I think there's some chance the world might be ending soon.
I think unless people protest against, you know, creation of
superintelligence, like it will be hard to change this state
If programmers are your heroes, then, you know,
armies.
also science, and like prediction, and control the systems including human
And then you ask, okay, like if you have a social system,
predict it? Why do you want to control it at all?
And the basic answer to that, at least for me, is to
like control mankind's incredible capacity for violence.
This is the kind of system that a superintelligence...
where a superintelligent system starts making sense because it's like, "What
can give us our freedom back?" And like it can't. Obviously, it can't.
It's, it's, it's the both uses of the system, not,
This technology gives you excess resources, and excess resources
do actually bring, you know, actual human happiness.
It's a very precise misunderstanding of anarchism and
socialism, and all of these like vaguely humanist
like, "Look, machines would be good if they just like
took away our work and gave us more time for fun." But it
seems as if they're just like taking up all of our time, turning us
into like more machine-like slaves.
I am speaking to, uh, Samuel Shadrack.
Uh, he's a friend of mine who I met, uh, a while back in, in, you know, when I was
at college. Um, he's really smart.
He's really, like ridiculously smart.
He's written a lot of very interesting stuff about, uh, AI safety.
He's had a really insane and weird life with a lot of twists
And he's a very
person who's I think is like really dedicated to like, uh,
in. Um, I think, uh, if you see the rest of his channel,
someone who's with a lot of integrity, with a lot of like, uh,
he wants to say. Plus, you're on his channel,
Oh,
uh, everyone, my name is Samuel Shadrack.
Uh, I have Aatish Sahay with me who I met in
college. Yeah, we were both in college. He was a friend of a friend.
We seem to have interest in at least some similar topics around, you
know, philosophy, morality, et cetera.
Also, I think,
uh, yeah. So like my friend was actually very interested in
AI forecasting, you know, if we are getting superintelligence and so on.
And you know, Aatish is, you know, my friend's friend.
So hopefully we'll figure out, you know, a shared topic of interest.
Otherwise, professionally, yeah, I mean, I graduated from IT Delhi in
2023. Uh, I have now transitioned to becoming an
activist full-time. I think there's some chance the world
soon. I think unless people protest against, you
know, creation of superintelligence, like it'll be hard to change this state of
affairs. I'm trying to raise awareness in some way
Uh, that's basically what I'm doing right now.
All right. Um, I'm just having a professional
Um, so I, I'm, I'm an ex-journalist, that's just because I
wrote stuff on the internet. Uh, I'm an ex,
uh... I worked for a venture capital firm.
Uh, so ex that as well. And I'm a game developer, uh,
which, you know, not, not an ex on that yet.
And currently, I, I, I've always sort of been an extremely
uh, systems politically oriented thinker.
And I think I'd like to, uh, you know, pursue that.
I think professionally that's been my trajectory,
in the world we're in. You know, my, my degree, uh, which I'm about to say
is, is in computer science and social sciences.
So not competition social sciences like hard, hard computer science and
hard like social sciences. And, uh, you know, the twin only met in
my own head. And I think I have some conclusions
reached, but I also think I have a really fun way
conclusions. So, that's my introduction.
Uh, the topic today is, uh, systems of holding back.
Now, uh, if you go to the Wikipedia page for
you will... The most interesting of, of the sources is this book written by a
Finnish person who basically came up with the idea of systems theory.
And the third chapter of that is linked in, um,
on Wikipedia. And it basically goes into these things
can identify very easily if they start thinking about it.
Uh, for example, right, um, the examples they give is managers
would like to be more involved in and help their 0004 more, and
employee- and employees would like if their managers
Um, but that doesn't happen. Why? Um, and teachers would like to make sure all
their kids get very good grades, and kids would broadly like to get good
and that doesn't happen. Right? Um, and, you know, if, if you go around, you...
I mean, like I said, people can very easily start identifying
It's like, you know, I... people want like, you know,
you know, people to be happy, and they don't want to see battles around,
keeps happening. And so when I was doing...
I actually do video games, and this, this, this, this mathematical concept of the
isomorph or isomorphism came up, which is basically
space between spaces, right? So it's very easy to identify.
If you've ever seen, for example, the packing problem, uh,
little shapes and like, you know, optimal way to pack X things,
pack, uh, you know, one, two, three, four boxes.
And some of them are like really weird and you wonder like, "Oh, why, why is that
happening?" Sort of the little spaces in between them.
That sort of got me thinking, uh, sort of been thinking about this for a
time. Uh, but that's sort of got me very intimately
society we're actually in, and why it feels like all of us just
go from like, uh, box to box. You know, you go into a box at work, and then you
get into a box to go home, and then when you're in, at home, you're in a box.
And what's the, what, what, what engine attached to a box
kind of system we're in? And, uh, it made me think a little bit
more than about what the system is actually like holding back, right?
Uh, and the answer is travel. A lot of anarchists, libertarians,
everyone has been like, "A car is a very difficult thing to like manage."
need to get all kinds of, uh, permits if you want to drive one.
You can have insurance, visas. And broadly, right, if you want to
go from like one room to the other, no one will stop you.
But if you want to go from like one country to the other,
red tape. And more than that, right, there's a lot of people...
and I do think it's a very important point.
uh, involved in that red tape, right?
And there's a lot of, like, uh, people who work at airports, who work
at, uh, immigration offices, who work at this stuff.
I mean, they kinda have to feel like their job
Um, you know, sort of you kind of justify your border
by saying, "Look, we have all these people who
and, um, it's very important that they, like, you know, get to
... It's all very important that they have their jobs.
It's very important that people don't come in
everybody knows that like, um, it's locals who commit most of the crimes.
broadly speaking, because it's a really bad behavior.
Like, I'm, I'm not trying to say that like ...
No, I'm not trying to say that like, "Oh, because you don't commit any crimes." But
the data is right there. Um, you know, this is sort of holding back, uh,
the, the feeling of like, "Oh, well, I'm an outsider and, you know,
them to get, like, get mad at me." Um, and this
is something you do anyway when you start being watched, right?
When, when, when you wanna go from one room to the
something bad in that room." You, you're very careful
that, that one to there. Um, you know, borders, maps, uh, these
things really do make us feel as if we're, um, being held back,
uh, from moving around. And, you know, people are like, "Well, you know, if, if I
just travel all the w- all, all the way and then I'll travel around
Everybody wants to do that. I- in some way, everybody wants to do that,
seems almost as if we had a lot more freedom in the past,
lot slower, right? When it wasn't fuel and metals
and that kind of stuff you had to manage when you were running a boat.
When it was like, um, you can just like sort of carve your own
go out as f- as far as you want. In fact, as, as, as, as far back as like
the 200, 300 BC, we
... There was an entire culture basically on
Samuel Indians. Um, India was a, was a, was a very
well-known, in fact, seafaring nation, and we ...
The Ramayan and, and the Mahabharata and a lot of these like other things exist
Cambodia, Thailand. Uh, in fact, they're very popular.
And if you look at, like, when they got there, it's, you know,
six centuries, and be- it's because we had boats.
In fact, there were kings who came from ...
There was basically a delegation that came from Thailand to India to sort
king back. Uh, and that, that doesn't really say like everybody
but like people were broadly going.
I mean, the Tamil kings famously who like ran
empire. And the idea that ... Or, or at least
broadly speaking, the idea that like, um, you know, you know, back
in the day, it, it used to be like take like two weeks to
And, but that meant that like really the only thing stopping
the fact that it would take two weeks, not so much the idea that
like, well, you know, there's a highway there.
These days people sort of only assume that like if you can drive, y- y-
drive basically in like an hour or a day or some amount of time.
Even a road trip, right? There's this feeling
car and you'll ... It, it should be something you can do, right?
It's not that like, "Oh, th- I'll, I'll just, I'll, I'll get there when I get
there," is basically like something that e- very few people have the luxury
for. Um, this sort of brings me, uh,
weirdly enough to machine learning.
Uh, a lot of people don't really think about,
art as something actually present in their everyday life,
no, because it isn't. Uh, if you sit, if you're, if you're, if you're in an
apartment complex right now, you are sitting on, I mean,
on a floor that's either statically filled with cement or
tile. And, you know, people, people don't think about this because it's
else are you supposed to make floors out of?" And it's like, I mean, people
actually in temples, in, in most houses, and in a lot of places, took a
lot of very good care to make sure that the houses looked very nice and they
weren't just boxes that they slept inside.
Um, you might say it was interior decorating and stuff.
But, um, if you can only optimize for certain
will only do those things. Um, that's
where, uh, machine learning comes in.
For me, machine learning, and for a lot of people obviously,
of statistical methods attempting to get to the right answer reliably,
often. And getting to stuff reliably often
is good, obviously, and it should be used in
places like, um, you know, like being able to install windows
being able to, like, uh, sort of predict how many people need what
food. But we don't do that, right? I mean, we don't do that at all.
We're mostly just like, how do we make sure that, uh,
running big corporations or continue to run big corporations
and stuff? Because sort of the stock market, uh,
it's completely discovered from reality.
Like, what the price of a stock is, is basically just like,
it's gonna go up? And, um, you know, the,
the, the, the, the idea of the special interest group
there, uh, sink. And then for technology, it's like, "Oh, well, what do the
technologists really think is gonna be the future?"
Us, us rich people can sort of speculate on
market, but the future in that way.
And
as it turns out, the future is not a very profitable thing.
It ends up, people end up living in boxes and, uh,
because that's, you know, weirdly easier to optimize.
I don't think it's intentional, but like it, it does feel like that a lot,
it? That like, you know, if you're living in a city and
know, if you work in corporate job, you're basically just going from like this
to that box, to this box, to that box, and everybody's stuck during commute and
everybody's stuck here, and everybody really just wants to be able
And, you know, um, there's been this craze around
in, in India again, there's been this craze around programming
sort of get out there because, you know, everybody knows that like, oh, well,
Indians are really good at programming.
You know, they, they have all these Silicon Valley jobs
there. Um, and that's obviously got a lot more to
do with like family pressure than it has to do with actually, with actually
being able to move there and, and, and be really well.
Because to be a Silicon Valley programmer, I mean, you basically need to know the
right people, you need to have the right degrees,
really interesting things, um, that sort of push the frontier in
that direction. But anybody who's worked in Silicon Valley
nine out of 10 of these things are basically just trying to make Uber
And at the time Uber were solving ...
No, it wasn't solving a problem, right?
It was just like, "Hey, we'll, we'll just, we will sort of take away the agency
of people to be able to negotiate, uh, taxis and to be able to negotiate all this
other stuff." And
that sort of, all that happened. You know, programmers
became-... heroes sort of overnight because they
to identify or at least give this impression that, like, "Oh, c-
really smart things, um, where we can identify,
uh, you know, places where, like, everybody goes, all these problems are,
we can just, like, make more money, um, by
doing a gig economy, right? Or doing some other thing." Because yeah,
society where, like, everybody's moving to cities
out, uh, what they really want or, you know, what
this law firm, how this law firm's going to hire me.
And not on the, like, really core interesting stuff
and, um, how your family and your friends see you
the really important, like, things that are really special to you, you know,
time moves forward. Um, it might not seem like machine learning
is related but, like, that's what these computer scientists
They're able to create, like, probabilistic machines that broadly tell
people, you know, people... and then really they tell people where
they should be and where they should congregate, and, like, really obvious...
this is like really obvious stuff.
It's on- on so many levels, it's just like low hanging fruit of, like,
uh, in commercial areas people hang out, so, like, autos should...
like, autos or bikes or, or cars should, like, hang out around there.
And, uh, if programmers are your heroes then, you know,
their own armies. And
in the modern era the army is the corporation, and
like, armies exist to like defend a population
by destroying other people, armies, um, are very
violence oriented, right? They, they come with the idea of, like, money,
you basically, you basically have to go...
It- it's ridiculously difficult to feed an
And it, it, it's basically like where economics in,
economics and money begins because, uh, you're not really gonna argue with a guy
who's got, like, a big sword and she's passing through and he's gonna,
your, like, like, if, uh... ruin your village if, if,
And basically if you want to stop that raiding you basically just say,
here's money that has the face of this king over there," and the, the army
can go really far and basically keep, like, buying more...
keep getting food from, like, people who are, like, supplying.
Uh, it made longer and longer trips possible for bigger
groups, um, and it didn't work very well
back in the day because people would get diseases and eventually a lot of people
would die, and so armies and hordes became really
fast-moving things that would just, like, chew through, like, a lot of stuff.
And again, they were able to do that because armies are sort of
designed to prevent desertion. That's why everybody wears the same hats
everybody wears the same thing and everybody has the same, like, food
because when you're in an army, you're really scared to leave it.
You're really scared to leave it. And
if this sounds like corporate, um, where you don't really want to
be there but you're terrified of leaving, that's because corporations basically
took the, the managerial model from, from military corporations.
And this isn't even, like, mean...
saying that I owe money and violence are inherently connected.
They are but, you know... Um, this is just like lit-...
the British came up with the East India Corporation, which means the
company's for profit to do this
exactly, right? In the modern era of the corporation
where the company is the creditor and the people working
for it are debtors, and yet, um, and, and, and
yet the situation of power is reversed, basically only happened
because the East India Company had gotten, like, a fan- fantabulous amount of
riches by, by going off to India and make some...
you know, moving stuff back because of sinkage of
lo- lot of other stuff. I mean, half of their thing was that, like,
had, like, you know, weird kinds of, like, social slavery systems that nobody
really wanted that so they just kept revolting against their kings.
But nobody wanted to desert, right?
Because everybody had sort- sort of gotten this feeling that, like,
we've overthrown all the kings, now we're free and now everything's
and, and now the system of, like, deserting isn't the...
and the anti-system of, like, deserting is in place, and that sucks."
(laughs) "That, that really sucks for us." So, um,
what happens when you are really in a system of holding back
seeing fun as a viable thing you can do.
When people do a festival... people broadly do festivals when
they're... with their family or when they're in a sys- when they're in,
know, a thriving system where they're like, "Oh,
well-structured, like, social...
we want to, like, reverse or alter some, like, social arrangement that, that we
already have." And machine learning will tell you that, like,
festivals are very good for, like, flogging products.
And this is just a consumerism thing, but you just feel like a guilty child
for not being able to provide stuff for your family.
Uh, and this really is... this really is, um, I think my, my core point
that these structures make you feel like, uh, guilty children
whereas you shouldn't feel like a guilty child for not wanting a
world where artificial intelligences, uh, decide your every move and
move things around, because it's not the world that, like,
humans tend to build. Like, you
know, we don't optimize for the really, like, insane stuff of, like, how many
concrete houses can be built super quickly.
We tend to optimize for stuff like what kind of stuff will, like, last
for the long term, what kind of socio-religious cultural
practices are true, what kind of books do you want to read,
our spiritual leaders, how do we ensure maximum freedom.
And machines just don't do that, like... uh, there's basically no fun involved.
And I have maybe another take
about
the ultimate system of holding back, um, the future.
Uh, and, and not the future, like, what, what, what people today think the future
is, but I think I will get to that after Sam's points.
Okay. Awesome. Uh, you have definitely given a lot of points,
of which I think I need to think more about. Yeah.
I think maybe I should start by giving my
points which definitely have some overlap with yours, then maybe I'll, like,
uh, like, you know, give my reply to your points more
So the topic is, you know, why do people hold
back, uh-... I mean, assumes that, look, okay,
people either want to do more or people, you know, could be doing more that
they're not even aware of, but they choose not to.
And then the question is... And, like, I agree, like,
Like, most people could be leading way better
do. And better is kind of subjective, but even by their own idea of what is
better, you know, most people can be leading better lives.
Even by, you know, my idea of what is better, you know, most people could be
leading better lives. Like, uh, I think that's just, like,
not even really controversial to say (laughs) at this point.
Like, people who are holding back on themselves
back, you know, for X, Y, Z, whatever reasons, and, you know,
doing more with my, my life." Like, that's a very common sentiment to hear
people. (laughs) So, yeah, like, this is definitely obviously true.
We're just probably trying to understand more deeply in the reasons why is this
even true. Uh, yeah, so I think there is, like, the more
immediate, like, local kind of perspective of, you know,
"Oh, I took a corporate job. Why did I take a corporate job?" Or,
know, do this hobby, but I chose not to do it," or,
asked that person out, but I didn't do it," you know.
Like, there's, like, a very local kind of perspective,
a very global, you know, like, historical, geopolitical kind
of perspective that can actually even explain a lot of the local stuff.
Like, you know, if you have to specify as to know,
out on a date?" maybe the actual...
You can, you can correct that in your deeper, deeper, you know,
geopolitical or, you know, like, capitalist, whatever, theory of, you know,
is how society is structured, therefore, you know, like, people are forming less
relationships or something. Like, you can analyze it in both ways.
So I think I'll first start with the very local thing of, you know, just focusing
on one individual and why does that one individual hold back?
Uh, for an individual, I mean, people have all sorts of different
models of, you know, how do you predict human behavior?
Uh, how do you understand human behavior?
Uh, some of those models
I like maybe a little bit less. Uh, one model I like a lot is basically just
Maslow's hierarchy, which starts with, you know, at the lower
levels, like, people's basic needs are, you know, food, water, shelter.
They need to be protected from violence.
And then at the next level comes, uh, you know, people
want love, uh, self-esteem. They want to be respected by other people,
et cetera. Uh, and then at the last comes, you know, the
self-actualization thing, which is, like, poorly defined.
But basically it's if all of this was satisfying and you didn't have to
any of this, you know, what would you naturally do?
And, yeah, a lot of people do hypothesize, like, for a lot of people, that will be
something, like, fun, like, maybe making art, maybe making games,
creating some new ideas, values, et cetera. Yeah.
I think that's basically true. And, yeah, so one
explanation for why do people hold back is because there are actual incentives
are pushing against them that, okay, if you go outside, you know, what you're
supposed to do, either A, you will literally starve and
die, B, you will literally be killed, you will be imprisoned, or, you know, the
less extreme version of that is, yeah, like, yeah, you'll be fine, but, you know,
your friends will look at you weird. Your family will look at you weird.
You'll find it harder to, you know, make relationships, et cetera, uh,
the system we are in right now. So I think that is part of the local
kind of perspective. And then you can ask in a more deeper,
where is all this coming from? Like, who's threatening violence on you if you,
know, deviate from the script? You know, who's, you know, withholding love from you
if you deviate from the script?" Uh, then you can ask those deeper
questions. Uh, I think, yeah, this is one reason.
Another reason that you can bring up has nothing
to do with incentives and more to do with imagination, which
it is outside of people's imagination even what they could be doing with their
life, which is like, okay, you have escaped the trap of...
All these traps of, okay, you know, like, there are basic traps.
Okay, you do need a certain amount of money to
You do need, you know, certain resources.
You do need a country with, you know, certain amount of law and order so that,
know, your life is not literally in danger.
Uh, you do need certain minimum amount of
But once you have all those things, okay, you might say, "Oh, I'm now free to do
whatever I want." But at some level, you're still l- limited by
imagination. You will still look at, okay, here are all the ideas of
other people's cool lives. Like, oh, maybe, you know, this person became a
film star, or this person became a singer, or, you know, that person became, like,
a digital nomad and he just traveled all around his whole life.
Like, or, you know, that person became a philosopher.
Or, like, you will, you will always have scripts of even...
And even if you're deviating from the script, there are still, like, here
are the people who have deviated and those are just new scripts.
And, yeah, you will by default end up following
some mix and match of those. And definitely your life could still be
But I do want to hypothesize, like, there are things, like, that
our imagination. And examples of this are, like, if you
were living in a society where slavery was common, it
may have been, like, literally beyond your imagination that,
society which didn't have slavery.
Like, that's just so taken for granted for you
this, like, is surprising to you. Like, I think humanity has made a bunch of
moral progress. I think this is a general, uh, you know, lens difference that
Athish and I have, which is, yeah, I think, you know, the future, uh, the,
are right now is actually a lot better than the past in a lot of different ways.
And one of those ways, I think, is moral progress.
I think, uh, most humans have actually progressed in
moral values in at least some ways compared to people in many previous
civilizations. Uh, yeah, or the fact
that, you know, like, women have rights, children have more rights as
compared to the, they did in the past.
Uh, yeah, uh, yeah. (laughs) And definitely, like, even in the past-
(laughs)
... there may have been these, uh, few, uh, people who realized, okay,
right, like, you know, we have, you know, democracy in the US, you know, why don't
women get to vote? Like, there must have been a few people asking
But for most people it was just taken for granted that, look,
person who takes the decisions in the house, therefore man
the right to vote. You know, women don't get to vote, et cetera.
So, I think there's a, definitely another thing of just
think that's been true in the past. I think that's still true right now.
Uh, yeah, so I think these are broadly the two things
back. One is just incentives that are actually actively pushing against
the other is, you know, imagination deficit, which is, you know,
want to be completely free, uh, they are, like, actually figuring out new ways
to live is, like, actually an ongoing project.
Uh, yeah, now if you ask, you know, more deeper reasons, okay,
why are people being held back? Uh-Yeah.
I mean, obviously, uh, like nation states, et cetera are a
huge part of it. Like, like, I
mean, I do s- and I know some people might disagree with
but, like, I fundamentally see, like, you know, like, like, uh,
STEM fields, like, you know, science, technology, engineering, math is, like,
prediction and control of systems not including human beings.
And, you know, social sciences are, like, prediction and control of systems
including human beings. And then you ask, okay, like if you have a social system,
why do you want to predict it? Why do you want to control it at all?
And the basic answer to that, at least for me, is to,
like, troll mankind's incredible capacity for
Uh, I think homo sapiens is capable of way more violence than
any other species on this planet. Like, you know, chimpanzees are violent.
They are capable of violence. Like, you can ...
Like, chimpanzees can form a group of, you know, here are 10 chimpanzees,
the other 10 ch- chimpanzees. You know, we have a resource scarcity.
Not all of us can have the resources, therefore we are going to fight for it.
Like, some other species are capable of this, but, like, humans
species that is capable of doing this at scale where we can be like, you know, "We
are literally millions of people here and we are going to form an army
going to, you know, colonize the other army, we
going to take their stuff," et cetera, et cetera.
And yeah, therefore, you know, if you just let humans
do whatever the hell they want, by default what's going to happen
going to form an army and just colonize everyone else
stuff. Like, that just happens by default is my
stance. And therefore you need certain social
people in check and to, you know, restrict people's freedom.
And then there is question of, you know, what are good social systems to restrict
people's freedom? What are bad social systems?
Can we make progress in inventing better s- social systems?
But yeah, I do basically see nation states as an
as an example of this, you know, churches, temples as an example of this
where you provide like, here is the script you need to follow, and if
you deviate from the script you will be punished.
But as long as you follow the script, you know, here are the, here
you get within the system. And
I, like, quickly, like b- yeah, I do think all of this
is true. And, uh, yeah, I mean another ...
Yeah, so this is one thing about, you know, cont-
for violence. And there are maybe good ways of doing that,
And another thing is to some extent, I mean, systems are just
uncontrolled, like the race for accumulating more wealth
resources and power is just at some level an uncontrolled
It has been at some level uncontrolled in the past, it is still uncontrolled today.
Like, nobody can control, let's say the, you know, US China race.
You know, people are trying, but, you know, here is this one country
more power, the other country wants more power,
And then that race, you know, drives pressures further down, which
if let's say this country says, you know, "I need more," like
this count- like leaders of that country say, "Okay,
because, you know, we want our country to be more powerful,"
right, we also want our companies to compete with
more resources so that we have more resources."
that pressure downwards of, okay, so maybe the companies will then go tell
parents, "Okay, you need to raise your children a certain
certain education system so that your children produce more resources
produce more resources so that they produce more resources." Like,
competitive cycle that gets set up.
And I agree as a result people end up
optimized on very certain narrow metrics of like, like people
are s- seen by, by many of these systems, people are seen as valuable only
based on financially how valuable they are. I ...
That ends up, you know, lobotomizing a lot of people's freedom.
I think that's basically true. Yeah, I think that's at a high level, you know,
my perspective. I'm curious what you think about all of
this.
Oh, we're on time too. (laughs) Okay. Yeah.
Great, um, uh, articles out there.
Um, I think the reason ... And I think this is a good place to start.
I think the reason we disagree on, like, why we think the
past ... Uh, no, I sort of think the past was an excellent
place, and the f- the future is a very different kind...
I mean, the present and the future is a very different kind of thing,
is that in the past, um, you
know, humans were not one big
chunk, right? It's not like all of us sort of
one thing and then the rest of us believed something else.
You know, even back in the day as, as literally as soon as language has
existed, we all sort of
understood that like, okay, well other people exist and other people
can talk and other people can like say things that they don't really mean, which
means there must be some people who like don't believe the things
I'm saying or things I believe. You know what I mean?
Like, philosophy is a completely normal ...
People sort of act like, "Oh, this is something only the French (laughs) have
of managed to come up with." Uh, but, but asking the question of like why do we
know what we know is ... It's fundamental, like it's primal, right?
Like e- ev- y- you ... The second you start talking to a kid,
asking like all kinds of questions like, "Hey, you know, wh- what do you believe?
Why do you believe that thing? You know, wh- what's that?" And kids believe all
kinds of completely insane nonsense stuff, but they are sort of trying to create
like a coherent model, as are the rest of us.
Um, you know, someone might argue that like the modern
eras, uh, is the most coherent. You know, we have science and we have
technology and we have all of this stuff.
And to which I'd say, I mean, if we have all this science
technology stuff, why are people still living such
broadly, like, unfulfilling lives? I mean, why do so many people ...
why are so many people still poor if we have a surplus of food?
Why are people starved to death? And you might say that like, "Oh, well,
go around feeding everybody. That's socialism." Mm, you know,
pretty good job feeding everybody.
Um, you know, most cultures, a lot of the cultures that,
day, they were, were able to
basically create like complicated construction,
Uh, the pyramids, for example, you know, everybody knows that they hired like
the,
the basically paid their labor really well and had skilled artisans telling other
people. What a lot of people don't know is that like there
of some of them. On the outside, there was nothing.
On the inside, there was some graffiti, which is, which is kind of point that like
humans have always been like these insanely like imaginative and like,
thinking creatures. And I think that's truly something
everybody else, right? We play, we come up with jokes, we ...... jokes,
Like, like, that, that... have you ever heard a chimpanzee tell a
(laughs) it wouldn't be very funny.
Be like, "Oh, where's the banana?" (laughs) You always
complicated kinds of jokes. That's why that's something I believe,
think the past was a monolith, the way I don't think the present
I think the present is actually a lot more monolithic, right?
Because more people than ever live in cities and more people than ever do very
similar kinds of jobs. Um, and not just jobs.
You can perceive the job as, as a very weirdly specific thing, which is
that you go somewhere or, or like somebody tells you what to do
of vaguely create economic value.
You know, advertising is like, well, like 10 people saw this ad
like one person clicked on it, so like my job is like good.
And it's like, well, the platform that did that has to deliver it
that. You know, it just works (inaudible) .
When, when, when people sort of use Marx and say, "Oh,
work," I, I don't think that's what Marx meant at
I think he was talking more about like the kind of people who come up with like the
design of the factory are like extremely, like, like way more like
important than the people who are like funding the building of
Because, right, if you don't know how to build
know (inaudible) . That's what he means by abstract work.
So it's like abstractly related to the thing you're actually doing, as opposed
to like abstractly made, you know, sort of far, far away.
And this is actually where that point about like local perspective I
really important. Um, we really do live in an information age,
right? I am with you, and I think the modern era is
vaguely postmodern in that, uh, va- You know, I, I don't believe
going around like, you know, creating their personal brands,
like people are trying to figure out something new or something only
they know and then try to express that to the world.
Everybody's trying that all the time. Uh, usually people fail, and that's fine.
Uh, there's no issue there. Um, but, you
know, if you've read de Cuzco, um, you know, even like
insane, especially insane people, like know that they're acting out
of some, some reason, some structure or something
that they can't really explain to you.
It's like the voice in their head told them like something insane.
But like, you know, there's reasons why
first place, right? Like, it was probably a response to some traumatic
started talking to them, and then what this person thinks is a, is
a, is just a voice in your head is probably actually just like a response.
I mean, you know, humans have a very interesting response,
you start moving, second you start walking,
take a little process like, like hearing the same way you do
down, um, when you stop moving. Uh, even when you start talking,
of suppresses it by thought, what other people are saying.
And it's probably some of these wires getting crossed in your head.
I'm not saying it's just trauma, but people have really good reasons why
they're, why they're doing stuff.
And in the current like sort of global, global, like
perspec- If, if you want to move away from the local
perspective, what should happen is that all kinds of
people know all kinds of really cool and weird things and are able to
implement them by traveling or by coming up with like
new creative stuff or by being able to organize in really
ways. Instead, you have most people trying to like,
corporate, um, and everybody in corporate trying to get
Um, you know, I kind of like the way Peter Feaver
everybody on the inside is trying to get in
the outside is trying to get in, and everybody on the outside
And the real answer is just like walk out the front door.
Which brings me to this point that you sort of mentioned that like,
have progressed in terms of freedom.
And freedom isn't rights. Free- freedom isn't like somebody else telling
can like do this or do that. Right? Um, every right comes with like an
obligation. Every right comes with a duty.
Um, we, in the modern era especially, we've, we conceive of rights
as like the counterpart to like duties, right?
Like, you have to do this and so we'll give you that.
And the argument basically went that like, um, look,
it's only like landed white men in America, for example,
the running of the society. And so they are the only ones who should
you know, they control the land and, you know, they control the slaves,
the working population. So they should be the ones who decide how
policy and, you know, where people can go and the basic things,
an H2O, how, how to shut that gas H. In India, I mean, there
democracy, right? The kings, like the warriors
this like collusion to be like, "Oh, you know, we just control, like,
like labor and we control like where people stay." Uh, we control labor through
like priestly stuff and we control, um, land through like kingly stuff.
And then so we have like kingdoms vaguely where people can like go back and
forth between each other. And clearly we didn't like that.
Uh, a lot of people, like I said, rebelled against the British.
And so this idea of like freedom sort of progressing in tiers
doesn't really hold water to me because obviously people are still like
ridiculously unfree, like fai- Like, yeah, obviously.
I mean, you know, we are having this discussion in the context
super intelligence showing up and taking away all of our freedom
being able to say anything. Can say like, "No, we don't want that.
We don't want it involved in our goddamn life." Um, which makes me feel obviously
as if we're, we're not really free.
So this idea that like, you know, we have to come up with all these like
structures so that like our capacity for violence gets
suppressed, that makes like, that, that... I, I kind of think- Yeah. ...
that's backwards, right? Because like no matter how angry I
get personally, right, I can only commit like X
amount of violence against you. But if I go tell my brother that like, "Hey, I
really hate this guy," I can be able to do like X square violence, like maybe like,
you know, the two of us can coordinate really well
like bar the door so I at least set Sina's like house on fire.
Uh, you know, we, you know, we emotionally, we feel this way.
But like I'm really only able to build a structure
based on how many people I can convince, you know, you have around me.
That's not how states work at all. I think a lot of people just like
the state to mean like their parents.
(laughs)
Uh, a lot of people just like extrapolate the
individuals, like agreeing to like certain standards,
for like arbitrary violence, right?
It allows for people to be like, "I don't care what
you have to say, I'm just going to like blow you up
me and pay taxes to me and give me your food and like, you know,
oil or give me like your..." The people have to like work....
to provide goods and services to me.
You know, to, to me and my country and to my people.
And they, it, it's simply that, this idea of, like,
arbitrary violence, right? Like, a soldier in this army can kill a soldier
army and it's not really personal.
This is the same reason why, like, corporations in the civic
space, uh, are able to, like, make people really afraid because it's
I don't work hard at my job, right, if I don't, like, produce these reports or
install these, like, programs or, like, um, do my
job super well, like, the other people are gonna make more money and they're
obviously gonna win. And it becomes who can, like,
best services, who can scare you, who can undercut the other guy.
And it doesn't make anybody more free.
It just makes arbitrary violence, you know, economic vi- uh,
in this case, just more likely. It means that the small
players, you know, who cater to, like, maybe, like, two or three clients or,
you know, who have no clients at all to sit around
security guards or as, like, shopkeepers, you know, who have a lot of stuff but
can't, like, sell it, like, well enough. I mean, this stuff sucks.
No- nobody... No, no, no, no. Nobody's actually, like, arguing that,
know, if we redistributed, like, you know, if we, if we, if we just,
like, you know... Yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm...
That's my point that, like, I don't think, like, as a whole, our freedom
may have gotten bigger, but
on the day-to-day, I mean,
it, it, it
really just is, you know, like, a problem, like, an actual problem.
Uh, and this is the kind of system that a super intelligence...
Where a super intelligent system starts making sense because it's like, what if it
can give us our freedom back? And, like, it can't. Obviously, it can't.
It's, it's, it's the apotheosis of the system, not,
Yeah, I'm realizing because the points you've
political, I'm worried our debate is just going to
devolve into a... Either a, you know, pro capitalism versus
anti-capitalism debate or pro
anarchism versus pro-democracy, pro-nation state kind of
debate. And
I feel like those debates have been done to death (laughs) and I'm not sure we'll
have any new points to contribute.
But maybe I will start by saying I, I think, yeah, I think w- what I am
hearing is, like, you
have essentially, uh, an anarchist leaning.
I, I don't know, like, after synthesizing all your ideas what's
position, but, like, you seem sympathetic to anarchism,
sympathetic to Marxism. Uh, yeah, I
basically, I love democracy. I love capitalism.
I think capitalism is one of the greatest things humanity has
done. Yeah, so I mean, my leaning is, yeah, I basically, I love democracy.
I love capitalism. I think most of the good things in my life
result of democracy or capitalism indirectly.
Like, if these systems were not invented, I would probably have been literally
living under a king. My life, like, at least politically would have been a lot
worse, even if economically I may have had
Yeah, that's just my leaning. And, like, at, at least from the start.
And obviously, we both seem to agree at some
level that
if we do have, you know, an AI that's better than everyone at
going to, at least in some ways, fundamentally change our society.
And we both seem to agree in a bad way.
And my current answer to that is more
like, as of right now, let's just ban AI
specifically but keep, you know, capitalism and democracy still running.
And, you know, in future, if we can invent a better social system,
great, you know, it's really important to do.
But I am not willing to immediately say, you know, "Oh, capitalism bad because
capitalism leads to AI." It is true that capitalism leads to AI but I'm not
willing to say, "Just because AI bad, therefore capitalism bad." Like, I'm not
willing to make that... I'm not willing to go
recognizing that
most of the good things in my life, at least materially,
non-material things also come out from the material things.
I think, like, Marx actually makes a bunch of these
technology gives you excess resources and excess resources do actually
bring, you know, actual human happiness.
And yeah, like, him and, you know, a bunch of other thinkers do see it as,
okay, now AI is the ultimate endpoint of that,
everything, you get, you know, this one machine
resources. But also, you know, Marx specifically doesn't make this point,
but this is the point that people have made
resources, also therefore infinite control for,
controls the AI. I think that's something we do agree on.
Uh, okay, so now that's just our broader lens.
Now, coming very specifically, uh, to some of the points you
made. Uh, yeah, you were saying, yeah, regarding,
uh... Yeah, like, uh, yeah, I think this is basically one of
standard my, one of my standard critics to anarchism.
I think, uh, you were basically saying, okay, like, people initially start, you
know, like, as individuals, as free, or maybe they then form, you know,
relationships, form groups or whatever.
But the idea of the nation state is, like, not been, like, always
there. It's... It hasn't always been true, I think.
And I'm rephrasing you, I could be rephrasing incorrectly.
Like, it hasn't always been true that humans, if you leave them free,
they will form a group of millions of people and form a nation state and,
go pillage the other group's stuff.
Like, that isn't the default is I think something you're saying.
And I am saying, no, that actually is the default.
If you leave a bunch of humans free, like, eventually some of them are going to
form a big group and they are going to try to kill-
No, I'm, I'm not saying that. I'm, I'm not, I'm not not saying that.
Then maybe I'll just say my point and then-
I'm, I'm just not, not saying that.
... you can reply. Fair enough. When you reply,
But I am claiming, yeah, if you have, like, a bunch of humans,
to do whatever-
Yeah, of course.
... their default outcome for humans is always, like, a bun- set of
humans will decide, "Oh, right, if we form a group,
If we are more powerful, we can go take the other people's stuff
we'll be at the top of the social hierarchy, they will respect us,
more resources, we will have all the women." I just think
default. You can't not do that. Like, like, at least if I look at
literally all of human history, like, it seems very difficult to prevent
humans from doing that. I'm like, you know,
like, okay, look, given that is the default...
And obviously, then that spirals into an arms race because
there decides, "Oh, we want to, you know, form the violent army and, you know, take
care of everyone else," then the other humans also decide, "All right,
going to form the army and, you know, pillage everyone, then, you know, we also
need to form an army to defend ourselves." And then it becomes that army
thinks, "Oh, right, if we had a bunch of technology, we could,
them in spite of their whatever numbers." And then this side says, "Oh, right,
therefore we also need to race them on technology." And then, yeah, that just
becomes an arms race. So
yeah, I just see this as, like, default and then there is
like... Yeah, then for me, the only question is like, you, look,
sapiens always does this, you know, can we do anything better than this?
And for me, then, you know, having, uh, like a
nation state that's even somewhat democratic is better than, you know, just
one, uh, emperor deciding, "You know, all of you are my subjects, you know,
I decide you go to war, therefore you go to war." Versus,
system would be like the group as a whole decides, okay, like if
actually we are like, like... Yeah, the group as a whole decides that,
whether we want to go to war or not, as opposed to, you know,
top deciding it. Like, I think that's marginally better.
Yeah, and similarly with companies, uh,
yeah, actually, no, the companies 0.03-
You know, um-
Yeah, I think, uh, another point which you made was regarding scale.
I think it is definitely true that technology increases the scale at
which-
Oh.
... we can... I think you did make a point around, like,
Uh-
... are violent to small companies, like economically.
Big companies-
Yeah, but in a very specific way. I wasn't just implying that, like, oh,
evil. I think they do something very specific.
And I don't think it's just like economic violence.
I think it's like the, the, the price of losing in
the market is boredom, right? If I open a kirana store and the
guy opposite me, like, opens a kirana store, only one of us gets
customers and stuff. Then, like the, the one who's, like, losing
like, basically has to, like, eat a loss and has to, like, do
nothing all day and, like, feel like a failure.
And not just feel like a failure, actually be the failure.
Someone might say that's he's still choosing to do that, right?
He's, he's still choosing to do that there, but if, if that's the, like,
mode by which people
go about their, like, daily life, you know, stick themselves behind, like, a
counter or behind a desk or behind something and then just
do that, like, all day, like, have, feeling like they have no other choice.
Like, like, it doesn't seem like a form of violence,
that person's entire... If you look at the fact that, you know,
like, not just a... I don't say they have a soul
intangible. But, like, everyone has, like, places they want to visit.
Anybody knows that, like, people are happy when they're, like, traveling,
People know, are happy when they're, like, talking to a lot of people.
Jealousy and rage and... Th- this stuff is all fine. I'm just...
My question, my critique is not, uh, violence, big companies
get to do violence to small companies and it's 0.01.
I, I, I'm just saying that, like, I think a lot of times...
And I'm so sorry if it seems like I've cut you off.
If it is the default that, like, humans gather in big groups and wipe
each other out, why are there so many tribes and
cultures and, and, and groups of people that, like,
you know, between themselves be like, "Okay, well, we don't like that,
of people, but we do really like that group of people." Though all of us
separate, like, we, we like those people, right?
Like, that's a king over there and this is a king over here and this is the people
over here. Um, we don't just go around, like, randomly
conquering people. We just don't do that.
I mean, I mean, there's, there's very little examples of people
know, smashing each other over the head, like, hating each other, like, all the
time, right? Um, I understand that your point is more about like,
on the macro level, that's what happens. That was Marx's point as well.
But I mean, just to be fair, I mean, a lo- a lot of us anarchists have a real
big bone to pick with Marx because, like, for example, by the
way, he literally called, like,
China and India, like, irrelevant to the question of, like,
because they follow what's called the Asiatic mode of production.
Which is like an insane oversight, right?
Which is like, if you were any kind of person who likes
history of, like, um, India or China, you'd be like, "These are very different
countries. These are extremely different countries."
Right.
I'm simply an agrarian. Uh, you know, they came up with all kinds of, like,
political, uh, their own, like, normal political ideas and systems and,
they had, like, histories where they, like, agreed and disagreed and, like,
self-consciously created, like, like structures in and around them.
Uh, and, and saw different things as valuable at
Of course they did. Like, what the hell are you talking about?
Uh, you can't just say that, like, there's the machine mode and there's the,
mode and there's the capitalist mode and the socialist mode
So humans getting in big groups and, and then just smashing each other over the
head is not the default, nor is it stages
of history, right? Where, like, at some point we were like, we were like
monkeys and then we turned... Like, we weren't monkeys, now we've turned into,
like, cool, intelligent people. Now we've turned into something else.
Um, true. I mean, it's just not true.
People are always self-consciously aware of what they want to and don't want to do.
Uh, you know, uh, farming is very different from gardening and peop-
both and, you know, the gardener effect is a very real thing.
People really
like coming up with, uh, very beautiful things.
And it's probably from gardening that, like, you know, farming
happened in the first place. There was slash and burn agriculture.
Agriculture, if you want to call it that.
I mean, people are very careful to, like, not exhaust resources where they were.
That seems a very self-conscious thing, but humans aren't even like,
um, we just get together in big groups and,
Even, even to animals, we're not like that.
We exterminate, like, other humans, um, you know, genocidally
these days and for the past, like, 2,000 years.
And that probably has something to do with the nation state because it's
only nation state that can perform, like, arbitrary violence.
Uh, you know, if, if I kill you and your... If I kill you, it's fine,
I kill your family, it's like, oh, I clearly had a point there because
beyond any reasonable, like-Your point about living like a king
capitalism, yeah, I'm with you, but it's, like, like, a
king ... A king and a slave are very, are, are very similar, right?
In that a slave has duties but no rights and a king has the rights
duties. And, and so in fact, kings and slaves is all really (16:35) very ...
The king is always surrounded by slaves because they really understand each other.
Uh, they really understand what it's like to
Not enforced, but like having basically no say in, like,
you know, the complete alienation of you from your
And the king is always supposed to tolerate that because, you know, he's a,
he's a vast and powerful thing set at the very top of society.
And, you know, the slave is like, "Well, I don't even have a family." Right?
Like, "I can't even make friends." Obviously
like, "Oh, legally I can't have friends.
Legally I'm not even a person." Um, waged labor has a
way of doing this, you know, where it's like the guy bringing you your
is not ... It's not that. The guy who installed your, like,
is not, like, a real person. And the person who, like ...
This is my point, that, like, it just has a way of, like,
from, like, the systems you- you're actually supposed to occupy because
are working for something bigger than yourself.
And historically speaking, waged labor has actually been quite
It has not been the default mode of labor to usually care very much
about what we work on and why we work on it,
Scientists really care about what they do and, and social scientists too.
I, I mean I can agree with your point about
social science, and the answer is because, like, the physical sciences were taking
off and people wanted to be like the Newton of, like, the social sciences where
it's like we run an experiment and we see like how people work.
Um, we get something cool out of it.
Uh, you know, the two big fathers of, uh, sociology, uh,
Durkheim and Marx, um, you know, were also basically just like
saying, "Look, this is the system we're in.
This, this, this, this, this is exactly what's happening." We're hoping
complete description of the system something will change the way a Newton as
descriptive scientist was able to create, like, calculus and all this kind of,
like, really fantastic stuff. In a way like Pythagoras, for example,
know, through geometry able to create, like, a complete description of, like, uh,
complicated human stuff. And these are systems of imagining stuff, right?
These systems sort of pointing out exactly what's going on so that you can
then move into something else. Um, this is my secret point,
in fact. (laughs) The, the, these two things really point towards my
of the biggest form of, like, the biggest system of holding back
often is obviously the mental one, right, where you sort of
stop yourself from imagining some things and only imagine other things or filter
out certain features because you're like, "Those are bad." Uh, humans have a
tendency to, like ... Yeah. Sorry.
Uh, you got something? No. No? It's just people don't (19:23) tendency to
out certain ... Humans have a tendency to filter out stuff
of not think about it. Us anarchists don't.
(laughs) Us, I won't say us, but like, you know, um, anarchist
startups, these kinds of groups that actually have to do stuff,
closely at the difference between what people say and what people actually do,
so that you can, like, intervene in, like, what they do.
And they sort of try to create, like, successful interventions.
Um, I would like to give the example of
uh, you know, Orwellian, you know, the worst.
And it's written by someone ... And people either talk about this
completely. Either people completely overlook this
it's really only because of this." Uh, but it was written by someone who was a
propagandist for the British Raj.
Like, he made his chops as well, like a writ- a writer in Bengal.
And he did quite a lot with the British Raj.
So this sort of right wing propaganda for like Indian and British people, right?
Then he sort of lived an extremely active political life and basically came to the
conclusion that like socialists and, and capitalists are basically the same.
Which is an insane thing to say, you know?
Um, from the biggest anarchist to the worst
they're all basically just like coming up with ways to like kill each other, right,
and then- and not talk about it. If you've read 1984, you know,
Engsoc, you know, English socialism, uh, it basically just says that like,
you know, in a society with this much level of like
like really, really shitty basic social control where
always being watched and some machine is always ...
Some, some government official is always understanding who you are.
The truth is, like, that turns people into the kind of people
fundamentally distrust other people. Right?
Um, it's, it's a very precise misunderstanding of
anarchism and socialism and all of these like vaguely humanist
movements that are like, "Look, machines would be good if they
just like took away our work and gave us more time for
fun." But it seems as if they're just like
taking up all of our time, turning us into, like, more machine-like
slaves. I mean, this just seems to be happening.
And there's no fun left. All the, the, the context of fun now
becomes like can you play football?
Can you watch TV on the football as opposed to like, you know,
a game or something interesting to do with your time or something that you want
other people to do with their time.
And it's like that has to be done so that people can, like, have a lot of fun,
that's like evil socialism, right? (laughs) That's not even socialism.
That's like the capitalist mode of production that it's like, um, you
know, you have to be able to sort of record
big live audience see them or like bet on them
know, profit-making, surplus value generating activity.
You know, you can't just enjoy yourself.
And cultures that aren't
capitalist in this way tend to actually just be sort of centered
around, um, enjoying themselves and sustaining
themselves and self-consciously, right, like live good, happy lives, you
know. You know, there was a lot of philosophy anyway that's all
thing. And
dystopian fiction, it creates this like very
real system of sort of holding back where you're like future with
these people in charge would be bad.
You know, future with where everything is governed socially.
So if, if, if, if people don't like you, then you, then you'll be
ostracized and so you'll end up like not liking people.
Uh, and, and that'll be the
political theme. That's just not how like the real
world works. That's not how interventions work.
I mean, you live in all these systems where you're
and-It's machines and machine learning that can, like,
optimize you for, like, saying that, "Hey, you can have a little bit of freedom
there if you do that." I- I hope I'm being coherent about this
I- I feel like I get very vague (laughs) um,
basically there being
no possibility of imagining a future- future better than ours,
um, at the moment. And I- I- I would sort of lay the blame
solely on the capitalists, um, if, you know, like, 50 years ago.
(laughs) Today, I- I'd lay that blame on just, like,
kind of people who are like, "Um, computers are the- are the future and- and
they're the best." Because
a fancy server rack does not make a, an intelligent
society and being able to maintain and continue one does not make an
society, and being able to dam a river and provide electricity in houses does
not automatically make that society better, right?
What you need is, like, actually competent interventions.
"Hey, can we get, like, this set of medicines, you know,
medicines to these people so they can live, like, somewhat long lives?" Um,
there's at least broadly where the state is supposed to provide healthcare, uh,
protection. And in the guise of that, the rest of
the package is weird. The rest of the package is like, like
those are the three things humans really care about, you know.
Like, humans care about educating their children
Humans care about, you know, taking care of each other's health and
humans really care about protecting other humans, I think.
These are the three places that when you'll notice that, like, you know,
these machine learning people are, like, really trying to, like, uh, say, "Let-
let's optimize this. Let's really optimize these three things."
three things we'll be able to optimize perfectly." Uh, education, you know,
will basically get rid of teachers.
Biotech will basically start inventing all the drugs (inaudible)
fantastic. And, like,
protection/employment, right, where it's like, we'll perfectly allocate
everybody so that there's no crime, you know,
to do. Um, you know, if anybody steps out of line,
shock them or, like, joke them off later (laughs) as the way.
Um, yeah, so I think that sort of being the future that
these, like, uncaring
information-type people
can only think of. Because this is what information science reduces you
to. Systems engineering and this kind of stuff actually takes into
account, like, you know, what people want to be and where-
find and what they see maybe as some greater value.
It's inherently non-capitalist because it sees humans and human
flourishing and animal flourishing and other beings flourishing and,
being able to self-consciously take decisions about yourself, especially
realize that, like, holy shit, like, this whole damn thing is
rotten. And those in- those decisions are basically impossible under
representative democratic systems where, like, aristocrats and heroes, um, will
tell you that, like, "Look, this makes money," or, "Look,
Plebiscite systems are actually really undemocratic.
We've known this since the time of Thucydides.
The Peloponnesian War basically ended up as a completely democratic conflict.
And it was pretty obvious that, like, nobody actually wanted it to happen
all these terrible things kept happening, you know.
Anybody seriously, like, who was like, "Okay, well, let's introduce these five,
interventions. We'll- we'll do great." Great.
Um, that's not my point. The- the biggest one
is mentally holding back and machine
learning, polling, you know, um,
capitalism, sure. I'm not (inaudible) .
These are the kind of things that sort of primarily try to hold you
language, aren't simulating what other people want
This expression of, like, what you actually want is,
to actually getting it, you know. Is wanting stuff...
isn't wanting to be desirable, if- if you get my point.
What you want is the actual stuff you want and
meaning is important. Being able to ascribe your own meaning to
opposed to being, like, this man-in-box with engine, man-in-box
shared by other people is... seems like a pretty important
you know. Not- not not getting to that.
So, um, I think you broadly made two major
points, maybe three. Uh, so I feel like the first major point
made, uh, was, yeah, around
anarchism, uh, according to you. You...
if you have, like, a huge number of, you know, people doing whatever they want,
like, by... for you, it is not the default that, oh, like,
bright idea of, "Oh, let's just form a group
Like, you s- you are saying, like, that does not always happen by default.
I'm saying that does always happen by default and you gave some reasons for
I think that was your first major point.
Uh, I think your second major point was
around, uh, capitalism and optimization and then you also
connected to that how ML enables more efficient optimization, uh, which
is
essentially in a capitalist society, you are forced to
optimize for certain things, then you become an optimizer. It's...
then it no longer just becomes, like, oh, at my...
like, at least people who are, like, pro-capitalism would say, you know, like,
your day job, you know, you have to optimize for XYZ things
the work, uh, you may be alienated from it,
free time and free resources which you're free to do whatever.
But I think that would be the optimistic way of, you know, defending capitalism and
I'm sympathetic to that. But I think the point you are making,
okay, even if you do got- you- you do get a bunch of, you know,
free resources at the end of your day job because, you know, your mind has been
trained to only optimize for those things, you know, you don't really
have the ability to do fun things, to build
relationships, to build maybe communities with hobby
know, other sorts of things. I think that's-
Yeah, well-
... how I-
... not that... not that simple. Not that simple because, like, you know,
to spend a lot of time with your communities in order to build them.
You have to do it very self-consciously and if, like, eight hours a day of your
consciousness is that, then you won't be able to spend
even... you know, eight hours a day, you could be doing something you don't
with and then have to, like, go in and be, like, "Actually, guys, you know,
Buddhists say they all renounce all worldly work," and then back to
worldly work in the (laughs) in the morning, so...
Uh, so I am actually sympathetic to that point, which is that, okay,
eight hours of your day at a job you don't really have your heart in, that
is going to affect even the remaining time you have free, the remaining resources.
Even if you have a bun- you did your job, you got a bunch of money, you have a
bunch of free time, you still may not be able to use them in
Like, I actually agree with you on this point-
And that most people are working jobs they don't want....
most people who work jobs they don't want-
Yeah.
... like, more than the people who aren't.
Yeah. I also agree with you on that (laughs) . Yeah.
I think I agree with you on that, so I think that's a second point you made.
And I think your third point, no, and this thing you also connected to,
okay, because this level of optimizing every
bad, and because, you know, machine learning is being used for
aspect of your life, including relationships,
healthcare. Like, because you see these things as some way
to be optimized, like opti- ... And therefore you say, "Yeah,
learning is bad." I think this was broadly still in your second point.
I think your third point was
around, uh, imagination for the future, and how, like, people who
write dystopian fiction are limiting our imagination for
actually what is even possible in the future.
I think that-
Not on purpose. Again, I don't wanna prescribe an intentionality.
A lot of them do, like, "Oh, hope in the time of, like,
know, we live in a ... Some, some people feel like we live in a
That's fine to, like, imagine hope, but that's very good.
But, like, you know, it's writing, you know, the ... Some- ...
I find myself wanting to, like, give literary ideas (laughs) instead of,
historical, anthropological or social or, like, technical ones, you know.
'Cause they're very poetic.
Got it. Okay, fine. So I ... Neither of us is specifically blaming the
dystopian fiction writers for doing this, but the result is,
uh, society as a whole, when they read dystopian fiction,
they are programmed to accept, okay, like, you know, life sucks
right now in certain ways and it is going to continue to suffer,
because, you know, this is what all these people are forecasting.
We are not able to imagine better. So I think that was your third point.
Uh, okay, so I think I, at least at a high level,
points. Maybe there were a lot of details-
(laughs)
... maybe I may not have gotten (laughs) , but I think at a high level, I think
this is what I understood from your points.
Now, I mean, my counterpoints to these things
regarding, you know, like anarchism and, you know, big groups and
violence. Uh, yeah, I think I would want to know, like,
kind of data point ... I don't know.
I think now this discussion is shifting (laughs) more into a debate,
of all. I think a thing that's actually happening.
Uh, is there any data point that would actually change your mind?
I think you seem to have a view of history which is like, you know, one support it,
like, individuals by default were free, at least when homo
sapiens started off. And eventually, some people had these ideas of forming
and nation states, et cetera, and this was bad.
And
I am saying-
I am-
... no, for ... Okay, okay, you disagree with that.
But I, I think my view is, like-
Okay.
... as long as homo sapiens has walked this
groups using violence to take away other groups' stuff.
Like, this has always been true. And I'm like, if I show you, you know,
points, so that would that change your mind?
Like, if I show you, in 8000 BC, these were the empires and emperors,
6000 BC these were the empires, in 4000 BC these were the empires,
these were the empires. Like, if I show you all that concrete data,
something that would change your mind?
Like, because, I mean, this has moved into a debate-
It, it b-
... and now I do want to figure out, okay, if this is a debate now, you know,
what's the crux? You know, what data would actually change-
But I think we can, I think with that, I think we can stop there.
May- maybe we can have this discussion next
We are, in fact, very interested in doing this.
Uh-
Oh, yeah.
... do-
Yes, I-
Human groups necessarily 10 forwards, like, outward scaling, this
thing. And, and I don't think that's true.
Yeah.
I think human groups-
Okay.
We can be-
So this was, I think, my first point.
So if, if I provided you data like this, would that actually change your mind is
the question? Because if you say yes, then I will actually sit
and we have to do a bunch of research.
(laughs)
But
yeah, so that's, like, point number one regard-
I have a lot of counterpoint. I have a lot of counter data points
like, why that is so ... I'd be happy to have it, but I just think-
Yeah, yeah. Then your point number two on capitalism
us to become optimizers and even up- ... se- ...
to the point where we optimize lots of aspects of our life that maybe are better
left not optimized. Uh, okay, you seem to (laughs)
disagree with that framing.
'Cause I'm not arguing for, like, opt- ...
like, not optimizing certain stuff.
I'm just saying that, like, it's not actually getting optimized.
Like it, it ... You know, we're not actually optimizing for stuff we
optimize for, right? Like-
Oh, we are optimizing for the wrong thing.
I'm, like, really obviously optimizing for the wrong
Like, nobody wants to
... not even, like, do certain jobs.
Nobody wants certain things to be real.
You know what I ... Like, that's what I'm trying to say,
And yet, those things are becoming realer and realer every day.
Case in point, super intelligent machines
I mean, those are only profitable if, like, you know,
you're some, like, millionaire, like, uh, with, with, like, with like some big
house. Uh, not just millionaires, right? If you ...
if you're the kind of person who comes home after work into, like, your apartment
and someone ... some guy on the internet is selling you,
like, you know, you'll have a intelligent thing in your
the lights off when you feel like it," and it's ...
You'll be like, "How much are you gonna charge me for it, you know?
Because, like, you know, I can just turn it off myself."
made a lot of decisions in that process, right?
You, you already agree to live in a house.
You've already agreed to, like, you know, have, like, smart lights controlled by
certain systems. And you've already made a lot of decisions
not have otherwise if you had the free choice of,
cabin in the woods and only talk to my friends," or,
with, like, no internet connection at all and,
certain things," and, you know. That's kind of my point, that, like,
f- ... free structures are very different from, like,
free labor. I don't want people, like, working for me. I'm happy to, like ...
like, reciprocal labor and, you know, hustle with people and,
I think a lot of people are. And if there was some, like,
felt like everybody, elders and youngers were,
But currently, you know, it's very easy to, like,
like, the individualized, atomized person.
It's very difficult to do that for a family, right?
It's basically impossible because, like, a dad doesn't want, like, his kid watching
pornography all day, but the kid wants to optimize for watching
video games all day. And the dad wants to optimize for
the mom is ... might be like, "Actually, I want my kid to be, like, a, a free
thinker." And then, you know, what should the machine do?
Obviously not. Decisions humans make. These are important decisions humans make.
You know? It's, it's, it's really
... Just, just involving machine learning in
sense of, like, where the future is going, some imagined, like, good stuff.
And-... the suburban lifestyle where, like, people, like, go to, and
like, you know, box from box to box.
It's just, it's not going to be useful for
more real agency or power in that, right?
That's what I mean when I say that capitalism forces us to optimize for
don't want to optimize for. Not that, like, you know, you
shouldn't buy, like, cosmetics because, like, that makes...
You know, because you're beautiful as you are.
My point is the first one, not the latter.
Yeah, uh, yeah, I think I've still not understood this
I think you've given a bunch of concrete examples, and, like, examples are useful,
but I tend to be, like, here are my, you know, crisp elegant world models
of explain everything. And, like, from your examples, I'm not able to, like,
into my framework of how I view reality.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's just because, like, one is, like, uh, uh, a more
complicated understanding example, and the other is, like, this is
usually what people mean, and I don't mean that.
Okay, yeah, I think that, yeah, so there's-
Like, I don't mean that we're optimizing for stuff...
Again, uh, this might again literally be another
but I think it's possible some alternate society you're imagining, like, the...
I literally don't have that in my head.
Like, I literally have no idea what you're
(laughs) That's even possible.
(laughs)
But, uh, that's fine because, I mean,
my general answer to a lot of these types of questions
is, yeah, like, or like, you know, why is social media
optimized to be so addictive? I think your example about porn goes into
general, like, that ties into a general point about,
an arms race where, you know, every person is, like,
Uh, your point about education also comes
Yeah, like, unless, like, maybe parents decide, "Oh, you
know, we want to put our kid in this specific
like, by default, it is a competitive thing of,
okay, if we put our kid in this school, you know, therefore he'll have a good job,
he'll make more money. That becomes an arms race.
By default, a nation state decides, you know,
decide, you know, if we put XYZ things in our education
have citizens who are, you know, obedient to us and make money for us, and
not... And, like, that's the really priority,
optimized from that thing. And we are, I think you and I are in agreement
that, you know, a lot of these systems optimize for narrow
you know, full set of what humans care about.
You know, other things humans care about get left on
We are in agreement on this. Uh, like, I agree with
you, there are a lot of, you know, harms that come about as a
result of being in this sort of capitalistic, arms race, competitive sort
of society. But yeah, my answer to all of that is
nobody else has any alternative. And again,
Maybe someone else has some alternative that they're actually happy about.
We... There are a lot of alternatives. You can just read history.
There's a lot of alternatives, people.
Yeah, yeah, so I think my actual disagreement with
There are better alternatives out there, it wasn't-
So I think my actual disagreement with you here is not, like, you know, do these
downsides exist or not? How big are they?
Like, I actually agree there are a lot of downsides that
I'm just like, the other defaults are literally
dictatorships, there are fas- fascist governments, they're totalitarian
governments. These are the only alternate societies we have
envision. And I think, like, that is where my actual disagreement with you
this kind of line of thinking is. Regarding your third
point, uh, on dystopian fiction restricting our
imagination for the future, I think, I think I strongly agree-
agree with you on that. Like, I think more people should be writing
science fiction, a technologically advanced future that
and people are happy with. Like, I think more people should be writing
And I think that's hard to write for a bunch of such reasons.
I mean, one reason is we literally don't...
Well, there are a few reasons that's hard.
So the first reason that's hard is if that
future you are writing about includes a superintelligence.
So superintelligence by definition almost can do things that you cannot imagine.
Not just it can do things you can't do, it can do things that are beyond your
imagination, its imagination is beyond yours.
So from that point on, I mean, what's that guy's name? Uh, um...
No, um, he's-
I'll just finish that in like five minutes.
Yeah.
Yeah, uh, I think Ray Kurzweil and somebody else, like they said,
singularity is by de- by definition almost like from there
onwards you cannot predict the future because, you know, you're...
Like, if you could predict the future, you'd be that intelligent yourself.
That type of thinking. So I think that's the first reason writing
science fiction is hard. The second reason writing science,
science fiction is hard because, I mean, a lot of science fiction writers do
end up realizing that, you know, our current social systems, you
know, like, our education system, capitalism, democracy-
Yeah, yeah.
... may actually survive in this extremely
they need to, like, literally invent some new soc- social,
write that future. Uh, which is again, like, a really hard thing to do.
Which they should do. I mean, which, which, which-
Yeah, they-
... yeah, they should do.
They should do and I strongly recommend, like, you know, if, you know, science
fiction writers have ideas on, you know, what political systems should govern the
future, like, I strongly recommend that they write about those things.
I think that's very important to do.
And I wish that people-
One example, if I can just plug an example. Um,
Le Guin does this really well, um, and she's an anarchist writer.
Anarchists that have to take this very seriously because we often
proposing alternative versions of the future enabled by technology
this kind of stuff that we live in harmony with where...
Because that's, like, our political, whole political idea, you know, like many
worlds under one. Um, people like Ursula K.
Le Guin actually do this stuff where you can dream amazing and complicated
worlds that take their technology-
Yeah, I have read some of her stuff. Yeah.
... and social systems, like, amazing.
Yeah, yeah, I have read some of Ursula Le Guin's
a bunch of my disagreements with that are, yeah, as you said, literally my
disagreements with anar- anarchism, anarchy itself.
Like, uh, yeah, again, it comes back to our point number one of
know, do groups or do humans by default always
Like, I'm like, "Yes." You're like, "No." I think that
which will come in even there. But yeah, uh, so I, I think
that would be my reply to I think all your three points.
So we can maybe now e- either we can end the conversation or
you can give replies to this. Yeah.
No, I mean, I think my final opinions...
Thank you so much for summarizing so, so many of my points.
I, I feel quite bad that I'm not doing that for you.
(laughs) I feel as if I maybe...Um, you would take no- more
space in the conversation than I should.
But you know, um, sorry. (crosstalk)
Yeah. Yeah. Um, but no offense, I mean,
uh, your points aren't very, uh, inspiring, you know what I mean?
Like I... if it, if, if like, if like, if like the alternative
to... i- if, like, banning superintelligence is
so capitalism can continue and people can continue to do like really
and that kind of stuff. I mean, I think part of the appeal...
so part of the appeal of the cryptocurrency as well, right?
Like people who were basically told, you know, basically whatever you do will
matter because it'll be on chain and it'll be the most important
thing and memes will be the future.
And
it's the same cell that like artificial intelligence
It's like, oh well, it'll do all the like boring jobs
and create like perfect supply chains and this kind of stuff.
And then we'll just be able to feel, to do the things we actually want to do,
you know, travel around and build really complicated buildings
nice places and that kind of stuff.
Which isn't true, that it's just not used for that. I mean,
there's just no correlation from X to Y.
There's not a clear path. And it's because the, the,
this hits the outer layer of like
capitalist work, you know? Basically here is
fuel, here is engine, here is output, right?
And you can basically use the output to like go get more
fuel and we can just do this forever. Or at least not forever.
We'll use (2:00) in the, the problems of history when like real
inventions are actually a lot more complicated than that, right?
Like if you think about the microwave for example.
Sure, it takes in electricity and, and it spits out heat,
but it's very different from butane, butane tanks,
right? Like the, the technology of like pressurizing tanks
heat stuff in the future. And it's even more different technology of
insulation which like keeps houses warm in the future, which we figured out pretty
early on. And that's even more different than like
stone refrigerators where people would basically like kill animals and put their
meat in that stone and then bury the stone because the stone
cold. Um, when people think technology, they basically only think of
like, you know, server racks and information
technology and cars because those are the ones that like
economically have people doing really shit boring
jobs. Um, people think that like, yeah, technology
should be something we all work on, right?
It's, it's good for us because it's economical.
And that's a very British minded way of going about it.
When the British take out with the Industrial Revolution,
like global custodians of it. You know, technology is an invention that makes our
lives better. Uh, it's specific interventions
And this is something that anarchists...
I think a lot of like people who actually build startups want to like really
actually do, which is just like stop people's times from
being wasted and make people live like meaningful lives where like, you know,
self-consciously create where they...
where society becomes an act of mutual creation and value
becomes the most self-conscious part or most conscious part of that creation.