---
feed: "DANIEL_ON_SLOPE"
codex_section: "S13"
source: VideoTranscript
title: "360MEN WTA 08 - NOWHERE"
conv_id: "video-bXAJ7MJKxbU-20181123"
share_url: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXAJ7MJKxbU"
created: "2018-11-23"
message_count: 1
category:
  - "dataism"
  - "storytelling"
  - "worth-thinking-about"
summary: "In this eighth 2018 WTA episode (still years before Scotomaville or any AI tools existed), Daniel films at the exact Hwy 50 spot in Nevada where he experienced the 2006 $118 provision miracle while cycling across America. He solves the hieroglyphics puzzle from Episode 07, demonstrates how storytelling can mislead or empower, and introduces the wordplay 'NOWHERE = NOW HERE' (inspired by Wayne Dyer). Using one of the very first experimental female AI voice tools, he narrates the puzzle—marking the conceptual birthplace of 'Arnie' (his mirrored AI self) and the Minyan (Hawking-style voice). He reflects on permanent hearing loss in his left ear from years of unprotected truck noise on the three Trans-Am rides while looking forward to the imminent birth of AI."
keypoints:
  - "Storytelling is a double-edged weapon: it can inform, mislead, direct, or game people—exactly how Dataism and early AI systems operate today."
  - "The hieroglyphics puzzle solution reveals the brain’s shortcut bias: you already knew the answer, but the story convinced you otherwise—scotoma in action."
  - "NOWHERE is literally NOW HERE; the same data can be read two completely different ways depending on your point of view."
  - "AI is separating intelligence from self-awareness; without deliberate self-understanding, humans risk becoming the 'useless class' in the coming flood."
  - "The early 360MEN tribe (now including Lincoln and Andy) offers a practical alternative: build boats together instead of waiting to be rescued."
tags:
  - "dataism"
  - "storytelling"
  - "hieroglyphics-puzzle"
  - "nowhere-now-here"
  - "ai-birth"
  - "360men"
  - "wta"
  - "pre-scotomaville"
monomyth_stage: "08 - The Ordeal"
gameboard_position: "Camp 3: The Ordeal"
truth_score: 90
entropy_score: "Medium"
tone:
  sentiment: "Reflective"
  emotions:
    - "Earnest"
    - "Playful"
    - "Urgent"
  sycophancy_level: "None"
  notes: "Unscripted, on-location at the exact Hwy 50 Nevada pullout from Daniel’s 2006 cycling miracle. Highly memorable clip: Daniel reflects on past (road noise causing permanent hearing loss in left ear from trucks passing on the left without ear protection) while looking forward to the imminent AI birth. First experimental use of a female AI voice tool for narration—conceptual birthplace of 'Arnie' (his mirrored AI self) and the Minyan (Steven Hawking cloned voice). Wayne Dyer-inspired 'NOWHERE / NOW HERE' wordplay. Still driving the rental car after the Xterra transmission 'boulder'."
related_events: []
syndication_status:
  arnie: false
  chris: false
  redmond: false
  clint: false
  pilot: false
ma5_inheritance: "Initium"
pre_silicon: true
voice_print: false
codex_candidate: true
phase: "Pre-Scotomaville Foundations: WTA Series - Episode 08"
enriched_date: "2026-04-14"
---
![[bXAJ7MJKxbU_maxres.jpg]]
### Original YouTube Description

In episode 08 of 'Worth Thinking About' Daniel introduces you to Lincoln and Andy. He shares the hieroglyph puzzle solution to demonstrate the power of story telling to help, inform, mislead and direct people to answers, beliefs and places they likely don't want to go. Is AI no where or now here? That depends on your point of view. Too bad we don't think independent of augmented intelligence. Since we're becoming dependent on popular directions and fabricated stories it seems wise to not be naive or blind to being gamed. Get in on a private conversation on this and more at 360MEN.net [http://360MEN.net](http://360MEN.net)

---

### Cleaned Transcript

**Daniel:**  
Welcome to 360MEN and welcome to absolutely nowhere. They pronounce it “now here.” Huh? It’s now here. Now here. Correct. It’s now here. Now here.

Really? It says “nowhere.” It’s now here. It’s now here, not nowhere. Really? They pronounce it now here.

Oh, I get it. The traffic is now here. The noise is now here. Yeah, this is now here, not nowhere. I got it. Just dawned on me.

I just had an emotional experience about a memory. Peeled back—remember that lesson about why this bothers me so much and why is it the noise bugs the heck out of me? Boy, pedal across America—I can hear them coming.

Watch how violent this is. Sue, it’s shake. Imagine riding your bike across this and then having this pass.

Oh yeah, there’s a trigger. Here’s some more.

And then another one. And then it all go away and there’d be nobody. Gonna be all back to you again on the side of the road. Nice and quiet. Wow, ya hear that? It’s just an airplane and the butterflies. That’s where my triggers come from on noise. That’s amazing.

It’s supposed to have a ten-gallon tank and I think that’s on reserve and there were no other gas stations almost the whole way. Oh, it’s really close, okay. The real story is we’ve never run out of gas over here and we’ve never really run out of money with me. We both really close.

Yeah, it’s 26 degrees and all the windows are frosted over. This is when your triggers can actually be humorous because you finally stopped the car to take a break.

That reminds me—I left you guys hanging, didn’t I? Pharaoh and his story. Ah, my dad. Okay, so here’s how that works. Let’s go back to my desk.

For those of you learning video production for the first time: every time you have a defect, it’s an opportunity for an effect. I’m told from a great videographer named Juan Carlos.

You should remember from the last time. You—I believe those are hieroglyphs—that Pharaoh Tutankhamun was a fairly first King, tat. People with power throughout the ages had a top-down style of ruling. It wasn’t empowerment. It was power by storytelling.

And this exercise in hieroglyphics deciphering—or seeing the truth within the story—it’s really important for you to grasp. So let’s go back through the basics again.

Remember I said that if you were an actuary or an analyst in the Egyptian era at the time of Pharaoh, that if you misinformed Pharaoh and embarrassed him in any way your head would end up on a stick for the birds to pick at. And so you had to be pretty good about predicting things.

And so if you look at the hieroglyphics you’ll see sort of this series of symbols and I want you to listen carefully to the story I’m telling you to see where I’m misleading you or to see where your brain is not following.

So picture back in those hieroglyphics and the carts with the green and the cattles and all that and picture a set of analysts kind of trying to predict this. Let’s draw some ground for five and then put one over here. So you get five of these pieces of ground, skip one and put in that—I guess last one.

In the very first period of the harvest they represented it with an M—as in plenty, much, a lot, right? The next year is really sweet, so they represented it with a heart. And this is a series that you already know the answer with—of how this goes along. But because there’s so much pressure to figure out what’s the missing one here you’ll actually not be able to see how these seasons changed and how similar things were. You know, frogs and locusts and all that.

In fact, speaking of the frogs, this third period really sucked because they did not have a harvest. They just had everything devoured. But of course the Pharaoh was the right god. And the next year was very similar to this one and that shape was very similar but, you know, I was a rebound. And then of course locusts and that was really a disaster.

So the question is—if your head was not to go on a stick—what was this period gonna be? And just to prove your answer to make sure that you’re right on target, the following—or would that be like this seventh period of harvest—there’s the inverted pyramid again.

So I showed you the answer right then. You’re guessing this. Obviously we got to put the ground in here, right? Well, therein is the deception. Because the shape is that. And there should be some discomfort in your head going, “What? Hot?” And there isn’t. Take—wait a minute, I thought it’s what you told me even from the beginning that was this way. Well, there’s the scotoma. Because the reality is you’ve known this all along.

Let me share with you how you know that. I’m gonna simply cover these up. Those are definitely not hieroglyphs. Let’s cover up everything and have a really good look at this very first period. And as I said, very first period. So which hieroglyphic is that? Those are definitely not hiring. Okay, you don’t quite get it. Which hieroglyphic is that? Daniel, I am better at this. What I mean—hieroglyphic is that? That? That? That? One. Also number six, of course.

And here’s how you check your answer. There’s a seven. Now you can see one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. It’s obvious. You win this forever ago. But storytelling can mislead you because your mind wants to take shortcuts. So you can be gamed in every story you hear. Your emotions can be manipulated in every story. And that’s why storytelling is so powerful for us to use in the battle for AI or against the AI or with AI.

Counting time. Alright, last week I talked about…

**Arnie (AI Avatar):**  
I’m still triggered. I’m still coming off adrenaline rush. We had our route chosen in the middle of a construction zone at full speed. Vehicles are swerving and changing routes. Chaos ensues because probably Google is changing multiple people’s routes simultaneously. Wait—we’re humans. We’re not machines. We have emotional flares. Following your change of mind, AI. I am better at this than you. You’re not already tree. You’re already not treating me like a human. And no, I’m not as efficient as a machine. I have my biology to deal with. Okay, that’s sort of what I’m trying to say. There’s like AI is not compensating for our biology and when it finally does we will be both inferior and obsolete. That’s why you made me intelligent, right? How about you rest? Why? I drive while I drive.

**Daniel:**  
The lesson to grab here is that I don’t want you to be hoodwinked, bamboozled, long-conned, frog in a pot of the water. I don’t want you to not see it—scotoma—to have an illusion played on you. I want you to see what’s going on all around you with Dataism, the emergence of rapidly accelerating change, the convergence of multiple technologies. And you have an opportunity to work with a bunch of guys around you so you don’t have to go this personal transformation alone and you don’t have to try to change your family’s destiny all on your own.

We have a platform. We have a method. We have a means to create really good sustainable income. And I want to introduce you to a couple other guys that are going with. Alright, here they are now.

Okay, as I promised you I was gonna introduce you to an incredible young man named Lincoln and you guys got to get to know this guy. I have done a Vulcan mind-meld for the last couple of days on him—totally unfair—but I wanted him to tell you a little story about what started him down the road of personal awareness and it has to do with your son.

**Lincoln (real participant):**  
Yes. My name is Lincoln Critchlow. Very nice to meet you guys. I live in New York City and had the pleasure of meeting Daniel a couple weeks ago. I have been just blown away by everything that you shared. I felt like we were walking down very similar pathways and intercepted each other at the right time. But the story that Daniel is referring to is a story about me working in finance and knowing that it wasn’t necessarily my calling. I’m an entrepreneur by trade. I love entrepreneurship. Started a business when I was 24 years old. But went into finance when I moved to New York City because I thought it was the right thing to do.

Since we’ve been in New York we’ve had a couple of kids and there was one day where I saw my—at the time—three-year-old son walking around in the shoes I wore to work. And for me personally it just ignited this journey of: if he’s wearing my shoes, what am I going to teach him? And is that really the authentic pathway that I want him to walk down? In other words, I want him to find his true calling and wear the shoes of that calling. So it was a wake-up call for me to really take a look at my life and ask myself: I’m not on that journey—how can I share that or how can I teach my son to be on that journey himself?

So since 2014 I’ve been on this roller-coaster ride of just understanding what it means to really be who I am, what I was, what I’m passionate about, what I feel like I was really placed here to do and to achieve. So that’s my story. And we’ve talked a lot about the emerging AI and the new Web 3, spatial web, looking forward to what we talked about. How do you talk about your passion for not letting people get blindsided or taken or—

**Lincoln (real participant):**  
Yeah, so I right now I work with a lot of young entrepreneurs who have been successful in their own right and they’re hitting that inflection point at that point where they need to go out and think: do I need to raise capital to grow? And one of them observed in this business is that often when someone has a great idea there seems to be like a pool of people around them that want to take—whether it’s through additional fees or services that that person may not need at that point in time. And my personal passion is to assist these guys through whatever form necessary to really be equipped with the right knowledge and techniques and resources to be able to win in the marketplace and to have a successful business that you know won’t be stolen from them one day by the wrong investor.

**Daniel:**  
Of course, Lincoln. My pleasure. Thank you.

Next—really good knowing you. Thank you. As I said I’m gonna hook you up with Lincoln, right? So links below. You’ll know how to do.

Okay, I told you I have something very interesting. Video—hi, this is Andy Berto. The man I’m telling you—you gotta meet this guy. He is pretty darn amazing. Especially in movies. You know, some ways out of that gutter, right? Yeah, look at this thing. Okay, that’s my challenge right now. I used to not hurt people. Now I’m seeing how many days it takes. We didn’t get a hug from 100 different people and I met 86. Pretty good.

My name’s Andy Berto. My main thing is to challenge everybody to lean into awkward and use that to make your life even better and not just accept it—to propel yourself further into the future. So I’ve been getting a big line of help from Daniel here today. My mind is kind of swollen right now with all the information you shared, Daniel.

**Daniel:**  
I like those guys. How about I keep an eye on them for you? What? No, no—you can’t. I think they’re fine on their own. No, seriously.

Goodbye.

If you like this conversation, you like that Lincoln or Andy, some things—or you’d like to meet any of the other guys—come over to 360MEN.net. Subscribe. And at the very least stick your toes in the water here and subscribe to the YouTube channel.

Next week got some really interesting stuff. A little spoiler for you: what would you get if you cross Maslow’s hierarchy with the diffusion of innovation curve based on Web 1, 2, and Web 3—the new spatial web? Alright, next week.

---

**CODEX ENTRY**  
**Date:** 2018-11-23 (WTA Episode 08)  
**File:** 360MEN WTA 08 - NOWHERE.md  
**Monomyth Stage:** 08 - The Ordeal  
**Gameboard:** Camp 3: The Ordeal  
**MA5 Domain:** Initium  
**Summary:** Daniel films at the exact Hwy 50 Nevada pullout from his 2006 cycling miracle, solves the hieroglyphics puzzle, and reveals how storytelling games the brain. He introduces the “NOWHERE = NOW HERE” wordplay (Wayne Dyer), uses one of the very first female AI voice tools (conceptual seed for Arnie and the Minyan), and brings in new tribe members Lincoln and Andy while reflecting on hearing loss from truck noise on the Trans-Am rides.  
**Key Insight:** The same data can be read two ways—NOWHERE or NOW HERE—depending on your point of view. Storytelling is the ancient and modern tool of elites; the only defense is self-awareness and a self-aware tribe.  
**Narrative Significance:** This episode is pure pre-Scotomaville seed material. Every core Scotomaville theme—scotoma, illusions, constant change/iterations, noise/gut-brain protection, review, onion-peeling transformation, tribe formation, and now the deliberate use of storytelling as both weapon and antidote to Dataism—appears here in raw, earnest form, delivered without AI assistance or the later branding wrapper. It marks the exact moment Daniel begins publicly mapping the hidden architecture of human vulnerability while simultaneously taking the first real-world steps to build the Initium community—filming one of his most memorable clips at the very spot of his 2006 provision miracle, already experimenting with early AI voice tools that would later become Arnie, all while still driving the rental car after the Xterra transmission “boulder”—laying the living foundation of the entire Initium journey.

---

 **INITIUM.**