The Hook: The Physics of Cartoons
[ VISUAL ]
Giant screen: Wile E. Coyote running off a cliff, legs spinning furiously in mid-air.
AI Image Generation Prompt:
GENERATE: Classic Looney Tunes style illustration. Wile E. Coyote suspended in mid-air beyond cliff edge, legs blurred in frantic spinning motion. Below him: vast empty canyon with tiny dust cloud at bottom. His expression: confident, unaware. Background: desert mesa, blue sky. Style: clean vector art, bold outlines, nostalgic Saturday morning cartoon aesthetic. Key detail: NO FLOOR beneath him - emphasize the void.
Best Image Selection:
🏆 OPTIMAL: The coyote suspended mid-air with legs spinning captures the thesis perfectly - speed without substrate. The "Gravity OFF" variant makes the physics metaphor literal (good backup). The canyon variant is dramatic but the optimal balances recognition with the ontological point.
[ SETUP: What to establish before the punchlines ]
~2 min- 🎯 GOAL: Distinguish from Krugman's "Coyote Moment" (economic bubbles). Yours is ONTOLOGICAL—not "we are broke" but "we have no floor"
- ⏱️ PACING: Let silence hang 5 SECONDS after "Then, he looks down." The silence does more than 100 words.
- 🔑 KEY PIVOT: Economists worry about the CRASH. You worry about the three seconds BEFORE—the state of ungroundedness itself.
- 📍 BRIDGE TO AI: The Coyote didn't fall because he was slow. He fell because he looked down and discovered there was nothing there.
- ---
- 🏆 SEMANTIC ARBITRAGE: Paul Krugman (Nobel economist) owns "Coyote Moment" for bubbles/crashes. But NO ONE owns the PHYSICS angle.
- 🏆 YOUR CLAIM: Krugman's Coyote says "I am broke but don't know it." YOUR Coyote says "I am hallucinating a world that doesn't exist."
- 🏆 THE ADVANTAGE: Audience knows the visual instantly (pre-installed). Your PIVOT to ontology hits harder because they expected economics.
- ---
- 🧠 THEY'RE THINKING: "Oh, another AI doom talk..." → Subvert with CARTOON. They're expecting tech jargon, give them childhood memory.
- 🧠 THEY'RE THINKING: "Is this about regulation? Ethics?" → No. It's about PHYSICS. The word "gravity" should land as literal.
- 🧠 THEY'RE THINKING: "The Krugman thing about bubbles?" → PIVOT HARD. "Not the crash. The three seconds before."
- ⚡ EMPHASIZE: "running on AIR" — stress AIR, not running. The problem isn't speed, it's substrate.
- ⚡ EMPHASIZE: "forgot the gravity" — this is the THESIS. Slow down. Let it register.
- ⚡ EMPHASIZE: "traction on nothing" — the legs SPIN but there's no GRIP. Speed without substrate.
💡 PAUSE for effect after "looks down." Let audience feel the drop coming.
"We all know this moment."
"He's left the cliff. His legs are spinning furiously. He has speed. He has momentum. He has traction on nothing."
"But for three seconds... he believes he's flying."
"Then, he looks down."
"SNAP."
"Gravity remembers him. He falls."
"Economists call this the 'Bubble.' They worry about the crash—the moment the market looks down."
"I'm worried about something worse."
"I'm worried about the three seconds before he looks down."
"Generative AI is spinning its legs faster than any technology in history. It writes poetry, codes apps, diagnoses diseases."
"But it has zero traction. It cannot push against the world because it isn't touching it."
"We have built the most powerful intelligence in history."
"And it is running on air."