into the network that they benefit from it.

Benefit could be money, could be power, could be prestige, could be reputation, and could be very beautiful girls.

And very beautiful girls in which to put the beautiful girls.

We will go into this in detail in the second part of the lecture.

I am sure not one of you will live.

Group sex girls.

The position of the opinion leader, and we will talk about opinion leaders this time seriously.

We will analyze opinion leaders in depth in the second part.

Where we discuss how things flow through network.

How money flows through network.

How power, how influence, how information, how everything flows through the network.

That we will do in the second part.

Then we will discuss opinion leaders in great detail.

Because they are crucial to the network.

But just to say now that opinion leaders have priority in the network.

Not in the sense that they are superior.

They have some privileges that are the result of the time they spent in the network.

For example, opinion leaders have much more information than other members.

Simply because they were in the network much longer.

So they know many more people.

They know how to operate the network much better.

And so on and so forth.

They have access, better access to the network.

And consequently they have outcomes.

Better outcomes.

Now, here is a, by the way, we call all this, all this, access, benefits, knowing other people.

Influence on other people.

We call all this cloud.

So opinion leaders in the network have cloud.

And there was a period I think that Twitter had a cloud meter.

If I remember correctly.

I'm serious.

They had a meter.

How many people retweet you?

And so on.

I think it was called cloud meter.

So this is called cloud.

Now, here is a very important concept which you are going to use.

I'm sorry.

This is like introductory phase.

We are.

Use the other one.

Didn't work.

So here's a very important concept.

It is called network effects.

Or externalities.

Network effects or network externalities happen when the network crosses a certain number, a certain critical mass, certain threshold.

The minute, I mean, if you have two people in the network, there's so much you can do.

But, for example, you cross two million and suddenly the network offers you much more.

This is called network effect or network externality.

We'll discuss it in detail later.

I want now to, again, this is the introductory part.

Let it be clear.

I'm introducing concepts and so on.

Later on, we'll make use of these concepts.

Of course, in four hours, we can touch on it that much.

Network theory is enormous.

But I will do my best to introduce you to some basics and so on and so forth.

After that, those of you sufficiently insane can go online and read about it.

So I would like to mention network psychology.

Again, we're going to make use of two concepts.

Two concepts in psychology.

One is called locus of control.

Locus of control.

The other one is called defenses.

Psychological defense mechanisms.

You've heard of them, yes?

Right.

Locus of control is whether you believe that you are in control of your life or others are in control of your life.

So we can have external locus of control.

Other people control your life.

External.

Or internal locus of control.

I control my life.

I'm the driver.

I'm in the driver's seat.

I'm in charge.

I'm the pilot.

That is called internal locus of control.

Now, in a hierarchy, the locus of control is external.

In a network, it's internal.

Members of networks have internal locus of control.

They believe that they can control their lives.

They can shape their lives.

They can take the initiative.

They can make money.

They can progress.

They can build something.

They can initiate.

They feel much more in control of their lives than people in hierarchy.

People in hierarchy feel that they are controlled from outside.

The boss tells them what to do.

The boss can hire them and fire them, reduce their salary, not pay their salary.

They are at the mercy of outside control.

So in hierarchy, external locus of control, you feel that you are controlled from outside.

In network, internal locus, you feel you're controlled from inside.

Now, together with this, we have defenses.

Just to explain what is psychological defense mechanism.

Psychological defense mechanism is a filter that distorts reality, changes reality so that you don't feel bad.

If any of you would see reality as it is, you would all feel extremely bad.

Reality is what we call ego-distonic.

Reality makes you feel bad and uncomfortable.

Because reality humiliates you and insults you and puts you down and you fail.

Reality all the time gives you bad information.

So, all people without exception have psychological defense mechanisms, many.

There are more than 40 types of defense mechanisms identified.

And their role is only one, to distort reality, to change reality, to rewrite reality so that you feel good.

So, for example, if you want something very much, but you cannot have it.

This is called cognitive dissonance.

You want it and you don't have it.

What you will do, you will say, "Well, actually I don't want it." That's a Macedonian psychological defense mechanism.

Sorry, psychological defense mechanism.

All defense mechanisms are divided to two big families.

One family is alloplastic defenses and the other family is autoplastic defenses.

Alloplastic defenses blame other people, life, the universe, the government, your neighbors, your colleagues, your boss, and of course your wife.

For everything that's happening to you.

Sorry?

Everything bad that's happening to you.

Of course, your wife is never responsible for anything good that's happening.

So, everything is a bad.

So, that is called alloplastic defense.

We blame others.

Autoplastic defense, I am guilty.

I am taking responsibility.

I'm to blame for anything bad that happens to me.

Alloplastic, autoplastic.

So, of course, in hierarchy, we have alloplastic defenses.

If anything bad happens to me, it's my boss, my colleagues, they don't know to appreciate me, etc., etc.

In network, usually it's autoplastic defense.

Usually, not always.

But in most cases, it's autoplastic defense.

If you did not succeed in the network, in 99% of the cases, it's because of you.

You did not work hard.

You did not make contacts.

In network, you have all the opportunities open to you.

No one is blocking you.

No one is preventing you.

So, if something goes wrong in the network, it's usually truly your fault.

And if something goes wrong in a hierarchy, it's usually truly not your fault.

So, alloplastic defenses and autoplastic defenses.

So, you can see again that hierarchy and network are mirrors, exact opposites, two competing organizing principles and they are competing on the souls of human beings.

There you have two options.

You choose how to organize.

And until now, for 10,000 years, we tried hierarchy.

I'm sorry to tell you, it didn't work too well.

Hierarchy didn't work well.

The last experiment we are now, right now, inside this last experiment of hierarchy, it's called the nation state.

This experiment started in the 19th century.

It's also not working well.

We tried empires.

We tried nation states.

We tried companies.

We tried...

I mean, we tried everything with hierarchies.

We tried million forms of hierarchy.

None of them worked well.

We tried banks.

We tried, you know.

So, we are now beginning to think that hierarchies is not such a great idea.

That actually it was invented by the elites to take advantage of the masses.

That is some kind of ismama.

So, we are shifting.

We are shifting from hierarchies any time we can because hierarchies are very powerful.

And remember, they use violence.

So, we are trying to walk carefully in the dark, no one to notice that we are shifting to networks.

So, we are beginning to have business networks, direct sales networks, social networks.

We are gradually moving very slowly to networks.

Hierarchies are not happy.

For example, well over 40% of the internet has been cut off.

Saudi Arabia, China, Russia are cut off from the internet.

You don't have free internet access anymore.

I know.

I came back from Russia.

I was there two years.

You can't access the internet. It's totally blocked in every which way.

So, hierarchies are fighting back.

And they are beginning to undo networks.

So, they are going to criminalize networks.

They are trying to criminalize networks.

They are trying to put to regulate networks.

They are trying to limit networks.

They are fighting.

There is a fight.

There is a war going on.

And you are in the middle of that war.

Whatever choice you make, you are choosing sides.

Make no mistake about it.

So, this is a psychology.

Now, in every organization, again, remember we are in the introductory phase.

In every organization, there is, there are human emotions normally.

And one of the major human impulses is aggression.

How do hierarchies and networks regulate aggression?

How do they, because aggression is given.

Even in network, where everyone is equal, where opportunities are open, where it depends only on you and how hard you work.

Even there, you will feel frustrated.

You will feel envious.

You will be envious. Envy.

Very powerful emotion.

Frustration.

And so, how do you, and this creates aggression.

In 1939, there was a guy called Dan Dallard.

Dallard, by the way, he must have, in English means Dossadin.

No.

But it was not his fault. I checked.

So, his name was Dan Dallard.

And in 1939, he came up with a hypothesis in psychology called frustration-aggression hypothesis.

It means that if you are frustrated, if you are envious, you will try to externalize it as aggression against the source of frustration and envy.

So, all organizations, where they are humans, they are bad emotions, like this.

But networks and hierarchies, again, are completely different.

How do you regulate these emotions?

In hierarchy, such emotions are prohibited.

Prohibited and punished.

If you go to your boss and say, "Listen, I envy you, and you make me very frustrated." Well, next conversation will be with a different boss.

But you can go to someone in a network and openly say, "I'm frustrated, I'm trying, I'm not succeeding. Can you teach me? Can you help me?" I mean, networks encourage and allow open aggression, actually.

Networks are very aggressive structures.

That's why we've seen Facebook, the comments, or YouTube, the comments are very aggressive.

And that's why there is no censorship, no censure in networks, social networks and so on.

Because it's a free place to express who you truly are, without fear, without fear.

You're aggressive, you're aggressive.

And the networks self-regulate the aggression.

They provide feedback that modulates, and this process is called modulation.

So networks modulate aggression.

Hierarchies, no.

Hierarchies bottle up aggression.

Don't allow you to express it.

If you express it, you're a kaput.

So you don't express aggression.

Consequently, in hierarchies, we have another phenomenon which does not exist in networks, and it's called passive aggression.

So in networks, you have open aggression.

You don't need to be afraid of the word aggression.

The word aggression is like breathing.

We are aggressive all the time.

We are aggressive animals.

That's why we have this salah and not chimpanzees, because we are aggressive.

So aggression is a positive trait.

Networks actually leverage aggression, channel aggression, because I don't know if you realize, but the wish to make money is aggression, a form of aggression, because what do you want money for?

You want money for you to have the iPhone.

Don't you realize if you have the iPhone, I don't have the iPhone. It's a war on resources.

So wish to have money is wish to have love.

Never mind. That's another issue.

But also aggression.

So aggression is legitimate. It's good.

Networks channel aggression, make it constructive, make it productive, and allow the expression of aggression so that you can modulate, not hierarchies.

Hierarchies suppress aggression.

And so this creates something called passive aggression.

What is passive aggression?

Passive aggression is when you go to the government office, and they are open until 12. And it is five minutes to 12. And there's a woman sitting in the shelter, and you tell her, "Can you please give me the form?" It's five minutes to 12.

"Yeah, but give me the form. It will take me seven minutes." In five minutes I'm finishing.

But listen, I came all the way from Tetovol. Come tomorrow.

But I see the form. It's behind you. Just put your hand like this and give it to me. It's already three minutes to 12.

But it's three minutes because of you. I mean, when these two minutes you could give me the form. I cannot give you the form.

But listen, do me a favor. My mother is sick. My son is sick. I'm half dead. I'm very tired. I drove on the bus. The bus broke down. Can you help me? Just give me the form. I live far away. Come tomorrow.

That's passive aggression. That's passive aggression.

Passive aggression is aggression expressed passively. And according to laws, you cannot say anything.

She's according to law. You can't complain. She's perfectly okay. And she is delighted that she can use the law to torture you.

So she reduces her aggression, externalizes it, but passively.

And in a way that you cannot do anything about it.

So aggression is sabotage.

Passive aggression. I'm sorry. It's sabotage.

Various ways of sabotaging.

In hierarchies, the only way to express aggression is via passive aggression.

In networks, open aggression.

So during the break, you can beat me up. Because you're all one big network. And frankly, I would not blame you.

Now, networks.

Here is something. You're going to hear something now, which is counterintuitive.

Which is against your intuition.

Networks start informally and become formal hierarchies start formally and become informal.

Exactly opposite what we are thinking.

Our intuition is that networks are not formal and hierarchies are formal. That is true only at the beginning.

At the beginning, networks start informally, become more and more and more formalized. More and more structured. More and more formalized. More rules. More directions. More.

And networks, if they are not careful, end up being hierarchies.

So we'll talk about it later.

Networks, if they are not careful, become hierarchies.

I will give you an example in a minute.

Hierarchies start formally.

There are rules this day. Joseph is above Zoran, Zoran is above Vaknin. I mean, it's all well arranged. But they evolve informally.

Zoran is a good friend of Vaknin. So even Vaknin is lower than Zoran. He will work with Vaknin, not with Joseph. Because he doesn't like Joseph.

So inside the hierarchy, people form spontaneously networks. Inside the hierarchy, there is generation. It's called super generation. There is generation of spontaneous networks.

If the hierarchy is not careful, it ends up as a series of loosely connected networks.

So if you go to a country like Nigeria, where I spent four years, they have theoretically hierarchy. So they have books, laws, very structured country. They were under British mandate, under British colonialism. So they were British.

I was advisor to the Ministry of Interior in Nigeria for four years. I can tell you, there's no hierarchy there. There are a series of networks.

Networks for tribes. There are many tribes. Each tribe has its own network.

Rashi. Yes?

Each tribe has its own network. Networks of friends, friends from the same school, graduated the same school, Genegatio. These kind of networks.

And the entire government, the entire government, gigantic by the way country, one of the richest in the world, entire government is networks, devolved, disintegrated into networks.

And there's no hierarchy.

So hierarchy, if it's not careful, ends up as a collection of networks.

Network, if it is not careful, becomes hierarchy.

I'll give you an example of a network that became hierarchy.

A few, when I was younger, that was when the last dinosaurs were dying.

My father brought me a small point as I was, I remember.

So when I was younger, a group of us, academics and so on, we made a collective and we called it Nupadia.

There were 100 of us, 100.

And we called ourselves the Council of 100.

We made a network, total network.

Everyone was equal, there was nothing.

And we all created Nupadia. Nupadia was encyclopedia.

We wanted to write encyclopedia.

Each one of us wrote entry, submitted to all the other 99.

And the 99 made comments, total network.

I mean there was no hierarchy, no editor, no nothing. It was network.

One of the guys joined, his name was Larry Sanger. And Larry said, "I have a good friend, his name is Jimmy Wills. He is very good at organizing things. Can I bring him just to organize a website so that we can all submit?" And Jimmy said, "Listen, we can use Wiki." And it became Wikipedia.

This is how Wikipedia was formed.

Great.

Wikipedia, Wikipedia until 10 years ago, was total network.

Total.

All the characteristics of networks.

Even editors were equal to contributors.

And anyone could contribute.

Anyone could come from outside and contribute.

And change the Wikipedia, rewrite entries, and so on, so forth.

And then in the past 10 years, Wikipedia had undergone a change.

Now, it is more like classic encyclopedia.

There are editors in charge of topics.

There are topics that are closed, cannot be edited.

And if you edit from outside without identity, most of these edits are reversed.

I mean, deleted.

So Wikipedia started as a network.

Then they added rules, how to edit, rules how to write, rules how to use images, rules how to use this, how to use it.

Wikipedia has more rules than the Internal Revenue Service in the United States.

I mean, it has -- I'm serious completely.

It has unbelievable number of rules.

Because of all these rules, it created rigidities.

This is called organizational rigidities, or network rigidities.

Means the network becomes like a fossilized.

And people begin to be afraid.

Simply afraid.

I mean, if you're a student, teenager, you want to contribute something, just to learn all these rules and laws.

And when you made a mistake, everyone was jumping on you.

You're an idiot. Go to this rule, that rule.

So gradually, Wikipedia had, at any given moment in the late 1990s, let's say, at any given moment in 2005, Wikipedia had 3 million contributors.

3 million.

Today, about 70,000.

And today, Wikipedia is absolute hierarchy.

Absolute -- it's a perfect example of the most perfect, to my knowledge, of a network, gigantic network, that became hierarchy.

Because it added rules and laws and etiquette and who is doing what, and put people in charge.

The minute you put people in charge.

There's a very famous experiment called Stanford Prison Experiment.

Do you know? You heard of it?

Stanford Prison Experiment is a -- there was a professor, very much like me, E.V.E.L., and so on.

And he took a group of students, and like all professors do, divided them in two.

And he said to half of the group, "You are the prison wardens. You're in charge of the prison."

And the other half, "You would be prisoners."

Of course, they were not prisoners, they were not wardens. They were students. They were good friends.

He chose good friends on purpose and divided them.

And he said to one, "You are a warden, to one, you are a prisoner." By the end of the third day, the wardens caused such serious injuries to the prisoners, including their best friends, that at least two had to go to hospital.

It was the end of the third day.

Not 30th, not three months.

Third day of the experiment.

The minute you put someone in charge, it's lost. You create hierarchy. There's no going back.

For example, Wikipedia now cannot say, "Okay, forget it. Let's listen." When a network becomes hierarchy, it becomes fossilized, and it's dead. When a hierarchy disintegrates into networks, also it's extremely difficult to make it back into hierarchy.

So both of them are at risk of becoming each other.

That's a crucial insight that very few people know and understand.

Once you're a network, that's it.

I have a network. Everyone is happy. Don't be so happy. Because the more rules you add, the more dominant people you have who make the rules and the more centralized authority you have, the more at risk you are of becoming hierarchy.

Once you're hierarchy, the network will shrink and almost disappear in numbers. And then it will stop being a network and ultimately die.

Okay.

What's the difference between informal and formal?

Informal and formal networks.

I keep mentioning informal and formal. I will give you a very simple sentence, very simple test.

What is formal?

What is not formal?

In informal, Zoran is taking photos. No, that's V. V for Vtanov.

No.

Even Churchill was doing it. Churchill, when he saw Zoran, he always did this.

V for Vtanov. V for Vtanov.

Yeah, that was Vtanov, true.

That was it.

So, informal, formal.

I'll give you a test to see if you're in informal or informal.

If you are in informal structure, your benefits depend on who you know.

In informal structure, your benefits depend on who you know.

Even in network, it is true. In network, depending how many people you bring to the network. And how many people you bring to the network depend how many people you know.

Or how many people you can know.

So, it's all personal.

Informal networks are personalized. Personalized, depends who you know.

Formal networks depend on what you know. Not who you know, but what you know.

So, university is a hierarchy. Government is a hierarchy. Hospital is a hierarchy. Because there it depends on what you know, not on who you know.

So, what and who.

What is the focus of hierarchies? The focus of hierarchy is to solve problems, to compete.

So, hierarchies are good at solving problems. They are good at competing. And they are good at establishing balance, at establishing equilibrium.

It's a crucial mistake in classic economics. In classic economics, there is something called firm theory. Theory of the company. And so, in classical economics, they say that the company tries to maximize profits. Weeconomistsdemonstrated conclusively in the past 20 years that it is completely untrue. Most companies in the world are not trying to maximize profits. They are trying to survive. The main concern of companies is to survive. Not to maximize profits. So, as long as they survive, and they make profit here, there, and if it's growing like 2% a year, they will be okay. They will not. The only time that companies want to maximize profit is when there is a very powerful competition. Very strong competition. Otherwise, they are not interested in profits. They are interested in something called homeostasis, or equilibrium. So, we call it good enough firm. The good enough firm. So, hierarchies are about survival. If you go to any minister in any government, the minister is far less interested in his ministry than he is in how to survive in the government.

I'm not kidding you.

I mean, yeah.

People in hierarchies are obsessed with survival.

Survival of the hierarchy, and survival of themselves in the hierarchy.

On whatever chair they have.

So, hierarchies are good for solving problems for competing and for survival.

Networks are good at facing challenges, so they are very flexible.

They react well to challenges.

Adopting innovation, novelty, innovation.

Growth, they are very good at growing.

And technological management.

Now, two concepts that are crucial to networks.

Disruption, disruptive technologies, disruption, which is part of this equilibrium.

And management by cows.

Let's try to explain.

Disruption means that networks welcome, dramatic changes, total change.

Networks welcome it.

They adopt disruptive technologies, for example.

Schumacher, which was an economist, called it creative destruction.

Networks adopt disruption and creative destruction.

And they manage by cows.

Networks are chaotic.

By the way, there is a theory in mathematics called chaos theory.

And to describe networks, the best mathematical tools we have are foctals and chaos theory.

These networks are chaotic.

Networks manage themselves via process of creative chaos, synergy, interaction, everyone with everyone, and so on.

Networks are very chaotic.

And they are very disruptive.

It is not unusual for network to have one character one year.

And you come after one year, and it looks completely different.

It has different goals, different technologies, different direction, different remuneration mechanisms, different distribution of money, different people also.

Networks exist independent of people, like hierarchies.

Hierarchies also exist independent of people.

But networks are heavily dependent on opinion leaders.

So they are fixed.

If opinion leaders leave, the network usually falls apart.

Hierarchies avoid, hierarchies avoid and are terrified of, creative disruption, innovation.

Hierarchies punish people if they try to innovate or they try to destroy the paradigm of the hierarchy, the philosophy of the hierarchy.

So we say that hierarchies are inertia.

Finally, before we go to the next part, which I hope will be a bit more, I'm sorry, but we had to go through this introductory phase.

I had to teach you all the concepts and so on, because otherwise you will not understand the word I'm saying later.

And even I don't understand what I'm saying.

So some of you should understand.

I mean, someone here should understand.

What the hell am I talking about?

If it's not me, it leaves you.

So networks have something called homophilia.

It is not the opposite of homophobia.

It's not about homosexuality.

Although I know, I know you're all waiting for the second part, group sex and everything, but homophilia.

Homophilia means like-minded people.

Where was it earlier?

There was earlier network that disintegrated.

It's Thomas Lenzi, yes.

Like-minded people, when you have a situation where like-minded people congregate, we call it homophilia.

So hierarchies and networks are homophilic, both.

Actually, networks are more homophilic than hierarchies.

If you try to enter a network and you attack, for example, the philosophy of the network, the ideology of the network, networks react much more aggressively as a group, as a collective than hierarchies, because people have something called catechesis.

Catechesis is emotional investment.

People are invested emotionally, involved emotionally in a network.

They are not involved emotionally in a hierarchy, unless they're mentally insane.

So when you are working with a hierarchy, you are, you know, you work with a hierarchy.

You go there, you do what you have to do, you come back.

But when you're in the network, it's highly personal.

And there's a lot of emotional investment, process called catechesis.

So when people come from outside and disagree with the network, attack the philosophy, attack the direction, expose problems in the network, including crime sometimes, depending on the network, the network reacts very aggressively as one body and can become, depending on the network, violent.

So we say that networks, almost all networks, have cult-like elements. They are a bit cultish. They are a bit like cults.

While hierarchies are not.

So networks are homophilic. And they are largely, they're also homophilic because of peer pressure.

Inside hierarchies, there is no peer pressure, literally.

But in networks, there is. What is peer pressure?

Peer pressure is when you are with people who are members of the network, and they all push you to agree on a certain position or a certain fact.

There was a famous experiment in psychology where a professor took a group of students, of course. I don't know how students dare to go to faculty of psychology. I mean, one of the most dangerous places on Earth after ISIS.

So one day they will, they will abuse students. To abuse students is a pleasure, I must say, from personal experience.

But still. So there was a famous experiment where a professor took ten students and then told one of them to leave the room. And then he made the agreement with the other nine that they are going to say something totally crazy.

Like, I don't know, there was sun and they would say, wow, it's very dark. There's no sun. Example. I don't remember exactly, but it was dead bed. So there was big sun. It was sunny day and so on.

And they would all say there is no sun. It's dark and there are clouds.

OK. And then the ninth, the tenth student entered the room. And the professor said, look out the window. Look at this storm. Look at these clouds. And all the nine students said, wow, how will we go home? It's horrible. This and the tenth student. Look, it was sunny, severely sunny. Ultimately, he agreed that it is a storm.

This is the power of peer pressure. In network, peer pressure is amplified. This is called nodal amplification. Peer pressure is amplified.

Because in a typical network, you're exposed to 100, 100 and something people. They all tell you the same. It's almost impossible not to agree.

And if you disagree, you are thrown out of the network. Simple. It's not easy to be thrown out of a hierarchy.

For instance, if you're a government worker, you're a government worker forever. You, your children, your grandchildren, they're all government workers.

But if you belong to a network, it's easy to throw out. So there's an ultimate punishment for disagreeing with the network.

And we call this situation monoculture. This situation is called monoculture, where the network has one voice, one message. Everyone is in agreement who is not is thrown out. It's called monoculture.

What's the problem with monoculture? And why do we use this term?

Those of you who have been in RICO 2019 and survived to tell about it, then you remember in my speech, I compared networks to viruses, which was very, which was giving you a compliment.

So some of you got very angry, by the way. I received some. It's a virus problem.

And so I compare network to viruses. Monoculture is also a term for medicine, borrowed from medicine. It's when a body doesn't have immunological defenses. When there is a monoculture, it's easier for bacteria and viruses to attack the monoculture.

Diversity. Diversity is what guarantees immunity. That is why we're having sex this time, seriously. Why don't we clone or why don't we have sex inside the family? Because we need diversity. We need to diversify. We need to mix our genes with faraway genes so as to create resistance and immunity to diseases and so on.

When you have monoculture, you don't have this.

So networks are monocultures and they are very susceptible to what we call external shocks, much more than hierarchy.

Hierarchy can survive anything, almost, except I don't know, nuclear war. Hierarchy can survive anything.

Networks? No. Because networks don't have immunological system. If they are attacked by another network or by some external shock, usually networks give up.

Simply give up. They raise their hands and go home.

So one example, of course, is Myspace. Those of you old enough to remember, like me, Myspace was one of the first social networks.

At its height, it had 250 million members. Not bad. If you take into account that this was the beginning of the Internet.

Literally everyone was on Myspace. So when you were on Myspace, everyone was on Myspace. What happened? Who heard of Myspace? They are dead. Dead in the water.

How? How a network of 250 million people succeeded to die. It succeeded to die because it was a monoculture.

Myspace created a consensus among all the members and the management. No one dared to attack this consensus.

I remember that when people were saying things about Myspace, we should change, we should react this way, that way. Very often they were banned or their accounts were closed.

I remember that. Personal.

So it created a monoculture, a culture of fear, a culture of censorship. And then Facebook came.

And that was the end of Myspace.

Networks are very bad, actually. Very good at handling external challenges, but very bad at handling internal challenges because of this consensus orientation, this peer agreement.

We call this confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is when you refuse to listen to information that contradicts your beliefs, your values and your convictions.

If you try to talk to any supporter of Donald Trump, you will understand what I'm saying. I'm not kidding. I swear to you. You can't say anything bad about Donald Trump. Nothing. I mean, he is this personality cult. He's a hero. He's untouchable.

So if you say anything about him, there is immediately confirmation bias and they block you. They don't like argue with you or tell you you're wrong. They immediately become aggressive. They block them.

Now, why mention Donald Trump? Because Donald Trump is not a political phenomenon. It's a network.

Donald Trump did not use the hierarchy of the Republican Party. Donald Trump organized one of the greatest, biggest networks in actually human history.

At the top, at the peak, Donald Trump used social media to organize 42 million people.

So 42 million people were working for him at the peak using exclusively networks, social networks and so on. None of them had access to the money of the Republican Party, to the establishment of the Republican Party, to the organizations, to hierarchy, to the state.

Nothing. So Donald Trump is the second American president who came to power based on a network.

But as opposed to Obama, which was the first, who was the first, as opposed to Obama, Trump kept his network.

Obama got to power and became president. But Trump kept his network and his Trump's network is intact.

And so if you try to argue with members of the Trump network, they become super aggressive and so on.

Of course, it's precisely why Trump will end the bedding and why his network will disintegrate.

Because it's a monoculture, confirmation bias. It's also called silo, silo, bubble.

Yes.

Networks have this disadvantage, but they also have some advantages.

I will finish with this and we'll talk about life cycle.

No, we talk about life cycle, then we take power.

Networks have lower response times. They assimilate information better. They disseminate information better. They distribute information much better, much faster.

And they optimize social capital.

You remember social capital? Connections between people and so on and so forth.

Listen, we have two possibilities.

Possibility number one, we take two breaks. Take a break, but they will be shorter. We take a break now, then those of you crazy enough will come back here and we continue with the next part, then we take another break and next part.

Or you suffer another 45 minutes and we take a longer break. What do you prefer?

You want to suffer or you want to break?

Okay, wait a minute. Who wants a break? Now.

The mother of his, who wants to suffer? It is such a pleasure to talk to you.

But I must say that I would appreciate something to drink.

How can I give up this opportunity? They're begging to be tortured. I don't have many choices like this. I put it to a vote.

So network. It's a network here. It's equipotence. No hierarchy.

Okay, let that will be follow.

The same network. Dissemination of information reaction fast. Seriously, in hierarchy, I would have to file a request for water in three copies. I would find it by the time I get the water, it will be post-mortem.

Yeah, exactly.

Okay. Now, some of you heard this before because it was part of the speech in Lycone 2019, but there will be additional material.

One day, a guy, totally ordinary guy, farmer actually, to a large extent Celiac as well, met an angel.

Actually met a prophet, not an angel. And the prophet told him, if you go to New York and you dig in this location, you will find plates made of gold.

And on the plates made of gold, there is a text written in a language that no one knows.

It's called reformed Egyptian.

And so he went to New York, he dug up the pavement or whatever, and he found the golden plates on which there was the text.

Then this prophet that told him where to find the plates. Please listen to this story. You must listen to this story.

The prophet, human being, who told him where to find the plates, died and became an angel.

And then he came back to this guy as an angel. And he told him that he must reconstitute the church, Christian church, based on this place.

And the guy told him, listen, I found the plates, but I don't know what's written on them.

And the angel told him, don't worry, leave it to me. I will translate the plates for you.

So he translated the plates for him. And that guy established a network.

You've heard the story. By the way, of course, the angel's name was Moron.

I'm not kidding you. That was the angel's name, Moron.

Now, let me ask you a question.

This guy comes to you and tells you the story. I met a prophet, a golden plates that was writing on the golden plates. Then he came back to me as an angel. He translated the plates for me and so on. And I'm establishing a network.

How many of you would join this network? How many people do you think joined this network based on this story? Nobody? Try a bit higher. How many people, based on this story?

16 million. 16 million joined this network. It is known as the Moron church.

Let's try something else. This is clearly crazy. There's a more recent guy. And he says that Earth has been invaded a long time ago by reptiles. These reptiles shape-shift. They can look like humans. They're humanoid. They drink blood, but they drink blood only at night. And they do it only underground.

Now, these humanoid reptilians change their shape so they can look like any leader in the world. And many of the leaders are not human. They are these reptiles who drink blood in the underground at night. They are these reptiles. For example, Elizabeth II. Which, looking at her photos, it's a possibility. A must-have-me.

Elizabeth II. George Bush. Again, not a bad example.

And so, how many people do you think, and this guy established a network, how many people do you think joined this network?

Give a wild estimate.

I told you the story. This is a complete story. I summarized it for you.

That's the story. Based on this story, how many people do you think joined this network?

Two hundred million.

Depending on the country, between 4% and 7% of the population. An average of 4.8% of the global population.

4.8% of the global population believe firmly, argue, punish you, if you dare to say otherwise, that there are reptilians who rule the earth, drink blood underground, and they become, whenever they want, Elizabeth II and so on.

They firmly believe it. It's not pretend or anything. They believe it. It's a belief.

All of you feel very good with yourself, because these stupid people, they believe in reptilians and so on. You believe that a Jewish carpenter was the son of God and came back from the dead. That's what you believe.

Some of you believe that a guy entered a cave and spoke to an angel. It's called Islam.

What I'm trying to tell you is that beliefs that underline networks don't have to be rational. Actually, the more rational the belief, the smaller the network.

So if you construct a network on the concept of cashback, which is a brilliant concept, you will be limited by definition, because it's a rational belief.

Not belief, it's a rational motive.

The less rational the network, the less rational the belief, the story, the motivation under the network, the bigger the network.

Christianity, 2.4 billion. Islam, 1.8 billion. So, 16 million. I don't know.

Flat earth, 100,000 people each conference. Flat earth, the earth is flat. Only the earth exists, by the way. The rest is illusions.

And so on and so forth.

So, the less rational, why? Why do people join irrational networks?

Because the more irrational the belief, the more exclusive it is. Everyone can understand cashback and everyone can join cashback.

But very few people can understand reptilians. And if I join such a movement, and I believe in reptilians, it makes me very special.

Exclusivity, uniqueness, and the more exclusive you are, the more there is a sense of brotherhood. A sense of just you and me. We call this shared psychosis.

The more crazy the underlying perception, the more we are special and also special to each other.

So, Freemasonry, which is just about the most infantile group in the world, when they go and meet each other, they have a special handshake. They have a special tie and a special ring. Why? Because there's few of them.

And so it makes them a kind of brotherhood.

In a network such as Lyconate, it's difficult to foster a feeling of brotherhood. It's possible to make common common goal. It's possible to distribute benefits. It's possible even to organize events and to create pride. Pride in the organization.

But it's extremely difficult to create a sensation of we against the world. Uniqueness, specialness, brotherhood. Where else do we have this?

Mafia. In crime organizations, we have exactly the same set of motivations.

And of course, crime organizations started off as networks. Of course, in Sicily, if you go, you can still find these networks. But they became hierarchies.

So, when the network has irrational meaning, it is stronger. It is more powerful.

When do networks decay? When do networks die?

They die when they cannot generate meaning from inside. When the network gets its meaning from outside, it usually dies. It needs to generate meaning from inside. The members of the network must be in the network for some meaning, some belief, some value, some explanation of the world, some theory that is coming from inside the network.

Religions don't tell you, "Listen, the meaning of religion is outside the religion." Religion tells you, "We know the meaning. It's inside the religion. It's enough to be Muslim or Jew or Christian for you to have a meaning to your life."

The very act of being a Christian or a Muslim or a Jew gives the meaning to your life.

So, the meaning has to be generated from inside.

Networks succeed, as I said, when they generate meaning from inside, but also when they satisfy their members, when they gratify their members from inside.

The emphasis in networks is inside. Hierarchies operate on the outside. Hierarchies exist and they operate on outside.

Hierarchies also derive their meaning from outside. If you have a hierarchy without a state, it's meaningless. If you have a government without a state, it's meaningless. If you have a police without population, it's meaningless.

So hierarchies derive meaning from outside.

Networks must create meaning inside and leverage the resources inside.

I always give this example of political party. When the political party is outside power, not in power, it's a network in effect.

So, the political party is in opposition. It doesn't have access to money. It cannot give jobs. It can do nothing for its members.

So, why do the members continue to be in the party? Why does anyone continue to be in a party that is in opposition?

Because the party generates meaning for the members. The party generates meaning and generates benefits, current and future.

So, people remain in organizations based on internally generated meaning and internally generated benefits.

When networks depend exclusively on outside for the benefits or for the meaning, they die.

That was my message in Lyconet 2019. If a network depends exclusively on benefits that come from outside and has no other meaning from inside, it can survive for a while.

But after some time, it will decay. It must give the members a reason to be there.

A reason that is not dependent on what's happening in the world, but is dependent on what's happening inside the network.

So, the network, in other words, must become the members' universe.

The whole world of the member should be the network.

A good network provides everything to the member, provides money, provides meaning, provides sense of empowerment, provides things to do, activates the members, provides ethos, set of beliefs, provides motivation, provides friendship, companionship, provides everything.

A good network is a universe.

When Facebook first came, Zuckerberg, who is of course a Jew, decided not to allow Google to scan, to crawl the content of Facebook. Why?

Because if Google scans or crawls the content of Facebook, it opens Facebook. Facebook becomes open.

Zuckerberg built Facebook from the very beginning, by the way, as a universe, self-contained, self-sufficient, independent.

If tomorrow, all the internet dies, all, all websites are computed, nothing is left, Facebook can survive. Facebook will survive. Facebook is utterly independent of the platform called internet. Facebook generates its own meaning, its own activities, its own motivation, its own money, its own beliefs, its own everything.

In the last two years, Facebook is forced by Congress to open to the world. Facebook is subject to regulation. So, it's opening up to the world and declining.

There is direct connection between these two. The more the network is a bubble, the more it is self-sufficient, self-contained, insulated and so on, the more it survives.

And within this bubble, there is something called "Mimplex".

The "Mimplex" plus the membership are the ecosystem.

So, "Mimplex" is the set of beliefs, concepts and ideas that underlie the network.

All the concepts and ideas and beliefs that you have about your network, that's the "Mimplex" of the network.

And then there's the members. You put the two together, you get the ecosystem of the network.

Apple. Apple is an ecosystem because Apple has a set of ideas and beliefs, for example, that products should be aesthetic, emphasis on beauty, that products should be best quality, emphasis on quality.

That product should be expensive. Of course, an iPhone costs much more than Android phone. So, these are the beliefs, that's the "Mimplex".

So, when you buy an iPhone, you're not buying an iPhone, you're buying the "Mimplex".

Someone who has Android phone doesn't go around saying, "I have Android phone", but someone who has an iPhone goes around and says, "I have an iPhone".

iPhone is a membership in a network. You pay to belong to the network by buying an iPhone.

iPhone represents values, iPhone represents concepts. You buy the iPhone, you buy into the network.

And then, as everyone with an iPhone knows, from the moment you bought the iPhone, you're hostage. Absolute captive. Because Apple created a totally closed ecosystem.

App store, you can't install, you can't root the phone, you can't open it up, you can't install other softwares, you can't...

I mean, it's totally closed universe. The minute you enter by buying the iPhone, that's it. You're in the network.

So, that's an example of a closed ecosystem. Of course, iPhone is the most successful ecosystem in this sense.

iPhone, iPad, Apple.

Now, the mistake of networks is they think the more they interact with companies, with individuals, with other networks, network administrators, networks, believe, that the more they are open, the more they interact with others, the more they generate value for the members.

And so, they generate value for the members, and the members will stay in the network we grow.

Our experience, our studies, show that this is conclusively not true. Not true.

The more you open up to other networks, to other individuals, to other spheres of life, to companies, to the more you put the network at risk.

Again, we go to Apple. When Apple designed iPhone, they decided to close iPhone to most internet standards.

For example, iPhone does not include Flash Player, does not allow to play Flash content.

Do you know that when iPhone came, when the first iPhone was being sold, 93% of all videos on the internet were Flash.

iPhone made the decision to exclude, to throw to the garbage all the videos on the internet, just not to open up.

Stephen Jobs was a genius. We learned from Stephen Jobs. We don't argue with success. We don't say he was wrong. He was not wrong. He was not wrong.

He died a rich man. We all want to die a rich man. So, we'll live as rich men. So, iPhone made, Apple made the decision, the genius decision, absolute genius decision, to create a device that can do nothing.

I'm serious. iPhone 1, iPhone 2, iPhone 3 could do nothing. You could not watch video. You could not copy paste.

You could not copy paste because the patent for copy pasting did not belong to Apple. So, they did not allow you to copy paste. They did not allow you to play video. Very few audios can be played.

There are some codecs that they owned. Nothing, you could do nothing on Apple. Actually, it was a phone. The first iPhone. Why? Because they insisted to create a network that is utterly close to the rest of the world. Utterly. Not open to anyone. Not to flash. Not to this. Not to that. Nothing.

By creating such a successful network, they force the internet to adapt to them. Not the other way.

A successful network does not change to accommodate itself to the world. It forces the world to change. To accommodate itself to the network.

And we have many such examples.

Of course, Facebook is such an example. Facebook is a successful network. Same principle, by the way.

When Facebook was established by Zuckerberg and others, it was network only for students. I don't know if you know that.

The first year of Facebook was not open network. Only for students. Zuckerberg kept this principle that the network is closed. Not open.

Try to download a video from Facebook. Try. Unless you are hacker, it's extremely difficult. To download video from Facebook.

They don't allow you. You want to watch a video? You come to Facebook. No external world exists. We don't allow you to download videos.

We don't allow you to read posts on Google. We don't. You want Facebook? You come to Facebook. You want iPhone? You come to Apple. That's it.

Closed bubbles. Closed universes. Closed end.

Look what happened. The world adapted to Apple. The world adapted to Facebook.

So the philosophy of "I have a network. Now I will work with other networks. I will work with other individuals. I will work with a network.

The philosophy of opening up a network is actually a catastrophic mistake as far as we know. The network should aspire, should try to become self-sufficient, self-contained universe that offers to the members everything they need.

The network can make agreements with outsiders, but these agreements, the members should never be in touch with these outsiders. Only through mediation of the network.

The network, in effect, should be a firewall. The concept is a firewall. The network protects the member from the world.

And this creates a feeling of belonging, a feeling of home, a feeling of familiarity, exclusivity, a feeling of commonness, brotherhood. This creates it.

This creates it because if the network is only about financial benefits, okay, some banks give you financial benefits.

The network has to become part of your identity, not part of your wallet, part of who you are.

Because if I ask any one of you to define yourself, many of you would say I'm a Christian. What is a Christian? Let's translate. I am a member of an old network called Christianity.

Christianity is part of your identity. I'm a Muslim, part of your identity. Islam, by the way, is a brilliant network concept because Islam has a concept called Ummah. Ummah is the nation of Islam. It is a network concept.

There are no borders, no boundaries, no governments, no nothing. There's only the authority of Islam in the Ummah. It's a network concept.

But if you ask any Muslim to define himself, he can say I'm a man, I'm married, I'm a father, but he will most definitely also say I'm Muslim. What is Muslim? I belong to a network of Islam.

So if you are like on it, right now, for example, you are like on it because like on it potentially can make you money and so on and so forth. You should try to become, to make like on it your identity, a defining parameter of who you are, not how much money you have but who you are.

There are three phases in the life cycle. Yeah, here it works. Here it works. Wait a minute, I want to do it again. No, it's such a wonderful feeling. It's a wonderful feeling.

Existential.

There are three phases in the life of networks, all networks. All networks go through these three phases.

Mimetic phase, externality phase or network effects and decay or collapse. Of course, some networks do not decay.

So the third phase is not obligatory. The network can prevent it. How to prevent it? By becoming self-contained, self-sufficient, self-explanatory universe that provides meaning, value, gratification, income, everything the member needs.

So if the network fails to become self-sufficient and self-contained, it decays.

Mimetic phase. Mimetic phase is the initial phase where people invent some concept, some idea, some belief and based on that, they begin to establish a network.

During the mimetic phase, the network is autonomous, fecund. Fecundity is a very important concept. It means how many times the message is repeated, replicated.

So the message is autonomous, fecund, distributed and so on and so forth. The mimetic phase is short. If it is not short, the network dies. At each of these stages, the network can die.

So if I start a new network and I have a message, I have a belief, I have a concept, I have an idea, I create a meme. Meme, if I create many memes, I create a memplex.

Okay. Imagine that I want to establish a new networkand I have belief number one and belief number two and belief number three, I put them together, I make a concept, the concept makes ideas and so on.

I have a whole story. Okay? And I'm trying to establish a network.

If this stage continues for too long, if this message is conveyed from one to the other and people communicate the message and discuss the message and compare and but nothing happens.

They just continue to talk. They just talk. The talk phase continues for too long. The network dies.

Many networks start very promisingly with new ideas and new concepts and amazing combinations and so on.

But members focus too much on the idea, on the concept, on the belief and not on creating the network, on the creating the universe, on the actual world.

So you could have tens of millions of members and he dies. He dies because there was no transition from memetic to network effects.

Now, what do I mean when I say, what do I mean when I say transition? How do we transition?

So let's make an example. Let's assume that I come with a new concept or a new idea and I'm trying to sell it to you. I'm trying to create a network and let's assume you buy this. You buy this idea. It's interesting.

So you begin to communicate it to each other. That's the first test. The first test, how many of you will communicate it?

What is the concept of viral? Viral. There's a good reason for that. I compared networks to viruses and in a minute I will come to it.

But it goes viral. So I made a video about a month ago about social media and we put it online and within a month it has 300,000 views. So that's viral. That's going viral.

So the message, it's a perfect example actually. Let me take this example. I and a group of a few other people, we formed a kind of loose coalition to fight the bad effects of social media. So we made a documentary. It's called Plugged In. You can watch it online. We made a documentary and they made interviews with me. Series of interviews with me. The interview went viral immediately. Relatively viral. 300,000 views in one month is not bad.

So it went viral. Now we are at the mimetic phase. This is the mimetic phase. We are spreading the message. Everyone is talking about it. Hundreds of people signed off Facebook because my message is that social media were designed to poison you in effect. Poison your mind. Create addiction and conditioning.

You can watch the interview online. The toxicity of social media. So people are talking about it. Hundreds of people closed their Facebook accounts, went off Twitter.

So beginnings of a movement. It's beginning of a movement. Now we are at the mimetic phase. The meme is replicated. This is called fecundity. There's replication. And it is conveyed with authenticity. In other words, when the meme is passed, it is not distorted.

Do you know the game telephone? Telephone or...

Yes, it's called Chinese Whispers. In the United States it's called Chinese Whispers. I have no idea why. Probably because Chinese mispronounce the words or something.

So if I tell Lydia, "Senvaklin is a cinephile." Cinephile means likes cinema. Senvaklin is a cinephile.

By the time it gets to Maoyan, it will be Senvaklin is a pedophile. Or cinephile. A cinephile pedophile.

So it's not only important how many times the meme is repeated. It is important that it is repeated authentically. That it is repeated with preserving the content.

And this is called fidelity. So in the mimetic phase there is fecundity, how many times?

And fidelity. How authentic the message is. But look where we are now. Look where we are now.

I've been involved in generating several massive online movements personally. And one of them I started myself. And that is the movement of narcissism.

Narcissism online is a movement that I started in 1995. And today has tens of millions of members all over the world.

So I know something about starting online movements. And so we are at this stage. If we push it a bit further, it will become global, massive in my view.

Global movement against social media. If we push it. If we don't, it will get stuck here. And after some time it will die.

So this is crucial transition. At some point the message is so interesting. So many people are involved. You have to make a decision. Are you going to create a network or not?

And if you don't, it dies a mistake.

Now I promise you to discuss viruses and so on. Why do I compare the network to a virus? I explained it in Lyconet 2019, but I will try to explain it again.

You know the Black Death? The Black Death in the 14th century. There was an epidemic in Europe.

Black Death. And anywhere between one third and one half of the population of Europe died.

It was thought until very recently that it was a bacterium. Now we are beginning to think it was a virus.

But it doesn't matter if it is bacteria or viruses. There is a very interesting question. Why didn't all the population die?

I mean there was another 50%. Why didn't the virus infect the other 50%? Why did it stop?

Well today we know that bacteria and viruses are very clever. They actually communicate using something called signaling molecules. They communicate to each other.

For example we discovered that bacteria communicate to each other in the presence of antibiotics. When we introduce antibiotics to the body, one bacteria picks up the iPhone and calls the other and says, "Listen honey, keep the kids at home because of some antibiotic." And so bacteria communicate using something called signaling molecules. We discovered an amazing thing.

When the number of hosts, the number of people infected and dead reaches a certain quantitative point, we don't have this stage, a tool to predict. But we know that it reaches some point. The bacteria and viruses stop. They become dormant. They don't die. They go to sleep. They hibernate. They stop infecting.

It's because we think, maybe it's human thinking, but it's like they are keeping reservoir, keeping reservoir. Like if we kill all the people, we will die also.

So let's keep reservoir. Why aren't all people Christians? Why not? Why aren't all people Muslim?

It seems that networks, and more and more it seems, that networks follow the same path of epidemics or pandemics. They infect, so to speak, with a meme. The meme is like a virus or like a gene. They infect with a meme. The meme passes from brain to brain.

When I talk to you, what am Ipasses from brain to brain.

When I talk to you, what am I doing? I'm infecting your brains.

I'm infecting your brains with words. I'm infecting your brains with other things from the CIA, but you don't know that.

Zawin knows. I can see in his eyes. I'm infecting your brains, but I'm using words to infect your brains.

Do you think this is a metaphor? You're very wrong.

We made functional magnetic resonance imaging, FMRI, imaging of the brain, when people talk.

And we discovered that not only there is blood flow, massive blood flow, when people talk to each other, but the shape of the brain changes in the sense that neurons disconnect from each other and reconnect with other neurons.

When I talk to you, I am putting my head inside your brain and I'm rearranging the cells. It's as simple as that.

So it is an infectious, contagious mechanism. So networks are very much like viruses.

There's a meme. The meme infects you and then you become infected and so on and so forth.

Exactly like viruses and exactly like bacteria, networks self limit. They stop.

At some point, networks stop growing. Never mind what they do. Stop growing.

Now, we don't know exactly why. We know that viruses and bacteria keep reserve. But why would the network keep reserve? A network wants to become as big as it can. The bigger, the better.

If we could have a network of 7.6 billion people, that's the optimal network.

Why would networks self limit? We don't know the answer to that. But they do.

At some point, members who join become equal to members who leave. And the network's plateau.

This is called network plateau. Network's plateau stabilizes forever. Simply forever.

Of course, as the population grows, network numbers may grow absolutely, but not as percentage.

It seems that networks keep reserve. I will explain in the next part why we think networks keep people on purpose. Not to join.

These networks send two messages. Not one.

One message. Join me. And when they reach a certain point, number.

Yes, they send a message. Stay away. Don't join me.

And there is a good reason for that. This reason is called the weak ties hypothesis.

It's a new discovery. And I will explain it in the next part.

But to give you just the taste, networks that don't have outsiders or don't have people inside with connection to outsiders die. Only networks that have people with weak connections survive.

It seems that networks need three types of people. Not one. Strong members.

This is members that are active, works hard, brings members. This is opinion leader. They need another type of member called the weak tie member.

That's a member that comes, goes, doesn't have much connections, is weak. Weak member is crucial.

We discover that weak member is very often much more important than opinion leader.

I will explain in the second part why.

So opinion leader, weak member and outsider. In the absence of these three elements all put together, networks die.

Exactly like a virus. Exactly like viruses.

We discovered, for example, that in virus populations, or virus is not a good example because virus infiltrates the cell and becomes the same.

But bacteria. We discovered that in bacteria populations, there are small percentage who actually do the infecting. Actually infect in the sense that they secrete toxins and so on.

There's a big part of the population that kind of watches the action and they're outsiders. For example, in your intestines, they are bacteria that are outsiders and we call them good bacteria or flora.

So this leads to understandings of the network.

So when, after the mimetic phase here, there is something called bandwagon effect. The bandwagon effect is that when I watch other people joining and I join also, I join also because I'm afraid to look stupid. I'm afraid to miss an opportunity. I'm curious. Curious.

Or I follow an opinion leader.

Now, the problem in the modern world, and it's unique to the modern world, never happened before in human history, is that we have something called hollow effect.

Hollow effect means you can be opinion leader in one network and people mistakenly, mistakenly, will consider your opinion leader in another network.

For example, you can be famous footballer and people will ask your opinion about politics. Yes. Or you can be famous actor and people will ask your opinion about human rights. Or you can be famous doctor and appear online with a white robe and discuss something that has nothing to do with medicine.

So we have hollow effect. We take one leader from one network and we make the mistake of listening to him in another.

I'm cutting short this part because you heard most of it in like on it.

So for a network to survive, it must do the following.

It must activate the members. Activate members means monopolize the member, not activate the mistake, monopolize the member.

Monopolize means not let the member do anything outside the network.

If a member wants to do anything, he must come to the network. Network should give him everything. Education, money, jobs, motivation, beliefs, ideas, lectures. The network should provide the member with total solution.

And in return, the members time should be dedicated almost 100% to the network.

Even the members family should be brought into the network.

That's why people go with family to church. They are members, but they take the family to church.

So the network should take over the members life. It's not nice to say, but it's the only way to survive for the network.

Should take over the members life. We see this in Facebook. Facebook created a mechanism of addiction. You're addicted to Facebook. It creates conditioning and addiction.

The chief engineers of Facebook admitted it in congressional testimony. It creates addiction.

So when you go on Facebook, it's very difficult to disengage for most people. Used to.

Very difficult to disengage because of the likes. Because they created many mechanisms to keep you there. They need your eyeballs. They need you to watch the screen. Because they get advertising money.

Longer you watch the screen, the more they get money.

So they need you to watch the screen.

But as I said in that video that you can watch online in my interview, I said, if you have a beautiful girlfriend and Facebook, your beautiful girlfriend is an enemy of Facebook because she takes away your eyes. Facebook needs your eyes to make money.

Anything that takes away the eyes is an enemy.

So family is enemy. Intimacy is enemy. Community is enemy. Everything is enemy of the social network because they need your eyes.

Every successful network keeps you, monopolizes you.

Do you know how many hours a day a typical person spends on an iPhone? Do you know?

iPhone. Not other phones. I mean, I will tell you on other phones, but on iPhone. Remember, iPhone is a successful network because they created a self-contained universe. Because they closed themselves to the outside.

From the very beginning, they made a decision to be cut off from the world. And the member to get everything inside.

How many hours do you think?

One over eight. A typical owner of an iPhone spends well over eight hours.

And wait. And wait for it. Much less. A typical owner of an Android phone, with the exception of Samsung. Samsung stole a lot of things from iPhone. A typical owner of an Android phone spends anywhere between two and three hours, depending on the country.

iPhone holds your eyeballs three and a half times more than any other phone.

Why? Because whatever you want to do, you can do with the iPhone.

You can do also with Android.

But even if you can, Android is open.

Android offers you options.

iPhone makes it simple for you.

Single application for this, single application for this, single application for that.

It's a set menu.

In the previous lecture, in the previous seminar I gave about behavioral sales.

They designed the default for you.

This is called anchoring.

A good network anchors.

Anchors mean you come to the network and they tell you, you want to listen to a lecture? You want to buy water? This shop?

So they give you a set of defaults.

People prefer less choice than more choice.

It's a common mistake that people want choice.

People hate choice.

In the previous seminar, I told the story, a real case, of a shop that opened up with six types of jam. And then increased it to 24 types.

The sales dropped from 40% of the inventory to 3%.

People detest choice.

Stephen Jobs was by far the greatest marketing genius ever.

Ever.

Because he understood the two secrets of marketing.

Perfectly and implemented them in his product.

One, networks should isolate, exclude and monopolize the user.

Not connect the user to the world.

Isolate the user.

Hostage mentality.

Prisoner mentality.

People want to be in prison.

Because in prison you don't have to worry about food, about this.

Save.

So people should be isolated, monopolized.

These lessons apply to networks.

That's what he did.

Via the iPhone.

He created a network that is totally monopolizing.

And indeed people spend 8, 9 hours on a typical iPhone.

Second lesson he understood, people hate choice.

Do not give them choice.

Tell them if you want to read books, iBooks, if you want to make a movie, iMovie, tak tak tak.

The iPhone is very simple.

Android, the Android ecosystem is open to the world and is way too much choice.

Way too much choice.

So the result is now when you buy an iPhone, you must understand it's part of your identity.

Buying an iPhone is a statement about identity, about belonging.

And this is a lesson for every network.

You must monopolize the member, reward the member, and create internal value for the member.

Not from outside, from inside.

And one way to do it is to put the members together.

That is called synergy.

So for example, imagine a network where you can trade with each other using the currency of the network.

So the network creates currency.

Now you are a teacher and you are a carpenter.

Sorry, maybe reverse, never mind.

So you make furniture for her, she teaches your children.

You pay each other with the currency of the acreage, you say?

The acreage.

The kind of acreage.

Yes, but a marketplace that is open to the outside defeats the network.

The marketplace should have two features.

One, allow members to sell to each other their products and services.

That's crucial.

Allow members to sell to each other products and services.

And when the marketplace buys from outside, not allow the members to be in touch with the outside, but only through the marketplace.

Of course, the best example is Amazon.

Amazon.

So far.

The best example so far.

Of course.

What is Amazon?

Amazon.

Amazon, when you go on Amazon, you can buy my book, but you have nothing to do with me. You buy from Amazon, you pay to Amazon, Amazon ships to you. You have nothing to do with me. It's my book.

But I never, I don't get your details. I don't know anything about you. Amazon tells me you want to sell. I will deliver the money of the client, not the client. Never the client.

The money of the client.

After I take 55% commission.

Right?

So you want to sell your book?

You give me the book.

I sell it to the people.

I separate you.

So a successful network marketplace must have these two elements.

And a wrongly designed marketplace puts the members in contact with the sellers.

That's a wrongly designed marketplace.

Of course, we have numerous such networks which collapse.

So, but in general, create internal value.

There are marketplaces that use voucher systems where they issue vouchers and then the members can use the vouchers to pay each other.

So as I said, you make furniture for her.

She teaches your children or whatever.

You provide accounting services and he fixes your television set.

And all this is done with an internal currency, internal voucher.

So that's an example of a proper marketplace because it creates value for the members on multiple levels.

It keeps the members in the network, doesn't allow them to go out and provides everything the members want and monopolizes the members.

These are the critical factors.

Once a network has died, if it reaches this stage, if it failed to create externalities, internal value and so on, there is decay.

And then the network, I call it black hole network.

It's like the remnants of a dead star.

It remains, most networks remain, but more like Al Chiva, more like archive or like a black hole.

Where it used to be a star and now there is just nothing.

So this is the life cycle of a typical network.

We are going to discuss now a few pretty amazing discoveries about networks which run against intuition.

We all have intuitions of networks.

We are all born into a network called family.

We observe mother and father and they form a network.

So our initial intuitions about networks come from our parents.

We then continue to form networks or continue to participate in networks.

We have friends at school.

So we participate with these friends in networked activities.

These friends are our peers. They are on the same level like us.

Theoretically they have the same power.

So gradually over childhood, and especially as we enter adolescence, because adolescence is the network period.

No wonder that majority of users of social media are actually adolescents.

For example, in Islam. Adolescence is the networking period.

In adolescence we form real networks with peers usually.

So by the time we are 21 or something like that, we believe, wrongly, that we know everything there is to know about networks.

And frankly until the 1990s we thought this way.

Even in academe, even in universities, we believed that we know everything there is to know about networks.

Until in the past 25 years we discovered that we actually know nothing about networks.

And all our intuitions about networks were completely wrong.

But before we go into these pretty amazing discoveries about networks, again, we need a few concepts.

The sociometric parameter of a network is where the node is located.

So if we show... Zouan, after the lecture you stay here and I give you the second half again.

The punishment.

I told them, "Your opinion leader, they should have followed your example, not come." We delivered coffee in here as the organization.

Oh, right. What about the lecturer?

Now, you all know that we paint when we create a diagram, a schematic, of networks we use something like this.

Example.

So these are called nodes.

Nodes. Each one of them represents you, members of the network.

This is me.

And the rest of you.

So, these are nodes and these are called ties.

Not connections, but ties.

So nodes and ties.

So, the sociometric parameter of the network is where you are in the network.

We discovered that where you are is crucial.

So we start... This is the guy who began the network, established the network, or among the first.

And then there is a second and a third. They joined at the same time.

And then there is this and this. They joined later.

So, it is temporal, which represents time.

This axis is temporal, represents time.

These three joined at the same time.

And therefore they are called structurally equivalent nodes.

Structurally equivalent nodes.

These are temporarily equivalent nodes.

We discovered to our shock that where you are in the network has critical influence on how you behave.

And that is independent on who you are, your character, your background, why you join.

What? Nothing. Nothing has any effect like your position, your social metric position.

We'll come to it a bit later.

So, this is the first discovery.

Second discovery, as I said, structural equivalency.

We discovered that networks have two functions.

Information and innovation.

Well, they have many functions.

But when it comes to flow, information, the network educates you, teaches you.

Even if you do cashback, you need to learn how to do it and what to do and so on.

So, teaches you education and innovation.

There is e-credits.

Someone needs to tell you what is e-credits and so on.

We discovered, so again, everything you will learn in this second half is completely contra the intuitions you have about networks.

Completely.

We understand networks today totally opposite what we understood them in the 90s.

Totally opposite.

So, we discovered for information to teach you the best and most successful networks, the opinion leader is teaching the members.

So, if you want to teach in a network, the opinion leader teaching the members is the best way.

Not members teaching members, not example, but opinion leaders standing here teaching the members.

But for innovation, the worst option is opinion leader teaching the members.

Amazingly.

What is best is opinion leader teaching opinion leader and members observing.

So, we discovered that innovation flows through structurally equivalent positions. Innovation.

Innovation in networks is most successful, flows freely and successfully when structurally equivalent nodes communicate.

Could be member to member.

Not only opinion leader to opinion leadermember to member.

Innovation is best spread among structurally equivalent nodes.

Information is best spread from opinion leaders to members.

So, that's the first thing we pretty shocked us.

And we are using something, we are using a technique, a mathematical technique to analyze these flows.

It's called block modeling.

Those of you who want to learn more later, it's called block modeling.

Now, we talked about social matrix, your position in the network.

We talked about social equivalency.

Social equivalency is that if you join the same time, the temporal and the spatial, where you are in the network, if you join the same time.

So, that's structural equivalency.

And there is distance.

Distance is the social relationship in the network.

So, for example, in this network, let's make a network that is like this.

Here is the network.

The distance is the relationship between the members.

How distant they are from each other.

It could be that this node is a good friend with this node.

Good friend.

And not so good friend with this node.

So, when we draw the network properly, we will use shorter distance here than here.

Because they are friends.

The distance in the diagram of the network, the distance should reflect the intensity of the connection.

Good friends, shorter distance.

Not so good friends, bigger distance.

Enemies, don't ask.

So, the distance is very crucial.

And this is called multidimensional scaling.

This technique is called multidimensional scaling.

When I look at textbooks, when I look online, and when I look at representations of networks made by networks, when they prepare materials, they are wrong.

They don't use multidimensional scaling.

They assume that all the nodeswrong.

They don't use multidimensional scaling.

They assume that all the nodes are equidistant.

Of course, that's complete nonsense.

Some members influence each other much more.

If Zogan is good friend with someone, that someone will listen to him much more than if he just made someone.

So, the distance is crucial.

Next thing, centrality.

I'm teaching you the concept so that we can talk after that.

Without these concepts, it would be difficult to talk.

Centrality. Degree.

Degree is how many links come to and from a node.

Some nodes have 71 people intheir direct line.

So, if I represent Zogan in a diagram, which of course is very difficult to do, but still, I would make 71 lines coming in and out.

This is called degree. His degree is 71.

If I have 6, only 6 lines will come.

Again, common mistake in diagrams of networks.

In diagrams of networks, many people make the nodes and some kind of line.

But that's of course nonsense.

So, either you make the line thick to represent how many, or you make 71 lines.

So, today we use to simulate networks, we use supercomputers.

Really supercomputers, K7 and so on, to simulate networks.

Because we discovered that there is no phenomenon.

Remember when I say we, I'm a physicist and a mathematician as well.

So, that's why I say we.

We discovered that networks are by far the most complex phenomenon in the world.

By far.

And of course, you all have the biggest network in the universe inside your head.

Well, some of you.

It's called the brain.

The brain has 100 billion cells.

100 billion cells.

These cells are divided into neurons and glia.

Glia, we used to think, was glue.

We thought glia was glue.

But we discovered that it's not glue.

It has functions in the brain.

It's as functional as the other 10 billion.

And so we now talk about 100 billion active cells.

Imagine these cells connect to each other using something called axons, which are the types.

Exactly these.

These are the types.

Now imagine how many combinations there are.

How many combinations are possible in your brain?

With 100 billion nodes.

100 billion nodes, all of them equal, by the way.

The brain is the quintessential network.

Every cell is equal to every cell.

They signal to each other when a certain threshold is passed.

They send electronic signal.

It's totally, total democracy.

No hierarchy, no hint of hierarchy, except some issues.

But generally, no hierarchy.

And so they are connected with axons.

The number of connections in the brain exceeds the number of atoms in the known universe.

Even in a politician's brain.

Well, some politicians.

So this is the ultimate network.

And of course, we would not dream to represent each neuron in the brain with a single line.

If you keep repeating the word "vacne" and "vacne" and "vacne" and "vacne", which I encourage you to do every day.

Ultimately, the "vacne" neurons will have a much thicker, stronger connection with special chemicals that fixate the neuron pathway.

So this will become different to other parts of the brain.

So very important how many connections you have coming in and out.

And this is a common mistake in network diagrams.

So degree, closeness.

Closeness is the average distance.

So each node is connected to other nodes.

If it's a good friend, the connections will be this.

If it's a distant acquaintance, it will be this.

But we make the average.

And each node has a number.

That number is called the closeness number.

It's the average distance.

It's a very important number.

Because someone who is well connected to people, someone who is a good motivator, likes to socialize, and so on and so forth, his number will be better, different, higher, than if someone who has introverted has difficulty in socializing and so on.

So nodes are not the same.

It's a total mistake to think that because it's all circles, everyone is the same.

Depends on personality, sociability, interaction, empathy, and a million parameters.

Not everyone interacts the same with people.

So we use this number, closeness.

We use another number called betweenness.

Betweenness, this number.

Betweenness is which node has the shortest path to other nodes.

So some nodes, when you look at them, you see everywhere short.

All their paths are short.

They are surrounded by friends.

They are surrounded by close associates.

There is loyalty to them.

They create loyalty.

So this is called betweenness.

They have the shortest distance to nodes.

If such a node has the shortest distance to many other nodes, and also the shortest distance to another node with short distance.

So here is this node.

It has short distance.

And then there is another node here.

And this node has short distance.

If this node is connected to this node, this is called bridge.

So if Zolan is likeable and charming and charismatic and sociable and so on, he will have a low closeness number because his connections are short, and a high betweenness number.

He has good numbers.

Then there is another guy here.

And this guy is also sociable and charming and people are loyal to him and he motivates people and so on.

And Zolan is connected to him.

That is called bridge.

This is bridge.

But only between two such people.

Two opinion leaders or two.

This is called bridge.

And this is called cluster.

Each one is cluster.

We discovered that networks are not spread equally, but they have clusters like families, like clans, like tribes.

Okay?

So there are clusters.

The people, the people, these two people bridge the clusters.

They connect the clusters.

They are called bridges.

Here is the amazing thing.

We thought that these people, until recently, until recently we thought that these people will be opinion leaders.

We said, well, opinion leader, he will have loyalty, he will have many people.

And opinion leader connects to opinion leader.

Each cluster is led by opinion leader.

So opinion leader will be, we discovered it's not true.

The bridges in networks, the important bridges in networks are exact opposite to opinion leaders.

We will come to it.

It's one of the most shocking, shocking discoveries in network theory.

We discovered that opinion leaders actually don't create network cohesion.

I'll come to it in a minute.

So, betweenness, betweenness, yes, connecting to other nodes which connect to clusters.

This is betweenness, creating bridges, bridges inside the network.

Without betweenness, without this bridging, the network breaks down and the clusters separate and float away.

So the bridges hold the network together, they are the glue, the glue of the network, these people, the bridges.

And we thought the bridges are opinion leaders.

We discovered that the bridges are not opinion leaders, exactly the opposite.

We'll come to it in a minute.

Sothese bridges are known, depending on the network, are known also as gatekeepers.

These bridges, depending on the network, are known as gatekeepers.

And when you remove them, when you remove them from the network, the process is called disintermediation.

We remove them from networks so that the network can interact freely within itself without the mediation, without the brokerage, without the help of the bridge.

So when we remove the bridge, we create disintermediation.

But of course, when you create disintermediation, the network breaks down.

Disintermediation has positive sides, positive sides.

It means you can operate freely without the help of a bridge.

But when you remove the bridge, the network breaks.

An example, publishing industry.

Publishing industry was a network, in effect.

There was a network of editors, network of publishers.

People came with a manuscript.

They gave the manuscript of the book, editor, read the manuscript, and the manuscript was published as a book, or not published.

That's why they are called gatekeepers.

They keep the gate.

And if your book is not good enough, they close the gate.

Right?

Then computers allow you today to publish your own book without editor, without publisher.

You can go in Amazon KDP and publish your own book.

And 3.2 billion people did it last year.

3.2 billion people and their dogs published books.

Especially the dogs.

It seems from the quality that it was the dogs.

So they published books.

They got rid of the gatekeepers.

They got rid of the bridges.

They got rid of the editors.

So the network actually disintegrated.

You see, for example, majority of newspapers died.

Majority of publishing, all the publishing houses, only five are left.

So true.

It's true.

You can operate much more efficiently.

You can publish books without any problem, and so on.

But the network died.

Bridging is crucial to the survival of the network.

It's the glue.

But the opinion leaders are not the bridges, which is where we were shocked when we discovered it.

That shocked us when we discovered it.

That's a recent discovery.

It's 2016.

I'll come to it when we talk about it.

So cohesion of the network, cohesion of the network, is these connections between the nodes.

I told you that they form clusters.

It's also known as clicks, clicks or subgroups of the network.

We discovered that the more the network is broken into clusters, the less the effect people have on each other.

But the stronger they feel, the more empowered.

Listen again.

The more the network is broken into clusters, the more there are groups, subgroups, clicks, mafias.

The more it's broken, the less influence people have on each other.

So they cannot convince each other, they cannot motivate, they cannot lead, they cannot introduce innovation because they don't affect each other.

They don't have influence.

But ironically, the stronger they feel, they feel more empowered.

Perhaps because they are not open to influence from other people.

It goes together.

So the more the network breaks down, listen well, because this is crucial, I think especially to network like Lycra, the more the network breaks down, the more it actually is in the process of disintegrating, the more the members feel powerful, the better they feel, the more they feel empowered, independent, empowered, successful, happy in the network.

Actually today we know from network theory that this is one of the prime warning signs.

Members in a network that is functioning well and will survive for long are not happy.

Members in a network that is actually mature, let's call it mature, not disintegrate, mature, they are content, they are happy.

Of course if you think about it, forget now mathematics and forget all this sociology, think simply, if you are happy, you have no motivation to act.

You are happy.

So happiness puts you down.

It reduces the network activity, reduces engagement, reduces involvement.

You need to be unhappy.

For example, you need to be unhappy with the money you have.

You want more money.

If you want more, you are unhappy by definition.

We don't call it unhappiness, we call it echosintony.

Echosintony means you are not comfortable with who you are.

So that's a discovery we found about cohesion.

The less cohesive the network, the more it's broken, the more the members feel empowered.

Strangely.

Okay.

Your position, your structural equivalent position in the network determines how much information you will get, how much social influence you have, your status, and so on and so forth.

So here is the process described by BERT in 1999.

Information comes to the network.

There's a network.

Information comes to the network.

The opinion leaders usually are much more exposed to new information via mass media.

We discovered that a typical opinion leader reads or listens to news up to six times more than a typical member.

So an opinion leader is exposed to the news, to the information, to the media.

He brings it to the network.

That process is called dissemination.

He brings the information to the network and he distributes it.

But that's where it ends.

The opinion leader cannot motivate the members.

He just brings information.

Then for the network to adopt the innovation, to adopt the new, he must talk to his equals, to his structural equivalence.

So I don't know, carry rate with carry rate.

I mean, he must talk to his structural equivalence.

If the opinion leader comes to the network and says, "Listen, I heard in the news, I have a brilliant idea.

It's amazing." And so on.

He can inform the members.

But if he tries to introduce the innovation through the members, he will fail.

He needs to talk to his equivalent.

Same with members.

If a member comes across information, he can disseminate it.

But he can never motivate opinion leader to follow him.

Same class talks to the same class.

So why do I say that network is equipotent?

Why do I say that in network, everyone is equal?

Well, everyone is equal in the sense that if you wait some time, you will become structural equivalent.

It doesn't depend on anything external or it just depends when you join the network and how much work you invest if you're not lazy.

So if you are active, time passes.

You will end up where you are supposed to end up.

In other words, we say that networks are frictionless.

Frictionless.

There is nothing stopping you from progressing.

Social mobility is maximal.

Mobility inside the network is maximal.

In 1944, this whole mess started in 1944 when Laszlozfeld, Berenson and Gaudet, three of my childhood friends in 1944, were playing with the Brontez-Auwes together.

It was some writing, all three.

So in 1944, these three discovered that people vote not according to their beliefs and not according to any information they received from the media, 1944, before Facebook.

But the majority of voting decisions reflected same-minded people, like-minded people.

So voting decisions depended on which company you were with.

Tell me who are your friends and I will tell you who you are.

So that was the first time it was discovered that there is a network effect on something in real life, like voting.

People vote not because of the issues, not because of the read-something or education, or how much money they have, socio-economic strata, nothing.

It seems that the major effect was who they were talking to, peer group.

That was shocking.

It was so shocking, actually, that for well over ten years, the subject was untouched.

The same guy, Laszlozfeld, teamed up with another guy, Katz, in 1955.

And this time they didn't touch politics.

And instead they didn't touch men. Not politics, not men.

They collected a group of women and they monitored the behavior of the women when they were buying clothing, fashion.

And they discovered that women buying fashion of all kinds, clothing, accessories and so on, also based mostly on peer preferences, not on personal taste, not on what they read in the media, not on advertising.

Advertising had zero correlation. Mostly the result of peer group, how other women dress, what they bought and so on.

I'm mentioning this because when I say opinion leaders, you think about elites. You think the opinion leader is elite, intellectually elite, financial elite, political elite.

No, opinion leaders in networks, actually majority of them, come from a similar background to the members.

And they are issue specific. They are local and issue specific. They are like the members.

The most successful opinion leaders in networks resemble the members very much.

Now, when you see politics in some countries, you say, how could they have elected this guy? I mean, you look at someone like Duterte in Philippines or Bolsonaro in Brazil or even Putin in Russia. Putin was a nobody, a zero. And you look at these so-called leaders and say, how could they have elected this guy? He has no accomplishments, no history, no, can hardly read. I mean, how did he become a leader? Not to mention other countries with the Hungarian future. So how did they elect these guys? And the answer is, of course, these guys became leaders because they were indistinguishable from the electoral act.

The more they resemble the people who vote for them, the more influence they have.

So starting in 1944 and until 1973, we made a revision of the concept of elite. There was before 1944, there was a concept of elite. There is elite and there is masses. And the elite is leading the masses.

Jose Ortega Iguazete was the philosopher of elites. Today we know that there is no such thing as elite. It's a construct from the 17th century.

What there is, is members who have natural leadership qualities, but they resemble very much the other members.

Just they have leadership qualities. They are charismatic, sociable, Norotutohok and so on.

But otherwise they are exactly like the members. And so common background is very crucial for opinion, didn't it?

That's why people vote according to their friends. Women by fashion according to their friends. Motivation for action is result of similarity, not dissimilarity.

That's one of the discoveries in the network. We interviewed, I mean, scholars, academics interviewed thousands of opinion leaders in various networks. And we came up with this profile.

The opinion leader, there's a who, what and whom. Opinion leader has personality, charisma, is competitive. He has some knowledge or information that is in excess of the member. And he knows people. He knows other people. So he has already a proton network that he brings with him to the network.

Opinion leaders as opposed to regular members come to the network with a group. Typical member joins. Opinion leader brings with him some kind of group.

And now in 1973, there was a study published and no one realized the importance of this study. No one understood that this study actually will create the biggest revolution in network theory.

There was a guy and he made a study and the study he discovered in the study that most people got their jobs, got employed via acquaintances, via people who were not good friends and not family. Sometimes people whom they met once for coffee.

I repeat, most people get their jobs through people they don't know. Or they know very, you know, not through family and not through friends. This was a discovery in 1973 and for a very long time this study was dormant. Until it was applied to networks where we discovered something called weak ties.

And this is where the real revolution in networks started. You remember what is a tie? Tie is this. These are ties. The connections. And you remember that the connection should reflect how many people you are connected to, how well you are connected to them, how long you are connected to them and so on. So this is the tie. A weak tie.

Here is the definition. What is a weak tie?

A weak tie is someone who doesn't meet people very often. Does not meet people very often. It's called contact frequency or contact infrequency. A weak tie is someone who does not meet people very often.

When he meets them, he meets them for a very short period of time.

When he meets them, rarely, for a very short period of time, he doesn't invest effort. He is usually silent, listening or something.

When he meets them and doesn't invest effort, the meeting ends with no benefit to both parties.

We call it no reciprocal utility. No benefit to the partners.

So it's a charming person. He meets rarely. When he meets, he is silent. He makes the meetings very short and he doesn't help you. He is just there. And he avoids intimacy. So he refuses to talk about himself.

You all know people like that. You all know people like that.

So this is the profile of a weak tie.

The amazing thing that we discovered was that bridges among nodes, cluster nodes, are not opinion leaders, but weak ties.

The people who connect the glue that is holding the network together is not opinion leaders, but weak ties, these people.

That was a shock for the academics also. It was a shock.

We discovered that networks that had many weak ties, many such people, survived much longer, grew much faster, disseminated information much more efficiently and innovated much more frequently.

Because the weak tie was the bridge between clusters.

Each part of the network known as cluster had its own opinion leader.

But the bridge between the clusters were weak ties, these kind of people.

People who hate company, hate people, don't like to talk, don't like to meet, hate intimacy, loners, lone wolves, introverts.

They were the glues of networks. And that was mind-boggling. We didn't know how to explain it. We didn't know how to explain it.

So there was a series of studies and so on and so forth.

And we think we may have some explanation. We think we may have some explanation.

It seems like this.

Those of you with dirty minds, it's not what you say.

Okay.

I'm going to put you in the right place. I'm going to put you in the right place.

Your friends, each one of you is a cluster. You are the opinion leader and you are friends.

We call it cloud. You have a cluster cloud.

So each one of you is a cluster.

Okay. This is the bridge to remind you.

Until 1973, we thought that the opinion leader is bridging.

Now we discovered that these introverts, these people who hate people are bridging. Why?

We think it's a speculation at this stage, hypothesis being tested.

We think that what happens is this guy has access to information from here and from here. He has access to information from both clusters. We call this non-redundant information. He has access from information from both classes and he helps to switch it. He helps to exchange it.

So he's like an information exchange.

Why would he have access to information?

He is excluding other types of communication.

If you want to talk to him about his marriage, he's not interested. If you want to be his friend, he doesn't want to.

If you want to have lunch with him, he will tell you no. The only thing you can do with such a person is exchange information.

That's the only thing.

A weak tie is information oriented. He is not interested in any other type.

You remember the profile? Charismatic, sociable.

So with opinion leader, you can have a drink, you can have lunch, you can go on a vacation, you can talk about your lovers, you can do anything with opinion leader. It's not possible with a weak tie.

With a weak tie, you can talk about all the information. Consequently, weak ties become information exchanges.

They have information from both classes.

This is their main function. This we established. They exchange information.

Remember how it started? You don't get jobs from family and friends. You get jobs from weak ties, from acquaintances, people you just met.

Why? Because they are likely to have information. Who is looking for an employee?

Weak ties will have the information where you can find a job. Not your family, not your friends.

If you want someone to give you information where to find a job, go to someone like that. He will know where to find a job. Because that's what he does. He is a vacuum cleaner of information. That's his function.

This is the glue. We made a study of networks. I mentioned all the bibliography at the beginning when Zoran was not here. We made a specific study of networks. A huge study by the way. 386 million exchanges over one month. One of the biggest studies. It took two years and it was published in 2013. Here are the amazing results. We tested information in a network. Information seeking, information disseminating, efficiency of information. How information moves in a network. We tested sharing of organizational and institutional knowledge inside the network. We tested diffusion of innovation. How fast the network innovates. We tested community building. The sense of community. If the members feel that they belong to a community. We tested civic engagement. Civic engagement means whether the members are active or not active. We tested multidisciplinarity. In other words, whether members bring information from outside, combine it with information from the network. Everything that is absolutely critical to the survival of the network. Information, activism, activity, level of activity, innovation, everything. Without this, the network will die. We tested this. They checked what determines success in these things. They tested for network size. Does the size of the network determine success in these functions? No. They tested how often the members communicate, discussion frequency. How often the members communicate with each other. Does it determine the success of the network? No. They tested everything. They tested all the known parameters of networks. If any of these, cohesion, cohesion, centrality, they tested many, many parameters of networks. The study is by De Zunica in Valenzuela. They tested many, many parameters, all the known parameters of networks.

As I mentioned before, centrality, degree, closeness, betweenness, cohesiveness, you name it. Everything. None of them, not one of them, was connected to the crucial functions of a network. Not one. Except how often weak ties talk to each other. It was the only parameter that predicted success and survival, longevity, infecundity, how often the information spread. Only is how often, not opinion leaders, weak ties talk to each other. That was the only predictor. That means that weak ties, I could say easily, are much, much more important than opinion leaders. Much more important. They determine the glue, they hold the network together, and they determine the survival, longevity, and functioning of the network.

Not only that, weak ties communicating with other members or communicating with opinion leaders is meaningless. How often they talk to each other determines the success and future of the network. They are, this is the network, weak ties, not active members, not opinion leaders. None of these. Why? Because we discovered more generally, as you remember, I mean those of you who were not asleep, remember when I said that the first part, outsiders are critical to the network. Outsiders are very crucial to the network.

Now weak tie member, weak tie member, it's a member who doesn't like other members, doesn't like to talk, doesn't like to have lunches, doesn't like to go sleep, doesn't like to be intimate, doesn't like anything. What do you want? It's the kind of person who, when he picks up the phone, doesn't say double the incalcosity, but says show, what do you want?

That's a weak tie member.

A weak tie member is an outsider, is both insider and outsider.

He is the bridge, not only between clusters, but is the bridge from the network outside.

Cannot overemphasize the importance of weak ties.

Now, most networks make the mistake, the same catastrophic mistake, of dedicating most of the resources, most networks make the mistake of dedicating most of the resources to opinion leaders.

And in second place, to members.

So if they have like $100, they would spend $70 on opinion leaders, $29 on members, and they would have $1 left for weak ties.

Because instinctively, the opinion leaders in the network, they say, ah, he's not serious, he's not participating, he's not active, he's not coming, he's not meeting anyone. He doesn't market the network well, he didn't bring other members, he didn't create his own down line or up line or whatever line you want.

So they put down, they underestimate the weak tie and they ignore the weak tie.

And that is very crucial, a catastrophic mistake for networks.

Networks, had it been rational, networks would have dedicated equal amounts of money to opinion leaders and to weak ties with almost nothing for members.

We have numerous studies that show that members don't contribute to networks, actually.

We have studies of MLMs, for example. Why MLMs?

Because in MLM, you can quantify. It's much easier to quantify, because they are selling goods. Most MLMs sell goods.

And before you ask me, Lycolent is not an MLM.

So MLMs sell goods, so it's easy to measure.

So the FTC, Federal Trade Commission, made studies of MLMs, because they wanted to decide whether to criminalize MLMs, whether to make them criminal.

And so they studied the economic activity of MLMs.

Members generate less than 3% of the income of MLMs.

Opinion leaders generate the rest.

So a rational allocation of resources of the network would be 50-50.

52 opinion leaders and 52 weak ties and almost nothing to members.

Members actually don't contribute much to networks.

Think about church. Think about the synagogue, because I talk about Christianity, Islam.

Time to talk about myself.

By the way, for you not to think that I'm only criticizing Christian, not criticizing, but I'm only kind of mentioning Christian and Muslim beliefs, the Jews have equally irrational beliefs.

For example, we believe that periodically Jews argue with God and win.

Now, that's not entirely rational, because I don't know anyone who can argue with a Jew and win.

And that includes God. So it's not entirely rational.

But talking about Jewish tradition and Judaism, for example, when I just said that you're opinion leaders and weak ties, consider a synagogue, for example.

In a synagogue, there are opinion leaders.

These are the people who come to the synagogue regularly and pray and make contributions to the synagogue and maintain the synagogue, etc., etc.

And then there are members.

Majority, numerical majority, numbers.

These are members.

But if all the members were to vanish tomorrow, synagogue would keep surviving and surviving well.

It's not nice to say, but members are not really crucial to networks.

Of course, the statistics are clear.

In networks like Facebook, for example, almost all the income comes from 2%.

And the other 98 actually are a drain on the network. They are net loss.

And of course, if you see in the financial industry how wealth and income are distributed, it's the same. 1% and that's why we have the 99% and the 1%.

1% make well over 90% of wealth, of new wealth.

So in all human societies and in all human structures, 1% makes 90%.

And 90% make 1%. That's how it is.

Network, a rational, efficient network should allocate its resources accordingly.

Should emphasize opinion leaders and weak ties.

Weak ties because they can bring information and innovation and so on from outside, which is crucial for the network.

And because they can mediate between clusters.

Also, weak ties never belong.

A weak tie never belongs.

So he will never belong to this cluster, that cluster.

So weak ties and opinion leaders.

What determines, what determines, and I'm shortly coming to the end.

I'm shortly coming to the end.

And then I will let you ask questions.

Of course, I don't promise answers, but you can ask. Feel free.

And just because time is very short, I want to cut a few elements here.

Okay. What determines if a network adopts innovation?

Every network, if it doesn't innovate, dies.

Let that be clear as well.

Networks are not hierarchies.

Every hierarchy, if it innovates, risks dying.

Seriously, in hierarchies, innovation sometimes is deadly.

In networks, lack of innovation is deadly.

So every network must have an innovation management policy.

How to get acquainted with innovation, find out about innovation, design an innovation, introduce an innovation, and adopt an innovation.

These are all different processes.

For example, introduce innovation, opinion leaders, adopt innovation, weak ties, and structurally equivalent.

Same level.

So depends.

People think, "I have a network, that's it." Listen, it's a whole science.

You need to know what you're doing to keep a network alive and so on.

So we discovered the following things.

Influence whether people in the network adopt the innovation or not.

It must present some kind of advantage over previous practice or previous normally.

It must be bad, but it must be compatible with what they're doing.

So some advantage, but not too much advantage.

Not total divorce from what they're doing before.

It must be gradual.

Innovation that is radical is rejected.

Even if it is excellent innovation, it's rejected.

We had cases, tests, experiments, where people rejected a ratio of 10 to 1, making 10 times more money just because of risk of loss, because it's innovation and there was uncertainty.

People hate uncertainty and hate loss.

So compatibility.

Complexity.

There is a principle called KISS.

KISS.

Keep it simple, stupid.

Complexity.

Innovation must not be complex.

Trialability.

You must be able to try the innovation.

Observability.

You must be able to observe the innovation in action in some other place.

Cost.

And as I mentioned, radicalness.

The adoption process in networks has the following stages.

And I will focus on one of them because it's new.

It's a new discovery by a guy called Kaldini.

I strongly recommend to read Kaldini's two books, "Influence" and "Priswasion." Actually, I'm even going to write it on the board.

Off with the pornography.

These two books, anyone who is in networks and didn't read them, should read them.

Kaldini.

One book is called "Influence." And one book is called "Priswasion."

Kaldini and others said that the process of adopting innovation involves several stages.

"Priswasion, knowledge, decision, implementation, confirmation, modification." Okay.

I will focus on persuasion because it's a new concept.

Very, very new concept.

So today you are exposed for the first time to many, many concepts which are two years old, or even one year old.

Very latest, the newest concept.

So there are two models on how people adopt innovation in networks.

One is called hierarchy of effect model.

Hierarchy of effect model, it is Valente, invented by Valente.

Valente discovered a mathematical rule.

In all networks that he checked, he discovered mathematical rule.

Every innovation has 12 steps.

Every innovation in network has 12 steps.

And each step is adopted by 80% of the previous step.

So if you start with innovation in a network and a million people adopt it, the next step will be 800,000.

Next step will be 640,000, et cetera, et cetera.

80, 80, 80.

It's the rule of 80.

You can calculate and you see that by the end of the 12 steps, there are very few people who actually work with innovation. They become the opinion leaders.

So innovation starts like that.

Not like that.

Not it starts with few people and goes to the masses.

It starts with the masses and ends up with a few people.

Exactly opposite everything.

Actually, when there is innovation, many people hear about it, but very few people adopt it.

So it's like that.

So this is called the hierarchy of effect model.

And the other model is known as the transtheoretical model.

Transtheoretical model says that people adopt innovation or adopt information by thinking about adopting it, then thinking about it, then preparing to adopt it, then acting on it.

And if they succeed, maintaining it.

This was discovered when three scholars studied people who tried to quit smoking.

They tried to quit smoking.

And they discovered that people quit smoking in stages.

They think about thinking to stop smoking.

Then while they're smoking, they think about stopping to smoke.

While they're smoking, of course.

Then they are preparing themselves mentally to quit smoking.

And then if they are Macedonians, they stop.

But if they are not Macedonians, after they prepare to quit smoking, they quit smoking.

And then if they succeed to quit smoking, they maintain.

So this is a process called transtheoretical model.

That's how people adopt innovation or change their behavior, behavior modification.

And I mentioned the previous one.

Now, I want to focus on persuasion.

The adoption process of new information, new behavior, new innovation, so on, I told you has six stages.

Presuasion, knowledge, decision, implementation, confirmation, and modification.

So, persuasion, leave on the side.

I will explain in a minute.

Knowledge, you come to know about the new thing.

You decide, you implement it, it works well, some things don't work well, you modify it.

Simple.

You don't have to be a genius for this.

It's clear.

Persuasion is a new concept.

Chaldini discovered, it all started by mistake.

Chaldini is a professor, was, sorry, a professor of marketing.

Brilliant guy.

I mean, his book influences, the best book ever written about motivating people, in my view.

I mean, I read a lot.

But it's the best book ever written about motivating people.

And he was working at the university, and when professors get bored, they experiment on students.

It's a kind of mechanism to overcome boredom.

And so, I assume he got bored because he experimented on students.

And of course, he didn't have anything in mind.

He really needed to fulfill some opinion point.

So he went to the students, he said, "Listen, would you mind fulfilling this form?" 24% of the students agreed, which proves that he is not a very good professor.

Because if he's a good professor, students would be very afraid of him, and all of them would fulfill the form.

So only 24% of my students would fulfill the form twice.

Trust me.

Minimal twice.

That's on a bad day.

So only 24% of his students fulfilled the form.

He said, "Bloody hell, I need more."

So he tried something, and he didn't know what he was doing when he tried it.

But it gave birth to a whole new field of network management and so on.

He tried something.

The next day, he came to his students and said, "How many of you think you're helpful?

Helpful people, people who like to help?" Everybody raised their hand.

Of course, I'm helpful in this, that.

He said, "Okay, now can you help me to fulfill the form?" 77% fulfilled the form.

24, 77%.

It created a light bulb.

He said, "Wait a minute. What did I do?" I only asked him.

So he created something called pre-suasion.

Not per-suasion to persuade, but pre-suade.

Preparing someone to be persuaded.

Preparing someone to be convinced.

He said, "If I ask someone, are you helpful?" After that, he will be ashamed not to help.

So I'm preparing him? Yes.

Well, if he's American. I mean, I'm Israeli. I'm helpful. Of course I'm helpful.

Fulfill the form. Pay me.

In advance.

What?

So there's conversation.

And I'll give you a few examples of pre-suasion.

It's been tested now several years. It's a stunning concept, revolutionary concept.

And very applicable to networks.

So one of the mistakes that networks make, or I would say all networks make, is that they get straight to the point.

Hello, welcome. Listen, we have a great idea. You can do A and you will get B.

And then when you do B, you have added benefit of C.

So you get straight to the point.

And your response is 24%.

But if you use pre-suasion techniques, you can triple and quadruple the positive response.

Prove it.

And I'll give you a few examples.

Only if you're interested.

You see, why my students would fulfill the form twice?

I know majority of you wanted to say, "Will you please finish?" But no one dares.

You should be in a proper university now. Where did they hide this guy?

Just a second, just a second.

Bear with me. It's the wrong way.

Here are a series of experiments with pre-suasion.

Experiments that were carried out.

I'm telling you, giving you several examples.

There are many.

So the first example I gave you is you ask the person, "Are you helpful?" And then they help.

But you can also ask, "Are you daring?" You can also ask, "Are you open?" "Are you open to innovation?" You can ask, "Are you honest?" Whatever you want the person to motivate, you can ask this question initially.

For example, if you want the person to take a risk, you would say, "Are you daring?" Not everyone will say, "I'm daring." But those who raise their hand, the response rate after that will be much higher.

So this one example.

Second example.

He discovered, again, one major mistake of networks.

Networks emphasize benefits.

All networks emphasize benefits.

He discovered, and we knew that in advance, that people are loss averse. They are much more motivated by not losing than by gaining.

So the successful networks emphasize how they will prevent you from losing. Not how you will benefit, but how you will not lose.

And he constructed a series of experiments, others later.

Because of that series of experiments, he came to students, and he said, "You can benefit this, this." And then he came to another group, and he said, "If you do this, you will avoid this and this loss." And even though the benefit was much lower, the adoption rate in the second group was way higher, like nine times higher.

So if you emphasize what people will not lose, if you emphasize how you can save them money, if you emphasize how you reduce risk, if you emphasize how it will make their lives more certain, that's much more powerful than if you emphasize how much money they can make.

Much more powerful.

He calls it, "Emphasize losses, not benefits."

Read these books, I can't emphasize.

I can't emphasize how important to read these books. It's a revolution in consumer psychology, network psychology, everything. You will not be the same people after you read these books.

Of course I'm getting 10% from everything.

No, I'm not.

So what if I'm a Jew? Show a great scarab with them. Okay.

Cardini also does... Don't talk about Bulgarian stuff.

Cardini...

Listen, my first wife was quarter Bulgarian.

My second wife is half Bulgarian.

My third wife will be quarter Bulgarian.

By the fourth, I hope to get rid of them.

Now YouTube will ban my video. Hate speech.

Right.

When it comes to money, we're all Bulgarians.

Another thing he discovered in his experiments...

Is that if you ask for opinion or expectations, the person will help you much less than if you ask for advice.

So if you come to a person and say, "What do you think about this?" Or if you come to a person and say, "What would you like me to do?" You will get much less collaboration than if you come to the person and say, "Can you give me advice?" Advice is powerful motivator.

Even in networks, it is counterproductive to say, for example, "I know that you expect to make money." Or assume that you expect to make money.

Or, "Give me your opinion." Instead, if the members are motivated to give advice, they will become very active members.

So, for example, he made a series of job interviews.

Simulated job interviews.

So he sent students to apply for a job. A real job. I mean, there was a job interview.

He sent students to apply for jobs. They found in the ads, classified ads, and they sent the students. Half the students were instructed to present a very impressive curriculum visa. Yes? I was Prime Minister of Macedonia. I'm now in Hungary. You know, all these kinds of things.

And half the students were instructed to behave in a certain way. In a minute, I will tell you how.

Of the half that presented an impressive curriculum visa, 9% got the job. Of the other half were instructed to behave in a certain way, which I will tell you in a minute.

Well over 40% got the job.

What was... What did he tell them to do?

He told them to say the following sentence. Only one sentence. "Before I start to present myself to you, can you tell me why you invited me here?" So they were forced to talk about the candidate positively.

If I say to my interviewer, "Why did you invite me?" The interviewer will say, "Well, I looked at your CV. It was impressive. I saw that you have these accomplishments. That's why I invited you." From that moment, he is hypnotized. He is already in a positive mind frame.

Five times better success rate in job interview for a single sentence.

"Why did you invite me here?" All these techniques are called persuasion.

Today, modern networks, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, the complex.

The cutting edge.

When you want to learn about network techniques and so on, you see what they're doing. They are in decline, but they are in decline because they are forced to behave improperly, as far as network theory, because of political intervention, politics.

But had they been left to behave the way they wanted, they are perfect.

So for example, today in Facebook, they introduced in the algorithm and in the design, in the program itself, they introduced persuasion.

I will leave you to find it out. I will not tell you how they're doing it.

But go now to Facebook with fresh eyes and see how they persuade you.

Okay?

Right.

Let's talk about the future of networks.

And then if you have questions, I will go home, but you can present the questions.

I mean, I'm... No problem.

Future of networks. Last segment is future of networks.

So we think that the future, all future networks will be one of three types.

And that is multiplex, multimodal, multimodal, multimodal network, and multilevel, actually.

We think networks must evolve into one of these three types.

What are these three types?

Multiplex means that members in future networks will have multiple possibilities, possibility for multiple types of ties.

Remember what is a tie?

Tie is this.

This is tie.

So today, when you're a member in a network, usually you have one type of tie.

One tie.

Future networks will allow you to have multiple types of tie.

This tie, that tie, multiple types.

And this is called...

This kind of network is called the multiplex network.

I will give you one example of such a network.

For example, you can be, in some networks, producer and consumer.

You can produce something and consume something.

Sometimes you can exchange.

You produce and exchange with another producer.

Then you become consumer.

So this is a multiplex with two ties.

Produce a consumer.

In the future, there will be networks that will provide the member with seven ties, nine ties, ten types of ties.

The more we discovered, and that's why networks are being redesigned, we discovered that the more types of ties you offer, the more the loyalty, the greater the loyalty and the greater the activation.

So a network with a single type of tie will not survive in the future, in my view.

It must offer multiple.

So it could be, for example, you receive a commission, that's one type of tie.

You are a consumer. You buy something. It's one type of tie.

You produce something and sell it. It's another type of tie.

And all of it in the same network.

So multiple ties, multiplex.

Multimodal networks are networks that use different types of actors.

In most networks, everyone is equal, but everyone also does the same.

So you can be very big, your opinion leader. You can be very inactive, your weak tie.

But essentially, everyone is doing the same.

In future networks, there will be many, many gradations of actors, many types of actors.

There will be, for example, an actor whose job is to bring other actors. That's, for example, like on it.

There will be an actor whose job is to bring new information or innovation, or to scout, or to link with other networks.

So there will be many types of membership, many types of actors.

And that we call multimodal network.

Such networks are just beginning.

For example, you have, hello.co, where you can be content producer, content consumer, and so on, but it's very primitive.

But for example, maybe Amazon. On Amazon, you can buy a book, you can get a commission by selling books, but you can also write a book and sell it.

So you can be consumer, you can be producer, you can be commissioner.

So in Amazon, you can have three ties and be three actors.

But even that is extremely primitive.

We are talking about networks that will provide you with menu of 100 types of ties and menu of 500 possible roles, acting roles.

Agencies, they're called agencies. They allow it to be different kind of agents.

So these are called multimodal.

And surprisingly and shockingly, we believe that future networks will be mostly multilevel.

That's shocking because MLM is very bad name.

And in some countries, it's criminalized. It's illegal. Considered wrongly, in my view, to be a pyramid scheme.

Like on it is by no definition a pyramid scheme and even not an MLM, of course.

I mean, anyone who knows theory of MLMs and theory of pyramid schemes know that you are neither.

You're not this, not this.

But other networks are under attack for being MLMs and so on.

We believe that the future of networks is actually MLM.

I mean, one future is one type of network, is multilevel network.

Maybe there will be modifications.

Maybe most of the income will come from direct sales, not from people you bring to the network and But the multilevel structure is the most flexible structure we know, actually.

People bringing people is the most flexible network structure we know.

When we have a network such as Facebook or Twitter, there is no people bringing people.

Each one joins separately.

Consequently, Facebook is extremely inefficient at delivering.

For example, if you advertise on Facebook, your return on the advertising is nothing.

It's very inefficient platform.

It's very inefficient platform because the clustering is enormous.

Every individual is a cluster.

They have common friends, but not these common friends.

I have six common friends with Zoe.

So, for example, it's meaningless.

The clustering is too much.

Because it's broken down so much, it cannot deliver.

But in multilevel, network cohesion is much stronger.

It is the most flexible structure known to organize a network.

So, we believe that future networks will be multiplex, multimodal and multilevel. This trade will be the future. Now, of course, multiplex, multimodal, multilevel creates disorientation. It's very destabilizing, create dislocation and atomization. But they empower and they provide opportunities. And as long as the network keeps itself self-sufficient, synergetic and creates value from inside for the member, it will survive. So, a future network, to summarize, will be isolated ecosystem, which is not in touch with the outside, but provides everything inside. The network itself can get things from outside, but the member will be supplied by the network, not by anyone outside. So, isolated, because it's a polypsistic network. It's an isolated network, universe of its own. It will be multiplex, multimodal and multilevel. That's the profile of the future network.

Thank you for suffering me.

I don't know how much Zohar paid each of you to be here.

But if you have any questions, I'd be happy to ignore them.

So, it's like, forget the questions, just fuck off.

Give us an old question.

It's not enough that we listen to you, I mean, questions.

No, seriously, if you have any questions, I'm here.

You raise your hand or just sit by by.

You want to ask something?

Oh, okay.

Usually when people raise their hand, it's like...

It's a joke.

They are in state of shock, post-romatic shock.

Post-romatic shock, you know.

Too much information.

Yes.

Not enough jokes, too much information.

What?

One major joke and too much information.

I shoot you from here.

You can shoot me, you've been trying to do it for 20 years, don't you?

That's why.

Fine. Fine, you can shoot me.

Why us? Why us?

Why us?

Why us? We should be here.

You can ask.

I'm going to ask you a question.

Do you know?

Yes, you can ask.

Okay, guys.

You have a question? Okay.

I'm not sure that I'm going to be here, but I'm going to shoot you.

I'm going to ask you a question.

Okay.

So, you have a system of... ...in the case of light in the dark?

No, it's not.

It's not?

No, it's not.

So, you have a system of light in the dark?

No, it's not.

So, you have a system of light in the dark?

No, it's not. So, you have a system of light in the dark? No, it's not. I'm

going to

shoot you.

Okay, go ahead. Okay, go ahead. Okay, so, I'm

going to shoot you, and I'm

going to shoot you.

Okay,

so, I'm going to shoot you, and I'm

going to shoot you.

Okay,

so, you have a system of light in the dark? No, it's not. No, it's not. So, you have a system of light in the dark?

No, it's not.

So, you have a system of light in the dark?

Yes, you have a system of light in the dark.

Okay, go ahead.

You have a system of light in the dark?

Yes, you have a system of light in the dark.

Okay, go ahead.

Are you careful or an honest person?

She's lying.

Except one was a honest person.

Ooh.

If I tell you that I'm helpful, I will not be honest.

And if I tell you that I'm honest, it will not be helpful to you.

What can you do?

It's a trap.

Catch 32.

Let me answer you this way.

I'm Jewish.

Now, about you.

We can look at other networks, which would be a good idea because some networks, especially social networks, but totally social networks, absolutely not.

For example, there are direct sales networks, which are operated by manufacturers in the United States, like Avon and so on.

And they are implementing already this.

So if we look at these networks, they, for example, encourage gossip.

They have gossip machines.

They encourage people to join so as to get acquainted with the network and to gossip about it, just to talk about it.

These are weak ties.

These are people who will not do anything and so on, except talk about it.

So they create special events, special promotions, special that are somehow connected to the network, not so much to the products.

So, for example, they have, for example, they have personal stories.

Like on the 2019 Reminding Mail, you can look at this.

They have personal stories.

So people tell their stories. They have how to, so educational campaigns connected somehow to them. And they bring into these people who would be weak ties in the sense that they would gossip and bring back information to the network.

So weak ties is what we call in cyber marketing, internet marketing, buzzword, buzz, buzz, buzz market, exactly.

It's to create buzz.

That's essentially weak ties. The thing is that weak ties bridge. They bring information from both worlds. Of course, if the weak tie becomes a member, it can bridge clusters. But even if it does not become a member, it doesn't matter because it can bridge network to reality. It has crucial factors.

It's good to try to convert weak ties over time into members, not because they will do anything, but because of their glue function, because they tend to exchange information.

That was first one.

What was the second part?

I'll give you an example of classes.

What you call the down lines.

And so these are classes. Essentially. Technically, these are classes. The people who benefit each other, exchange information with each other more than with others. So, for example, if you have people in your line, you would get commissions from them, from their purchases and so on. That would mean exchange of information, exchange of money, any exchange we measure by flow, flows, flow of information, flow of money, flow of benefits, flow of expectations, and so on. This defines a cluster where this flow goes down dramatically or disappears. That's the boundary of the cluster. In your case, it's very clear because you have down lines. It's extremely structured.

But in many networks, it's fuzzy. Facebook is clear also. Friends. But in many networks, it's fuzzy. You don't know where the cluster begins and stops. So we measure simply number of interactions, how often people meet, how often they talk, how often they talk, how often they talk, how often they talk, how often they talk, how often they talk, how often they talk, how often they talk, how often they talk, how often they talk, how often they talk, how often they talk, how often they talk, how often they talk, how often they talk, how often they talk, how often they talk, how often they talk, howto do, you are beginning to generate internal value, which is a good move, a very good move.

Still could be improved in some ways with this new knowledge of networks.

But the orientation is correct.

Orientation is to generate a total universe where you can show, where you can make money, where you can socialize, where there's communities, period, where -- I mean, total universe.

There will come a point when you will be big enough not to need anyone.

At that moment when you don't need anyone, you will become ecosystem.

Then if you are closed ecosystem, closed, not open, you have a chance to become very big and to survive.

Marketplace with -- Yeah.

That's an ecosystem, especially if the marketplace allows members to trade with each other, not outsiders, but members.

That creates -- yes, that creates real internal value.

So you're on the right track.

You, I think, from what I heard, could benefit a little from getting acquainted with most new research.

Because I don't think Likonet is movement of intellectuals.

So there's a lot -- a lot Likonet can learn from academia and a lot -- academia can learn from Likonet.

Both parties should.

But I think it would benefit.

But all in all, you're in the right way, right orientation.

I don't know Likonet well enough.

It's not serious for me to answer.

No, weak ties are answered.

What are the weak ties in Likonet?

I don't know Likonet well enough.

But I explain what are weak ties.

These are people recruited from the outside, on purpose from the outside, to go see a pencil.

[speaking in Russian] I'm weak tie, actually.

I'm weak tie.

An example of weak tie.

I'm a pleasant person, not sociable, introverted, and so on.

Which explains why Bulgarian women like me.

And so -- but I heard of Likonet.

I'm in touch with an opinion leader.

It's very common for weak ties.

Weak ties are in touch with opinion leaders.

I heard of Likonet.

I'm in touch with opinion leader.

I get involved, but from a distance.

When I told him, he said, what do you want?

What do you want?

You again.

I don't have a card.

I'm not involved.

I don't have cash back.

I don't have, and I will not have.

Not because of Italy.

It's a wonderful idea, by the way.

Brilliant idea.

But I don't, because that's me.

I'm standoffish.

But I analyze Likonet.

I participate in events.

I spread the word because I post it on Instagram, on Facebook, on -- and I bring new information to you from the outside.

I'm fertilizing you.

I'm bringing you new.

You can reject this information except -- it doesn't matter.

I'm bringing you innovation.

What you do with it is your problem.

But I am a bridge, helping you as a bridge.

If I were to get involved in Likonet, let's assume some time passes, and someone blackmails me finally to get a card.

And I get a card. I become a member.

Probably what will happen, I will become bridge between clusters.

I will meet Zohand, and I'll miss another opinion leader, and I'll begin kind of -- because that's my nature.

It's my character.

My character is to convey information.

I'm an information bridge, not only in Likonet.

I'm in general.

So I'm a weak guy.

If you want to see example, walking, talking, at this stage.

At this stage, weak guy.

You are taking minutes from your knowledge, free of charge.

Free of charge remains to be seen.

Don't be optimistic.

You still have to leave the sala.

So I say.

I don't mean to use weak ties, I have to be formally part of them.

It doesn't have to be.

Although, when it serves as a bridge between clusters, of course, of course, it has to be, in this case.

We did not study PODL.

We did not study external weak ties.

We don't have a single study, like me.

There are no studies of people like me.

But there are lots of studies of weak ties, starting in 1973, of weak ties inside networks.

So we know a lot about intercluster bridges.

But we have almost zero knowledge about people like me, who are in and out, in effect, in and out.

This exists everywhere, absolutely everywhere.

I mean in religions.

And you have all the time this cloud, cloud of flies, around the, that are touching, going, coming, landing, flying, you know.

And they are also weak ties, in effect, but of a different type.

And we have no studies about it. I think people like me are helpful to networks.

As we bring new information, we stimulate thinking, we challenge.

And like on the 2019, I said many unpopular things.

So we challenge you. We create dynamics, usually good dynamics.

And so, so I think it's very useful, actually.

And same function is carried with a weak tie inside.

But what we discovered, and that's a shocking thing, that weak ties are much more important than opinion leaders.

They are holding the network together.

We didn't know that.

It was for us shock when we discovered this.

And it was based on a really, really huge study.

I mean, if it was a small study, you could say, ah, mistake, this, that.

It was a gigantic study. It was two years, 400 million interactions, you know.

It was an almost study. The biggest ever made about networks.

And we discovered conclusively, opinion leaders inside clusters, between clusters, weak ties, the glue, and the fertilizer.

The person who creates innovation, these are weak ties, which for us was a big shock.

Thank you.

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