Thank you very much. So yes, just a quick disclaimer, so Elizabeth Dalton obviously who is heading up the project Inspire within Moodle HQ wasn't able to be here, so that's why I'm presenting on this. So, you know, learning analytics, we heard earlier about learning analytics and how it can work and how it sort of what people are doing and what the concerns are. You know, Inspire is a little bit different, taking approach of it's not necessarily doing the same as every other product out there because it is about something, having something in Moodle. And so learning analytics are about learning. It's not just about the administration. One project that I knew about a few years ago, they were using learning analytics to track if a student logged onto Wi-Fi, went to the library, logged into their email, logged into the LMS and a video platform and they were the five lights, if they didn't turn on in a week, that student hadn't engaged with the college. Now that is analytics, but clearly it's not learning analytics because there was nothing in there about whether the student is learning, although that was the foundation of whether they would be able to because they hadn't engaged. So, if we look at this, we have this four different areas, academic scholar, looking at efficiency, being learner centered and social reconstruction. And you know, most people at institutions subscribe to one or more of these sort of areas. And these different theories, it's so different, everyone has their own different opinion on learning. We heard earlier about the different course types, the different teaching styles that people are doing, the different purpose of their LMSs. And so understanding what learning is, is really important in this regard. And then you sort of move forward into that and you think about, okay, well, so what is the known good? What are we thinking about? This is what we're trying to measure towards. So, for example, we look at mastery of competencies. It was one of the things that was mentioned earlier and it was immediately questioned as, well, how do we know that they're actually a master, that they have mastered that competency or mastered that ability? Increased community influence. So, if it's in a social way, you can look at it from a completely different angle and have they got the right connections? Are they having meaningful discussions? I think Dr. John Whitmer and one of his slides on Monday had looked at the quality of engagement even between people. And then achievements of the learner's own goals. So, if they're stating at the beginning of a course what they want to do, that's important. But how many times do we actually ask that? Are they marching to our tune as institutions? Are we going, you know, you have to get a degree or 70% on this course? That is your goal. Well, maybe understanding is part of their goal. Maybe getting confidence and mastery in some of those areas as well as passing are their goals. And if we're looking at what is learning and what is a known outcome, do we have to take those sort of things into account? And obviously just scholarly advancement. Are they just learning and improving and becoming, having a deeper understanding in that whole area? And that is what it is about. So, that's going to be deep. So, efficiency is more light. But the social side, I think, is about community participation. But then you're getting into what is participation? So, it's reading forums, participation. Who here would agree that just passively those lurkers are participating? Okay, so we've got like five, maybe six out of the room. But yet, I certainly know from my own experience that you might have 80, 90% of people registered and using a forum just doing that level of participation and that's meeting their goals. But we don't, if you go with the left hand side, you go, okay, well, the learner knows their goals and they're getting what they want out of it. But we can't measure it. But they can measure it. So, there's a lot of research into these areas. And this is the whole community of inquiry side of things. So, you've got social presence. And that's where it's about engagement, even being at a moodle moot, supporting discourse, really getting into facilitating those discussions to get that deeper, meaningful debate going. But then you've also got on the other side where the interactions, goals, directions. And that's where you start moving into where it's a bit fluffy and a bit soft on one side into more regulated learning. And the whole regulation and it's exam based rather than discussion and learning based for learning sake. And this whole area encompasses the learning experience. And if we're going to be using learning analytics, to improve the learning experience, we have to start thinking about all of these areas, and how we try and measure them, and how we try and then communicate what that measurement is and that meaning behind it. And this is one of the areas where I know, Elizabeth usually goes into more depth on this area, but it's something which, so you do have a, the teacher has a place here, and we're not talking about using learning analytics to replace teaching. It is about supporting, but you have the teaching presence. And then you have the social, the students, the peers, where the student is learning from and all of their areas around that. But all of these could combine and feed into where that cognitive presence is. And these relationships have been tested in research and in sort of post-course discussions and analysis to see how these come together. And all of this sort of basing on where we're going with Inspire. But if you look at the Moodle course and you start producing reports now, and I think this is one of the reports that was shared with the ad hoc reports on Moodle Docs, you look at what can you see when you look into Moodle. So you've got different events. So Moodle, every time something happens, it fires off an event from most cases, and it records that happened so a user logged in they viewed a course another user logged in there and you can see the different times where it was which course and so on but what does this tell you it isn't actually information you can ask it questions and get information out of it but the data itself is not meaningful which also ties into what was being said earlier in the panel if you just give data to students is that actually helping them what information should you be suggesting that comes from that data or what information should you be giving them and then this is sort of a process going through the whole process around the cognitive depth I'm just going to check the reference here so what we're looking at is the model around and we're working on a number of models at the moment around how to test what this different depth of learning is involved and I'll share all these slides I know that's a little bit small to follow I'm just trying to give the context behind inspire at this point then we look at the social breath that's the cognitive part the social is about the connections between these so in forum posts John was referring to some research earlier where you do have these stronger binds between students so you might have for example in forum posts where he was talking about grading forum posts you can have things like where a student might be very busy on a forum saying hi John how are you hey I'm great we were last night and you might have some social interaction but are you looking at the meaningful amount of infam of text that's going in there is it actually purposeful are you detecting confusion like you're not understanding what it is so really getting into the quality of those connections and not just the volume of those connections and that's a really important area to look at but a page if you just have content it doesn't really allow for that social interaction so then this limits which activities and in some ways when you look at all of the different activities in Moodle some of them can be more useful in one of these areas than another and so you might have messaging you might have forums you might have chat or commenting on glossary and database where this kind of action or interaction can be tracked and also then assessed and if you categorize all of these you can see here that exactly I was saying with the different activities you can go okay so on the top left you can have the book you can have folders you can have pages you can have score and objects although arguably that can also appear and in different areas and how the different activities can go much and can have a wider social breadth and a deeper cognitive usage and so when you go down you've got assignments we're actually creating materials or chats where they're discussing focused discussions and forums and wikis where they're co-creating content so you've got this whole matrix of potential with the different activities and that's one of the things which is hard and that's why you have to try and assess that because people use them for different things I know some lecturers who use wikis for example instead of a Moodle book because they like writing in wikis and they like the way it navigates but its usage in their course is the same as just a static web page where others heavily use it for this collaborative learning and so when we're looking at all of these and you're trying to analyze well how are they using this wiki what are they using it for what's a teaching purpose is there a teaching purpose is an assessment and see when you take all of these areas you take the social aspect you take the depth you take the assessment approach you take whether you're going for a regulatory and sort of exam based or whether it's a knowledge based or whether it's mastery and you go so this is where AI can really start getting into helping and machine learning so what we're looking at is collating all of this into a central into a central brain where our machine learning will start turning these predictions and taking them together to look for patterns to I mean this technique is widely used and the goal is to predict student success automatically based on previous records earlier was mentioned that volume of data isn't necessarily going to be just as useful however it is something to create that baseline and with Project Inspire we're looking to have this API which will allow Moodle to be able to push this data and predict two teachers and two students to help support them now before we go through this process obviously we're doing a research phase where we're looking to anonymize data and then later on it'll be something where you have this actually within your own within your own system but we're also making it pluggable like with any of the Moodle system so you could maybe use a different machine learning tool as well now there is a working prototype does anyone here ever go to the prototypes page on Moodle okay so please go there and have a play around it's just indicative it's just some examples at the moment interfaces and final at all but we are learning at the moment so please go and have a look at it and indeed are just some examples of the kind of interface pages there this is identification of a student at risk of dropping out and this one here is about all the different kind of indicators that are being taken into account so we talked just even about those four areas but there's lots of indicators there and the idea is that the machine learning will try and interpret the results of the data and also within your own Moodle site of what is a good course and how the courses work and what the outcomes are expected from this format of course because obviously there's been good research I believe at the OU as well about how learning analytics and course design really do work hand-in-hand so it's important to take those sort of things into account and then it's about the different models and you can choose which model because you might have different models based on the different teaching subjects so whether it's mathematics or whether it's language the same type of course design might be used in a completely different way and so this is another one again you can go in and have a look at the prototype and this is obviously a teacher being able to see students some who are at risk and some who might not be and you can then you can sort of drill down into what is the predictive analysis behind that and then here you can see well they 50% of their profile is completed I must admit I don't know any student who ever completes their profile does anyone here complete their profile fully on Moodle.org even okay eight people okay you all fail so but this is the this is the basic behind of what we're talking about courses with regular opportunities for volleys of discourse and for cognitive engagement but then you have to have instructors who are going to provide regular prompt detail feedback maybe that Jill Watson can help with the regular part but publicly in private and students who actively and regularly participate and not just lurk so now we're talking about that 10% of people and so one size doesn't fit all and which we have already sort of touched on that it is so many different versions so we are looking at all of that and there has been a lot of research and that's why we're doing more now so we can understand and we are it is going to be completely open it is going to be completely possible for you to see what how those algorithms are working and what basis is and you might turf them out and implement your own instead what we'd like you to do is to get involved now we have a course on Moodle.org where you can go in and you can get information on the project in more detail you can also then choose to participate take the survey let us know share your anonymized data with us and then really it's it's about engaging and working together it's like John said you know let's start trying something now let's see what the data can show us and learn from it both learn as institutions and learn as a community and Moodle itself to see what we and what is possible within this because it's time to get your feet wet thank


I did have a question though when you were sharing about reflection because I think I get confused sometimes about reflection in that I kind of take it on because I'm sort of through all the different spiritual teachings it's like there's a mirror, like there's a mirror of your consciousness but I somehow I use that to kind of be mean to myself, like blame myself for what's happening it's very egoic ultimately because I take responsibility I sort of say, ah this is me, this is reflection of me and ah this is my issue and you know even when he was saying those things to me and saying like you know I just don't feel like I can talk to you every day whatever I just immediately was like this blame, me turning it on myself and even I had felt that as well, like we don't need to talk every day you know we just kind of were at that time but it was taking the specific out of it, it's just that reflection I get confused sometimes about that can you speak, does that make sense? it's just coming one giant step back from the interpersonal drama like when you hear psychiatrists and psychologists and counselors talking you're projecting on your husband, you're projecting on your wife she's depressed, you're angry, blah blah blah it's all describing the problem but where's the solution in that and so we grew up, I mean I took years of psychology and it's all described as interpersonal even going to a healer, thinking that the healer's a person John of God or something, going to a body in Brazil or something and still thinking that there's a body that even has healing abilities or advanced healing abilities and lots of witnesses of that it's still all, even the healing is described in interpersonal ways because that's the addiction of the mind it sees through a darkened glass, like the Bible says sees through a darkened glass, it sees everything through this dark interpersonal filter but when that little voice starts to look at you you're just doing this to yourself again you're projecting this and this and this the I is the personality cells, the Emily and then all the characters and scenes and scenarios and witnesses outside of the Emily this seemed to be the environment as if Emily is projecting that's what the psychologists and psychiatrists say persons project the persons, the man persona, the mask is part of the projection too it gets laughable when you get back far enough and you go, oh this person I was putting it all onto this person as if they were doing this but they're not doing anything persons seem to act, they don't I mean, it's kind of like animation Walt Disney one day decides to draw a mouse just draws a static mouse and then he draws another mouse and another mouse and then, you know, there's a little card you know, it actually gives us the illusion of motion like, Mickey Mouse is actually moving that's what motion pictures are about all these repeated symbols that look like they're actually moving and before you know it, it goes from a drawing of a mouse to a mouse that's alive actually animated it takes on motion and it's the same with human beings it's like we think of ourselves and we think of the people around us as these living organisms amazing wondrous things the human body and these amazing organisms but it's all reflecting consciousness and then beyond the idea that it's reflecting it's more that the thoughts I think I think and the images I think I see are actually the same I've got a linear time image problem where I'm generating a whole world of unreality based on one tiny man idea that Nikita talked about that I can separate from my source and until I can actually open up and train my mind to see that there's no difference between the thoughts I think I think and the world I think I see that people aren't living people people are thoughts and these thoughts are of incompletion you know, why would I look for to seek after someone to complete me like the Cinderella with the Prince Charming unless I believed I was lacking lacking thought needing another lacking thought and like John Bradshaw the famous family therapist said the ego teaches us one half plus one half equals one find your soulmate find your love, your partner your true love, whatever your notebook love that dies with you in the bed something, you know, you find that and then you get one but he said it's actually not a plus sign it's actually a multiplication sign one half times one half equals one fourth you feel co-dependently like a fourth when you go with that equation you know, you feel how can I feel so is people, I hear people say I felt better about myself than when I got in a relationship that's why I'm not going to ever have a man or a woman again I'm going to have a cat or a dog not going to ever go with a human again because they've been through the multiplication so many times that there's an incredible shrinking man or woman you know, feel a little totally unworthy and then you start to finally start to say wait a minute, there's something wrong with this equation and that it is a multiplication that is one times one equals one wholeness looks upon itself and that's where the good news happens then the mirror against then the mirror is only there in perception to bring you to an experience of wholeness to a unified perception where you go I am it I am the holy child of God and there's only one of us here there's only been one of us here and this trick of perception to think that there's all these little parts out there seven billion little parts trying to find each other and all these stories and Cinderella stories and Snow White stories and all of our fairy tales and everything that was all that much to do about nothing that was seeking to try to find the love in all the wrong faces like the country song had it right but we didn't get it and we even beat ourselves up with this idea that we personally were projecting these partners and personally projecting this world and that's another trick that's been my favorite trick lately beat yourself up yeah, yeah and just the more that I will have moments where I'm not in that than when I am it's just very difficult to accept you know, when I was suffering so much all weekend I was just very difficult I was very embarrassed I was ashamed because, you know, I feel these moments of what you're talking about where the sham is up a bit but then, but then not they all part you see the light yeah, walking on your second and the mirrors don't actually matter because the mirror is just like, oh yeah, that's me but it's actually not even me but it, you know what I'm saying it's like, it's fine all the mirrors are fine thank you, that's really helpful what a ride it reminds me of like Katie Perry's video, White Awake where, you know, at the end she goes through with her little inner child or inner girl but she comes in the Prince Charming she hits it she hits him into, knocks him into the bushes he finally, Prince Charming finally appears at the end of the video she hits him, it's like oh no, I am not following for that one anymore that's quite a beautiful thing of letting it go of like, no, I'm not going to be fooled and then, what's the alternative well, if you're in your your joy, your expression and everything then you seem to, while there's still the witnesses you'll go call forth in the mirror the witnesses of love, of happiness but it's so expanded that's what we're calling this tour we're doing a tour around the United States calling it quantum love because it's not Newtonian it's quantum but it's not what is it, it's not romantic it's bigger than the two of us it's beyond romantic it's bigger than the two of us you know, those are the lines in it it's opening to that vastness and to feel that vastness and then to see that vastness just witness to you in so many direct directions is so like, yes like this is it, this is the this is like the Holy Grail this is the, well, the Sadevter and nothing is pushed away then you know, you don't try to label anything in form as the problem anything in form that needs to be avoided because you're into all-inclusive love you're into not judging anything that's what projection really is is to attempt to get rid of something that you do not want and in the end we have love, we are love we don't want to get rid of love and the projection ceases you know, we don't see the world as a part of our mind that's the final awareness that the world is in me Christa Murray said I am the world, the world is me there's no sense of separation talk about the end to gossip that's the end of gossip I am the world, the world is me you know, you've got nothing to gossip about you can really be quiet in the truest still sense you know, trying to talk about the latest news I'd love that, I'd never have to catch up with anyone anymore, you know it's an instantaneous knowing and recognition so there's not a sense of where you've been what have you end up doing or even when people ask me they'll say about a friend that I had 10 or 15, 20 years ago how are they? I say, without hesitation I said they're wonderful have you seen a reason that? No but how do you know they're wonderful? I'm wonderful so they're wonderful because they're in me to see how that would be the end of guilt around family when did you visit your mother to ask when did you see your child when did you do this, when did you do that those questions don't have meaning those are irrelevant because our presence, our heart, our love is how we look upon the world and it's as simple as acknowledging and totally being willing to embrace and accept that love not to play a little, play small hide in these little little person games not to take anything personally good or bad the pride is trying to take it good I've accomplished this I've achieved this I have special like this special skills, you are special no, it's not really true if we're one, we can't be special we can't be special at this or the flip side but we can't be flawed happily we can't be flawed or special, you know yeah, what a relief yeah, I see it's like an over eagerness to be personally responsible even for our own mind if the one responsibility is accepting the atonement and I prayed it was really going into prayer about that at one point then why, if there's one responsibility to accept the atonement and then basically that's done when that's completely accepted whatever that means I was praying on whatever that means then it's done awakening is complete then why is that so scary the resistance to that like what is happening with the resistance to that I just went into prayer and responsibility and just saw how like addicted mind is to take responsibility for everything else so many other things in the world in realising that that's all a distraction from the one responsibility because only one and I seem to have, you know, count them how many there are and also it was just coming to my mind around forgiveness even or that like taking responsibility for the projection taking responsibility for the doubt there's something wrong oh it's my fault just constantly addicted to personal responsibility even for the world for how someone else is feeling for peace so what's happened for me is and some of that direction is helpful if the mind is used to projecting it's associating it's like no pull it back but the pulling it back is more to take responsibility for how it serves my awakening to take responsibility for what is this what can I see in this what is the gift for me to help free my mind from whatever it seems to be getting hooked on or disturbed by giving that over so it doesn't just stop with itself if you come back to here and you stop here without going back way back, way back then it's just all short and people haven't said where do you perceive yourself do you perceive yourself existing in between your ears behind your eyes as located in your head some people feel it's more lower it's more like in their heart like who they are it's somehow in their chest or something still it's within the body it's like pulling everything back to a body as if everything emanates from the body and then this mind that made up all the bodies and that is just pure awareness is so far back you almost could get the visual and it's just going much further back and that's so important so that game to be up you can think of that metaphor anytime you start to have that I do this all the time here I go again whatever the little self-talk is critical, condemning really a harsh little resping voice it doesn't mean as well it so wants us to say stop right here this is all that there is and there's nothing nothing more and it's just not the truth because we're not responsible for the error like that's it we're not responsible for the error we're responsible only for the correction so it's anytime it's seen it's like oh good my opportunity for correction to let it go you know it's like a trick of the ego to just say you're seeing it so you're doing something wrong or you're seeing it so it's your fault somehow there's lots of it here and it's so helpful to just like shift it from eye to beliefs this is what's being seen this is the belief these are the thoughts arising it's really not personal it's just mind mind is healing the ego is not personal either it's like the ego is the belief system that is being exposed thank god is actually being seen and being exposed it's not comfortable pretty or attractive but it's been thank god this is really what we've called for we want the healing it's interesting to snip the positive and the negative like a lot of times people will talk about god they'll talk about ghandi and Mother Teresa and Muhammad and Jesus but you can't even find it if you go into the characters some of the characters behaviors were so lofty as the world would judge it that people just start getting a buzz a high feeling being around Mother Teresa and ghandi just watching the movie and yet there was an Indian saint Meher Baba who was so happy and so still had a big handlebar and I remember one story with Meher is that the devotees were always around him they loved being around his body because he didn't even speak he didn't speak for decades he didn't speak for decades and then he started using and spelling the words out one the images they're happy to be around him he doesn't speak he just spells very slowly talking about it spelling is is what but anyway one story was they were so happy to take him out like a trip with them so they got him and they put him on the train and they went out and they were just going to have a picnic in North America and they got to the place and they were doing everything and they lost him they lost the guru they were like where is he oh my god they finally gave him out of the house from him and they lost him and they just were distraught they thought it's not worse than losing a wedding ring it's just losing your guru and nobody was paying attention and the train just so sad because they had gone out with their guru and they lost the guru and there was another train passing and they saw him smiling on the other train he was just so detached from everything that he was just like playing with it like I'm not a body you know don't think you can lose me I'm still here and then they would go around and he would be on the move and when he would stop they would be so happy that they could build an ashram around him when he would stop because they wanted comforts and conveniences of the world they would always be on the move following him so they built this small ashram around him and once they would get to the very end the final paint the finish touches on the ashram he was gone then they look at the ashram they look at him it was a choice between the best of the world shelter all the things that humans believe is so important and the happy one and they would just there was many ashrams vacant ashrams you talk about buildings here in Brooklyn eight people living together it's measured finding these ashrams vacant because the master had walked out always teaching it's fluid you don't ever have an object of love you never have an object of your love because as soon as you objectify it it's not it it's just not it it's good to remember when your boyfriend says I have some doubts about the relationship oh you are not the object of my affection my love you are helping me find the love in my heart thank you the only true emotion we can have is thank you because it's so helpful


Before you turn around and say, what's the big deal about September 15th? Well, this is again where the technical damage started, because again, this is where they got rejected today. So at least we have a point of reference going forward. Again, very, very important as long as we stay now above this rise. Welcome to Access to Trader, the number one community for those who are committed to taking control of their trading in order to achieve success, profitability and longevity. Thank you for joining us. Here's Dan Shapiro to help you find your edge, master your process and own your future. Hey, guys, good evening, everybody. Happy hump day, everybody. Welcome to another edition of the access to trader dot com nightly wrap up show. Hope everybody is having a good day. Hope everybody had a good trading day. Very, very aggressive action this morning. And this is kind of why the market is the greatest reality show that's not scripted, that is not on television, and it's completely unpredictable. And this is why the morning session, I've always tried to instill the idea that again, your biggest value is always going to be in the morning.  The most chasers, the most uneducated traders, the least funded traders are willing to literally chase anything in sight. And once you get into the afternoon, you start getting into a more headline driven environment. You're you're headed for a lot more contraction of channels and the the unpredictability level starts to rise. And that's exactly what we saw today. It was definitely a tale of two days, a morning session and the afternoon session and kind of let's go back to it. So we talked about this big level here that the market needed to confirm, reclaim and push forward. And the morning did that and it was very, very aggressive. We started seeing a lot of names confirm macro levels, which was very, very good. Today was probably the first day that we saw probably in the last three weeks or so ever since we started losing major levels and started getting a lot of macro damage that many names expanded very, very aggressively. And you saw Apple and you saw Nvidia and you saw Amazon today and you saw names like Zoom really start taking back control of downside bias, kind of really confirming them back to the upside. So it was a really aggressive day. And then you started seeing things start to kind of stall out in the afternoon, which is not abnormal. It's actually very, very normal. Because again, if you're watching this broadcast for the very first time, again, you're going to get the big macro moves in the morning. But in the afternoon, again, like I said a few minutes ago, channels will contract because most traders are going to be very, very tired, more individual intraday traders. And what's happening is more traders are positioning for the next day.  So that's where a lot of names start kind of trading in a tighter channel. So you're trying to get as much accomplished in the morning. And what we saw this afternoon was headlines start going one after another after another. Number one, second, third day in a row, you started seeing more macro heavy headlines coming out of Europe. Spain, again, had a really big spike in COVID. They're starting to talk about measures maybe to start to maybe have people stay at home more. You saw headlines coming in that Moderna, right? MRNA that again, maybe their drug or vaccine was not going to be ready ahead of the election. Obviously that gave kind of kind of a red signal. And more important that just from the home front, there wasn't a deal or at least any measures reached on another stimulus package. So when you had all these things kind of start formulating in the afternoon, well, here's your day, right? You had your really big aggressive spike in the morning, big four or five candles in the morning prior to the open.  But here's the good news. If you look at the overall day and you look at the big picture of the market, the bulls did what they had to do today. Again, another necessary level that they needed to reclaim, right? They confirm these two channels. This is the second day in a row. They closed above supply. And at the same time, they pierced all the levels going up to September 15th. Now, again, before you turn around and say, what's the big deal about September 15th? Well, this is again where the technical damage started. Because again, this is where they got rejected today. So at least we have a point of reference going forward. Again, very, very important. As long as we stay now above this rising five and 10-day support, we're fine. No matter how much the market pulls back in today, no matter what happens pre-market or post-market, we all know, again, the five-day moving average is here. We're still above it. And now we're starting to build a new base above this 20-day supply as well. So again, these things are good. Again, can the market come in tomorrow, 5,000 points? Everything is on the table. Again, the market is a very fluid situation. We talk about this on a nightly basis. So nothing will ever shock me. That's why, again, we say this all the time. Have your opinion on your nightly research. Try to execute it as aggressively and as confident as possible. But once you start getting in the afternoon session, try to limit your exposure. Again, if you are a swing trader, again, start looking at hedges.  Maybe start looking at hedges, right? Start shorting the queues, start shorting the spies once we get into the afternoon level. So if there is some sort of rug pull, some sort of headline-driven event that's happening, again, at least you are protected. At least you have some sort of a hedge on. That at worst case scenario, again, maybe you'll make a little bit more going into the afternoon. Excuse me, maybe we'll make a little bit less going into the afternoon, but your profit will be protected because you do have downside protection. Just something to think about, especially if you do have some sort of exposure and you wanna keep that exposure overnight. The key for tomorrow's session is number one, don't go below this 275, that's number one, okay? Stay above the 275. Start building more of a base above this 277 level, which is incredibly big as remember, that was at the high here, that was the high here. And this is the first, this is the highest close since this whole September 15th move. So again, on the surface, it looks good. Are you going to have some volatility with the election, with COVID news, with stimulus news on, off, again, did everybody forget that we're still in the whole China trade war thing, right? Right again, nobody even remembers that's still on the table. So there's a lot of stuff going on, guys. And our job right now is again to determine which way the wind is blowing, structure a game plan that's going to be complimented based on our individual process. And again, try to hedge yourself, especially in the afternoon, if you have a book, if you're having overnight exposure, any type of longer term potential for risk. So really aggressive day today. Today was one of those days that expanded channels happened because we broke macro resistance. And that was very, very important. And if you look at the fee today, incredible violence. I mean, that's the best way of saying these stocks were going incredibly crazy from Netflix to CRM. You guys remember CRM? We've been talking about this thing, like literally every video for the last week. And finally, did it what it had to do. And then, by the way, we got a headline from the CEO of CRM, maybe five minutes, six minutes after we put on the position. Hey, by the way, I'm going to have a surprise announcement tonight. Oh, and by the way, we're going to be on Mad Money. Cool, right? We'll show you what we did in a second. So really aggressive channels here. Like I said this morning, important session today, which it was, because again, we needed to stay above that 277 level. Bulls can't afford to give up rising support, which we exactly did not do today, which is very, very good. It might be a tighter session. And again, we got the opposite of a tighter session today. Very, very aggressive. So let's talk about this. So Netflix, 497 needs to build. Again, that was the high from the last supply zone, which was yesterday. And if you look at Netflix, right? We talked about it right here. Here's the 496 and change. It broke that 497 level. It stopped a little bit tad, a little bit tad light of the next supply zone, which was 508, traded about 504. So again, big, big move on Netflix. Again, it's going to need to clear out this 509 whole area here for the next leg up. And again, if the market stays above the rising support, Netflix should be fine. Again, we continue to see five, 10 calls being traded. CRM was awesome. I had my doubts. I'm not going to lie. I had my doubts just the way it was trading. But once it started building and that news came out, it absolutely exploded. 249 needs to build. So it got long and CRM put in a really, really aggressive candle. So here's the candle right here. You see this whole area right here? We talked about this whole 249 area, right? 249, 249 finally broke 249. Just exploded all the way up to 255 area. So definitely a big move there. Facebook 263.50 needs to build. Here was Facebook. So you pretty much have an idea, right? You definitely have an idea of how aggressive these stocks were. So here's this 263.50 level and traded right to the next supply zone of 266. So now that becomes the new area that buyers need to reclaim for a possible move back to 276. So again, what was great today, we had the aggression. We had the test of the rising support. Well, kudos to the bulls. And now at least we have points of reference and a lot of names going forward. So Facebook was good as well. Tullo never got to the 252 level. Tesla was good. Tesla was actually my first trade of the day. 424, big area, 60 minute needs to build. Rejected three times. Needs to reclaim 429, also big area. So here was Tesla. And again, I'm gonna show you here because I don't wanna, right? So here is the 424 right here, right? Actually, excuse me, right here. It's 424. You see that got rejected? 424 pre-market several times. 424, it's 424, 424. It got above 424, it got above the 429 and it went all the way up to 434. So a really good move on Tesla as well, right? Good move on Tesla as well. Shop never got to 1051. It actually was red on the day. So the pre-market high was 1051 and never got there. Amazon was big. It actually put up a 60 point move and then the rug got pulled like everything else. 3161, sneaky area needs to build. 3190 is another big area of spot. So here was Amazon, right? So here was the 3161.  Here's the 3161, right here, right? This whole area here, 3161. 3190 was macro and went all the way up to 3212 again, prime days coming up. Again, we want to see a little more strength there. On the video continues to be a monster, 531 needs to build. I mean, this stock is just an absolute beast and you can see how aggressive these stocks are right now. When these things go, they go in gangbusters. Here's the whole 531 area right here. It took it out and just traded all the way up to the 544. So again, a lot of big moves, really, really big moves in beta. This one, I wasn't even playing around. It was just way too thin for me. For all you guys who did catch a great job, 260, 261 needs to build. Again, like I said, trades too thin, experienced traders only scale down. Snow actually went bonkers. So here was the 260, right? Here was the whole 260 area, which was the high from these two channels. And the stock, man, did the stock really go to 278? Great job. If you did catch this trade, great job. I just, again, stocks are just way too thin for me. Beyond 166 needs to build for cash flow. Here was beyond, you get the picture. There's a lot of big moves here early on. So this whole, here's the 250, excuse me, 156, 156, and just absolutely exploded all the way to the next supply zone at 173. And they just went on and on and on. Zoom, 267 needs to build, more COVID news. Here was Zoom, right? Here was the Zoom pivot right here. You see this whole area here? This whole 267, right? 266 and change, 266 and change, 466 and change and just exploded into the 477 level. What else, what else, what else was going on today? And that's it. I mean, that's it. There's a lot of big moves, a lot of big moves. And again, the most important part was, again, these stocks are very, very specific. Beta, there's only about 10, 15, really traditional beta names. So it's not really something that you sit there and you search for. If you chart these stocks every single night, you really should be prepared for them. Because again, it's the same, we trade literally the same 10, 15 names all the time. So again, I like what the market did today. I like how the market did handle the sell-off. Some stocks did give back a lot of juice today. But again, at least we do have reference points now for the next potential move up. Guys, God bless, have a great night. Got another soccer game, again, playing soccer, mom. And with God's help, again, I'll see you all tomorrow. Take care.


Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, friends, good morning. On behalf of the World Economic Forum, I'm honored to extend a warm welcome to participants from around the world at the annual meeting of the new champions on this beautiful summer day. We're privileged to have His Excellency Li Tian, Premier of the State Council of the People of the Republic of China, attending this year's annual meeting. And from further afield, we'd like to express our sincere gratitude to several foreign heads of state and an institutional leader who have come to attend. They are Her Excellency Mia Mocely, Prime Minister of Barbados. His Excellency Luv Sanam Tsirai Ouyun Edine, Prime Minister of Mongolia. His Excellency Chris Hipkins, Prime Minister of New Zealand. His Excellency Pham Minh Tin, Prime Minister of Vietnam. And Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director-General of the World Trade Organization. We're also very grateful to the many ministers from China for their longstanding support and of course for coming to this annual meeting. We thank ministers from various countries around the world, the new champions and leaders from all walks of life for coming. This is our return after five years to Tianjin, a city with a rich history but at the same time one that's open and inclusive and full of modern dynamism. Here we'll be joining more than 1,500 participants from the political, business and academic communities, civil society and international organizations for in-depth exchanges and discussions on the theme of entrepreneurship, the driving force of the global economy. The world economy is now in a critical transition period. After three years of the pandemic, the economy is still facing multiple challenges such as geopolitical tensions, weak growth, energy and food crises, climate change and the energy transition. In this era of change, we increasingly need entrepreneurship. It is a spirit of risk-taking, pioneering and innovation. It is the ability to constantly seek opportunities, solve problems and create value with sharp acumen. It is an attitude of continuous learning, improvement and surpassing. It is a character of defying difficulties, challenges and setbacks. Enterprises and entrepreneurs are creators of social wealth, the main force of innovation and change and an important driving force of global economic development. I believe that on such a dynamic and creative platform we will be able to gain knowledge, friendship and inspiration. We will be able to enhance understanding, build trust and consensus. We will be able to work together, overcome challenges and create a common future. I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to the Chinese government, the city of Tianjin and all sectors of society. It is your strong support that has made it possible for us to hold this important event. Now it is my great honour to invite the host of this annual meeting, Mr Zhang Gong, the Mayor of Tianjin Municipality, to deliver a welcome speech. Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, good morning. As the lush greenery of the season envelops us, the 14th annual meeting of the new champions, the summit of Osforum is kicking off with a magnificent opening, welcoming a raft of fresh global leaders and familiar faces to the enchanting city of Tianjin. Premier Li Tian will attend the event in person and deliver a keynote speech and engage in a conversation with you. On the instruction of CPC Tianjin Committee Secretary Chen Min-er, on behalf of the CPC Tianjin Municipal Committee and municipal people's government, I'd like to extend my warm congratulations and extend a sincere welcome to all the guests from home and abroad. The summit of Osforum, deeply intertwined with Tianjin for 15 years, is returning to its face-to-face format after a four-year hiatus. It has emerged as a vital platform for the global community to exchange ideas, foster enlightenment, strengthen bonds and foster collaboration. Acting as a bridge, it facilitates deeper integration and communication between China and the rest of the world, while advancing Tianjin towards accelerated high-quality reform and opening up. At this junction, I'd like to extend my sincere gratitude to President Schwab, as well as our esteemed guests and friends for their trust in the city of Tianjin. President Xi Jinping has emphasized the vital role of people, particularly entrepreneurs, in driving market vitality and fostering entrepreneurship. Aligned with the development trajectory and expectations of all stakeholders, this forum, with its theme of entrepreneurship, the driving force of the global economy, is poised to contribute significantly to the revival and prosperity of the world economy, as the world undergoes unprecedented and accelerated transformations amidst a convergence of opportunities and challenges. This is an urgent need to stimulate and foster entrepreneurship for the innovative and sustainable growth of the global economy. In the face of new circumstances and challenges, our dedication lies in fostering an innovative social environment. We firmly uphold innovation as the foremost driving force to propelling progress, as a prevailing ethos of our time. Through pragmatic measures, we promote innovation, service innovation and inclusive innovation, igniting a surge of innovative vitality. Equally, we strive to establish a fair and competitive market landscape. All forms of business entity are treated impartially, fostering an environment characterised by equal rights, opportunities and rules, a space that is fair, convenient, efficient and transparent as a market. Moreover, we remain committed to an open and mutually beneficial cooperative environment. We actively engage in international division of labour and collaboration, facilitating the unrestricted flow of various factors of production and continually enhancing investment and trade facilitation. Lastly, we're working towards establishing a market-oriented, rule-based and globally connected business ecosystem. We reinforce soft connectivity between markets, regulations and standards, while safeguarding property rights and intellectual property within legal bounds. Tianjin, the earliest city to be open in Northern China, has witnessed the emergence of a multitude of exceptional entrepreneurs demonstrating a profound entrepreneurial heritage. Tianjin stands out with its notable advantages in its industrial base, scientific and educational innovation, ecological habitat and port and other transport facilities. Presently, we're currently studying and implementing the visionary principles articulated by President Xi Jinping during the symposium on further promoting Beijing-Tienjin He base synergistic development, embracing our new mission as a pioneer and a model in China's modernization endeavour, we're accelerating the implementation of the ten actions aimed at promoting high-quality development. Our ultimate goal is to comprehensively transform Tianjin into a modern socialist metropolis, starting to provide an expansive platform for the growth of domestic and foreign enterprises alike. We're committed to fostering beneficial cooperation for all that propels the high-quality development of Tianjin. Ladies and gentlemen, esteemed guests, there's nothing we can't achieve with the power of collective efforts and wisdom but to unite, seize the essence of the era, foster deeper exchanges and understanding, ignite creativity and shared agreement and forge a brighter future together. Lastly, I'd like to wish this forum a resounding success and all guests a delightful stay in Tianjin. Thank you all for your presence and support. Thank you, Mayor Zhang. Thank you, Mayor Zhang, for your speech. And now please all be outstanding and let us offer a warm round of applause as we welcome the Premier of the State Council of the People's Republic of China, His Excellency, Mr Li Jiang and the Founder and Executive Chairman of the WEF, Professor Klaus Schwab. Premier Li Jiang distinguished Heads of Governments, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, good morning. It's a great pleasure to welcome you to the 14th annual meeting of the new champions here in Tianjin, China.


Superb. Okay, our next talk is called the Going Forward, The Perspective Mission of Skepticism. A nice easy subject, yes, with a five-word answer. Your moderator is Sharon Hill. Let me give you the haiku for this one. Sharon and Barbara, Daniel, Stephen, and Jamie. Nice basketball team. So please welcome your moderator, Sharon Hill. Testing. There we go. I said we've already had this panel backstage. We use lots of profanity and we, you know, support each other and everything. And so we're all nice and friendly now. We're all agreeable. So, yeah, sorry, disappointing. Okay. Going forward, the perspective mission of skepticism sounds dull, but I think we'll do okay. All right, so let me introduce my panel here today. We have Daniel Loxton, editor of Junior Skeptic, author of two in-depth essays about skepticism. Where do we go from here? And why is there a skeptical movement? I'm going to address her. Education consultant for JREF, and she's written extensively about the scope and methodology of science and skepticism. Jamie in Swiss, JREF senior fellow and longtime skeptical advocate and potster. And Stephen Novella, JREF senior fellow, doctor, educator, and one of the top skeptical communicators in the world. So welcome our panel. Thank you. We have an hour. We'll do some discussion. We hope to have about 15 minutes at the end about the questions as we're going through this. This is a huge topic, and it's been done in many respects before. There's plenty of literature on it. So the purpose of this panel is to share some new thoughts about what our panelists have reflected upon over the past years and the ideas that they have. And perhaps some of these ideas will resonate with you and some maybe not so much, but these panelists are leading thinkers and doers in skeptical activism. And I hope we could come up with some worthwhile information for new skeptics coming. This is their first hand. And who just have a taste of skepticism may not be aware of the nuances and the history, what skepticism has been and where it's going. And I think that people who have been here, everybody knows who these people are and will get their viewpoints. So let's start out with some foundation real quick. Let's lay the foundation, our nutshell version. When the John Q. Public hears about skeptical activism, they don't really understand what that entails. What's the skepticism thing? Steve, you want to start us off? Yeah, sure. So I have written about this a few times. So I have a quick PowerPoint of just job points of those key areas that I think define what I call scientific skepticism. I think Carl Sagan is the one who coined that term. It may predate him. So rationalism is multiple overlapping movements. Scientific skepticism is one part of that. That's what I do. That's what a lot of people here do. Not everyone though. Everyone has their own different take on exactly what areas they are passionate about. So these are the areas that define my personal activism. Are the slides up? Okay, so respect for knowledge and truth. These are the principles that we follow. Basically, skeptics value reality and what is true. We want to believe what is really, really true, not just what we want to believe.  You have to follow some method that respects cause and effect. We promote science because let's face it, science is the bomb. Science is what works. Bitches. Science is the set of methods that actually work in terms of exploring empirical reality. We promote reason and critical thinking, not the exact same thing as science, although critical thinking is a tool of science, it is a thing unto itself. We understand the difference between science and pseudoscience. So what I've spoken up to this point, you could say about any general scientist, but a scientific skeptic also has to understand pseudoscience, both in general principle as well as the specifics of each topic. We definitely promote ideological freedom and free inquiry because without free exchange of ideas and free inquiry, the whole gig is off. What I like to call neuropsychological humility, which is basically a deep and intimate understanding of all the many, many ways in which our brains fool us, the flaws and biases in our thinking, our memories, our perceptions, unless you understand how easy it is for us to deceive ourselves and to be fooled by reality, you won't understand the need for all of the other things. And we also do consumer protection because that just happens to be a realm where you need all of these tools and so it's just a natural fit for our overall mission. So that's it. I think it's a good starting point for the general, you know, the basic scope of what I do, certainly, and I think a lot of my colleagues do. Does anybody have any, they're in a nutshell description or do we all agree with Steve, say I? What he said. Right, so let's, we've got the foundation. Let's go forward. Jamie, your mission, your audience, talk a little bit about that, start off with you. That's an easy one. Well, I think the world is filled with everything we are at. It is very easy to get information from the other side. The other side has open channel, unlimited access, a huge pipeline of anti-science, non-science, uncritical thinking.  And the problem is that we are fighting to be heard. We are fighting to get our side out. Our side happens to be a pretty good and useful way of looking at the world. But the unfortunate reality is we have to fight to get it heard. How about the difference between you as a person, individual, and you representing an organization? I'm much nicer as a representative of the organization. You know, as a member of the organization, actually I think it's an important question. I'm very much a long time skeptical activist and what that means is that I've, among other things, helped to start two regional organizations, the National Capital Area Skeptics in 1987, New York City Skeptics 20 years later. And part of what you have to do, and I'm very much a promoter and supporter of local activism, for all sorts of reasons, and without giving a whole talk about that, I'll just say that besides all the obvious things a group can do as activists, whether they're writing letters or presenting talks or protesting or whatever they're doing or educating, I think a really key good reason for local activism is to find like-minded individuals and explore that social element. And I think that's powerful and I think that's really constructive. But when you're forming an organization, besides making those social connections, it's really important to think hard about what your mission is. Because you're not operating as an individual, it's fine to have opinions as an individual. And as an individual, you don't have expertise about everything. None of us has expertise about all of these subjects. That's another good reason to band together so that you can combine your expertise. But it's very important to think about what your mission is and what your mission isn't. Because without that clarified mission statement, you just end up in a mess and at counter purposes. And this has led to discussions, as we all know, in varying overlapping communities, for example, not to expand the discussion too early or too much, but as a local organization and as an organizational spokesman and as a public activist rather than a private individual, you need to understand something about the distinctions. For example, between overlapping philosophies like scientific skepticism as opposed to secular humanism as opposed to atheism. And First Timer is just coming here and we have so many new ones at TAM, which is absolutely fantastic. Often are not that familiar with that and want to know about that. I mean, I've given three talks on the record, they're all on YouTube just in the last year, about those subjects. And those distinctions are important. And they're also not just, you know, ad hoc. I had someone just four days ago post on my Facebook about how they're not coming here to TAM and they can't support JREF and it's over some of these mission issues like atheism and so forth. And some people here actually answered that. I didn't answer because all I would have said was that I thought he had made a good choice and that for his reasons and that I'm going to have a great time at TAM and I don't think I would have had a better time with him here. But the one thing in that discussion, if you will, was the notion that I've somehow by fiat randomly declared what the so-called mission is when in fact, as we know here and especially Daniel has recorded and I encourage everyone to read his work on this, there is a long intellectual history of what we're trying to accomplish and why.  Barb? You're going to be talking a bit about this in your talk? Yeah, I think I will be. Well, I could just say yes to the second one and be done with it. But I think that is actually part of it. Jamie mentioned the community, I think that's important and it has a great deal of value. But the short answer to the second one is well, irrationality kills people and it makes people spend their life savings. The long answer though is that it's important for everybody in everyday life. One thing that I do plan to talk about tomorrow is the fact that rationality actually leads us to our goals and being irrational lets other people decide for us what we want. It doesn't actually, it makes us give up our power to the people who understand how to manipulate us. That's really what rationality is. Rationality is avoiding, it's more than just avoiding biases and it's also avoiding the shortcuts and thinking that allow other people to manipulate us. So when we are not thinking critically and not thinking rationally and not looking at the world through a materialistic worldview, we're allowing other people to decide what we're going to get and we're not meeting our goals and that's as an individual and as a society. As a society, it's higher disease rates because of lower vaccine rates. As an individual, it might be paying more for something that you really, that you don't have to because you didn't take the time to think through what your alternatives were. So there are so many benefits to skepticism that I couldn't even begin to cover them in 30 seconds. I would have, I could write a whole book about it. And I think that we have made progress. There are plenty of examples, you know, the bomb dousing successes that we've managed to stop people from selling bomb dousers. We have managed you all sorts of things just by teaching, giving people good information, giving them alternative explanations for the evidence that they think supports some extraordinary claim and teaching them how to think critically for themselves. So skepticism, it's not the end-some game.  Daniel, I think you've used some of those terms before. I have, although they're not original to me. One of the great lessons of my career has been that none of this is new. I mean, this stuff has been going on for a long time. When people reach for terms in which to talk about the utility of scientific skepticism, we often reach for these things about harm. Watch the harm like Tim Farley likes to ask. We look for occasions where skeptics have maybe prevented harm or brought justice to those who have been harmed. And I think those are really legitimate frames to look at this question through, but for me it's even more basic. You know, what is the utility in any research on any topic? Is it worth knowing stuff? And I think that when you consider that the overwhelming majority of humanity believes one or more paranormal things, I think that it is worth humanity's time to have a few specialists who look at those things, try to figure out if they're true, study and track them, and build up a rigorous scholarship around those things over a sustained period of time. And Daniel, you wrote about what skepticism can be and where we go from here. What were some of your ideas that you see really working now? Well, I wrote where do we go from here in 2007. It's available as a free PDF from the Skeptic Society. In the document I made the very basic argument that scientific skepticism in its most basic form to solve mysteries and inform the public what we have learned. It's sufficiently useful and sufficiently specialized, unique that it is worth doing in a sustained way. And I made that argument at that time because there seemed to be this sort of change in the air that at that time people were not yet talking about very much. A huge expansion in the base of the skeptical subculture and influx of new technologies and new ideas, a new urgency in some of our parallel rationalist movements, some of our cousins and other movements. And I was worried that scientific skepticism would be eclipsed, so the tradition I belong to would be lost somehow. But as the years have gone by, although I think I was to some extent right to worry, there has been some confusion in recent years, some speaking across purposes between people who have similar but not identical priorities. And there's even been a little bit of conflict about those things. But I think in another way that my concern was short-sighted. And my more recent piece released this year, why is there a skeptical movement? I traced back the history of this paranormal criticism stuff a couple of thousand years. It's been around for a long time. And there are people in this room right now who have been doing scientific skepticism, doing this work for 60 years. Not me, by the way. Sometimes it feels like it. But that work has been going on for a long time. It will continue to go on. I think in 500 years it will still be people who are trying to get to the bottom of these things. Whenever there are claims that sound too good to be true, some people try to get to the bottom of it. And here in this room we have a thousand people who care about investigation. Tam still cares about the tradition of Houdini. He still cares about the work of James Randi. Tam has not forgotten its investigative heart. Yeah, but as a movement, I think this sort of addresses your issue where to go from here. We can't lose our tradition, our history, our core. But we do have to adapt to the changing needs of society. You know what I'm saying? We need to keep addressing the same topics where we can't expand our repertoire. I think the skill set that we're promoting is timeless and universal. But how it gets applied is something that every generation is going to have to figure out for themselves. Every generation of skeptics has to figure out what are the key issues, where do we need to focus our efforts, what are our challenges, who are our opponents, who are our allies. But the skill set, you know, I think we're developing the skill set further and further and further, but that doesn't change. And that's, you know, when I went over my list, that's really what I'm talking about. That's the skill set of skepticism. And I think it's really tangential to the question of to what topics do we apply it, right?  It, right? So I think that, and when I see like, where do we go from here starting from 2013, my, you know, wet dream of where the skeptical movement should be going is I'd like to see us doing what we're doing, but in addition, I think that we would benefit from developing that body of knowledge and those skills that I've talked about into a real coherent academic discipline. Something that's respectable, that's scholarly, that's recognized within academia, and that has a much deeper influence on the rest of the intellectual world so that we don't, you know what, my fear is, is that we are relegated to the fringe. Not because of our methods, but because of the topics to which we apply them. Oh, you debunk UFOs, that's a fringe idea. So you're fringe. It's like, no, but I'm promoting science and science isn't fringe, but that's what happens. Science gets put on the fringe and that worries me and I'm still struggling with how we do our mission without relegating ourselves to the fringe. I think one of the challenges in that, that we're facing right now is, particularly those that don't come into the community from having a science background to begin with, having to ensure or educate those new people about the difference between that method and that skill set and the topics themselves. That it's very easy for human beings to conflate those because we do think in conclusion terms. We start with, this is what I already think, and then we start looking for the evidence that confirms it rather than either trying to falsify or opening our minds and considering the possibility that we're wrong. And so because that's our method, kind of default method as humans, of looking at claims, we tend to not really internalize that it's separate, that the skill set we're using and the methods that we're using really are a separate issue from the topics that we study. I mean, there may be, just looking at different science disciplines. Yes, there are lots of different methods in terms of the equipment they use and maybe some of the experimental designs are different, but there's a general scientific method. It's a very, very vague description, but it still has the same basic kind of philosophy behind it. I'm not sure about this. I'm not clear, Steve, about this notion of making it, of turning skepticism into an academic discipline for the very reason you mentioned, which is that the scientific method and science disciplines and disciplines within science, whether it's chemistry or physics or biology, are well-established and well-developed, and yet still, as you say, sometimes pushed to the fringe. So the point of accomplishing and making an academic discipline out of it is not in and of itself any kind of achievement in terms of getting the message out. And what we are, if anything, we're not scientists, we don't tend to be as skeptics. What we are is promoters, consumer advocates, I like to say, of the scientific method and the scientific worldview and, you know, we're not doing science, we are trying to explain and promote science. Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, when I talk about skepticism as an academic discipline, that wouldn't be the entirety of scientific skepticism or the movement, it would be one additional piece that I think would serve our overall movement very well. So in such as there is a philosophy of science as an academic discipline, then it's philosophy of scientific skepticism. It's also the practice of scientific. There are people using scientific methods to study questions that probably psychologists and other scientists wouldn't be interested in. It's more bringing all of these things together and applying them in a certain way.  It's just complete disconnect. It's very disconcerting. Part of what they don't understand is the nature of pseudoscience. Or they think because they understand science, they therefore understand pseudoscience when they have no idea. They don't get it at all. And when you try to explain it to them, their eyes glaze over and they think, that's on the fringe, that's not something I need to worry about.  And then they're like, how did this happen? Then they go into defense mode. One anecdote about this was a very accomplished, successful neurology researcher who studies coma who thought that he discovered that his patient who was comatose for 20 years was actually locked in and fully conscious because of facilitated communication. And this guy who was a world-recognized expert in neurology got completely blindsided by facilitated communication. And then when I explained it to him, he didn't get it. Eventually, he partly came around, but that was an education, a whole, in his body of knowledge because he wasn't a skeptic. He was a scientist but not a skeptic. So how do we bring skepticism in a respectable way to academia? One more thing. One other point to make on this is that I think we've made the most headway is in the UK where there are professorships of the public understanding of science. That's as close as we get to what we do being recognized as a legitimate endeavor. And it's a great step forward. We need to import that into the United States and we need to expand upon it. I mean, history is littered with the wreckage of scientific careers in which well-trained, well-qualified scientists who just didn't know what they were getting into ran up against the reefs of pseudoscience. It's not because they didn't know enough about science. It's because they didn't know enough about nonsense. The study of nonsense is itself a large topic. There is a lot to know. In that respect, Steve's dream of an academic skepticism is my dream too. I would love to have been able to go and get a degree in the same weird stuff that I study. I'm studying it professionally but I didn't have the benefit of any training for it. I could have used it. I had to turn to the semi-technical literature, and the skeptics movement in general has produced in a kind of emergent way but training would have been nice. It would have helped. I dream of a situation maybe like astronomy or paleontology or geology in July where there is both a core of trained academics and a very large population of serious amateur practitioners. That's the picture that I see when I look to the horizon. And just briefly, but Daniel in your older piece about where do we go, you talk explicitly about this idea that expertise in nonsense is part of the skeptics special arena and special area of expertise because scientists don't have that expertise. They don't spend time studying that. That speaks to mission because not only the skeptics have that development expertise but we are really the only social activism movement that addresses that specifically. There are lots of consumer advocacy organizations out there but they don't really address nonsense in this kind of and pseudoscience in this way that we do and this is yet another thing that distinguishes us from other sister movements like humanism or atheism or whatever where we may share some universal beliefs or philosophical beliefs about the world but they are not active in those areas. That is a special and important area of what we do as consumer advocates. This is a point that I made in the why is there a skeptical movement of this here. In the 1970s when skepticism came together as an organized project it had existed for centuries before that. Occasionally it had coalesced into something semi-organized but the movement that we know now was born in 1976 and when that happened there already were scientists and there already were historians of science there already were humanists, there already were atheists there already were science popularizers all these movements existed and yet there was work that was not being done and that's why skeptics organized was to deal specifically with the project of studying and informing the public about pseudoscientific and friend science claims. You know what I'm hearing here makes me think of a skepticism that is multi-disciplinary. Absolutely. Because what you're talking about, yes it's true that science in general did not look at these questions but there are scientists that do that are interested and it may not be part of their regular day job but in the field of psychology most psychology teachers teach pseudoscience because that's part of what we do is understand why people leave in it, how misconceptions are created, things like that so I think there's you know we've got so many different people from different backgrounds here and we all play a different role in what we do and we kind of all need each other it's very not multi-disciplinary but interdisciplinary you know we all bring different things to the table because this job actually requires there's a lot of different things it requires that we're able to communicate with the public which most scientists are not very good at that because it's not what they got into science to do. There are some that are good and there are some that are not and hopefully the ones that are good do it but we need to be able to communicate to the public that requires marketing it requires communication we need the expertise to actually be able to evaluate the information that we want to pass on in a way that makes sense and to make sure that it's accurate we need people from all backgrounds people who can recognize fraud and deceitful I don't know how to say it, the honest liar is just such a difficult thing for me to conceptualize but I'm trying to now say the opposite of that what's the opposite of the honest liar the deceitful liar well yeah yes the liar who does not admit to using lying as a method that's the point it's long though I can't say that every time I'm trying to say it but you get the point though we need magicians play this big role in skepticism because they bring to the table something that scientists never think to look for because we're not looking for fraud we're looking and you're not trained to detect it because as I like to say you don't get a bunch of microbes calling a meeting on a slide saying hey let's fool the big guy right so academic training in the world does not make anybody any better at detecting fraud and that's why you have the magician a little color it's sometimes being suggested that it was kind of a historical accident that those people who came together in the 1970s to form psychop first and eventually a global network of skeptical organizations so they came from so many backgrounds we had magicians we had philosophers we had journalists psychologists absolutely and it was not a historical accident it was a kind of conciliance jumping together of all these people from different backgrounds pursuing the same basic problem with different faces of the same problem and realizing that their expertise could complement each other and that their areas their specific areas of interest whether it was psych eggs or crack medicine these things had functional similarities they could be addressed as a set in some way not an accident but a a happy fusion yeah I hear a lot of building blocks and a lot of bricks that have been laid down in the past and here we are moving forward to the future I mean what's the road map what do we need to do now yeah that's a hard question it's a really hard question yeah I mean if we knew we'd be doing it yeah you know maybe we are doing it I don't know it's hard to know there's no road map to unmapped territory which is really what we're talking about so I'm always trying to not rest on what we've accomplished so far we can keep doing what we're doing and we're having success to some degree doing what we're doing and that's great but I'm always looking towards how do we take it to the next level what's the next step to try well for example you've used technological innovations I mean a skeptic movement has been really good at podcast apps we jumped on web 2.0 podcasting blogging it was like we were waiting for it I mean it was the perfect marriage to our grassroots kind of very intellectually driven movement and it gave us a real advantage because that medium really favors the person with the ideas and that's like what we have and we have these ideas out there so we took off as soon as that infrastructure was basically laid at our feet and we're still riding that wave but we got to look for that next wave because this is only going to take us so far now that Daniel is the one we're still writing books we're still publishing magazines is that reaching a new crowd well I I hope to always we were talking earlier about you asked what Jamie's audience was and my audience is whoever in the world can get any use for any period of time out of robust information about the paranormal or the pseudoscience you know those people are old and young they're people of faith they're non-believers they're people of all countries we all come across these ideas these claims that seem too good to be true and all of us have at some point in our life the need to find out and so you know I try to be available to that broad broad audience to the maximum degree and one of the ways I try to do that is by not selling a grand unified Daniel Loxtonism you know I'm a human being I'm complicated I've got a huge portfolio of beliefs and preferences and most of those I am not selling in my work I'm not selling a world view I'm just selling the most robust information I'm able to provide and Jamie you're reaching an audience that is maybe entertainment oriented and not necessarily scientific oriented what do you have planned for the future what's your outlook well what I think might be best what I'm most interested in in the skeptical moment may not be the thing that I directly am doing in the world but I think that education science education critical thinking education and getting that education to start earlier and as early as possible is a real priority for the movement everything we're doing I think is right and everything we're doing is what we're always going to be doing because there's a million leaks that we're always going to be trying to plug the holes in there's always going to be alternative medicine there's always going to be fraud and deliberate you know cons and scams there's always going to be pseudoscience so working on these things and trying to put out information and debunking which is a very important part of our role we haven't actually explicitly mentioned it's actually an important part of the role of skepticism for because it's part of the educational process by debunking you're offering an alternative explanation which happens to be the real explanation of how things work and so debunking is a key role another role that skeptics take that other movements don't but all of that does connect to the notion of what is critical thinking what are the methods of science you know my friend and longtime friend and colleague Chip Denman who's on the board at JREF used to teach a course at the University of Maryland in critical thinking and science it was a terrific, terrific class that I guest lectured in a number of times but the only thing wrong with it was a college freshman class when to me it should be a third grade class instead of teaching kids in high school to memorize the periodic table of the elements before they know if they're going to be chemists or not they should be learning what is the scientific method this is why and when the average person I get into a conversation and with educators too I had a meeting with a college educator who wanted to talk about creating a critical thinking course and I talked to her about mythbusters and getting kids to watch mythbusters we don't watch much television in our home but my kids have unlimited access to mythbusters if they're desperate to watch something they know they won't get a hard time for me if they just go to Netflix and turn on another mythbusters episode so that's not what I do personally but it is something I promote as a skeptic and it's something we're doing at JREF we have these terrific educational units Barbara's been key in and also Daniel other individuals we have these great units we have one or two more they're just about to come out and they're fantastic they're out are they out so what are the two latest ones we've actually got four that are new to the audience we have one on Paridolia one on visual illusions another one on cognitive biases and heuristics and one on power balance oh yes right the most recent one I saw was the power balance and these are absolutely fantastic useful teaching tools that we want to see in every school so yes I'm an entertainer I'm a communicator making said one horse laugh is worth 10,000 syllogisms I spent a lot of time reading syllogisms but my job includes horse laughs so I try and get up there and wave my arms and get people's attention and try and say a little something about how the universe works but in the end so much of it is after the fact for us we're trying to close the doors after the horses have been stolen when in fact the first and foremost most important thing we could possibly be doing is teaching people critical thinking from the ground up before we get to some questions does anyone want to add their last bits of wisdom something we didn't talk about or didn't touch on but where we go from here and ideas I think I wanted to add a little bit to what Jamie was saying and one that hasn't come up yet about the future in addition to everything that everyone else has said that problem of getting to the younger crowd one of the things that we have to remember is that when we're reaching for that younger crowd their development's in a different place and so we can put a little bit of the applied skepticism talking about what is and is not bunk but teaching them to critical I think starts with very very basic questions and probably the most basic questions aren't even related as much to science as they are to values but it's not the value that's important it's how you think about whether it's okay or not and that's moral reasoning basic basic philosophy questions for very young children is where I would be starting very young do we have resources? yeah actually there are some good books I've covered them in blog posts on Swift before but there's one called I can't remember the author's name there's one called philosophy for children that I really like that asks very basic questions and has follow up questions and the idea is to get kids talking about it in space so that they think about alternatives and they think about future consequences and they think about all things that maybe they are assuming about a question and they think about all the situations in which this might apply and realize that there isn't a simple answer to most of these questions but the other thing that hasn't come up is community we've talked about community and it's a little bit of a double-edged sword we're all here in part because we want to be together and be with people who are like minded and we have fun together and all of that and we want to rant and what is it disagree or agree loudly yes agree vehemently vehemently agree and but that creates a little bit of tribalism and sometimes that can get in the way I think we need to find ways to have an in-group that doesn't target other human beings as out-groups or maybe tries to minimize the conflicts between out-groups and still have that community together because I think we do need some tribalism we need to have our tribe it feels good and it's not a bad thing because it helps us work together but we need to control it too. You know you made me think of something Barb here which is in terms of early lessons magic is actually a great early lesson it doesn't always guarantee a rational outlook there are no shortage of whack jobs in the magic world who believe in a magical universe but nevertheless it gives a fighting chance to teach a very early lesson that says things are not always what they seem and my friend Danny Hillis a prominent technologist some of you may know among other things that's worked with the Clock of the Long Now project when his kids were growing up he hired a magician to come in and give them all magic lessons not because he wanted his kids to grow up to be magicians but because he thought it was a kind of a fundamental learning tool about how to think about the world I've taught my boys I have no desire for my boys so I wouldn't wish show business on my enemies kids much less my own I have no desire for my kids to grow up to be magicians but I've taught them a few magic tricks and what's involved in the performance of them and there were really big ah-has behind that that they recognized two weeks ago we have ten year old twins two weeks ago I brought the boys to the county fair and we went on rides and we ate toxic food and all of that but there was a big midway section with all the games and of course at first the boys want to play the games and they're crazily expensive these days so instead I took them on a tour with all of the Carney games and we just kind of went game by game and I quietly explained to them how each one worked and what the scam was and a couple of them that they could really clearly see and pick out themselves and then later we were having dinner at like a picnic table a bunch of group of people and some other people sat down and I was asking you know so what have you been doing what have you seen and you know I don't know right away one of my boys with his newfound knowledge well don't play that basketball game because you know that hoop is oval and they had so much fun though getting those ah-has right and getting sort of with it that we went through that you know the midway like twice and by the time we were done there was no question of you know how come you didn't give me money to play the game that was not the issue it was a lot more rewarding than taking home a goldfish they took home some real life lessons and wasn't it fun trying to figure it out for themselves first some although you know it's real I mean well my talk will be a little bit about this tomorrow you know you have to credit the con man and the corny games are pretty clever and you would have a hard time if I walked through that midway with you and said okay how is this faked you would have a hard time just you know just like I always you know I don't get paid the fool just the dumb slow students I get paid the fool smart people and so does the con artist and so does the midway game going to what Barbara was just saying about tribalism you know it is really fun to be among people who share your interests and I come out of town with a huge high you know it keeps me fueled up all year one of the ways that I try to steer away from kind of a tribal outlook though is just not to get too hung up on the label of skeptic skeptic as an identity speaking for myself personally I identify as a secular humanist and I happen to be an atheist that's a fairly small true fact about me skepticism is work that I do it's work I do professionally it's an activity that I pursue when I get up and when I come to town I'm most excited to talk to other people who are doing that same work and I mean I think almost everybody here is and some small or huge degree is pursuing that activity and it's the activity that I come in verb that I'm most excited about we only have about three minutes so I don't know if we can manage with any questions or not one quick question does anyone have a really good question preferably formed in a form of a haiku it's a sure one and it's a good one so when we get on the elevators to and from up and down the stairs we happen to be on with a non tam attendee and they ask so what's up with this fight the fakers thing what on earth do you tell me that was actually my first question I was going to ask so that is a really good question I was at the meal I was at dinner the other night with Chipp and Grace Denman and the waiter asked this and I wish I could Chipp are you handy where are you rather than rephrase George could you run see George run run George run would you just repeat what you said to the waiter because I thought it was great and I couldn't have done it myself well I doubt that I can repeat it exactly because I get asked a lot and it's always a little different each time because we are such a multifaceted group but I think I said something to the effect that we are pro-science we are encouraging people to look critically at unusual claims we sometimes look at the fringe stuff like ESP and UFO the central thing that unites us is critical thinking, promotion of science and wanting to examine things in a very critical rigorous way yeah evidence based thinking about the world I think that's pretty good and awesome haircuts one more quick one can you see a hand one quick one yes here we go it wasn't quick I suppose quick one here we go okay when we were talking about skepticism and what it is I didn't hear anything about open-mindedness even though I always hear skeptics talk about it regularly and paranormal people always talk about it where does open-mindedness fit in with skepticism in the future I think it's implicit in everything else that we were talking about open inquiry it's fundamental I agree and we also put out the fact that being open-minded is often used in the same way as having faith or whatever which is a way of dismissing any opinions that you don't agree with you don't agree with me because you're not open-minded or you're closed-minded so you try to avoid using it as a dismissive or denialist tool but functionally it just means that we're fair in our evaluation of evidence if you can prove anything with adequate evidence and logic in proportion to the evidence that's what being open-minded is but it's implicit to science and everything else we were talking about and that's right because Steve said so what he said I would just like to add that please make a little mark in your program our speakers here please go home and look them up on the web watch their YouTube talks read their blogs, read their written documents and really understand that they've done a lot of work in this field and I'd also plug the media guide to Skepticism which is on doubtfulnews.com which some of these people have helped me with as well, community document and great to hand out as a beginner document so I want to thank my panel very informative thank you very much and thanks everybody thank your panel one more time very nicely done, congrats