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Liv Boeree: Poker, Game Theory, AI, Simulation, Aliens & Existential Risk | Lex Fridman Podcast #314 — Transcript

by Lex Fridman · 39,860 words · 6,594 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00evolutionarily we you know if we see a
0:02lion running at us we didn't have time
0:03to sort of calculate the lion's kinetic
0:05energy and you know is it optimal to go
0:08this way or that way you just reacted
0:10and
0:11physically our bodies are well attuned
0:13to actually make right decisions but
0:14when you're playing a game like poker
0:16this is not something that you ever you
0:17know evolved to do and yet you're in
0:20that same flight or fight response um
0:22and so that's a really important skill
0:24to be able to develop to basically learn
0:25how to like
0:27meditate in the moment and calm yourself
0:28so that you can think clearly
0:32the following is a conversation with liv
0:34marie
0:35formerly one of the best poker players
0:37in the world trained as an
0:39astrophysicist and is now a
0:41philanthropist and an educator on topics
0:44of game theory physics complexity and
0:47life
0:49this is the lex friedman podcast to
0:51support it please check out our sponsors
0:53in the description and now dear friends
0:55here's liv
0:57bree
0:58what role do you think luck plays in
1:00poker and in life you can pick whichever
1:03one you want poker or life and or life
1:06the longer you play
1:08the less influence luck has you know
1:10like with all things the bigger your
1:12sample size
1:13um the more the quality of your
1:15decisions or your strategies matter
1:18um so
1:19to answer that question yeah in poco it
1:21really depends if you and i sat and
1:23played
1:24ten hands right now i might only win 52
1:27of the time 53 maybe
1:29um but if we played 10 000 hands then
1:31i'll probably win like
1:33over 98 99 of the time so
1:36it's a question of sample sizes
1:38and what are you figuring out over time
1:40the betting strategy that this
1:41individual does or literally doesn't
1:43matter against any individual over time
1:45against any individual over time the
1:47better player because they're making
1:48better decisions so what does that mean
1:50to make a better decision well
1:52ah to get into the real nitty-gritty
1:54already um basically
1:56poker is a game of math
1:58um there are these strategies familiar
2:00with like nash equilibria that's yes
2:02right so there are these game theory
2:04optimal strategies that you can adopt um
2:08and the closer you play to them the less
2:10exploitable you are
2:12so
2:13because i've studied the game a bunch um
2:15although admittedly not for a few years
2:17but back in you know when i was playing
2:18all the time um i would study these game
2:21theory optimal solutions
2:22and try and then adopt those strategies
2:24when i go and play so i'd play against
2:26you and i would do that
2:27and
2:29because
2:31the objective when you're playing game
2:32theory optimal it's actually it's a loss
2:34minimization thing that you're trying to
2:36do um your best bet is to try and play
2:40uh the sort of similar style you also
2:42need to try and adopt this loss
2:44minimization
2:45um but because i've been playing much
2:47longer than you i'll be better at that
2:49so first of all you're not taking
2:51advantage of my mistakes but then on top
2:53of that
2:54i'll be better at recognizing
2:56when you are playing sub-optimally and
2:59then deviating from this game theory
3:01optimal strategy to exploit your bad
3:03plays
3:04can you define game theory and nash
3:07equilibria
3:08can we try to sneak up to it in a bunch
3:10of ways like oh what's the game theory
3:12framework of analyzing poker analyzing
3:14any kind of situation so game theory is
3:16just basically the
3:19study of
3:21decisions within a competitive situation
3:25um i mean it's stately a branch of
3:26economics um but it also applies to like
3:29wider decision theory um and
3:34you know usually when you see it it's
3:35these like little payoff matrices and so
3:37on that's how it's depicted but it's
3:38essentially just like study of
3:40strategies under different competitive
3:42situations
3:43um
3:44and as it happens certain games in fact
3:46many many games um have these things
3:48called nash equilibria and what that
3:50means is when you're in a nash
3:51equilibrium basically uh it is not
3:55there is no strategy
3:57that you can take
3:59that would be more beneficial than the
4:01one you're currently taking assuming
4:02your opponent is also doing the same
4:04thing um so it'd be a bad idea you know
4:06if we're both playing a in you know a
4:08game three optimal strategy if either of
4:10us deviate from that now
4:12the other you know the we're putting
4:14ourselves at a disadvantage um rock
4:16paper scissors is actually a really
4:17great example of this like if we
4:20to were to start playing rock paper
4:22scissors you know you know nothing about
4:23me and we're going to play
4:24for all our money let's play 10 rounds
4:27of it what would your sort of optimal
4:29strategy be do you think what would you
4:31do
4:32um
4:33let's see
4:35i
4:35would
4:38probably try to be as random as possible
4:42exactly you want to because you don't
4:44know anything about me
4:45you don't want to give anything about a
4:47way about yourself so ideally you'd have
4:48like a little dice or somewhat you know
4:50perfect randomizer that makes you
4:52randomize 33 of the time each of the
4:54three different things and in response
4:56to that
4:57um well actually i can kind of do
4:58anything but i would probably just
5:00randomize back too but actually it
5:01wouldn't matter because you're i know
5:02that you're playing randomly um so that
5:05would be us in a nash equilibrium um
5:07where we're both playing this like
5:08unexploitable strategy
5:10however if after a while you then notice
5:12that i'm playing rock a little bit more
5:15often than i should yeah you're the kind
5:17of person that would do that wouldn't
5:18you sure yes yes yes i'm more of a
5:20scissors girl but anyway you are uh no
5:22i'm a as i said randomizer uh
5:25so you notice i'm throwing rock too much
5:26or something like that right now you'd
5:28be making a mistake by continuing
5:30playing this game theory optimal
5:31strategy because well the previous one
5:32because
5:33you are now
5:35there's an i'm making a mistake and
5:37you're not deviating and exploiting my
5:39mistake um so you'd want to start
5:41throwing paper a bit more often um in
5:43whatever you figure is the right sort of
5:45percentage of the time that i'm throwing
5:46rock too often so that's basically an
5:50example of where you know what what game
5:52three optimal strategy is in terms of
5:53loss minimization but it's not always uh
5:56the maximally profitable thing if your
5:58opponent is doing stupid stupid stuff
6:00which you know in that example so that's
6:03kind of then how it works in poker but
6:04it's a lot more complex
6:06um and the way poker players typically
6:10you know nowadays they study the games
6:12change so much and i think we should
6:13talk about how it sort of evolved um but
6:15nowadays like the top pros basically
6:18spend all their time
6:19in between sessions
6:20running these simulators
6:22uh using like software where they do
6:24basically monte carlo simulations sort
6:26of doing
6:27billions of fictitious self-play
6:29hands
6:30you input a
6:32fictitious hand scenario like oh what do
6:34i do with jack nine suited on a
6:36king ten four two two spade board um uh
6:41and and you know against this bet size
6:43so you'd input that press play it'll run
6:46it's it's uh you know it's billions of
6:48fake hands and then it'll converge upon
6:50what the game theory optimal strategies
6:51are um
6:53and then you want to try and memorize
6:54what these are basically they're like
6:56ratios of how often you know what types
6:57of hands uh you want to bluff and what
7:00percentage of the time so then there's
7:01this additional layer of inbuilt
7:03randomization built in yeah those those
7:04kind of simulations incorporate all the
7:06betting strategies and everything else
7:08like that so they
7:09so as opposed to some kind of very crude
7:11mathematical model of what's the
7:12probability you went just based on the
7:14quality of the card uh it's including
7:17everything else too the the game theory
7:19of it yes
7:20yeah essentially and what's interesting
7:22is that nowadays if you want to be a top
7:24pro and you go and play in these really
7:25like the super high stakes tournaments
7:27or tough cash games if you don't know
7:29this stuff you're going to get eaten
7:31alive in the long run yeah but of course
7:33you could get lucky over the short run
7:35and that's where this like luck factor
7:36comes in because
7:37luck is both a blessing and a curse
7:40if luck didn't you know if there wasn't
7:41this random element and there wasn't the
7:43ability for
7:44worse players to win sometimes then
7:46poker would fall apart
7:48you know the same reason people don't
7:49play chess
7:50professionally for money against
7:53you don't see people going and hustling
7:54uh chess like not knowing
7:56trying to make a living from it because
7:58you know there's very little luck in
7:59chess but there's quite a lot of luck in
8:00poker have you seen a beautiful mind
8:03that movie years ago well what do you
8:05think about the game theoretic
8:06formulation of
8:07uh what is it the hot blonde at the bar
8:09do you remember like oh yeah the way
8:11they illustrated it is they're trying to
8:13pick up a girl at a bar and there's
8:15multiple girls they're like friend it's
8:17like a friend group and you're trying to
8:19approach i don't remember the details
8:20but i remember don't you like then speak
8:22to her friends yeah yeah like that fame
8:25disinterest i mean it's classic pick-up
8:26artist stuff right you you want to and
8:28they were trying to uh correlate that
8:29somehow that being an optimal strategy
8:33a
8:34game theoretically why
8:36why what like i don't think i remember
8:38don't imagine that there i mean there's
8:40probably an optimal strategy is it
8:42does that mean that there's an actual
8:43nash equilibrium of like picking up
8:45girls do you know the uh the marriage
8:48problem it's optimal stopping yes so
8:51where it's an optimal dating strategy
8:54where you
8:55uh do you remember yeah i think it's
8:56like something like you you you know
8:58you've got like a set of 100 people
8:59you're going to look through and after
9:01how many
9:03do you
9:04now after that after going on this many
9:06dates out of a hundred at what point do
9:08you then go okay the next best person i
9:10see is that the right one and i think
9:11it's like something like 37 percent
9:14uh
9:15it's one over e whatever that is right
9:17which i think is
9:19yeah
9:21we're gonna fact-check that
9:23um
9:24yeah so but it's funny under those
9:27strict constraints then yes after that
9:29many people as long as you have a fixed
9:31sized pool
9:32then you just pick the the per the next
9:35person that is better than anyone you've
9:37seen before yeah
9:39um
9:40have you have you tried this have you
9:41incorporated it i'm one of those people
9:43i might we're and we're going to discuss
9:45this i
9:46and
9:47what do you mean those people
9:50i try not to optimize stuff i try to uh
9:53listen to the heart
9:55i don't
9:56think
9:57um i
9:58like my mind immediately is attracted to
10:04optimizing everything and i think that
10:08if if you really give in to that kind of
10:10addiction that you lose the
10:12the joy of the small things the minutia
10:15of life i think i don't know it says i'm
10:18concerned about the addictive nature of
10:19my personality in that regard in some
10:21ways
10:24while i think the on average people
10:28under try and quantify things or try
10:30under optimize um there are some people
10:33who you know it's like with all these
10:35things it's a you know it's a balancing
10:36act i've been on dating apps but i've
10:38never used them
10:39i i'm sure they have data on this
10:41because they probably have the optimal
10:43stopping control problem because aren't
10:45a lot of people that use social like
10:47dating apps are on there for a long time
10:50so the the the interesting
10:53the interesting aspect is like all right
10:56how long before you stop looking before
10:59it actually starts affecting your mind
11:01negatively such that you see
11:03dating as a kind of
11:05um
11:07a game a kind of game versus an actual
11:11uh
11:12process of finding somebody that's going
11:13to make you happy for the rest of your
11:14life that's really interesting uh they
11:17have the data i wish they would be able
11:18to release that data and i do want to
11:21it's okay cupid right i think they ran a
11:22huge huge study on all of their yeah
11:25they're more data-driven i think
11:27what folks are yeah i think there's a
11:28lot of opportunity for dating apps in
11:30general you know even bigger than dating
11:31apps people connecting on the internet i
11:35just hope they're more data driven
11:37and it doesn't seem that way
11:40i think like uh i've always want i
11:42always thought that um
11:44good reads should be a dating app
11:47like uh i've never used it the goodreads
11:50is a good reason just list
11:52like books that you've read okay and
11:55allows you to comment on the books you
11:56read and what books you're currently
11:58reading it's a giant social networks of
12:00people reading books and that seems to
12:01be a much better database of like
12:03interests of course to constrain you to
12:05the books you're reading but like
12:07that really reveals so much more about
12:09the person allows you to discover shared
12:12interests because books are kind of
12:13window into the way you see the world
12:15also like the kind of places
12:19people you're curious about the kind of
12:20ideas you're curious about are you a
12:21romantic or are you called calculating
12:24rationalists are you
12:25are you into iron rand or are you into
12:27bernie sanders are you into whatever
12:29right and i feel like that reveals so
12:31much more than like a a person
12:33trying to look hot from a certain angle
12:36and a tinder profile and it would also
12:37be a really great filter
12:38in the first place for people it selects
12:40for people who read books and are
12:42willing to go and
12:43rate them and
12:45give feedback on them and so on so
12:46that's already a really strong filter
12:48probably the type of people you'd be
12:49looking for well at least be able to
12:51fake reading books i mean the thing
12:52about books you don't really need to
12:54read it you can just game
12:55yeah game the dating app by feigning
12:58intellectualism can i admit something
13:00very horrible about myself go on the
13:03things that you know i don't have many
13:04things in my closet but this is one of
13:06them
13:07i've never actually really read
13:09shakespeare i've only read cliff notes
13:12and i got a five in the ap english uh
13:14exam
13:15and i took
13:17uh the which books have i read oh yeah
13:19which was the the exam on which oh no
13:21they they include a lot of them um
13:24but hamlet
13:25uh i don't even know if you read romeo
13:27and juliet
13:28uh macbeth i don't remember but i don't
13:31understand it it's like really cryptic
13:33it's hard it's really i don't and it's
13:36not that pleasant to read it's like
13:38ancient speak i don't understand it
13:40anyway maybe i was too dumb i'm still
13:42too dumb but uh
13:44i did go to five which is yeah yeah i
13:46don't know how the u.s grading system oh
13:48no so ap english is a
13:50there's kind of this advanced versions
13:52of courses in high school and you take a
13:54test that is like a broad test for that
13:57subject and includes a lot it wasn't
13:59obviously just shakespeare i think a lot
14:00of it was also writing
14:03uh written you have like ap physics ap
14:06computer science ap biology ep chemistry
14:09and then ap english or ap literature i
14:12forget what it was
14:13but i think shakespeare was a part of
14:15that but i and you and your gamer the
14:17point is you gamified it
14:19well entirety i was into getting a's
14:22i saw it as a game
14:24i don't think any
14:26i don't think all the learning i've done
14:30has been outside of the outside of
14:33school the deepest learning i've done
14:34has been outside of school with a few
14:36exceptions especially in grad school
14:38like deep computer science courses but
14:40that was still outside of school because
14:42it was outside of getting site it was
14:43outside of getting the a for the course
14:46the best stuff i've ever done is
14:48when you read the chapter and you do
14:50many of the problems at the end of the
14:51chapter which is usually not what's
14:53required for the course like the hardest
14:55stuff
14:56in fact textbooks are freaking
14:57incredible if you go back now and you
15:00look at like biology textbook or
15:03or
15:04any of the computer science textbooks on
15:06algorithms and data structures those
15:07things are incredible they have the best
15:10summary of a subject plus they have
15:12practice problems of increasing
15:14difficulty that allows you to truly
15:16master the basic like the fundamental
15:18ideas behind that that was i go through
15:20my entire physics degree
15:22with one textbook that was just really
15:25comprehensive one that they told us at
15:26the beginning of the first year buy this
15:29but you're gonna have to buy
15:3015 other books for all your
15:31supplementary courses and i was like
15:34every time i just checked to see whether
15:35this book covered it and it did
15:37and i think i only bought like two or
15:39three extra and thank god because
15:40they're so super expensive textbooks
15:41it's a whole racket they've got going on
15:43um
15:44yeah they are they could just
15:46you get the right one it's just like a
15:47manual for
15:49but what's interesting though
15:51is
15:52this is the tyranny of of having exams
15:55and metrics it's the journey of exams
15:57and metrics yes i loved them because i
15:59loved i'm very competitive and i liked
16:01yes i liked finding ways to gamify
16:03things and then like sort of dust off my
16:05shoulders afterwards when i get get a
16:06good grade or be annoyed at myself when
16:08i didn't um but yeah you're absolutely
16:10right and that the actual
16:12you know how much of that physics
16:14knowledge i've retained like i've
16:16i learned how to cram and study and
16:19please an examiner but did that give me
16:22the deep lasting knowledge that i needed
16:24i mean yes yes and no
16:26um but really like nothing makes you
16:28learn
16:29a topic better than when you actually
16:31then have to teach it yourself
16:33um you know like i'm trying to wrap my
16:35teeth around this like game theory molok
16:37stuff right now and
16:38there's no exam at the end of it
16:41uh that i can gamify there's no way to
16:43gamify and sort of like shortcut my way
16:45through it i have to understand it so
16:46deeply from like deep foundational
16:48levels to them to build upon it and then
16:50try and explain it to other people and
16:52like you know you're about to go and do
16:53some lectures right you you
16:55you can't you can't sort of just like
16:58you probably presumably can't rely on
17:00the knowledge that you got through when
17:01you were studying for an exam
17:03to reteach that yeah and especially high
17:05level lectures especially the kind of
17:07stuff you do on youtube
17:09you're not just regurgitating material
17:12you have to
17:14think through
17:15what is the core idea here and
17:18when you do the lectures live especially
17:20you have to
17:21there's no
17:22second takes
17:24that is a luxury you get if you're
17:27recording a video for youtube or
17:28something like that
17:30but
17:31it definitely is a luxury you shouldn't
17:33lean on
17:34i've gotten to interact with a few
17:36youtubers that lean on that too much
17:39and you realize oh you're
17:41you've gamified this system because
17:43you're not really thinking deeply about
17:46stuff you're through the edit both
17:48written and uh
17:50spoken
17:52you're crafting an amazing video but you
17:54yourself as a human being have not
17:55really deeply understood it so live
17:58teaching or at least on recording video
18:00with very few takes is is uh is a
18:03different beast and i think it's it's
18:05the most honest way of doing it like as
18:07few takes as possible that's why i'm
18:09nervous about this
18:11don't go back ah let's do that don't
18:14this up liv
18:16uh
18:17the tyranny of exams i do think you know
18:19people
18:20talk about you know high school and
18:22college
18:24as a time to do drugs and drink and have
18:26fun and all this kind of stuff but
18:29you know looking back
18:31of course i did a lot of those things
18:34no uh yes but
18:37it's also a time
18:38when you get to
18:41like read textbooks or read books or
18:43learn
18:45with all the time in the world
18:48like you don't have these
18:49responsibilities of like
18:51uh
18:52you know
18:53laundry and uh
18:57having to sort of uh pay for mortgage or
19:00all that kind of stuff pay taxes all
19:02this kind of stuff uh in most cases
19:04there's just
19:06so much time in the day for learning and
19:08you don't realize it at the time because
19:10at the time it seems like a chore like
19:12why the hell does there's so much
19:14homework but you never get a chance to
19:16do this kind of learning this kind of
19:18homework
19:19ever again in life unless later in life
19:22you really make a big effort out of it
19:24you get so like you basically your
19:26knowledge gets solidified you don't get
19:27you don't get to have fun and learn
19:29learning is really
19:31is really fulfilling and really fun if
19:33you're that kind of person like some
19:34people
19:36like to you know like knowledge is not
19:38something that they think is fun but if
19:40if that's a kind of thing that you think
19:42is fun
19:43that's the time to have fun and do the
19:45drugs and drinking all that kind of
19:46stuff but the learning
19:49just going back to those textbooks
19:51the hours spent with the textbooks is uh
19:53is really really rewarding do people
19:55even use textbooks anymore yeah do you
19:57think because
19:58there's days with their well
20:00well not even that but just like
20:03so much information really high quality
20:05information you know is now in digital
20:06format online
20:08um yeah but they're not they are using
20:10that but you know college is still very
20:14there's a curriculum
20:16i mean so much of school is about
20:18rigorous study of a subject and still on
20:21youtube
20:22that's not there right youtube has um
20:26uh grant sanderson talks about this he's
20:27the this masterpiece
20:30yeah three blue one brown
20:31he says like i'm not a math teacher i
20:34just take really cool concepts and i
20:36inspire people but if you want to really
20:38learn calculus if you want to really
20:40learn linear algebra you just you should
20:42do the textbook you should do that you
20:44know and there's still
20:46the uh the textbook industrial complex
20:48that that like charges like two hundred
20:51dollars for a textbook and somehow i
20:53don't know this it's ridiculous
20:56well they're like oh sorry new edition
20:58edition 14.6 sorry you can't use 14.5
21:02anymore it's like what's different we've
21:03got one paragraph different
21:05so we mentioned offline daniel negrano
21:08um i'm going to get a chance to talk to
21:10him on this podcast and he's somebody
21:12that i was i found fascinating in terms
21:14of the way he thinks about poker
21:16verbalizes the way he thinks about poker
21:18the way he plays poker
21:20so
21:20and he's still pretty damn good he's
21:23been good for a long time so you
21:25mentioned
21:26that people are running these kind of
21:27simulations and the game of poker has
21:29changed
21:30do you think he's adapting in this way
21:33do you like the top pros do they have to
21:35adopt this way or is there is there
21:37still like
21:39over years
21:41you basically develop this gut feeling
21:44about
21:45like you you get to be like good the way
21:48like alpha zero is good you look at the
21:50board
21:51and
21:52somehow from the fog comes out the right
21:54answer like this is likely what they
21:57have this is likely the best way to move
22:00and you don't really you can't really
22:02put a finger on exactly why
22:05but it just comes from your gut feeling
22:08or no
22:09yes and no
22:10so gut feelings are definitely very
22:12important um you know that we've got our
22:15two mo
22:16you can distill it down to two modes of
22:18decision making right you've got your
22:19sort of logical linear voice in your
22:21head system two as it's often called and
22:24your system on your
22:25your gut intuition
22:27um
22:28and
22:30historically in poker
22:32the very best players were playing
22:34almost entirely by their gut
22:36um you know often they'd do some kind of
22:38inspired play and you'd ask them why
22:39they do it and they wouldn't really be
22:41able to explain it um and that's
22:44not so much because their process was
22:46unintelligible but it was more just
22:48because no one unders no one had the
22:49language with which to describe what
22:51optimal strategies were because no one
22:52really understood how poker worked this
22:54was before you know we had analysis
22:56software you know no one was
22:58writing you know if i guess some people
23:00would write down their hands in a little
23:01notebook but there was no way to
23:03assimilate all this data and analyze it
23:05but then you know with when computers
23:07became cheaper and software started
23:09emerging and then obviously online poker
23:11where it would like automatically save
23:12your hand histories um now all of a
23:14sudden you kind of had this this body of
23:16data that you could run analysis on
23:19and so that's when people started to see
23:21you know these mathematical solutions
23:24and
23:24um
23:26and so what that meant
23:28is the
23:30the role of intuition essentially became
23:33smaller
23:34um
23:35and it it meant more into as as we
23:37talked before about you know this game
23:39theory optimal style but as
23:41also as i said like game theory optimal
23:43is about um
23:44loss minimization and being
23:46unexploitable but if you're playing
23:48against people who aren't because no one
23:49person no human being can play perfectly
23:51game through optimal in poker not even
23:52the best ais they're still like they're
23:54not you know they're 99.99 of the way
23:56there or whatever but this it's kind of
23:58like the speed of light you can't reach
24:00it perfectly so there's still a role for
24:02intuition yes so
24:05when yeah when
24:06you're playing this unexploitable style
24:08but when your opponents start doing uh
24:10something you know sub-optimal that you
24:12want to exploit well now that's where
24:15not only your like logical brain will
24:17need to be thinking well okay i know i
24:19have this my i'm in the sort of top end
24:21of my range here with this with this
24:22hand
24:23so that means i need to be calling x
24:25percent of the time um and i put them on
24:28this range et cetera
24:30but then
24:31sometimes you'll have this gut feeling
24:33that will tell you
24:35you know
24:36you know what this time i know i know
24:38mathematically i'm meant to call now you
24:40know i've got i'm in the sort of top end
24:41of my range and
24:43um these this is the odds i'm getting so
24:45the math says i should call but there's
24:47something in your gut saying they've got
24:48it this time they've got it like uh
24:52they're beating you maybe your hand is
24:53worse um so then the the real art this
24:56is where the last remaining art in poker
24:59the fuzziness uh is like do you listen
25:02to your gut how do you quantify the
25:05strength of it or can you even quantify
25:07the strength of it um and i think that's
25:10what daniel
25:12has i mean i i can't speak for how much
25:14he's studying with with with the
25:16simulators and that kind of thing i
25:17think he has like he must be to still be
25:20keeping up um but he has an incredible
25:24intuition
25:25for just he's seen so many hands of
25:28poker in the flesh he's seen so many
25:30people the way they behave when the
25:32chips are you know when the money's on
25:33the line and you've got him staring you
25:34down in the eye you know he's
25:36intimidating he's got this like kind of
25:38x factor vibe that he you know
25:41gives out and he talks a lot which is an
25:43interactive element which is he's
25:45getting stuff from other people yes
25:47yeah just like the subtlety so he's like
25:49he's probing constantly yeah he's
25:51probing and he's getting this extra
25:53layer of information that others can't
25:55now that said though he's good online as
25:57well you know i don't know how again
25:59would he be beating the top
26:01cash game players online probably not no
26:04um
26:05but when he's in in person and he's got
26:07that additional layer of information he
26:09he can not only extract it but he knows
26:11what to do with it um still so well
26:14there's one player who i would say is
26:15the exception to all of this
26:17um and he's one of my favorite people to
26:19talk about in terms of
26:21i think he might have cracked the
26:23simulation uh is phil hellmuth
26:25uh he
26:27in more ways than one he's a practice
26:29simulation i think yeah he
26:32somehow to this day is still and i love
26:34you phil don't i'm not in any way
26:36knocking you um he's still winning
26:40so much at the world series of poker
26:42specifically um he's now on 16 bracelets
26:45the next nearest person i think has won
26:46ten um
26:48and he is consistently year in year out
26:50going deep or winning these huge field
26:52tournaments you know with like 2 000
26:53people
26:54um which statistically he should not be
26:56doing
26:57and
27:00and yet
27:01you watch some of the plays he makes and
27:02they make no sense like mathematically
27:04they are so far from game theory optimal
27:06yeah and the thing is if you went and
27:08stuck him in one of these like high
27:10stakes cash games with a bunch of like
27:12gto people he's gonna get ripped apart
27:14but there's something that he has that
27:16when he's in the halls of the world
27:17series of poker specifically um
27:20amongst sort of amateurish players
27:24he gets them to do crazy like that
27:26and and
27:28but my little pet theory is that also
27:31he
27:32just the car he he's he's like a wizard
27:34and he gets the cards to do what he
27:36needs them to do
27:38because he
27:40ex he just expects to win and he expects
27:43to rece you know to get flopper set with
27:45a frequency far beyond what this you
27:48know the the the real percentages are
27:50and i don't even know if he knows what
27:51the real percentages are he doesn't need
27:53to because he gets there i think he has
27:55found the chico because when i've seen
27:56him play he seems to be like annoyed
27:59that the long shot thing didn't happen
28:01yes
28:02he's like annoyed and it's almost like
28:05everybody else is stupid because he was
28:06obviously going to win with us
28:08if that silly thing hadn't happened and
28:10it's like you understand the silly thing
28:11happens 99 of the time and it's a one
28:14percent not the other way around but
28:16genuinely for his lived experience at
28:18the well only at the monster as a poker
28:19it is like that so i don't blame him for
28:22feeling that way um but he does he has
28:24this he has this x factor and
28:28the poker community has tried for years
28:29to rip him down saying like you know he
28:31doesn't he's no good but he's clearly
28:33good because he's still winning or
28:34there's something going on whether
28:36that's he's figured out how to
28:38mess with the fabric of reality and how
28:41cards
28:42are you know a randomly shuffled deck of
28:43cards come out i don't know what it is
28:44but he's doing doing it right still who
28:46do you think is the greatest of all time
28:48would you put hellmuth
28:52no no he's definitely he seems like the
28:53kind of person would mention he would
28:55actually watch this so you might want to
28:57be careful as i said i love phil and i
29:00and i'm i'm i have i would say this to
29:02his face i'm not saying anything i don't
29:05he's got he truly i mean he is one of
29:08the greatest yeah i don't know if he's
29:09the greatest he's certainly the greatest
29:12at the world series of poker
29:14and he is the greatest at
29:16despite the game switching into a
29:18pure game almost an entire game of math
29:20he has managed to keep the magic alive
29:22and this like just through sheer force
29:24of will making the game work for him and
29:27that is incredible and i think it's
29:29something that should be studied because
29:30it's an example
29:31yeah there might be some actual game
29:33theoretic wisdom there there might be
29:35something to be said about optimality
29:37from studying him
29:39right what do you mean by optimality
29:40meaning
29:41uh or rather game design perhaps
29:45meaning if what he's doing is working
29:48maybe
29:50poker is more complicated than we're
29:51currently modeling it as so like or
29:55there's an extra layer and i don't mean
29:57to get too weird and wooy
29:59but
30:00or there's an extra layer of
30:03ability to manipulate the things the way
30:06you want them to go that we don't
30:07understand yet
30:09do you think phil hellmuth understands
30:11them is he just generally hashtag
30:13positivity
30:15he wrote a book on positivity and he has
30:17yes he did
30:18positivity trolling books no a
30:24wrote a book about positivity yes
30:27okay
30:28about i think and i think it's about
30:29sort of manifesting what you want
30:32and getting the outcomes that you want
30:34by believing so much in yourself and in
30:36your ability to win like eyes on the
30:38prize
30:39um
30:40and i mean it's working the man's
30:42delivered
30:43where do you put like phil ivey and all
30:45those kinds of people um i mean i'm too
30:48i've been
30:49to be honest too much out of the scene
30:50for the last few years to really
30:53i mean phil ivey's clearly got again
30:55he's got that x factor um
30:57he's so incredibly intimidating to play
31:00against i've only played against him a
31:01couple of times but when he like looks
31:02you in the eye and you're trying to run
31:04a bluff on him no one's made me sweat
31:06harder than phil ivey just
31:07um my my bluff got through actually
31:10that was actually one of the most
31:11thrilling moments i've ever had in poker
31:12was it was in a monte carlo and a high
31:14roller i can't remember exactly what the
31:16hand was but um i i you know i three bit
31:19and then like just barreled all the way
31:20through
31:21and he just like put his laser eyes into
31:24me and i felt like he was just scouring
31:26my soul
31:28and i was just like hold it together
31:29live hold
31:30together weaker
31:30you know your hand a it
31:32yeah i mean i was bluffing i i presume
31:35which you know there's a chance i was
31:36bluffing with the best hand but i'm
31:38pretty sure my hand was worse um and
31:41uh and he folded
31:44i was truly one of my one of the deep
31:46highlights of my correct did you show
31:47the cards are you useful
31:49what would you you should never show in
31:51game like because especially as i felt
31:53like i was one of the worst players at
31:54the table in that tournament so
31:56giving that information unless i had a
31:58really solid plan that i was now like
32:01advertising oh look i'm capable of
32:02bluffing phil ivey but like why
32:05it's much more valuable
32:06to take advantage of the impression that
32:08they have of me which is like i'm a
32:09scared girl playing a high roller for
32:10the first time keep that going you know
32:14interesting but isn't there layers to
32:16this like psychological warfare that the
32:18scared girl
32:21might be way smart and then like to to
32:23flip the tables do you think about that
32:25kind of stuff or definitely i mean not
32:27going to reveal information i mean
32:28generally speaking you want to not
32:30reveal information you know the goal of
32:31poker is to be as
32:33deceptive as possible about your own
32:35strategies while
32:36elucidating as much out of your opponent
32:38about their own
32:39so
32:40giving them free information
32:41particularly if they're people who you
32:42consider very good players
32:44any information i give them is going
32:46into their little database and being i
32:49assume it's going to be calculated and
32:50used well
32:51so i have to be really confident that my
32:54like meta gaming that i'm going to then
32:56do or they've seen this so therefore
32:57that i'm going to be on the right level
32:59um so it's better just to keep that
33:02little secret to myself in a moment so
33:04how much is bluffing part of the game
33:06huge amount
33:08so yeah i mean maybe actually let me ask
33:10like what did it feel like with the ivy
33:12or anyone else when it's a high stake
33:14when it's a big
33:16it's a big bluff
33:18um so a lot of money on the table
33:21and maybe
33:22i mean what defines a big bluff maybe a
33:24lot of money on the table but also some
33:26uncertainty in your
33:28mind and heart about
33:30like self-doubt well maybe i
33:32miscalculated what's going on here what
33:34the bet said all that kind of stuff like
33:36what does that feel like
33:38i mean it's
33:41i imagine comparable to
33:45you know running a
33:47i mean any kind of big bluff where you
33:50have a lot of something that you care
33:52about on the line
33:54you know so if you're
33:55bluffing in a courtroom not that anyone
33:57should ever do that or you know
33:58something equatable to that it's it's
34:00incr
34:02you know in that scenario you know i
34:04think it was the first time i'd ever
34:04played a 20 i'd won my way into this 25k
34:08tournament
34:09so that was the buy in 25 000 euros and
34:11i had satellited my way in because it
34:13was much bigger than i would never ever
34:14normally play
34:16and you know i hadn't i wasn't that
34:17experienced at the time and now i was
34:19sitting there against all the big boys
34:21you know the negra news the fill ivs and
34:22so on um
34:24and then
34:26uh to like
34:28you know each time you put the bets out
34:30you know you put another bet out
34:32your car yeah i was on a what's called a
34:34semi-bluff so there were some cards that
34:35could come that would make my hand very
34:37very strong and therefore win but most
34:39of the time those cards don't come so
34:41that it's the same above because you're
34:42representing what are you representing
34:44that you already have something
34:47so i think in this scenario i had a
34:50flush draw two two so i had two clubs
34:53two two clubs came out on the flop and
34:55then i'm hoping that on the turn in the
34:57river one will come so i have some
34:59future equity i could hit a club and
35:01then i'll have the best hand in which
35:02case great um and so i can keep betting
35:06and i'll want them to call but i'm also
35:08got the other way of winning the hand
35:09where if my
35:10card doesn't come i can keep betting and
35:12get them to fold their hand
35:14and i'm pretty sure that's what the
35:16scenario was
35:17um so i had some future equity but it's
35:19still you know most of the time i don't
35:22hit that club and so i would rather him
35:24just fold because i'm you know the pot
35:26is now getting bigger and bigger and in
35:28the end like i jam all jam all in on the
35:30river
35:30that's my entire tournament on the line
35:33as far as i'm aware this might be the
35:34one time i ever get to play a big 25k
35:37you know this is the first time i played
35:38once so it was
35:40it felt like the most momentous thing
35:41and this is also when i was trying to
35:42build myself up you know build my name a
35:44name for myself in in poker i wanted to
35:46get respect destroy everything for you
35:49it felt like it in the moment like i
35:50mean it literally does feel like a form
35:52of life and death like your body
35:53physiologically is having that flight or
35:55fight response what are you doing with
35:56your body what are you doing with your
35:57face are you just like
36:00what are you thinking about
36:02a mixture of like okay what are the
36:04cards so
36:05in theory i'm thinking about like okay
36:06what are cards that look make my hand
36:09look stronger which you know which cards
36:11hit my perceived range from his
36:13perspective which cards don't um what's
36:15the right amount of bet size to you know
36:18maximize my fold equity in this
36:19situation you know that's the logical
36:21stuff that i should be thinking about
36:23but i think in reality because i was so
36:24scared because there's this at least for
36:26me there's a certain threshold of like
36:28nervousness or stress beyond which the
36:31like logical brain shuts off
36:33and now it just gets into this like
36:36it's just like it feels like a game of
36:37wits basically it's like of nerve can
36:39you hold your hold your resolve
36:41um and it certainly got by that like by
36:43the river at this i think by that point
36:45i was like i don't even know if this is
36:46a good bluff anymore but it let's
36:49do it your mind is almost numb from the
36:51intensity of that feeling i call it the
36:53white noise
36:55and and that's this
36:57and it happens in all kinds of decision
36:58making i think anything that's really
37:00really stressful like i can imagine
37:01someone in like an important job
37:02interview if it's like a job they've
37:03always wanted and they're getting
37:05grilled you know like bridgewater style
37:07where they ask these very like really
37:08hard like mathematical questions
37:11you know that's it's a really learned
37:12skill to be able to like
37:14subdue
37:16your flight or fight response you know
37:17what i think get from the sympathetic
37:19into the parasympathetic so you can
37:21actually you know engage the that voice
37:23in your head and do those slow logical
37:25calculations because evolutionarily we
37:28you know if we see a lion running at us
37:29we didn't have time to sort of calculate
37:31the line's kinetic energy and you know
37:33is it optimal to go this way or that way
37:35you just reacted and
37:37physically our bodies are well attuned
37:39to actually make right decisions but
37:41when you're playing a game like poker
37:43this is not something that you ever you
37:44know evolved to do and yet you're in
37:46that same flight or fight response
37:49and so that's a really important skill
37:50to be able to develop to basically learn
37:52how to like
37:53meditate in the moment and calm yourself
37:55so that you can think clearly
37:57but as you were searching for
37:59a comparable thing it's interesting
38:01because i you just made me realize that
38:03bluffing is
38:04like an incredibly high stakes form of
38:06lying
38:08you're you're you're lying
38:10and i don't think you're telling a story
38:13it's not it's straight up lying
38:15in in the context of game
38:16it's not a negative kind of lying
38:18but it is yeah exactly you are you're
38:20i'm you're representing something that
38:22you don't have and i was thinking like
38:24in how often in life
38:26do we have such high stakes of lying
38:30because i was thinking um
38:32certainly in
38:34high-level military strategy i was
38:36thinking um
38:37when hitler was lying to stalin
38:40about his plans
38:42to invade the soviet union
38:44and so you're you're you're talking to a
38:46person like your friends
38:48and uh you're fighting against the enemy
38:50whatever the the the formulation that
38:52enemy is but
38:54meanwhile whole time you're building up
38:56troops on the border
38:58um
38:58that's extremely wait so hitler and
39:00stalin were like pretending to be
39:01friends yeah my history knowledge is
39:03terrible that's crazy yeah that they
39:05were
39:06uh yeah
39:08man
39:09uh and it worked because stalin until
39:12the troops crossed the border and
39:14invaded
39:15in operation barbarossa where they
39:19this storm of nazi troops invaded large
39:23parts of the soviet union and hence one
39:26of the biggest wars in human history
39:28uh began
39:30stalin for sure was thought that this
39:32was uh never going to be uh that hillary
39:35is not crazy enough
39:37to invade the soviet union that they it
39:39makes geopolitically makes total sense
39:41to be collaborators and ideologically
39:45even though there's a tension between
39:46communism and fascism or uh national
39:49socialism however you formulated it
39:51still feels like this is the right way
39:54to battle the west right
39:56they were more ideologically aligned you
39:58know they in theory had a common enemy
40:00which is the west so
40:02made total sense and in terms of
40:04negotiations and the way things were
40:06communicated
40:07it um it seemed to stalin that for sure
40:11that
40:12they would remain at least for a while
40:15uh peaceful collaborators and uh that
40:18uh and everybody everybody because of
40:20that in the soviet union believed that
40:22it was a huge shock when kiev was
40:25invaded and you hear echoes of that when
40:27i traveled to ukraine sort of the shock
40:29of
40:30the invasion
40:32it's not just the invasion on one
40:33particular border but the invasion of
40:35the capital city and just like holy
40:39especially at that time
40:41when you thought world war one
40:44you realized that that was the war that
40:45to end all wars you would never have
40:47this kind of war
40:48and holy this this person is mad
40:51enough to try to take on this monster in
40:54the soviet union
40:55uh so it's not no longer going to be a
40:57war of hundreds of thousands dead it'll
40:59be a war of tens of millions dead and um
41:03yeah but that
41:05like you know that's a very large scale
41:07kind of lie but i'm sure there's in
41:09politics and geopolitics that kind of
41:11lying happening all the time
41:14uh and a lot of people pay financially
41:17and with their lives for that kind of
41:18lying but in our personal lives i don't
41:20know how often we
41:21uh maybe we i think people do i mean
41:23like think of spouses cheating on their
41:26partners right and then like having to
41:28lie like where were you last night stuff
41:29that's tough yeah like that's
41:32i think
41:33you know i mean unfortunately that stuff
41:34happens all the time right so or having
41:36like multiple families that one is great
41:38when when each family doesn't know the
41:40other about the other one and like
41:42maintaining that life
41:44there's probably a sense of excitement
41:45about that
41:46too um
41:48or it seems unnecessary yeah but why
41:51well just lying like like you know
41:54the truth finds a way of coming out you
41:56know yes but hence that's the thrill
41:59yeah perhaps yeah people i mean and
42:02you know that's that's why i think
42:03actually like poker what what's so
42:04interesting about poker is
42:07most of the best players i know they're
42:09always exceptions you know they're
42:10always bad eggs
42:12but actually poker players are very
42:14honest people i would say they are more
42:16honest than the average you know if you
42:17just took random
42:19uh random population example um because
42:24a you know i think you know humans like
42:26to have that
42:28most people like to have some kind of
42:30you know mysterious you know an
42:31opportunity to do something like a
42:32little edgy
42:34so we get to sort of scratch that itch
42:36of being edgy at the poker table where
42:38it's like it's part of the game everyone
42:40knows everyone knows what they're in for
42:42and that's allowed and you get to like
42:43really get that out of your system
42:46um
42:47and then also like
42:49poker players learned that you know i'll
42:51you know i would play in a huge game
42:54against some of my friends even my
42:55partner igor where we will be you know
42:57absolutely going at each other's throats
42:59trying to draw blood in terms of winning
43:01each money off each other and like
43:02getting under each other's skin winding
43:04each other up
43:05um doing the craftiest moves we can
43:08but then once the game's done
43:10the you know the winners and the losers
43:11will go off and get a drink together and
43:13have a fun time and like talk about it
43:15in this like weird academic way
43:16afterwards because that and that's why
43:18games are so great because you get to
43:19like live out
43:21our like this competitive urge that you
43:24know most people have what's it feel
43:26like to lose
43:28like we talked about bluffing when it
43:30worked out
43:31what about when you
43:33when you go broke
43:35so like in a game i i'm you know
43:36unfortunately i've never gone broke um
43:41um i know plenty of people who have um
43:45uh
43:46and i don't think eagle would mind me
43:47saying he went you know he went broke
43:48once in pokeball you know early on when
43:50we were together i feel like you haven't
43:52lived unless you've gone broke oh yeah i
43:55i in some sense right well i i i mean
43:58i'm happy i i've sort of lived through
43:59it vicariously through him when he did
44:01it at the time
44:02but yeah what is it like to lose well it
44:04depends so it depends on the amount it
44:06depends what percentage of your net
44:07worth you've just lost
44:08um
44:09it depends on your brain chemistry it
44:11really you know varies from person to
44:12person you have a very cold calculating
44:14way of thinking about this uh so it
44:16depends what percentage
44:18well it really does right yes
44:21but that's i mean
44:22that's another thing poker trains you to
44:24do you see you you see everything in
44:26percentages um or you see everything in
44:28like roi or expected hourlies or cost
44:30benefit etc you know so
44:33um
44:34that's
44:35i i one of the things i've tried to do
44:37is calibrate the strength of my
44:38emotional response to the to the win or
44:41loss that i've
44:42received
44:43because it's it's no good if you like
44:45you know you have a huge emotional
44:47dramatic response to a tiny loss um or
44:50on the flip side you have a huge win and
44:53you're so dead inside that you don't
44:54even feel it well that's you know that's
44:56a shame i want my emotions to calibrate
44:59with reality as much as possible
45:01um
45:02so yeah what's it like to lose i mean
45:04i've had times where i've
45:06lost you know busted out of a tournament
45:08i thought i was going to win in is you
45:09know especially if i got really unlucky
45:10or um or i make a dumb play uh where
45:14i've gone away and like you know kicked
45:16kicked the wall
45:17punched a wall i like nearly broke my
45:18hand one time like
45:20um i'm a lot less competitive than i
45:22used to be like i was like
45:25pathologically competitive in my like
45:27late teens early 20s i just had to win
45:29everything um and i think that's sort of
45:31slowly waned as i've gotten older
45:33according to you yeah according to me i
45:35i don't know if others would say the
45:36same right um i feel like ultra
45:39competitive people
45:40like i've heard joe rogan say this to me
45:42it's like i think he's a lot less
45:44competitive than he used to be i don't
45:45know about that
45:47oh i believe it no i totally believe it
45:49like
45:49because as you get you can still be like
45:51i care about winning like when you know
45:54i play a game with my buddies online or
45:56you know whatever it is polytopia is my
45:58current obsession like why not thank you
46:00for passing on your obsession to me are
46:02you playing now yeah i'm playing now we
46:04gotta have a game but i'm terrible and i
46:06enjoy playing terribly i don't want to
46:08have a game because that's gonna pull me
46:09into your monster of of like uh
46:12competitive play it's important
46:15i'm enjoying playing on the
46:17i can't
46:18you just do that you just do the points
46:19thing you know against the bots yeah
46:21against the bots and i can't even do the
46:23uh uh there's like a hard one and
46:26there's a very crazy yeah that's crazy i
46:28can't i don't even enjoy the hard one
46:29the crazy i really don't enjoy because
46:32it's intense you have to constantly try
46:34to win as opposed to enjoy building a
46:36little world and
46:37yeah no no there's no time for
46:38exploration in polytopia you gotta get
46:40well when once you graduate from the
46:42crazies then you can come play the
46:44graduate from the crazy yeah so in order
46:47to be able to play a decent game against
46:48like
46:49you know our group um you'll need to be
46:53you'll need to be consistently winning
46:55like 90 of games against 15 crazy bots
46:58yeah and you'll be able to like there'll
47:00be i could i could teach you it within a
47:01day honestly um how how to be the
47:04crazies how to be the crazies and then
47:06and then you'll be ready for the big
47:07leagues generalizes uh to more than just
47:10polotopia but okay uh why were we
47:12talking about polytopia losing hurts
47:15losing hers oh yeah yes competitiveness
47:18over time um oh yeah
47:20i think it's more that at least for me
47:23i still care about playing about winning
47:25when i choose to play something it's
47:26just that i don't see the world as
47:29zero-sum as i used to be you know
47:31um i think as you one gets older and
47:33wiser
47:34you start to see the world more as a
47:36positive something or at least you're
47:38more aware of externalities
47:40of of scenarios of competitive
47:42interactions
47:43um and so
47:45yeah i just like i'm more and i'm more
47:47aware of my own you know like
47:50if i have a really strong emotional
47:51response to losing and that makes me
47:53then feel shitty for the rest of the day
47:54and then i beat myself up mentally for
47:56it like i'm now more aware that that
47:58that's unnecessary negative externality
48:01so i'm like okay i need to find a way to
48:03turn this down you know dial this down a
48:04bit was poker the thing that has if you
48:07think back at your life
48:09and think about some of the lower points
48:11of your life like the darker places
48:13you've gone in your mind did it have to
48:15do something with poker
48:16like what did losing spark
48:19the
48:21um the descent into darkness or was it
48:23something else um
48:27i think my darkest points in poker were
48:29when
48:30i was wanting to quit and move on to
48:32other things but i felt like i hadn't
48:37ticked all the boxes i wanted to tick
48:39yeah like i wanted to be the most
48:41winningest
48:42female player which is by itself a bad
48:44goal um you know that was one of my
48:47initial goals and i was like well i
48:48haven't you know and i wanted to win a
48:49wpt event i won one of these i won one
48:51of these but i want one of those as well
48:53and
48:54that
48:56sort of again like it's a drive of like
48:58over optimization to random metrics that
49:00i decided were important um without much
49:02wisdom at the time but then like carried
49:04on um
49:06that made me continue chasing it longer
49:09than i still actually had the passion to
49:11chase it for
49:12and i don't i don't have any regrets
49:15that you know i played for as long as i
49:16did because who knows you know i
49:18wouldn't be sitting here i wouldn't be
49:19living this incredible life that i'm
49:21living now um this is this is the height
49:23of your life right now this is it
49:25experience
49:26absolute pinnacle
49:28here in your in your robot land yeah
49:31yeah
49:32with your creepy light
49:34no it is i mean i i wouldn't change a
49:37thing about my life right now and i feel
49:38very blessed to say that um
49:40so but
49:42the dark times were in sort of like
49:452016 to 18 even sooner really where i
49:49was like
49:50i had stopped loving the game
49:52and i was going through the motions
49:55and
49:56i would that and and then i was like you
49:59know i would take the losses harder than
50:00i needed to yeah because i'm like oh
50:02it's another one and it was i was aware
50:04that like i felt like my life was
50:05ticking away and i was like is this
50:06going to be what's on my tombstone oh
50:08yeah she played the game of you know
50:09this zero-sum game of poker
50:11slightly more optimally than her next
50:13opponent
50:14like cool great legacy you know so
50:18i just wanted you know there was
50:19something in me that knew i needed to be
50:20doing something
50:21more
50:22directly impactful um and just
50:24meaningful it was like a search for
50:25meaning and i think it's a thing a lot
50:26of poker players even a lot of i imagine
50:29any
50:30games players who
50:31sort of
50:32love intellectual pursuits
50:34um
50:35you know i think you should ask magnus
50:37carlsen this question yeah walking away
50:38from chess right yeah like it must be so
50:40hard for him you know he's been on the
50:42top for so long
50:43and it's like well now what he's got
50:45this incredible brain like
50:47what to put it to
50:48um
50:49and
50:51yeah it's it's this weird uh moment
50:53where i just spoken with people that won
50:55multiple gold medals at the olympics
50:58and the depression hits hard after you
51:00win
51:02doesn't mean crash
51:04because it's a kind of a goodbye saying
51:05goodbye to that person to all the dreams
51:07you had the thought
51:09you thought would give meaning to your
51:11life but in fact
51:13life is full of constant pursuits of
51:16meaning it doesn't you don't like arrive
51:19and figure it all out and there's
51:20endless bliss now it continues going on
51:23and on you constantly have to figure out
51:25to rediscover yourself and so for you
51:28like that struggle to say goodbye to
51:30poker
51:31you have to like find the next there's
51:33always a bigger game that's the thing
51:35that's my like motto is like what's the
51:37next game and
51:39more importantly
51:41because obviously game usually implies
51:42zero sum like what
51:44what's the game which is like omni win
51:46look what you win how many went when why
51:48is so so important
51:50because
51:52if everyone plays zero sum games that's
51:54a fast track to either completely
51:56stagnate as a civilization but more
51:58actually far more likely to extinct
52:00ourselves
52:01um you know like the playing field is
52:03finite
52:04yeah
52:06you know nuclear powers are playing uh
52:09you know a game of poker with uh with
52:11you know but their chips are nuclear
52:13weapons right
52:14and
52:15the stakes have gotten so large that if
52:17anyone makes a single bet you know fires
52:19some weapons the the playing field
52:21breaks i made a video on this like
52:23you know the the the fight the playing
52:25field is finite and if we keep playing
52:27these adversarial
52:29zero-sum games
52:31uh thinking that we you know
52:33in order for us to win someone else has
52:34to lose or if we lose that you know
52:36someone else wins that that will extinct
52:39us
52:39it's just a matter of when what do you
52:41think about that uh mutually sure
52:43destruction
52:44that very simple almost to the point of
52:47caricaturing game theory idea that does
52:50seem to be
52:51at the core of why we haven't blown each
52:53other up yet with nuclear weapons
52:55do you think there's some truth to that
52:57this kind of
52:58stabilizing force of mutually sure
53:00destruction and do you think that's
53:02gonna
53:03hold up
53:04through the 21st century
53:07i mean it's it has it has held yes
53:10there's there's definitely truth to it
53:11that it was a
53:13you know it's a nash equilibrium yeah
53:14are you surprised it held this long um
53:17isn't crazy
53:18it is crazy when you factor in all the
53:20like
53:21near-miss accidental firings
53:24yes that's
53:26makes me wonder like you know you know
53:27they're familiar with the like quantum
53:29suicide thought experiment where it's
53:31basically like
53:32uh you have a
53:34you know like a russian roulette
53:36type scenario uh
53:38hooked up to some kind of quantum event
53:40you know
53:42particle splitting um or paraparticle
53:45splitting and
53:46if it you know if it goes a then the gun
53:49doesn't go off and it goes b then it
53:50does go off and it kills you
53:52because you can only ever be in the
53:54universe know assuming like the everett
53:56branch you know multiverse theory you
53:57will always only end up in the in the
53:59branch where you continually make you
54:01know option a comes in but you run that
54:04experiment enough times it starts
54:05getting pretty damn you know out of the
54:07the tree gets huge there's a million
54:09different scenarios in but you'll always
54:11find yourself in this in the one where
54:13it didn't go off
54:14and
54:15uh
54:16and so from that perspective
54:18you are essentially immortal
54:20because someone and you will only find
54:22yourself in the set of observers that
54:23make it down that path yeah so it's it's
54:26it's that doesn't mean
54:28it doesn't
54:29it just doesn't mean you're you're still
54:31not going to be at some point in
54:32your life
54:33no i'm not i'm not advocating like that
54:35we're all immortal because of this it's
54:36just like a fun thought experiment and
54:38the point is it like raises this thing
54:40of like these things called uh observer
54:41selection effects which bostrom nick
54:43bostrom talks about a lot and i think
54:44people should go read um it's really
54:46powerful but i think it could be
54:47overextended that logic i'm not sure
54:50exactly how it can be i just feel like
54:54you can get you can um overgeneralize
54:57that logic somehow well no i mean it
54:58leads you into like solipsism which is a
55:00very dangerous mindset again if everyone
55:02like falls into solipsism of like well
55:04i'll be fine
55:05that's a great way of creating a very
55:07you know
55:08self-terminating environment um but my
55:11point is is that with the nuclear
55:12weapons thing um there have been at
55:15least i think it's 12 or 11 um
55:18near-misses were of like just stupid
55:20things like
55:21uh there was moon rise over norway and
55:24it made weird reflections off some
55:26glaciers in the mountains which set off
55:28i think the alarms of norad
55:32norad radar and that put them on high
55:34alert nearly ready to shoot and it was
55:35only because um
55:37the head of the russian military
55:39happened to be at the u.n in new york at
55:41the time that they go like well wait a
55:42second why would
55:44why would they fire now when their guy
55:46is there it was only that lucky
55:48happenstance which doesn't happen very
55:49often where they didn't then escalate
55:51into firing and there's a bunch of these
55:53different ones stanislav petrov like
55:54saved
55:55the person who should be the most famous
55:57person on earth because he's probably on
55:58expectation saved the most human lives
56:00of anyone like billions of people by
56:03ignoring russian orders to fire because
56:05he felt in his gut that actually this
56:06was a false alarm and it turned out to
56:08be you know very hard thing to do um and
56:11there's so many of those scenarios that
56:12i can't help but wonder at this point
56:14that we aren't having this kind of like
56:16selection effect thing going on because
56:17you look back and you're like geez
56:19that's a lot of near misses but of
56:21course we don't know the actual
56:22probabilities that they would have lent
56:23each one would have ended up in nuclear
56:24war maybe they were not that likely but
56:26still the point is it's a very dark
56:28stupid game that we're playing um and
56:31it is
56:33an absolute moral imperative if you ask
56:35me to get as many people thinking about
56:36ways to make this like very precarious
56:39because we're in a nash equilibrium but
56:41it's not like we're in the bottom of a
56:42pit you know if you would like map it
56:44topographically um it's not like a
56:46stable ball at the bottom of a thing
56:48we're not an equilibrium because that
56:49we're on the top of a hill with a ball
56:51balanced on top and just any little
56:53nudge could send it flying down and you
56:56know nuclear war pops off and hellfire
56:57and bad times
57:00on the positive side life on earth will
57:01probably still continue and another
57:03intelligent civilization might still pop
57:05up maybe several yeah
57:07depend pick your x-risk depends on the
57:09x-risk nuclear war sure that's one of
57:11the perhaps less bad ones uh
57:14green goo through synthetic biology very
57:16bad
57:17will turn
57:18you know destroy all
57:20uh
57:22organic matter
57:24uh
57:25through you know it's basically like a
57:26biological uh paperclip maximizer also
57:28bad or ai
57:30type you know mass extinction thing as
57:32well would also be shhh they're
57:33listening
57:35there's a robot right behind you okay
57:36wait uh so well let me ask you about
57:38this from a game theory perspective do
57:40you think we're living in a simulation
57:42do you think we're listening living
57:43inside a video game created by somebody
57:45else
57:47well i think well so
57:49what was the second part of the question
57:50do i think we're living in a simulation
57:51and
57:52a simulation
57:54that is observed by somebody for purpose
57:57of entertainment so like a video game
57:59are we listening how we be because
58:02there's a cree it's like phil hellmuth
58:03type of situation right like
58:06um
58:07there's a creepy level of like
58:09this is kind of fun and interesting
58:13like there's a lot of interesting stuff
58:15going on i mean that could be somehow
58:18integrated into the evolutionary process
58:20where
58:21in
58:22the way we perceive and are you asking
58:24me if i believe in god
58:26um sounds like it
58:28kind of but god seems to be
58:31not optimizing
58:33uh in the different formulations of god
58:35that we conceivo he doesn't seem to be
58:38or she optimizing for uh like personal
58:41entertainment
58:43or maybe the older gods did but the the
58:46the
58:47you know just like
58:48basically like a teenager in in their
58:50mom's basement
58:51watching create a fun right universe to
58:54observe
58:55so what kind of crazy might happen
58:58okay so to try and ask this um
59:02do i think there is some kind of
59:08ex
59:09extraneous intelligence to like our
59:13you know
59:14classic measurable universe that we you
59:16know can measure with convent you know
59:18through our current physics and uh
59:21uh
59:22instruments
59:23i think so yes
59:25um
59:26partly because i've had just small
59:28little bits of
59:30evidence in my own ex in my own life
59:32which have made me question like so i
59:34was a die-hard atheist
59:36um even five years ago uh
59:39you know i got into like the rationality
59:40community big fan of les wrong uh
59:43continued to be incredible uh resource
59:46um but i've just started to have
59:49too many little
59:51[Applause]
59:53snippets of experience which
59:57don't make sense with the current sort
59:58of purely materialistic
1:00:01um
1:00:04explanation
1:00:05of how reality works
1:00:07um
1:00:09isn't that just like a humbling
1:00:12practical realization that we don't know
1:00:15how reality works
1:00:17isn't that just a reminder to yourself
1:00:19yeah no it's a reminder of epistemic
1:00:20humility because i fell too hard you
1:00:23know same same as people like i think
1:00:25you know many people who are just like
1:00:26my religion is the way this is the
1:00:27correct way this is the work this is the
1:00:29law um you are immoral if you don't
1:00:31follow this blah blah i think they
1:00:33are lacking epistemic humility they're a
1:00:35little too too much hubris there but
1:00:37similarly i think the sort of the
1:00:38richard dawkins brand of atheism
1:00:41is too
1:00:43is too rigid as well and doesn't
1:00:47you know there's a way to try and
1:00:49navigate these questions which still
1:00:51honors the scientific method which i
1:00:52still think is our best sort of realm of
1:00:54like reasonable inquiry you know a
1:00:56method of inquiry um
1:00:58so an example um
1:01:01i've two kind of notable examples that
1:01:03like really rattled my my uh my cage uh
1:01:06the first one was actually in 2010 early
1:01:08on in um
1:01:11uh quite early on in my poker career and
1:01:14i
1:01:16the the the uh the remember the
1:01:18icelandic volcano that erupted that like
1:01:19shut down kind of all atlantic airspace
1:01:22um and i meant i got stuck down in the
1:01:24south of france i was there for
1:01:25something else um
1:01:27and
1:01:28i i couldn't get home and someone said
1:01:29well there's a big poke tournament
1:01:30happening in italy maybe do you want to
1:01:32go i was like oh right sure like let's
1:01:34you know got a train across found a way
1:01:36to get there um and the buy-in was 5 000
1:01:39euros which was much bigger than my
1:01:41bankroll would normally allow and so i
1:01:43uh
1:01:44played a feeder tournament won my way in
1:01:46kind of like i did with the monte carlo
1:01:47big one um
1:01:49uh so then i won my you know from 500
1:01:51euros into 5 000 euros to play this
1:01:52thing
1:01:54and
1:01:55on day one of them the big tournament
1:01:57which turned out to have it was the
1:01:59biggest tournament ever held in europe
1:02:00at the time it got over like 1 200
1:02:02people absolutely huge and i remember
1:02:04they dimmed the lights uh for
1:02:07before you know the normal shuffle up
1:02:09and deal uh to tell everyone to start
1:02:11playing
1:02:12and they played uh
1:02:13chemical brothers hey boy hey girl um
1:02:15which i don't know why it's notable but
1:02:17it was just like a really it was a song
1:02:18i always liked it was like one of these
1:02:19like pump me up songs and i was sitting
1:02:21there thinking oh yeah it's exciting i'm
1:02:22playing this really big tournament
1:02:24and out of nowhere just suddenly this
1:02:27voice in my head
1:02:29just it sounded like my own sort of
1:02:31you know when you say you think in your
1:02:33mind you hear a voice kind of right at
1:02:34least i do um
1:02:36and so it sounded like my own voice and
1:02:38it said you were going to win this
1:02:39tournament
1:02:41and it was so powerful that i got this
1:02:42like wave of like
1:02:44you know
1:02:44sort of goosebumps down my body and i
1:02:46even i remember looking around being
1:02:48like did anyone else hear that and
1:02:49obviously people are in their phones
1:02:50like no one else heard and i was like
1:02:52okay
1:02:54six days later
1:02:56i win the tournament out of 1
1:02:58200 people
1:03:01and
1:03:04i i
1:03:05i don't know how to explain it
1:03:08um okay yes
1:03:09but maybe
1:03:11i
1:03:12have that feeling it before every time i
1:03:14play and it's just that i happen to you
1:03:15know because i won the tournament i
1:03:17retroactively remembered it but or the
1:03:19or the feeling
1:03:21gave you a kind of now from the film
1:03:23hellmuthian well exactly like it gave
1:03:26you a confident a deep confidence and it
1:03:28did it definitely did like i remember
1:03:30then feeling this like sort of well
1:03:32although i remember then on day one i
1:03:33then went and lost half my stack quite
1:03:35early on and i remember thinking like
1:03:36well that was you know
1:03:38what kind of premonition is this yes
1:03:40thinking i'm out but you know i managed
1:03:41to like keep it together and recover and
1:03:43then and then just went like pretty
1:03:45perfectly from then on
1:03:47and
1:03:49either way it definitely instilled me
1:03:50with this confidence
1:03:52and i don't want to put a i don't i
1:03:54can't put an explanation like you know
1:03:56was it some you know huge
1:04:00extra extra you know supernatural thing
1:04:02driving me
1:04:03or was it just my own self-confidence in
1:04:06someone that just made me make the right
1:04:07decisions i don't know and i don't i'm
1:04:09not going to put a frame on it and i i
1:04:11think i know a good explanation so we're
1:04:12a bunch of npcs living in this world
1:04:14created by in the simulation and then
1:04:17people uh uh not people creatures from
1:04:19outside of the simulation
1:04:21uh sort of can tune in and play your
1:04:23character and that feeling you got is
1:04:25somebody just like
1:04:27they got to play a poker tournament
1:04:28through you honestly it felt like that
1:04:30it did actually feel a little bit like
1:04:32that
1:04:33but it's been 12 years now i've retold
1:04:35the story many times like i don't even
1:04:37know how much i can trust my memory
1:04:38you're just an npc we're telling the
1:04:40same story this because they just played
1:04:42the tournament and left
1:04:43yeah they're like oh that was fun cool
1:04:44yeah cool next time um
1:04:46and now you're for the rest of your life
1:04:48left as a boring npc retelling this is
1:04:51greatness but it was and what was
1:04:52interesting was that after that then i
1:04:53didn't obviously win a major tournament
1:04:55for quite a long time and
1:04:58it left that was that was actually
1:05:00another sort of dark period because i
1:05:01had this incredible like the highs of
1:05:03winning that you know just on a like
1:05:04material level were insane winning the
1:05:06money i was on the front page of
1:05:07newspapers because there was like this
1:05:09girl that came out of nowhere and won
1:05:10this big thing um
1:05:12and so again like sort of chasing that
1:05:13feeling
1:05:14was was difficult um but then on top of
1:05:17that there was this feeling of like
1:05:19almost being touched by something
1:05:21bigger that was like uh
1:05:23uh so maybe did you have a sense
1:05:26that i might be somebody special
1:05:29like
1:05:30the this kind of
1:05:33i i think that's the confidence thing
1:05:36that uh
1:05:38maybe you could do something special in
1:05:40this world after all kind of feeling i i
1:05:42definitely i mean
1:05:44this is a thing i think everybody
1:05:45wrestles with to an extent right we all
1:05:48we are truly the protagonists in our own
1:05:50lives
1:05:51and so it's a natural bias human bias to
1:05:56feel
1:05:57to feel special and i think and in some
1:05:59ways we are special every single person
1:06:01is special because that you are that
1:06:03the universe does the world literally
1:06:05does revolve around you that's the thing
1:06:06in in some respect but
1:06:09of course if you then zoom out and take
1:06:10the amalgam of everyone's experiences
1:06:12then no it doesn't so there is this
1:06:13shared sort of objective reality but
1:06:15sorry this objective reality that is
1:06:17shared but then there's also this
1:06:18subject of reality which is truly unique
1:06:20to you and i think both of those things
1:06:21coexist and it's not like one is correct
1:06:23and one isn't and again anyone who's
1:06:25like uh oh no your lived experience is
1:06:27everything versus your lived experience
1:06:29is nothing no it's it's a blend between
1:06:31these two things they can exist
1:06:32concurrently but there's a certain kind
1:06:34of sense that at least i've had my whole
1:06:36life and i think a lot of people have
1:06:37this is like well i'm just like this
1:06:39little person
1:06:41surely i can't be one of those people
1:06:42that
1:06:43do the big thing right there's all these
1:06:47big people doing big things there's
1:06:49big actors and actresses big musicians
1:06:53there's big uh business owners and all
1:06:56that kind of stuff scientists and so on
1:06:58i you know i have my own subject
1:07:00experience that i enjoy and so on but
1:07:02there's like a different layer
1:07:04like um
1:07:07surely i can't do those great things i
1:07:09mean one of the things just having
1:07:10interacted with a lot of great people i
1:07:13realize no they're like
1:07:15just the same the same the same humans
1:07:18as me
1:07:20and that realization i think is really
1:07:21empowering and like for you to remind
1:07:23yourself are they what what are they are
1:07:26they
1:07:26uh well depends on something yeah
1:07:30they're like a bag of insecurities and
1:07:33yes
1:07:34um
1:07:36peculiar sort of
1:07:39like their own little weirdnesses and so
1:07:41on um i i should say also not
1:07:47um they have the capacity for brilliance
1:07:50but they're not
1:07:51generically brilliant like you know we
1:07:54tend to say this person or that person
1:07:56is brilliant
1:07:57but really
1:07:59no they're just like sitting there and
1:08:01thinking through stuff just like the
1:08:03rest of us right i think they're in the
1:08:06habit of thinking through stuff
1:08:08seriously and they've built up a habit
1:08:10of
1:08:11not allowing them their mind to get
1:08:13trapped in a bunch of and
1:08:14minutiae of day-to-day life they really
1:08:17think big ideas but those big ideas
1:08:21it's like allowing yourself the freedom
1:08:23to think big
1:08:24to realize that you you you can be one
1:08:27that actually solved this particular big
1:08:28problem first identify a big problem
1:08:30that you care about then like i can
1:08:32actually be the one that solves this
1:08:33problem
1:08:34and like allowing yourself to believe
1:08:36that and i think sometimes you do need
1:08:38to have like that shock go through your
1:08:40body and a voice tells you you're going
1:08:41to win this tournament well exactly and
1:08:44whether it was
1:08:47it's it's this idea of uh useful
1:08:49fictions
1:08:50so again like going through all like the
1:08:52rat the classic rationalist training of
1:08:54less wrong where it's like you want your
1:08:57map you know the the image you have of
1:08:58the world in your head to as
1:09:01accurately match up with how the world
1:09:03actually is yeah you want the map and
1:09:04the territory to perfectly align as you
1:09:07know you want it to be
1:09:08as an accurate representation as
1:09:10possible
1:09:11i don't know if i fully subscribe to
1:09:13that anymore having now had these
1:09:14moments of like
1:09:16feeling of something either bigger or
1:09:18just actually just being overconfident
1:09:20like there's there is value in
1:09:21overconfidence sometimes i do if you
1:09:23would you know take you know take
1:09:28magnus carlsen right
1:09:30if he i'm sure from a young age he knew
1:09:32he was very talented but i wouldn't be
1:09:34surprised if he was also
1:09:36had something in him
1:09:38to well actually maybe he's a bad
1:09:39example because he truly is the world's
1:09:41greatest um but someone who is unclear
1:09:44whether they were going to be the
1:09:44world's greatest but ended up doing
1:09:46extremely well because they had this
1:09:48innate deep self-confidence this like
1:09:50even overblown uh idea of how good their
1:09:53relative skill level is that gave them
1:09:55the confidence to then pursue this thing
1:09:56and they're like
1:09:58with the kind of focus and dedication
1:10:00that it requires to excel in whatever it
1:10:02is you're trying to do you know and so
1:10:03there are these useful fictions and
1:10:06that's where
1:10:08i think i diverge slightly with the
1:10:09classic um
1:10:11the classic sort of rationalist
1:10:12community um
1:10:14because
1:10:17that's a field that is worth studying um
1:10:21of like how the stories we tell what the
1:10:23stories we tell to ourselves even if
1:10:25they are actually false and even if we
1:10:26suspect they might be false um
1:10:28how it's better to sort of have that
1:10:30like little bit of faith
1:10:31um like value in faith i think actually
1:10:34and that's partly another thing that's
1:10:35like now led me to explore
1:10:37um
1:10:39you know the concept of god whether you
1:10:40want to call it a simulator
1:10:42the classic theological thing i think
1:10:44we're all like elucidating to the same
1:10:46thing now i don't know i'm not saying
1:10:47you know because obviously the christian
1:10:48god is like you know all benevolent
1:10:51um endless love the simulation
1:10:54one of at least one of the simulation
1:10:56hypothesis is like as you said like a
1:10:57teenager in his bedroom who doesn't
1:10:58really care doesn't give a how
1:11:01about the individuals within there it
1:11:02just like
1:11:03wants to see how the thing plays out
1:11:04because it's curious and it can turn it
1:11:06off like that you know
1:11:07where on the you know where on the sort
1:11:09of psychopathy to benevolent spectrum
1:11:11god is i don't know
1:11:13um but
1:11:15having
1:11:17having this having a little bit of faith
1:11:20that there is something else out there
1:11:21that might be interested in our outcome
1:11:24is i think an essential thing actually
1:11:26for people to to find a because it
1:11:28creates commonality between it's
1:11:29something we can all
1:11:31share and like it like it is uniquely
1:11:33humbling of all of us to an extent it's
1:11:35like a like a common objective um but b
1:11:38it gives people that little bit of like
1:11:40reserve you know when things get really
1:11:42dark and i do think things are going to
1:11:44get pretty dark over the next few years
1:11:46um
1:11:47but it gives that like
1:11:49to think that there's something out
1:11:50there that actually wants our game to
1:11:52keep going i keep calling it the game
1:11:54you know uh it's a thing c and i like we
1:11:56call it the game um
1:11:59you and c is aka grimes
1:12:02called what the game everything the
1:12:04whole thing ever yeah we joke about like
1:12:06everything is a game no well the
1:12:08universe like what if
1:12:11what if it's a game and the goal of the
1:12:13game is to figure out like well either
1:12:15how to beat it how to get out of it you
1:12:16know maybe maybe that maybe this
1:12:18universe is an escape room
1:12:19like a giant escape room and the goal
1:12:22is to figure out
1:12:24all the pieces of the puzzle figure out
1:12:25how it works
1:12:26in order to like unlock this like
1:12:28hyper-dimensional key and get out beyond
1:12:30what it is that's no but but then so
1:12:32you're saying it's like different levels
1:12:34and it's like a cage within a cage
1:12:35within a cage and never locate one cage
1:12:37at a time you figure out how to describe
1:12:39that
1:12:40um again you level up you know like us
1:12:42becoming multi-planetary would be a
1:12:43level up or us you know figuring out how
1:12:46to upload our consciousnesses to the
1:12:47thing that would probably be a leveling
1:12:49up or
1:12:50spiritually you know humanity becoming
1:12:52more combined and and less adversarial
1:12:54and and
1:12:55uh bloodthirsty and us becoming a little
1:12:57bit more enlightened that would be a
1:12:59leveling up you know there's many
1:13:00different frames to it whether it's
1:13:02physical
1:13:03you know digital uh or like metaphysical
1:13:06levels i think i think level one for
1:13:08earth is probably
1:13:10the biological evolutionary process
1:13:13it's like going from single cell
1:13:15organisms to to early humans and maybe
1:13:19level two is
1:13:21what whatever is happening inside our
1:13:22minds and creating ideas and creating
1:13:24technologies
1:13:26that's like
1:13:27evolutionary process of ideas
1:13:31and then uh multiplanetary is
1:13:33interesting
1:13:34is that fundamentally different from
1:13:35what we're doing here on earth
1:13:37probably because it allows us to like
1:13:39exponentially scale
1:13:41it
1:13:42it delays the malthusian trap right it
1:13:46it's a way to
1:13:48keep the playing field get
1:13:51lot to make the playing field get larger
1:13:53so that we can it can accommodate more
1:13:54of our stuff more of us
1:13:57um and that's a good thing but i don't
1:13:58know if it like fully solves this issue
1:14:02um of
1:14:04uh
1:14:05well this thing called molok which we
1:14:07haven't talked about yet but um which is
1:14:08basically
1:14:10i call it the god of unhealthy
1:14:12competition yeah let's go let's go to
1:14:13mark what's malloc you you did uh a
1:14:15great video on malik one aspect of it
1:14:18the application of it to
1:14:20instagram beauty filters
1:14:23very niche uh i wanted to start off
1:14:25small um
1:14:27so uh
1:14:29molok was originally
1:14:31um
1:14:31[Music]
1:14:32coined
1:14:34as well so apparently back in the like
1:14:37uh
1:14:38canaanite times it was to say ancient
1:14:40carthaginian i can never say it carthage
1:14:42in
1:14:43somewhere around like 300 bc or 280 i
1:14:46don't know um there was supposedly this
1:14:48death cult
1:14:49who
1:14:51would sacrifice their children to this
1:14:53awful demon god thing they called molok
1:14:56um in order to get power to win wars so
1:14:59really dark horrible things and it was
1:15:01literally like about child sacrifice
1:15:02whether they actually existed or not we
1:15:03don't know but in mythology they they
1:15:05did and this god that they worshipped
1:15:07was this thing called molok
1:15:09and then
1:15:10i don't know it seemed like it was kind
1:15:11of quiet throughout history um in terms
1:15:14of mythology beyond that until um this
1:15:17movie metropolis uh in 1927
1:15:21talked about um
1:15:22this is you you see that there was this
1:15:25incredible futuristic city that everyone
1:15:27was living great in um but then the
1:15:29protagonist goes underground into the
1:15:30sewers and sees that the city is run by
1:15:32this machine
1:15:34and this machine basically would just
1:15:35like kill the workers all the time
1:15:37because it was just so hard to keep it
1:15:39running they were always dying so
1:15:40there's all this suffering that was
1:15:42required in order to keep the city going
1:15:44and then the protagonist has this vision
1:15:45that this machine is actually this demon
1:15:47moloch so again it's like this sort of
1:15:49like mechanistic consumption of of
1:15:51humans in order to get more power um and
1:15:54then alan ginsberg wrote a poem in the
1:15:5760s um which incredible poem called howl
1:16:01about this thing molok um
1:16:04and a lot of people sort of quite
1:16:06understandably take the the
1:16:07interpretation of that he's that he's
1:16:09talking about capitalism
1:16:11um
1:16:12but then the bet like the sort of piece
1:16:14the resistance that's moved molok into
1:16:15this idea of game theory uh was scott
1:16:17alexander of slate starcodex
1:16:21wrote this incredible one literally i
1:16:23think it might be my favorite piece of
1:16:24writing of all time it's called
1:16:25meditations on molok
1:16:27everyone must go read it uh
1:16:29and i say codex is a blog it's a blog
1:16:32yes we can link to it in the show notes
1:16:34or something right um no don't
1:16:37i
1:16:38yes yes but i i like how you do how how
1:16:41you assume um i have a professional
1:16:43operation going on here i i i shall try
1:16:45to remember
1:16:48you're giving the impression of it yeah
1:16:50yeah i'll like please if i if i don't
1:16:52please somebody in the comments remind
1:16:53me i'll also you know if you don't know
1:16:55this blog it's one of the
1:16:57best blogs ever probably you should
1:17:00probably be following it yes
1:17:02our blog's still a thing i think they
1:17:04it's still a thing yeah he's migrated
1:17:06onto sub stack but yeah it's still a
1:17:07blog um anyway just like better enough
1:17:09things up but i have not yeah i
1:17:12hope they don't i hope they don't turn
1:17:14moloky
1:17:15which will mean something to people when
1:17:16we continue
1:17:18when they stop interrupting for once
1:17:20that's good
1:17:21uh so anyway so he writes he writes this
1:17:23this piece meditations on molok and
1:17:25basically
1:17:26he analyzes the poem and he's like okay
1:17:28so it seems to be something relating to
1:17:30where competition goes wrong
1:17:32and
1:17:33you know moloch was historically this
1:17:35thing of like where people would
1:17:37sacrifice
1:17:38a thing that they care about in this
1:17:40case children their own children uh in
1:17:42order to gain power a a competitive
1:17:44advantage
1:17:45and if you look at
1:17:47almost everything that sort of goes
1:17:48wrong in our society it's that same
1:17:51process
1:17:52um so with the instagram beauty filters
1:17:55thing um
1:17:56you know if you're trying to become a a
1:17:59famous
1:18:00instagram model
1:18:02you are incentivized to post the hottest
1:18:04pictures of yourself that you can you
1:18:05know you're trying to play that game um
1:18:07there's a lot of hot women on instagram
1:18:08how do you compete against them you post
1:18:10really hot pictures and that's how you
1:18:11get more likes
1:18:14as technology gets better um you know
1:18:16more
1:18:17makeup techniques come along um and then
1:18:19more recently these beauty filters where
1:18:22like at the touch of a button it makes
1:18:23your face look absolutely incredible um
1:18:25compared to your natural natural natural
1:18:28face uh these these technologies come
1:18:30along it's everyone is incentivized to
1:18:32that short-term strategy um
1:18:35but
1:18:36over on on net it's bad for everyone
1:18:38because now everyone is kind of like
1:18:40feeling like they have to use these
1:18:41things and these things like they make
1:18:42you like the reason why i talked about
1:18:43them in this video is because i noticed
1:18:44it myself you know like
1:18:46i i was trying to grow my instagram for
1:18:48a while i've given up on it now but um
1:18:50yeah and i noticed these filters how
1:18:52good they made me look and i'm like well
1:18:55i know that everyone else is kind of
1:18:56doing this subscribe who lives instagram
1:18:58please don't have to use the filters
1:19:01uh post a bunch of yeah
1:19:03make make it blow up uh so yeah it's you
1:19:07felt the pressure actually exactly these
1:19:09short-term incentives to do this like
1:19:12this thing that like either sacrifices
1:19:13your integrity
1:19:15or something else um in order to like
1:19:17stay competitive um which on aggregate
1:19:21turns like creates this like sort of
1:19:23race to the bottom spiral where everyone
1:19:25else ends up in a situation which is
1:19:26worse off than if they hadn't start you
1:19:28know than it were before kind of like if
1:19:29um like a
1:19:31at a football stadium
1:19:33uh like the system is so badly designed
1:19:36a competitive system of like everyone's
1:19:37sitting and having a view that if
1:19:39someone at the very front stands up to
1:19:40get an even better view it forces
1:19:42everyone else behind to like adopt that
1:19:44same strategy just to get to where they
1:19:46were before but now everyone's stuck
1:19:47standing up like so you need this like
1:19:50top down god's eye coordination to make
1:19:52it go back to the better state but from
1:19:54within the system you can't actually do
1:19:55that so that's kind of what this molec
1:19:57thing is it's this thing that makes
1:19:58people sacrifice uh
1:20:01values in order to optimize for the
1:20:02winning the game in question the short
1:20:04term game but this this molec
1:20:08do you can you attribute it to any one
1:20:10centralized source or is it an emergent
1:20:12phenomena from a large collection of
1:20:14people
1:20:16exactly that it's it's an emergent
1:20:18phenomena it's it's a force of game
1:20:20theory
1:20:21um it's a force of bad incentives on a
1:20:23multi-agent system where you've got more
1:20:26you know prisoner's dilemma is
1:20:27technically a kind of molecule
1:20:29you know system as well but it's just a
1:20:30two-player thing but um another word for
1:20:33moloka's multi-polar trap
1:20:35where basically you just got a lot of
1:20:36different people all competing for some
1:20:38kind of prize um and
1:20:41it would be better if everyone didn't do
1:20:43this one shitty strategy but because
1:20:45that strategy gives you a short-term
1:20:46advantage everyone's incentivized to do
1:20:48it and so everyone ends up doing it so
1:20:50the responsibility for
1:20:51i mean social media is a really nice
1:20:53place for a large number of people to
1:20:55play game theory and so
1:20:58they also have the ability to then
1:20:59design the the rules of the game
1:21:02and uh is it on them to try to
1:21:04anticipate what kind of
1:21:06like to do the thing that poker players
1:21:08are doing to run simulation
1:21:11ideally that would have been great if
1:21:12you know mark zuckerberg
1:21:14and jack and all that you know the
1:21:16twitter founders and everyone if they
1:21:17had at least just
1:21:19run a few simulations of how
1:21:21their algorithms would you know
1:21:23different types of algorithms would turn
1:21:24out for society that would have been
1:21:26great that's really difficult to do that
1:21:28kind of deep philosophical thinking
1:21:30about thinking about humanity actually
1:21:33so not
1:21:35not kind of this level of how do we
1:21:38optimize engagement
1:21:40or what brings people joy in the short
1:21:42term but how is this thing going to
1:21:44change the way people see the world how
1:21:48is it going to get morphed in iterative
1:21:50games played
1:21:52into something that
1:21:54will change society forever that's that
1:21:57requires some deep thinking that's
1:22:00i hope there's meetings like that inside
1:22:02companies but there aren't that's the
1:22:03problem and and
1:22:06it's difficult because like when you're
1:22:08starting up a social media company you
1:22:09know you're aware that you you've got
1:22:12investors to please
1:22:14there's
1:22:15you bills to pay um you know there's
1:22:17only so much r d you can afford to do
1:22:19you've got all these like incredible
1:22:21pressures it's bad you know bad
1:22:22incentives to get on and just build your
1:22:24thing as quickly as possible and start
1:22:25making money
1:22:26and you know i don't think anyone
1:22:28intended when they built these social
1:22:30social media platforms and just to like
1:22:33preface it so the reason why you know
1:22:35social media is relevant because it's a
1:22:36very good example of like everyone these
1:22:39days is optimizing for you know clicks
1:22:42um whether it's the social media
1:22:43platforms themselves because you know
1:22:45every click gets more you know
1:22:47impressions and impressions pay for you
1:22:48know
1:22:49they get advertising dollars or whether
1:22:51it's
1:22:52individual influencers or you know
1:22:54whether it's the new york times or
1:22:55whoever they're trying to get their
1:22:56story to go viral so everyone's got this
1:22:58bad incentive of using you know as you
1:23:00call it the clickbait industrial complex
1:23:02um that's a very molecule system because
1:23:04everyone is now using worse and worse
1:23:05tactics in order to like try and win
1:23:07this attention game um
1:23:09and
1:23:11yeah so
1:23:13ideally these companies would have had
1:23:14enough slack in the beginning
1:23:17in order to run these experiments to see
1:23:19okay what are the ways this could
1:23:21possibly go wrong for people what are
1:23:23the ways that molok they should be aware
1:23:25of this concept of molok and realize
1:23:26that it's any whenever you have a highly
1:23:28competitive multi-agent system which
1:23:31social media is a classic example of
1:23:32millions of agents all trying to compete
1:23:34for likes and so on and you try and
1:23:38bring all this complexity down into like
1:23:40very small metrics such as number of
1:23:43likes number of retweets whatever the
1:23:45algorithm optimizes for that is a like
1:23:47guaranteed recipe for this stuff to go
1:23:49wrong and become a race to the bottom
1:23:51yeah i think there should be an honesty
1:23:53when founders i think there's a hunger
1:23:54for that kind of transparency of like we
1:23:56don't know what the we're doing
1:23:58this is a fascinating experiment we're
1:23:59all running
1:24:01as a human civilization let's try this
1:24:03out yes and like actually just be honest
1:24:05about this that we're all like
1:24:07these weird rats and a maze
1:24:10not none of us are controlling it
1:24:12there's this kind of sense like the
1:24:13founders
1:24:15the ceo of instagram or whatever mark
1:24:17zuckerberg has a control and he's like
1:24:19like with strings playing people no
1:24:22they're he's at the mercy of this like
1:24:23everyone else he's just like trying to
1:24:25do his best
1:24:26and like i think putting on a smile and
1:24:29doing over uh polished videos about
1:24:33how instagram and facebook are good for
1:24:35you
1:24:36i think is not the right way to uh to
1:24:39actually ask some of the deepest
1:24:40questions we get to ask as a society how
1:24:43do we design the game
1:24:46such that we build a better world i
1:24:48think a big part of this as well is
1:24:50people
1:24:51there's this
1:24:52there's this philosophy particularly in
1:24:54silicon valley um
1:24:56of well techno optimism technology will
1:24:59solve all our issues
1:25:01and there's a steel man argument to that
1:25:02where yes technology has solved a lot of
1:25:04problems and can potentially solve a lot
1:25:06future ones
1:25:08but it can also it's always a
1:25:10double-edged sword and particularly as
1:25:11you know technology gets more and more
1:25:12powerful and we've now got like big data
1:25:14and we're able to do all kinds of like
1:25:17psychological manipulation with it and
1:25:18so on um
1:25:20it's
1:25:22technology is not about values neutral
1:25:24thing people think i used to always
1:25:26think this myself it's like this naive
1:25:28view that oh technology is completely
1:25:30neutral it's just it's the humans that
1:25:32either make it good or bad no
1:25:35to the point we're at now the technology
1:25:37that we are creating they are social
1:25:38technologies they literally
1:25:40dictate
1:25:41how humans now form social groups and so
1:25:45on beyond that and beyond that it also
1:25:47then that gives rise to like the memes
1:25:49that we then like coalesce around
1:25:51and that you know if you have the stack
1:25:53that way where it's technology driving
1:25:55social interaction which then drives
1:25:57like mimetic
1:25:58uh mimetic culture and like
1:26:01which ideas become popular that's molok
1:26:04and the we need the other way around we
1:26:06need it so we need to figure out what
1:26:07are the good memes what are the good
1:26:09um
1:26:10values
1:26:11that we think are we we need to optimize
1:26:14for the like makes people happy and
1:26:16healthy and like keeps society as robust
1:26:19and safe as possible then figure out
1:26:21what the social structure around those
1:26:23should be and only then do we figure out
1:26:24technology but if we're doing the other
1:26:26way around and
1:26:27you know like as much as i love
1:26:31in many ways the culture of silicon
1:26:32valley and like you know i do think that
1:26:34technology has you know i don't want to
1:26:36knock it it's done so many wonderful
1:26:37things for us same with capitalism um
1:26:40there are
1:26:42we have to like be honest with ourselves
1:26:44we're getting to a point where we are
1:26:45losing control of this very powerful
1:26:48machine that we have created can you
1:26:49redesign the machine within the game can
1:26:53can you just have
1:26:55can you understand the game enough okay
1:26:57this is the game and this is how we
1:26:59start to re-emphasize the memes that
1:27:02matter
1:27:03the the memes that bring out the best in
1:27:06us
1:27:07uh you know like the way
1:27:09i try to be in real life and the way i
1:27:11try to be online is to be about kindness
1:27:14and
1:27:15love and i feel like i'm
1:27:17sometimes
1:27:18get like criticized for being naive and
1:27:20all those kinds of things but i feel
1:27:22like i'm just trying to live
1:27:24within this game i'm trying to be
1:27:26authentic
1:27:27yeah but also like
1:27:28hey it's kind of fun to do this like you
1:27:31guys should try this too you know that
1:27:33and that's like
1:27:35trying to redesign
1:27:37some aspects of the game within the game
1:27:40um is that possible
1:27:43i don't know
1:27:44but i think we should try
1:27:46uh i don't think we have an option but
1:27:48to try well the other option is to
1:27:50create new companies or to
1:27:52pressure companies
1:27:54uh that or anyone who has control of the
1:27:57rules of the game i think we need to be
1:27:59doing all of the above
1:28:00i think we need to be thinking hard
1:28:02about what are the kind of positive
1:28:04healthy memes
1:28:06um
1:28:08uh
1:28:09you know as elon said he who controls
1:28:11the memes controls the universe um i
1:28:14think he did yeah
1:28:15um but there's truth to that
1:28:17it's very there is wisdom in that
1:28:19because
1:28:21memes have driven history you know we
1:28:23are we are a cultural species that's
1:28:24what sets us apart from chimpanzees and
1:28:27everything else we have the ability to
1:28:30learn and evolve through culture
1:28:32as opposed to biology or like you know
1:28:34classic physical constraints
1:28:37and that means culture is incredibly
1:28:39powerful
1:28:40and we can create and become victim to
1:28:43very bad memes or very good ones um but
1:28:46we do have some agency over which means
1:28:49you know we we sub but not only put out
1:28:51there but we also like subscribe to
1:28:54um so i think we need to take that
1:28:55approach
1:28:56we also need to
1:28:58you know because i don't want the the
1:29:00the
1:29:01i'm making this video right now are
1:29:02called the attention wars which is about
1:29:04like how molok like the media machine is
1:29:06this moloch machine uh well is this is
1:29:09this kind of like blind dumb thing that
1:29:11where everyone is optimizing for
1:29:12engagement in order to win their share
1:29:13of the attention pie um and then if you
1:29:16zoom out it's really like molok that's
1:29:18pulling the strings because the only
1:29:19thing that benefits from this in the end
1:29:20you know like oh our information
1:29:22ecosystem is breaking down like we have
1:29:25you look at the state of the us it's in
1:29:26we're we're in a civil war it's just not
1:29:28a physical war it's it's it's a
1:29:31it's an information war and people
1:29:33people are becoming more fractured in
1:29:35terms of what their actual shared
1:29:36reality is like truly like an extreme
1:29:38left person an extreme right person like
1:29:40they
1:29:41they literally live in different worlds
1:29:43in their in their in their minds at this
1:29:44point and it's getting more and more
1:29:46amplified and this this force is like a
1:29:49like razor blade pushing through
1:29:51everything it doesn't matter how
1:29:52innocuous the topic is it will find a
1:29:53way to split into this you know
1:29:55bifurcated culture war and it's
1:29:57terrifying because that maximizes the
1:29:59tension and that's like an emergent
1:30:01moloch type force right that takes any
1:30:05any topic
1:30:06and
1:30:07cuts through it so they it can split
1:30:09nicely
1:30:11into two groups one one that's well it's
1:30:14whatever yeah
1:30:16all everyone is trying to do within the
1:30:17system is just maximize whatever gets
1:30:19them the most attention because they're
1:30:21just trying to make money so they can
1:30:22keep their thing going right
1:30:24and the way the
1:30:26the best emotion for getting attention
1:30:28in well because it's not just about
1:30:29attention on the internet it's
1:30:30engagement that's the key thing right in
1:30:33order for something to go viral you need
1:30:34people to actually engage with it they
1:30:35need to like comment or retweet or
1:30:37whatever
1:30:38um
1:30:39and of all the emotions the
1:30:42uh you know there's like seven classic
1:30:44shared emotions that studies have found
1:30:46that all humans even from like un un
1:30:49previously uncontacted tribes have um
1:30:52some of those are negative you know like
1:30:54sadness
1:30:55uh disgust
1:30:57anger etc summer positive happiness um
1:31:00excitement and so on the one that
1:31:03happens to be the most useful for the
1:31:04internet is anger because anger is
1:31:08it's
1:31:09such an active emotion if you want
1:31:11people to engage
1:31:13if someone's scared and i'm not just
1:31:14like talking about my essay there are
1:31:15studies here that looked into this um
1:31:19where it's like if someone's like
1:31:20disgusted or fearful they actually tend
1:31:22to then be like i don't want to deal
1:31:24with this so they're less likely to
1:31:25actually engage and share it and so on
1:31:27they're just gonna be like whereas if
1:31:28they're enraged by a thing well now that
1:31:31like that triggers all the like the the
1:31:33old tribalism emotions um and so that's
1:31:36how then things get sort of spread you
1:31:38know much more easily they out compete
1:31:40all the other memes in the ecosystem um
1:31:43and so this like
1:31:46the attention economy the the wheels
1:31:48that make it go around are is rage um i
1:31:51did a you know tweet the the the the
1:31:53problem with raising against the machine
1:31:54is that the machine has learned to feed
1:31:56off rage because it is feeding off our
1:31:58age that's the thing that's now keeping
1:31:59it going so the more we get angry the
1:32:01worse it gets
1:32:02um so the malloc and this attention
1:32:05in in the war of attention is
1:32:08constantly maximizing rage what it is
1:32:12optimizing for is engagement and it
1:32:13happens to be the engagement um
1:32:17is
1:32:18what propaganda you know is that i mean
1:32:20it just sounds like everything is is
1:32:22putting is more and more things being
1:32:23put through this like propagandist lens
1:32:25of winning whatever the war is in
1:32:28question whether it's the culture war or
1:32:29the ukraine war yeah well i think the
1:32:31silver lining of this do you think it's
1:32:34possible that in the long arc of this
1:32:36process you actually do arrive
1:32:39at greater wisdom and more progress it's
1:32:41just in the moment it feels like people
1:32:43are
1:32:45tearing each other to shreds over ideas
1:32:47but if you think about it one of the
1:32:48magic things about democracy and so on
1:32:51is you have the blue versus red
1:32:52constantly fighting it's almost like
1:32:55they're
1:32:56in
1:32:56discourse
1:32:58creating devil's advocate making devils
1:33:00out of each other and through that
1:33:01process
1:33:03discussing ideas like almost really
1:33:06embodying different ideas just to yell
1:33:08at each other and through the yelling
1:33:09over the period of decades maybe
1:33:11centuries figuring out a better system
1:33:15like in the moment it feels up
1:33:17right but in the long arc it actually is
1:33:19pretty productive
1:33:20i hope so
1:33:21um
1:33:23that said
1:33:25we are now in the era of
1:33:28just as we have weapons of mass
1:33:29destruction with nuclear weapons
1:33:32you know that can break the whole
1:33:33playing field
1:33:35we now are developing weapons of
1:33:37informational mass destruction
1:33:39information
1:33:40you know wmds that
1:33:42basically can be used for propaganda or
1:33:45just
1:33:46manipulating people however they you
1:33:48know is needed whether that's through
1:33:51dumb tick-tock videos or you know there
1:33:54are significant
1:33:56resources being put in um i don't mean
1:33:59to sound like you know
1:34:01to doom and gloom but there are
1:34:03bad actors out there that's the thing
1:34:04there are plenty of good actors within
1:34:06the system who are just trying to stay
1:34:07afloat in the game so we're effectively
1:34:08doing monarchy things but then on top of
1:34:10that we have actual bad actors who are
1:34:13intentionally trying to like manipulate
1:34:15the other side into doing things and
1:34:17using uh so because of the digital space
1:34:19they're able to use
1:34:21uh
1:34:22artificial actors meaning bots exactly
1:34:24botnets you know and this is a whole new
1:34:28situation that we've never had before
1:34:31it's exciting you know you know what i
1:34:32want to do you know what i want to do
1:34:34that um because there is you know people
1:34:37talking about boss manipulating and
1:34:39uh like malicious bots that are
1:34:41basically spreading propaganda i want to
1:34:43create like a bot army for like that
1:34:46like fights that yeah exactly for love
1:34:48that fights though that i mean you know
1:34:51there's there i mean there's truth to
1:34:52fight fire with fire it's like but how
1:34:55you always have to be careful whenever
1:34:57you create again like molok is very
1:35:00tricky yeah hitler was trying to spread
1:35:02the love too well yeah so we thought but
1:35:05you know i i i agree with you that like
1:35:07that is a thing that should be
1:35:08considered but there is
1:35:10again everyone the road to hell is paved
1:35:12good intentions
1:35:13and
1:35:14this is
1:35:15there's there's always unforeseen
1:35:17circums you know outcomes uh
1:35:19externalities of you trying to adopt a
1:35:21thing even if you do it in the very best
1:35:22of faith but you can learn lessons if
1:35:25you can run some sims on it first
1:35:27absolutely but but also there's certain
1:35:29aspects of a system as we've learned
1:35:31through history that
1:35:32do better than others like for example
1:35:35don't have a dictator so
1:35:36um like if i were to create this bot
1:35:38army it's not good for me to have full
1:35:41control over it because in the beginning
1:35:43i might have a good understanding of
1:35:45what's good and not but over time that
1:35:47starts to get deviated because i'll get
1:35:49annoyed at some and i'll think
1:35:51okay wouldn't it be nice to get rid of
1:35:52those but then that power
1:35:54starts getting to your head you become
1:35:55corrupted that's basic human nature so
1:35:58distribute the powers we need we need a
1:36:00a love
1:36:02botnet
1:36:03on a dao
1:36:05a dow love botnet
1:36:07yeah but and without a leader like
1:36:10without exactly distributed right yeah
1:36:12without any kind of centralized yeah
1:36:14without even you know basically is the
1:36:16more control the more you can
1:36:18decentralize the control of a thing
1:36:20uh to people
1:36:23you know but the the they don't need the
1:36:25ability to coordinate because that's the
1:36:27issue when you if something is too you
1:36:29know that's really to me like the
1:36:31culture wars is
1:36:32the bigger war we're dealing with is
1:36:33actually between
1:36:35the like the sort of i don't know what
1:36:38even the term is for it but like
1:36:39centralization versus decentralization
1:36:41that's the tension we're seeing
1:36:44power in control by a few versus
1:36:46completely distributed and the trouble
1:36:49is if you have a fully centralized thing
1:36:50then you're at risk of tyranny you know
1:36:52stalin type things can happen uh or
1:36:55completely distributed uh now you're at
1:36:57risk of complete anarchy and chaos where
1:36:58you can't even coordinate to like on you
1:37:00know when there's like a pandemic or
1:37:02anything like that so it's like what is
1:37:04the right balance to strike between
1:37:06these two
1:37:07well structures can't molec really take
1:37:09hold in a fully decentralized system
1:37:10that's the one of the dangers too yes
1:37:12the the very vulnerable so the dictator
1:37:15can commit huge atrocities but they can
1:37:18also make sure the the infrastructure
1:37:20works and
1:37:21uh
1:37:23they have that god's eye view at least
1:37:24they have the ability to create like
1:37:26laws and rules that like force
1:37:28coordination which stops moloch but then
1:37:31you're vulnerable to that dictator
1:37:33getting infected with like this with
1:37:34some kind of psychopathy type thing
1:37:36what's uh what's your verse malloc
1:37:39sorry great question so
1:37:42that's where
1:37:44i've been working on this series it's
1:37:46been driving me insane for the last year
1:37:47and a half uh i did the first one a year
1:37:49ago i can't believe it's nearly been a
1:37:50year uh the second one hopefully will be
1:37:53coming out in like a month um
1:37:56and my goal at the end of the series is
1:37:57to like present because basically i'm
1:37:59painting the picture of like what molok
1:38:00is and how it's affecting almost all
1:38:02these issues in our in our society and
1:38:04how it's you know driving it's like kind
1:38:06of the generator function as people
1:38:08describe it of existential risk
1:38:10and then at the end wait wait the
1:38:12generator function of existential risk
1:38:14so you're saying molok is sort of the
1:38:16engine that creates
1:38:17a bunch a bunch of x-risks yes not all
1:38:20of them like like a uh you know a um
1:38:22it's a cool phrase generator function
1:38:24it's not my phrase it's daniel
1:38:25schmacktenberger oh i got that from him
1:38:28of course all things it's like all the
1:38:30roads lead back to daniel
1:38:31schmuckenberger the dude is the dude is
1:38:34brilliant no he's not ready for that
1:38:35it's mark twain
1:38:38sorry
1:38:39um totally rude interruptions from me no
1:38:41it's fine uh so not all likes risks so
1:38:43like an asteroid technically isn't
1:38:45because it's um
1:38:47you know it's just like this one big
1:38:48external thing it's not like a
1:38:50competition thing going on but you know
1:38:52synthetic biola you know
1:38:54bio weapons that's one because
1:38:56everyone's incentivized to build
1:38:58even for defense you know bad bad
1:39:00viruses you know just threaten someone
1:39:02else etc or ai technically the race to
1:39:05adi is kind of potentially a monarchy
1:39:07situation um
1:39:09but
1:39:10yeah so
1:39:11if molok is this like generator function
1:39:14that's driving all of these issues over
1:39:16the coming century that might wipe us
1:39:18out
1:39:18what's the inverse and so far what i've
1:39:21gotten to is
1:39:23this character that i want to put out
1:39:24there called win-win
1:39:26because monica's the god of lose-lose
1:39:28ultimately it masquerades as the god of
1:39:29win-lose but in reality it's lose-lose
1:39:31everyone ends up worse off
1:39:34so i was like well what's the opposite
1:39:35of that it's win-win and i was thinking
1:39:37for ages like what's a good name for
1:39:38this character
1:39:39and then the more i was like okay well
1:39:42don't try and you know think through it
1:39:44logically what's the vibe of win-win and
1:39:46to me like in my mind molok is like
1:39:49and i dress as it in the video like it's
1:39:51red and black it's kind of like very
1:39:54you know hyper focused on it's one goal
1:39:56you must win um
1:39:58so win-win is kind of actually like
1:40:00these colors it's like purple turquoise
1:40:02um
1:40:04it's
1:40:05loves games too it loves a little bit of
1:40:07healthy competition but constrained like
1:40:09kind of like before like knows how to
1:40:11ring fence zero sum competition into
1:40:12like just the right amount
1:40:14uh whereby its externalities can be
1:40:16controlled and kept positive
1:40:18and then beyond that it also loves
1:40:20cooperation coordination love all these
1:40:22other things um but it's also kind of
1:40:24like mischievous
1:40:25uh like you know it will have a good
1:40:28time it's not like kind of like boring
1:40:29you know like oh god it's it's it knows
1:40:32how to have fun it can get like it can
1:40:34get down um but ultimately it's like
1:40:38unbelievably wise and it just wants the
1:40:40game to keep going
1:40:42um and i call it win-win um
1:40:44that's a good like pet name yes
1:40:46the i think the win
1:40:49right and i think it's formal name when
1:40:51it has to do like official functions is
1:40:53uh omnia
1:40:54omnia yeah from like um omniscience kind
1:40:58of what's why omnia you just like omnia
1:41:00omni win but i'm open to suggestions oh
1:41:03like you know and this is like yeah yeah
1:41:05like that but there's an angelic kind of
1:41:07sense to omnia though so win-win is more
1:41:09fun so it's more it's more like
1:41:12uh it embraces the
1:41:14the the fun aspect i mean there is
1:41:17something about sort of um
1:41:20there's some aspect to win-win
1:41:22interactions that requires
1:41:26embracing
1:41:27[Music]
1:41:29the chaos of the game and enjoying the
1:41:32game itself
1:41:33i don't know i don't know what that is
1:41:35that's almost like a zen-like
1:41:36appreciation of of the game itself not
1:41:39optimizing for the consequences of the
1:41:41game
1:41:42right well it's recognizing
1:41:44the value of competition in of itself
1:41:46about it's not like about winning it's
1:41:48about you enjoying the process of having
1:41:50a competition and not knowing whether
1:41:52you're going to win or lose this little
1:41:53thing but then also being aware
1:41:55that you know what's the boundary how
1:41:57big do i want competition to be because
1:41:59one of the reasons why molok is doing so
1:42:01well
1:42:02now in our society in our civilization
1:42:04is because we haven't been able to ring
1:42:05fence competition
1:42:07uh you know and so it's just having all
1:42:09these negative externalities and we've
1:42:10completely lost control of it um you
1:42:13know it's
1:42:14i think
1:42:16my guess is and now we're getting really
1:42:17like
1:42:18you know metaphysical technically but i
1:42:21i think
1:42:24we would be we'll be in a more
1:42:25interesting universe if we have one that
1:42:27has both
1:42:28pure cooperation you know lots of
1:42:30cooperation
1:42:31and some pockets of competition then one
1:42:33that's purely competition cooperation
1:42:35entirely like it's good to have some
1:42:37little zero sumness bits um but i don't
1:42:40know that fully and i'm not qualified as
1:42:42a philosopher to know that and that's
1:42:44what reverse molex so this kind of
1:42:46win-win creature is in
1:42:48uh system is an antidote to the molex
1:42:51system
1:42:52yes
1:42:53and
1:42:54i don't know how it's going to do that
1:42:57um but it's good to kind of try to
1:42:59start to formulate different ideas
1:43:01different frameworks of how we think
1:43:03about that exactly at the small scale of
1:43:06a collection of individuals a large
1:43:07scale of a society exactly it's a meme i
1:43:10think it's i think it's an example of a
1:43:12good meme and i'm open i'd love to hear
1:43:14feedback from people if they think it's
1:43:16you know they have a better idea or it's
1:43:17not you know but it's the direction of
1:43:20meme that we need to spread this idea of
1:43:22like look for the win-wins in life
1:43:24well on the topic of beauty filters so
1:43:27in that particular context where
1:43:29uh malik creates
1:43:32uh negative consequences what do you
1:43:34know dostoevsky said beauty will save
1:43:36the world
1:43:37what is beauty anyway
1:43:41it would be nice to just try to discuss
1:43:45what kind of thing we would like to
1:43:47converge towards
1:43:49in our
1:43:50understanding of what is beautiful
1:43:55so to me i think something is beautiful
1:43:59when
1:44:00it can't be reduced down to
1:44:05easy metrics like if you think of a tree
1:44:09what is it about a tree like a big
1:44:10ancient beautiful tree right what is it
1:44:12about it that we find so beautiful it's
1:44:14not you know the
1:44:17the you know what the sweetness of its
1:44:19fruit
1:44:20or the value of its lumber
1:44:23it's
1:44:25it's this entirety of it
1:44:27that is that there's these immeasurable
1:44:30qualities it's like almost like a qualia
1:44:32of it
1:44:33um that's both like it walks this fine
1:44:36line between pattern well it's got lots
1:44:37of patronicity but it's not overly
1:44:39predictable
1:44:40um you know again it walks this fine
1:44:41line between order and chaos it's a very
1:44:43highly complex system
1:44:45um
1:44:46in the
1:44:48you know you can't it's evolving over
1:44:50time you know that the definition of a
1:44:52complex versus and this is another
1:44:53smackdom burger thing you know a complex
1:44:55versus a complicated system a
1:44:57complicated system can be sort of broken
1:44:59down into bits understood and then put
1:45:01back together a complex system it's kind
1:45:03of like a black box it does all this
1:45:05crazy stuff
1:45:06but if you take it apart you can't put
1:45:08it back together again because it's
1:45:09there's there's all these intricacies
1:45:11and also very importantly like there's
1:45:13some of the parts sorry the sum of the
1:45:15whole is much greater than the sum of
1:45:16the parts
1:45:17and that's where the beauty lies i think
1:45:21and i think that extends to things like
1:45:22art as well like
1:45:24there's something there's something
1:45:26immeasurable about it there's something
1:45:27we can't break down to a narrow metric
1:45:29does that extend to humans you think
1:45:31yeah
1:45:32absolutely
1:45:33so how can instagram reveal that kind of
1:45:36beauty the complexity of a human being
1:45:39good question
1:45:41um this takes us back to uh dating sites
1:45:44and good reads i think
1:45:46very good question i mean
1:45:48well i know what it shouldn't do it
1:45:50shouldn't try and like right now
1:45:52you know one of the
1:45:54i was talking to like a social media
1:45:55expert recently because i was like oh i
1:45:57hate things the social media expert oh
1:46:00yeah there are like agencies out there
1:46:01that you can like outsource because i'm
1:46:03thinking about
1:46:04working with one to like
1:46:06i said i want to start a podcast
1:46:09you should you should have done it a
1:46:10long time ago checking on it gonna be
1:46:13called win-win um and it's gonna be
1:46:15about this like positive some stuff uh
1:46:17and
1:46:18the thing that you know they they all
1:46:20come back and say it's like well you
1:46:21need to like figure out what your thing
1:46:23is you know you need to narrow down what
1:46:25your thing is and then just follow that
1:46:27have like a sort of a formula
1:46:30because that's what people want they
1:46:32want to know that they're coming back to
1:46:33the same thing and that's the advice on
1:46:35youtube twitter you name it and that's
1:46:38why and and the trouble with that is
1:46:40that it's it's a complexity reduction
1:46:42and generally speaking complex you know
1:46:43complexity reduction is bad it's making
1:46:45things more it's an oversimplification
1:46:47not that simplification is always a bad
1:46:49thing um
1:46:51but when you're trying to
1:46:54take you know what is social media doing
1:46:56is trying to like encapsulate the the
1:46:58human experience and put it into digital
1:47:01form and and commodify it to an extent
1:47:04that you so you do that you compress
1:47:06people down into these like narrow
1:47:08things
1:47:09and i that's why i think it's it's kind
1:47:11of ultimately fundamentally incompatible
1:47:13with at least my definition of beauty
1:47:15it's interesting because
1:47:16there is some sense in which
1:47:20a simplification sort of in the in the
1:47:23einstein kind of sense
1:47:25of a really complex idea
1:47:27a simplification in a way that still
1:47:29captures some core
1:47:31power of an idea of a person
1:47:33is also
1:47:34beautiful and so maybe it's possible for
1:47:37social media to do that a presentation
1:47:40a sort of a slither a sl a slice a look
1:47:44into a person's life
1:47:47that reveals something real about them
1:47:50but in a simple way in a way that can be
1:47:52displayed graphically or through words
1:47:55some way i mean
1:47:57in some way twitter can do that kind of
1:47:59thing a very few set of words can reveal
1:48:02the intricacies of a person
1:48:04of course
1:48:06the the viral machine that spreads those
1:48:09words
1:48:10uh often
1:48:12results in people taking the thing out
1:48:13of context not
1:48:16people often don't read tweets in the
1:48:18context of the human being that wrote
1:48:20them the full the full history of the
1:48:22tweets they've written the education
1:48:24level the humor level the
1:48:27the world view they're playing around
1:48:29with
1:48:30all that context is forgotten and people
1:48:32just see the different words so that can
1:48:34lead to trouble but in in a certain
1:48:36sense if you do take it in context
1:48:39it reveals some kind of quirky little
1:48:42beautiful idea or a profound little idea
1:48:45from that particular person that shows
1:48:47something about that person so in that
1:48:49sense twitter can be more successful if
1:48:51we talk about molex is driving a better
1:48:54kind of incentive
1:48:56yeah i mean how they can
1:48:59like if if we were to rewrite it is
1:49:02there a way to rewrite the twitter
1:49:04algorithm so that it stops being
1:49:08the like
1:49:10the fertile breeding ground of the
1:49:11culture wars because that's really what
1:49:13it is it's
1:49:14um i mean
1:49:16maybe i'm giving it you know twitter too
1:49:17much power you know power but
1:49:20just the more i looked into it and i had
1:49:21conversations with uh
1:49:23tristan harris uh from center of humane
1:49:26technology and he explained it as like
1:49:30twitter is where you have this amalgam
1:49:32of human culture
1:49:34and then this terribly designed
1:49:35algorithm that amplifies the craziest
1:49:37people um
1:49:39and the the angriest the angriest most
1:49:43divisive takes and amplifies them and
1:49:45then the media the mainstream media
1:49:47because all the journalists are also on
1:49:48twitter they then
1:49:50are informed by that and so they draw
1:49:53out the stories they can from this
1:49:55already like
1:49:56very boiling lava of of of
1:49:59rage and then spread that
1:50:02you know to their millions and millions
1:50:03of people who aren't even on twitter um
1:50:06and so
1:50:08i honestly i think if i could press a
1:50:10button and turn them off i probably
1:50:12would at this point because i just don't
1:50:14see a way of being compatible with
1:50:16healthiness but that's not gonna happen
1:50:18um
1:50:19and
1:50:20so at least one way to like stem the
1:50:22tide and make it less molecule would be
1:50:25to
1:50:26um
1:50:27change
1:50:29at least if like it was on a
1:50:30subscription model then it's now not
1:50:32optimizing for in you know
1:50:34uh
1:50:36impressions because basically what it
1:50:37wants is for people to keep coming back
1:50:39as often as possible that's how they get
1:50:40paid right um every time an ad gets
1:50:42shown to someone and the way is to get
1:50:44people constantly refreshing their feed
1:50:46so you're trying to encourage addictive
1:50:48behaviors whereas if someone um
1:50:51if they moved on to at least a
1:50:52subscription model then
1:50:55they're getting the money either way
1:50:56whether someone comes back to the site
1:50:58once a month or 500 times a month they
1:51:00get the same amount of money so now that
1:51:02takes away that incentive you know to
1:51:04use technology you know
1:51:06to build to design an algorithm that is
1:51:08maximally addictive
1:51:09um that would be one way for example
1:51:12yeah but you still want people to
1:51:14yeah i just feel like that just slows
1:51:16down creates friction
1:51:18in the virality of things but that's
1:51:21good
1:51:22we need to slow down
1:51:24good it's one way
1:51:26variety is monarch
1:51:28to be clear
1:51:30so molec
1:51:32is always negative then yes
1:51:35by definition yes
1:51:37but then i disagree with you it's not
1:51:38always negative competition is neutral i
1:51:40disagree with you that all virality is
1:51:42negative then uh as molok then
1:51:45because
1:51:47i i it's a good intuition because we
1:51:49have a lot of data on virality being
1:51:51negative
1:51:52but i happen to believe that the core of
1:51:56human beings so most human beings want
1:51:58to be good
1:52:00more than they want to be bad to each
1:52:02other and so
1:52:04i think it's possible it might be just
1:52:06harder to engineer
1:52:08systems that enable virality but it's
1:52:10possible to engineer systems that are
1:52:12viral
1:52:13that enable virality and
1:52:16the kind of stuff that rises to the top
1:52:19is things that are positive and positive
1:52:21not like
1:52:23lala positive it's more like win-win
1:52:25meaning a lot of people need to be
1:52:27challenged wise things yeah you grow
1:52:30from it it might challenge you you might
1:52:31not like it but you ultimately grow from
1:52:33it
1:52:34and ultimately
1:52:35bring people together as opposed to tear
1:52:37them apart yeah i
1:52:39deeply want that to be true and i very
1:52:41much agree with you that people at their
1:52:43core are on average good as opposed to
1:52:44you know care for each other as opposed
1:52:46to not like a you know i think it's
1:52:48actually a very small percentage of
1:52:50people are truly like wanting to do just
1:52:52like destructive malicious things most
1:52:54people are just trying to win their own
1:52:55little game and they don't mean to be
1:52:57you know they're just stuck in this
1:52:58badly designed system
1:53:00um
1:53:02that said the current structure yes is
1:53:05the current structure
1:53:07means that virality is optimized towards
1:53:10molok that doesn't mean there aren't
1:53:11exceptions you know sometimes positive
1:53:13stories do go viral and i think we
1:53:14should study them i think there should
1:53:15be a whole field of study into
1:53:17understanding
1:53:18you know
1:53:19identifying memes that
1:53:21you know
1:53:22above a certain threshold of the
1:53:23population agree is a positive happy
1:53:25bringing people together meme the kind
1:53:27of thing that you know brings families
1:53:29together that would normally argue about
1:53:30cultural stuff at the table
1:53:32at the dinner table um identify those
1:53:35memes and figure out what it was what
1:53:37was the ingredient that made them spread
1:53:39that day um
1:53:41and also like uh not just like happiness
1:53:44and connection between humans but
1:53:46uh
1:53:47connection between humans and other ways
1:53:49that enables like productivity like
1:53:51cooperation
1:53:52solving difficult problems and all those
1:53:54kinds of stuff um you know this so it's
1:53:56not just about let's let's be happy and
1:53:59have a fulfilling lives it's also like
1:54:01let's build cool yeah
1:54:03which is the spirit of collaboration
1:54:04which is deeply anti-moloch right that's
1:54:07that's uh it's not using competition
1:54:09it's like
1:54:10you know molech hates collaboration and
1:54:12coordination and people working together
1:54:14and that's you know again like the
1:54:16internet started out as that and it and
1:54:18um it could have been that but because
1:54:20of the way it was sort of structured um
1:54:23in terms of
1:54:24uh you know
1:54:25very lofty ideal they wanted everything
1:54:27to be open source so open source and
1:54:29also free
1:54:30and but they needed to find a way to pay
1:54:32the bills anyway because they were still
1:54:33building this on top of our old economic
1:54:35system um and so the way they did that
1:54:37was through a third-party ad
1:54:38advertisement but that meant that things
1:54:41were very decoupled you know you've got
1:54:43this third-party interest um which means
1:54:46that you're then like people having to
1:54:47optimize for that and that is the you
1:54:49know the actual consumer is actually the
1:54:51product
1:54:52not the not the
1:54:54the the person you're making the thing
1:54:56for you're in in the end you start
1:54:57making the thing for the advertiser and
1:54:59so that's why it then like breaks down
1:55:01um
1:55:03yeah like it's
1:55:05there's no clean solution to this um and
1:55:08i
1:55:09i it's a really good suggestion by you
1:55:10actually to like
1:55:12um
1:55:13figure out how we can optimize virality
1:55:16for
1:55:17positive some
1:55:18topics i shall be the general of the
1:55:21love bot army
1:55:23um
1:55:24strip you did
1:55:26distribute it distribute no okay yeah
1:55:28the power just even insane that the palm
1:55:30already went to my head no okay you've
1:55:33talked about quantifying your thinking
1:55:35we've been talking about this sort of
1:55:37game theoretic view on life
1:55:39and putting probabilities behind
1:55:41estimates like if you think about
1:55:43different trajectories you can take
1:55:44through life just actually analyzing
1:55:46life in a game theoretic way like your
1:55:48own life like personal life you i think
1:55:51you've given an example
1:55:52that you had an honest conversation with
1:55:54igor about like how long is this
1:55:55relationship gonna last
1:55:57so similar to our sort of marriage
1:55:59problem kind of discussion
1:56:01having an honest conversation about the
1:56:03probability
1:56:04of things that we sometimes are a little
1:56:06bit too shy or scared to think of in
1:56:09probabilistic terms
1:56:11can you speak to that kind of way of
1:56:13reasoning
1:56:14uh the good and the bad of that
1:56:16can you do this kind of thing with human
1:56:18relations
1:56:20yeah so the
1:56:22the scenario you're talking about it was
1:56:24like yeah tell me about that yeah uh
1:56:27i think he was about a year into our
1:56:29relationship
1:56:30um and we were
1:56:32having a fairly heavy conversation
1:56:34because we were trying to figure out
1:56:35whether or not i was going to sell my
1:56:36apartment well you know
1:56:38he had already moved in but i think we
1:56:40were just figuring out what like our
1:56:42long-term plans would be should we
1:56:43should we buy a place together et cetera
1:56:46well you guys are having that
1:56:47conversation are you like drunk out of
1:56:48your mind on wine or is he sober and
1:56:50you're actually having a serious like
1:56:53how do you get to that conversation
1:56:54because most people are kind of afraid
1:56:56to have that kind of serious
1:56:57conversation
1:56:58well
1:56:59so you know our relationship was very
1:57:01well first of all we were good friends
1:57:03for a couple of years before we even you
1:57:04know got you know romantic
1:57:07um
1:57:08and
1:57:10when we did get romantic it was very
1:57:13clear that this was a big deal it wasn't
1:57:16just like another like you know it
1:57:17wasn't a random thing
1:57:19um and so the probability of it being a
1:57:21big deal was high was already very high
1:57:24and then we'd been together for a year
1:57:26and it had been pretty golden and
1:57:28wonderful so you know
1:57:30there was a lot of foundation already
1:57:32where we felt very comfortable having a
1:57:34lot of frank conversations but igor's
1:57:36mo has always been much more than mine
1:57:38he was always from the outset like just
1:57:41in a relationship
1:57:42radical transparency and honesty is the
1:57:44way because the truth is the truth
1:57:46whether you want to hide it or not you
1:57:48know but it will come out eventually
1:57:50and
1:57:51um
1:57:53if you aren't able to accept difficult
1:57:55things yourself then how could you
1:57:56possibly expect to be like the most
1:57:58integral version that you know you can't
1:58:01the relationship needs this bedrock of
1:58:03like honesty as a foundation more than
1:58:05anything yeah that's really interesting
1:58:07but i would like to push against some of
1:58:09those ideas but okay all right but
1:58:11that's the down the line just throw them
1:58:12up uh i just rudely interrupt
1:58:16um and so you know we we've been about
1:58:18together for a year and things were good
1:58:20and we were having this hard
1:58:21conversation
1:58:23and and then he was like well okay
1:58:25what's the likelihood that we're going
1:58:26to be together in three years then
1:58:28because i think it was roughly a
1:58:29three-year time horizon
1:58:30and i was like oh interesting and
1:58:32everybody actually wait don't before you
1:58:34said out loud let's both write down our
1:58:35predictions formally
1:58:37um because we'd been like we were just
1:58:38getting into like effective altruism and
1:58:40rationality at the time which is all
1:58:42about making you know formal predictions
1:58:43as a means of uh
1:58:46measuring your own um
1:58:48well your your own foresight essentially
1:58:51in a quantified way
1:58:53so we like both wrote down our
1:58:54percentages and we also did a one-year
1:58:58prediction and a 10-year one as well so
1:58:59we got percentages for all three
1:59:01and then we showed each other um and i
1:59:04remember like having this moment of like
1:59:05oh because after the ten year and i was
1:59:07like oh well i mean
1:59:08i love them a lot but like a lot can
1:59:10happen in ten years you know and
1:59:12um we've only been together for you know
1:59:14so i was like i think it's over 50 but
1:59:16it's definitely not 90 percent and i
1:59:18remember like wrestling i was like oh
1:59:19but i don't want him to be hurt i don't
1:59:20want him to you know i don't want to
1:59:21give a number lower than his and i
1:59:22remember thinking ah don't game it
1:59:25this is a exercise in radical honesty
1:59:28so just give you a real percentage and i
1:59:29think mine was like 75
1:59:31and then we showed each other and
1:59:32luckily we were fairly well aligned um
1:59:36and
1:59:37but honestly even if we weren't 20
1:59:40it definitely it definitely would have i
1:59:43if his had been consistently lower than
1:59:45mine that would have
1:59:46rattled me for sure whereas if it had
1:59:48been the other way around i think he
1:59:50would he's just kind of like a water off
1:59:51the duck's back type of guy he'd be like
1:59:53okay well all right we'll figure this
1:59:54out well did you guys provide error bars
1:59:57on the estimate like the level one they
1:59:58became built in we didn't give formal
2:00:00plus or minus error bars i didn't draw
2:00:02any or anything like that i guess that's
2:00:04the question i have is did you feel
2:00:08informed enough
2:00:10to make such decisions because like i
2:00:12feel like if you were if i were to do
2:00:14this kind of thing rigorously
2:00:17i would want some data
2:00:20uh i would want to say one of the
2:00:22assumptions you have is you're not that
2:00:23different from other relationships right
2:00:26and so
2:00:27i want to i want to have some data about
2:00:29the base rates
2:00:30yeah and and also actual trajectories of
2:00:33relationships i would love to have
2:00:35um like time series data
2:00:39about the ways that relationships fall
2:00:41apart or prosper
2:00:43how they collide with different life
2:00:45events
2:00:46losses job changes moving
2:00:50both partners find jobs
2:00:52only one has a job
2:00:54i want that kind of data and how often
2:00:56the different trajectories change in
2:00:58life like
2:00:59how
2:01:00rep how informative is your past to your
2:01:03future that's the whole thing like i can
2:01:05you look at my
2:01:07life and have a good prediction about in
2:01:10terms of my characteristics of my
2:01:12relationships what that's going to look
2:01:14like in the future or not i don't even
2:01:16know the answer that question i'll be
2:01:17very ill informed in terms of making the
2:01:19probability i would be far
2:01:23yeah i i just would be under-informed i
2:01:25would be under-informed i'll be
2:01:27over-biasing to my prior experiences i
2:01:30think
2:01:31right but as long as you're aware of
2:01:32that and you're honest with yourself i
2:01:34still and you're honest with the other
2:01:35person say look i have really wide error
2:01:36bars on this for the following reasons
2:01:39that's okay i still think it's better
2:01:41than not trying to quantify it at all if
2:01:43you're trying to make really major
2:01:45irreversible life decisions and i feel
2:01:47also the romantic nature of that
2:01:48question for me personally i would
2:01:51i try to live my life thinking it's very
2:01:53close to 100 percent
2:01:55like
2:01:56allowing myself actually the this is
2:01:58this is the difficulty of this is
2:02:00allowing myself to think differently
2:02:03i feel like has a psychological
2:02:05consequence that's where that's what's
2:02:07one of my pushbacks against radical
2:02:08honesty
2:02:10is uh this one one particular
2:02:13perspective so you're saying you would
2:02:15you would rather give a falsely high
2:02:17percentage
2:02:18to your partner going back to uh
2:02:21in order to survive the traditional
2:02:23optimism
2:02:25yes of uh fake it till you make it about
2:02:29the positive the power of the positive
2:02:35well so that and this comes back to this
2:02:36idea of useful fictions yeah right and i
2:02:41i agree i don't think there's a clear
2:02:42answer to this and i think it's actually
2:02:43quite subjective some people this works
2:02:45better for than others
2:02:46um
2:02:48you know to be clear igor and i weren't
2:02:49doing this
2:02:50formal prediction in it like we we did
2:02:52it with very much tongue-in-cheek
2:02:55it wasn't like we were going to make i
2:02:57don't think it even would have me
2:02:58drastically changed what we decided to
2:03:00do even we kind of just did it more as a
2:03:03fun exercise um but the consequence of
2:03:05that fun exercise you really actually
2:03:07kind of there was a deep honesty to it
2:03:09too exactly it was a deep and it was it
2:03:11was just like this moment of reflection
2:03:13i'm like oh wow i actually have to think
2:03:14like through this quite critically and
2:03:16so on
2:03:17and
2:03:19and it's also what was interesting was
2:03:21like you know i got to like check in
2:03:22with what what my what my desires were
2:03:25so there was one thing of like what my
2:03:27actual prediction is but what are my
2:03:28desires and could these desires be
2:03:30affecting my predictions and so on and
2:03:32you know that's a that's a method of
2:03:34rationality and i personally don't think
2:03:35it loses anything in terms of i didn't
2:03:37take any of the magic away from our
2:03:38relationship quite the opposite like it
2:03:40brought us closer together because it
2:03:42was like we did this weird fun thing um
2:03:44that i appreciate a lot of people find
2:03:45quite strange
2:03:47um and i think it was somewhat you know
2:03:50unique in our relationship that both of
2:03:52us are very
2:03:53you know we both love numbers we both
2:03:54love statistics we're both poker players
2:03:57um
2:03:58so this this was kind of like our safe
2:04:00space anyway
2:04:01for others you know one part one partner
2:04:03like really
2:04:04might not like that kind of stuff at all
2:04:05in which cases it's not a good exercise
2:04:07to do you know i don't recommend it to
2:04:08everybody um
2:04:10but i do think there's
2:04:12you know it's interesting sometimes to
2:04:14poke holes in the or you know
2:04:16probe at these
2:04:18things that we consider so sacred that
2:04:20we can't try to quantify them
2:04:23but which is interesting because that's
2:04:24intention with like the idea of what we
2:04:26just talked about with beauty and like
2:04:27what makes something beautiful the fact
2:04:28that you can't measure everything about
2:04:30it um and perhaps something shouldn't be
2:04:32tried to make you know maybe it's wrong
2:04:33to
2:04:34completely try and value the utilitarian
2:04:36you know put a utilitarian frame of
2:04:39measuring the
2:04:40the utility of a tree in in its entirety
2:04:43i don't know maybe we should maybe we
2:04:44shouldn't i'm ambivalent on that but
2:04:48overall
2:04:49people have too many biases
2:04:52people are overly biased against
2:04:55trying to
2:04:56do like a quantified cost-benefit
2:04:58analysis on really tough life decisions
2:05:01um you know they're like oh just go with
2:05:03your gut it's like well sure but guts
2:05:05are our intuitions are best suited for
2:05:08things that we've got tons of experience
2:05:09in
2:05:10then we can really you know trust on it
2:05:11if it's a decision we've made many times
2:05:13but if it's like should i marry this
2:05:15person or should i buy this house over
2:05:18that house you only make those decisions
2:05:19a couple of times in your life maybe um
2:05:22well i i would love to know
2:05:25this there's a balance that probably is
2:05:27a personal balance of strike
2:05:29is the amount of rationality you you
2:05:31apply
2:05:33to a question versus
2:05:35um
2:05:36the useful fiction
2:05:38the
2:05:38fake it till you make it for example
2:05:41just talking to soldiers in ukraine
2:05:43you ask them
2:05:44what's the probability of
2:05:47you winning ukraine winning
2:05:51um almost everybody i talk to is a
2:05:54hundred percent
2:05:55wow
2:05:56and you listen to the experts right they
2:05:59they say all kinds of stuff right they
2:06:01are
2:06:02they
2:06:03first of all the morale there is higher
2:06:05than probably and i've i've never been
2:06:07to a war zone before this
2:06:09but i've read about
2:06:11many wars and i think the morale in
2:06:13ukraine is higher than almost anywhere
2:06:16i've read about it's every single person
2:06:18in the country is proud to fight for
2:06:20their country
2:06:22everybody not just soldiers not
2:06:24everybody why do you think that is
2:06:26specifically more than you know in other
2:06:28words
2:06:31um i think because there's uh perhaps
2:06:34a dormant desire
2:06:36for the citizens of this country
2:06:39to find the identity of this country
2:06:41because it's been
2:06:43going through this 30-year process of
2:06:45different factions and political
2:06:47bickering
2:06:48and they haven't had as they talk about
2:06:50they haven't had their independence war
2:06:52they say all great nations have had an
2:06:54independence war they had to fight
2:06:57for their independence for the discovery
2:06:59of the identity of the core of the
2:07:01ideals that unify us and they haven't
2:07:03had that there's constantly been
2:07:05factions there's been divisions there's
2:07:07been pressures from empires from the
2:07:09united states and from russia from nato
2:07:13and europe everybody telling them what
2:07:15to do now they want to discover who they
2:07:17are and there's that kind of sense that
2:07:19we're going to fight for the safety of
2:07:22our homeland but we're also going to
2:07:24fight for our identity and that
2:07:29on top of the fact that there's just
2:07:32if you look at the history of ukraine
2:07:33and there's certain other countries like
2:07:35this
2:07:36there are certain cultures are feisty
2:07:39in their pride
2:07:42of being part of being the citizens of
2:07:44that nation ukraine is that
2:07:47poland was that there's you just look at
2:07:48history in certain countries you do not
2:07:51want to occupy right
2:07:54i mean both stalin and hitler talked
2:07:56about poland in this way they're like
2:07:57this is
2:07:58this is a big problem if we occupy this
2:08:01land for prolonged periods of time
2:08:02they're going to be a pain in their ass
2:08:04like they're not going to be want to be
2:08:06occupied and certain other countries are
2:08:08like pragmatic they're like well you
2:08:10know leaders come and go i guess this is
2:08:12good you know they're
2:08:14ukraine just doesn't have ukrainians
2:08:17those team throughout the 20th century
2:08:19don't seem to be the kind of people that
2:08:20just like sit calmly
2:08:23and let the quote unquote occupiers
2:08:26um in in uh impose their that that's
2:08:30interesting though because you said it's
2:08:31you know it's always been under conflict
2:08:33and leaders have come and gone yeah so
2:08:35you would expect them to actually be the
2:08:36opposite under that yeah
2:08:38because well because they're it's a very
2:08:40fertile land
2:08:42it's great for agriculture so a lot of
2:08:43people want to i mean i think they've
2:08:45developed this culture because they've
2:08:46constantly been occupied by different
2:08:48people for different peoples
2:08:50and so
2:08:52maybe there is something to that where
2:08:55you've constantly had to
2:08:56feel
2:08:58like within the blood of the generations
2:09:00there's the struggle for
2:09:02um against the man
2:09:04against the imposition of
2:09:07rules against oppression and all that
2:09:08kind of stuff and that stays with them
2:09:10so there's a there's a will there um but
2:09:13you know a lot of other aspects are also
2:09:15part of that that has to do with the
2:09:18reverse smaller kind of situation where
2:09:20social media has definitely played a
2:09:21part of it um also different charismatic
2:09:24individuals have had to play a part the
2:09:27fact that uh the president of the nation
2:09:29zelonski
2:09:31stayed in kiev during the
2:09:34the invasion
2:09:35uh was is a huge inspiration to them
2:09:37because
2:09:39most leaders as you could imagine
2:09:41when the capital of the nation is under
2:09:43attack
2:09:44the wise thing the smart thing that the
2:09:46united states advised zalensky to do is
2:09:49to flee and to to be the leader of the
2:09:52nation from a from a distant place right
2:09:54he said that i'm staying put
2:09:58you know everyone around him there was a
2:10:00pressure to leave
2:10:01and he didn't and that that
2:10:04in you know those singular acts
2:10:06um really can unify a nation there's a
2:10:09lot of people that criticize the
2:10:10landscape within ukraine uh before the
2:10:13war is very unpopular even still
2:10:17but they put that aside for the
2:10:19for the especially that singular act of
2:10:22staying in the capital
2:10:24yeah
2:10:24a lot of those kinds of things
2:10:26come together to to to create something
2:10:30within people
2:10:33these things always
2:10:35of course though like
2:10:36the you know which
2:10:39how zoomed out of a view do you want to
2:10:42take
2:10:43because yeah you describe it it's like
2:10:45an antimonic thing happened within
2:10:47ukraine because it brought the ukrainian
2:10:48people together in order to fight a
2:10:50common enemy
2:10:51maybe that's a good thing maybe that's a
2:10:52bad thing in the end we don't know how
2:10:54this is all going to play out right um
2:10:56but if you zoom it out from
2:10:58the level you know on a global level
2:11:01they're coming together to you know
2:11:04fight
2:11:06that
2:11:09that could you know that could make a
2:11:10conflict larger you know what i mean i
2:11:13don't i don't know what the right answer
2:11:14is here um yeah it seems like a good
2:11:16thing that they came together i but i
2:11:17like we don't know how this is all going
2:11:19to play out if this all turns into
2:11:20nuclear war we'll be like okay that was
2:11:22the bad that was the oh yeah so i was
2:11:23describing the the reverse molec for the
2:11:26local level exactly now this is where
2:11:29the experts come in
2:11:31and they say well
2:11:33if you uh
2:11:34channel most of the resources the nation
2:11:37and the nations supporting
2:11:39ukraine into the war effort
2:11:42are you not
2:11:44beating the drums of war that is much
2:11:46bigger than ukraine in fact
2:11:49even the ukrainian leaders are speaking
2:11:51of it this way this is not a war between
2:11:54two nations
2:11:55this is
2:11:57this is the early days of a world war
2:12:00if we don't play this correctly yes
2:12:03uh and they
2:12:04we need cool heads from our leaders
2:12:07so you from ukraine's perspective we
2:12:09need to win ukraine needs to win the war
2:12:12because what is winning the war mean
2:12:15is
2:12:16coming up coming to
2:12:18peace negotiations an agreement
2:12:21that guarantees no more invasions and
2:12:24then you make an agreement about
2:12:26what land belongs to who right and that
2:12:28that's you stop that and and
2:12:31to sh basically
2:12:32from their perspective is you want to
2:12:34demonstrate to the rest of the world
2:12:36who's watching carefully including
2:12:37russia and china
2:12:39and different players on the
2:12:40geopolitical stage that this kind of
2:12:43conflict is not going to be productive
2:12:45right if you engage in it so you want to
2:12:47teach everybody a lesson let's not do
2:12:49world war three it's not it's gonna be
2:12:51bad for everybody it's a it's a lose
2:12:53lose
2:12:54deep lose lose
2:12:56doesn't matter
2:12:57so but they you know uh but it and i
2:13:00think that's actually
2:13:03a correct
2:13:05uh when i zoom out
2:13:07i mean
2:13:0899 of what i think about is just
2:13:10individual human beings and human lives
2:13:12and just that war is horrible
2:13:14but when you zoom out and think from a
2:13:16geopolitics perspective we should
2:13:19realize that
2:13:20it's entirely possible that we will see
2:13:22a world war iii in the 21st century
2:13:26and this is like a dress rehearsal for
2:13:29that and so the way
2:13:31we play this
2:13:33as a as a human civilization will will
2:13:36define whether we do or don't have a
2:13:38world war three
2:13:40um you know
2:13:42um
2:13:44how we discuss war
2:13:47how we discuss nuclear war the kind of
2:13:49leaders we
2:13:52we elect and uh prop up the kind of
2:13:55memes
2:13:56we circulate because you have to be very
2:13:59careful when you're being
2:14:02pro-ukraine for example you have to
2:14:04realize that you're being
2:14:07you are also indirectly
2:14:10feeding
2:14:11the ever increasing military industrial
2:14:13complex
2:14:15so be extremely careful
2:14:17that
2:14:20when you say pro ukraine or pro
2:14:23anybody
2:14:24your
2:14:25you're pro human beings
2:14:27uh not pro the machine
2:14:30exactly that uh
2:14:32that uh creates narratives that says
2:14:35it's pro-human beings but it's actually
2:14:37if you look at the raw
2:14:39use of
2:14:40uh funds and resources it's actually
2:14:43probe making weapons and shooting
2:14:45bullets and dropping bombs right the
2:14:47real we have to just
2:14:49somehow get the meme into everyone's
2:14:51heads that the real enemy is war itself
2:14:54that's the enemy we need to defeat
2:14:56and
2:14:58that doesn't mean to say that you know
2:15:00there isn't justification for
2:15:02small local
2:15:03scenarios you know adversarial
2:15:05adversarial conflicts you know if you
2:15:07have a a leader who is starting wars
2:15:10you know they're on the side of team war
2:15:12basically it's not that they're on the
2:15:14side of team country whatever that
2:15:15country is it's they're on the side of
2:15:16team war so that needs to be stopped and
2:15:19put down but you also have to find a
2:15:21ways that your
2:15:23corrective measure doesn't actually then
2:15:25end up being co-opted by the war machine
2:15:27and creating greater war again the
2:15:29playing field is finite the scale of
2:15:33in conflict is now getting so big that
2:15:35you know the weapons that can be used
2:15:37are so mass destructive
2:15:39um
2:15:40that we can't afford another giant
2:15:41conflict we just we won't make it
2:15:44what existential threat in terms of us
2:15:46not making it are you most worried about
2:15:49what existential threat to human
2:15:50civilization we got like a dark path huh
2:15:53this is good but no well no it's a dark
2:15:56no it's like while we're in the summer
2:15:58place we might as well
2:16:01uh
2:16:02some of my best friends are dark paths
2:16:04um
2:16:06uh what what worries you the most well
2:16:08mentioned uh asteroids will mention agi
2:16:11uh nuclear weapons
2:16:14the one that's on
2:16:15my mind the most
2:16:17mostly because i think it's the one
2:16:18where we have actually a real chance to
2:16:20move the needle on in a positive
2:16:22direction or more specifically stop some
2:16:25really bad things from happening really
2:16:27dumb avoidable things is uh
2:16:30bio bio risks
2:16:33um
2:16:34so what in what what kind of violence
2:16:37and so many fun options
2:16:39so many so of course like we have
2:16:40natural risks from natural pandemics you
2:16:43know naturally occurring viruses or
2:16:45pathogens
2:16:47and then also as time and technology
2:16:49goes on and technology becomes more and
2:16:50more democratized and you know into the
2:16:52hands of more people
2:16:53the risk of synthetic pathogens um
2:16:56you know and whether or not you fall
2:16:58into the camp of covid was you know gain
2:17:01a function accidental lab leak or
2:17:03whether it was purely naturally
2:17:05occurring
2:17:07either way
2:17:09we are facing a future where
2:17:13synthetic pathogens or like art human
2:17:16human meddled with pathogens um either
2:17:18accidentally get out or
2:17:20get into the hands of bad actors who you
2:17:23know whether they're omnicidal maniacs
2:17:25you know um either way
2:17:28and so that means we need more
2:17:29robustness for that and you would think
2:17:31that us having this nice little dry run
2:17:33which is what as awful as covid was
2:17:36um you know and all those poor people
2:17:38that died it was still like
2:17:41like child's play compared to what a
2:17:43future one could be in terms of fatality
2:17:45rate
2:17:46um
2:17:47and so you'd think that we would then
2:17:49becoming we'd be much more robust in our
2:17:51pandemic preparedness
2:17:52um
2:17:53and
2:17:54meanwhile the budget uh
2:17:57in the last two years for the u.s
2:17:59um sorry they just did this uh
2:18:02i can't remember the name of what the
2:18:04actual budget was but it was like a
2:18:05multi-trillion dollar budget that the us
2:18:07just set aside
2:18:08and originally in that you know
2:18:10considering that covert cost multiple
2:18:12trillions to the economy right
2:18:14the original allocation in this this new
2:18:16budget for future pandemic preparedness
2:18:18was 60 billion so tiny proportion of it
2:18:22that proceeded to get whittled down to
2:18:24like
2:18:2530 billion
2:18:27to 15 billion all the way down to 2
2:18:29billion out of multiple trillions for a
2:18:31thing that has just cost us multiple
2:18:33trillions we've just finished we barely
2:18:35even we're not even really out of it
2:18:37it basically got whittled down to
2:18:38nothing because for some reason people
2:18:40think that
2:18:41all right we've got the pandemic out the
2:18:42way that was that one
2:18:44and the reason for that is that people
2:18:46are and and i say this with all due
2:18:49respect to a lot of the science
2:18:50community but they are there's an
2:18:51immense amount of naivety about
2:18:54they they they think that nature is the
2:18:57main risk moving forward and it really
2:18:59isn't
2:19:00um and i think nothing demonstrates this
2:19:02more than this uh this project that i
2:19:04was just reading about that's sort of
2:19:06being proposed right now called um
2:19:08deep vision
2:19:10and the idea is to go out into the wilds
2:19:12and we're not talking about it's like
2:19:13you know within cities like deep into
2:19:15like caves that people don't go to deep
2:19:17into the arctic wherever scour the earth
2:19:20for whatever the most dangerous possible
2:19:23pathogens could be that they can find
2:19:26and then
2:19:27not only do you know try and find these
2:19:29bring samples of them back to
2:19:31laboratories
2:19:32and again whether you think covered with
2:19:34a lab leak or not
2:19:36i'm not going to get into that but we
2:19:37have historically had so many as a
2:19:39civilization we've had so many lab leaks
2:19:42from even like the highest level
2:19:43security things like it it just it
2:19:46people should go and just read it it's
2:19:47like it's like a comedy show of just how
2:19:49many they are how leaky these these labs
2:19:51are even when they do their best efforts
2:19:53um so bring these things then back to
2:19:56civilization
2:19:57that's step one of the badness the the
2:19:59next plan the next step would be to then
2:20:01categorize them do experiments on them
2:20:03and categorize them by their level of
2:20:05potential pandemic lethality
2:20:07and then the piece of resistance on this
2:20:09plan is to then publish that information
2:20:13freely on the internet about all these
2:20:15pathogens including their genome which
2:20:16is literally like the building
2:20:18instructions of how to do them
2:20:20on the internet and this is something
2:20:21that genuinely
2:20:23a pocket of the like bio
2:20:26of the scientific community thinks is a
2:20:28good idea
2:20:29and i think on expectation like the and
2:20:32their argument is is that oh this is
2:20:34good because you know it might buy us
2:20:35some time to buy
2:20:36to development vaccines which okay sure
2:20:39maybe would have made sense prior to
2:20:41mrna technology but you know like they
2:20:43mrna we can bank we can develop a
2:20:45vaccine now when we find a new uh
2:20:48pathogen within a couple of days now
2:20:50then there's all the trials and so on
2:20:51but those trials would have to happen
2:20:52anyway in the case of a brand new thing
2:20:54so you're saving maybe a couple of days
2:20:56so that's the upside meanwhile the
2:20:58downside is you're not only giving
2:21:01you're bringing the risk of these
2:21:02pathogens of like getting leaked but
2:21:04you're literally handing it out
2:21:06to
2:21:07every bad actor on earth who would be
2:21:09doing cartwheels and i'm talking about
2:21:10like kim jong-un
2:21:12isis people who like want they think the
2:21:15rest of the world is their enemy um and
2:21:17in some cases they think that killing it
2:21:19themselves is is is like a noble cause
2:21:22and you're literally giving them the
2:21:23building blocks of how to do this it's
2:21:24the most batshit i'd ever heard like on
2:21:27expectation it's probably like minus ev
2:21:29of like multiple billions of lives if
2:21:31they actually succeeded in doing this
2:21:33certainly certainly in the tens or
2:21:34hundreds of millions so the cost benefit
2:21:36is so unbelievably it makes no sense and
2:21:39i was like trying to wrap my head around
2:21:41like why why like
2:21:43what's going wrong in people's minds to
2:21:44think that this is a good idea
2:21:46and it's not that it's malice or
2:21:48anything like that it's i think it's
2:21:50that
2:21:51people don't
2:21:53you know the proponents they don't
2:21:55it they're actually overly naive about
2:21:58the interactions of humanity and well
2:22:00like that that there are bad actors who
2:22:02will use this for bad things because not
2:22:05only will it um
2:22:07if you publish this information even if
2:22:09a bad actor couldn't physically make it
2:22:11themselves which given you know in 10
2:22:13years time like
2:22:14the technologies are getting cheaper and
2:22:16easier uh to use but even if they
2:22:18couldn't make it they could now bluff it
2:22:20like what would you do if there's like
2:22:21some deadly new virus that um
2:22:24we were published on the internet in
2:22:26terms of its building blocks kim jong-un
2:22:28could be like hey if you don't you know
2:22:30let me build my nuclear weapons i'm
2:22:31going to release this i've managed to
2:22:32build it well now he's actually got
2:22:34incredible bluff we don't know you know
2:22:36and so that's it's just like handing the
2:22:38keys sending weapons of mass destruction
2:22:40to people
2:22:41though makes no sense the possible i
2:22:43agree with you but the possible
2:22:46world in which you might make sense
2:22:48is if the um
2:22:51the good guys which is a whole another
2:22:52problem defining who the good guys are
2:22:55but the good guys are like
2:22:58an order of magnitude higher competence
2:23:01and so they can stay
2:23:03ahead
2:23:04of the bad actors
2:23:06by just being very good at the defense
2:23:10by very good not meaning like a little
2:23:13bit better but an order of magnitude
2:23:14better
2:23:15but of course the question is in each of
2:23:17those individual disciplines
2:23:20is that feasible can you can the bad
2:23:22actors even if they don't have the
2:23:24competence leap frog to the place where
2:23:27uh the good guys are
2:23:29yeah i mean i would agree in principle
2:23:31um
2:23:32with pertaining to this like particular
2:23:34plan of like
2:23:37that you know with the thing i described
2:23:38this deep vision thing where at least
2:23:39then that would maybe make sense for
2:23:41steps one and step two of like getting
2:23:42the information but then
2:23:44why would you release it the information
2:23:46to your literal enemies you know that's
2:23:47that makes
2:23:48that
2:23:49that doesn't fit at all in that
2:23:51perspective of like trying to be ahead
2:23:53of them you're literally handing them
2:23:54the weapon but there's different levels
2:23:55of release right so
2:23:57uh there's the kind of secrecy where you
2:24:00don't give it to anybody but there's a
2:24:02release where you incrementally give it
2:24:05to
2:24:06like major labs so it's not public
2:24:08release but it's like you're giving it
2:24:09to yeah there's different layers of
2:24:11reasonability but but the problem there
2:24:13is it's going to if if you go anywhere
2:24:16beyond like complete secrecy it's going
2:24:18to leak
2:24:19that's the thing it's very hard to keep
2:24:20secrets and so that's the information is
2:24:23so you might as well release it to the
2:24:25public it's that argument so you either
2:24:27go complete secrecy
2:24:29or you release it to the public
2:24:31so which is essentially the same thing
2:24:33it's going to leak anyway
2:24:36if you don't do complete secrecy right
2:24:38which is why you shouldn't get the
2:24:39information in the first place yeah i
2:24:40mean what in that
2:24:42i think
2:24:43well that's a solution yeah the solution
2:24:45is either don't get the information in
2:24:46the first place or be
2:24:48keep keep it incredibly
2:24:50incredibly contained see i think
2:24:53i think it really matters which
2:24:54discipline we're talking about so in the
2:24:56case of biology i do think you're a very
2:24:58right we shouldn't even be
2:25:01it should be forbidden to even like
2:25:04think about
2:25:06that meaning don't coll don't just even
2:25:08collect information but like don't do i
2:25:11mean gain a functional research is a
2:25:12really iffy area
2:25:14like you start i mean it's all about
2:25:16cost benefits right there are some
2:25:18scenarios where i could imagine the cost
2:25:19benefit of a gain of function research
2:25:21is very very clear
2:25:23where you've evaluated all the potential
2:25:24risks factored in the probability that
2:25:26things can go wrong and like you know
2:25:28not only known unknowns but unknown
2:25:30unknowns as well tried to quantify that
2:25:32and then even then it's like orders of
2:25:33magnitude better to do that i'm behind
2:25:36that argument but the point is is that
2:25:37there's this like naivety that's
2:25:39preventing people from even doing the
2:25:40cost benefit properly on a lot of the
2:25:42things because
2:25:44you know the site this i i get it the
2:25:45science community there
2:25:47again i don't want to bucket the science
2:25:48community but like some people within
2:25:50the science community just think that
2:25:52everyone's everyone's good and everyone
2:25:54just cares about getting knowledge and
2:25:55doing the best for the world and
2:25:56unfortunately that's not the case i wish
2:25:58we lived in that world but we don't
2:26:00yeah i mean there's a lie listen i've
2:26:02been criticizing the science community
2:26:05broadly quite a bit there's so many
2:26:07brilliant people that brilliance is
2:26:09somehow hindering sometimes because it
2:26:11has a bunch of blind spots and then you
2:26:13start to look at a history of science
2:26:16how easily has been used by dictators to
2:26:19any conclusion they want and it's
2:26:21it's it's dark how you can use brilliant
2:26:24people that like playing the little game
2:26:26of science because it is a fun game
2:26:28you know you're building you're going to
2:26:30conferences you're building on top of
2:26:31each other's ideas as breakthroughs hi i
2:26:34think i've realized how this particular
2:26:36molecule works and i could do this kind
2:26:37of experiment and everyone else is
2:26:39impressed ooh cool no i think you're
2:26:41wrong let me show you why you're wrong
2:26:42and that little game everyone gets
2:26:44really excited and they get excited or i
2:26:46came up with a pill that solves this
2:26:47problem and it's going to help a bunch
2:26:48of people and i came up with a giant
2:26:50study that shows the exact probability
2:26:53it's going to help or not and you get
2:26:54lost in this game and you forget to
2:26:56realize
2:26:58this game just like malik
2:27:00it can have like
2:27:03unintended yeah
2:27:04unintended consequences that might
2:27:06destroy human civilization right uh or
2:27:11or divide human civilization or have
2:27:14a
2:27:15geopolitical consequences i mean the the
2:27:18effects of i mean it's just so
2:27:20the most destructive effects of covid
2:27:22have nothing to do with the with the
2:27:24biology of the virus it seems like uh
2:27:27it's i mean i could just list them
2:27:28forever but like one of them is the
2:27:31complete distrust of public institutions
2:27:33uh the other one is because of that
2:27:35public distrust i feel like if a much
2:27:37worse pandemic came along
2:27:39we as a world have not cried wolf
2:27:42and when if an actual wolf now comes
2:27:45people will be like masks
2:27:48vaccines it yeah everything
2:27:49and they they won't be
2:27:51they'll distrust every single thing that
2:27:53any major institution is going to tell
2:27:55them and
2:27:56because that's the thing like that
2:27:59there were certain actions
2:28:01made by
2:28:03certain you know health public figures
2:28:06where they told they very knowingly told
2:28:09it was a white lie it was intended in
2:28:11the best possible ways such as
2:28:13you know
2:28:14early on
2:28:15when
2:28:17there were there was clearly a shortage
2:28:18of masks
2:28:20and so they said to the public oh don't
2:28:21get masks they don't there's no evidence
2:28:24that they work there or the you know
2:28:26don't get them they don't work in fact
2:28:27it might even make it worse you might
2:28:29even spread it more like that that was a
2:28:30real like stinker uh yeah no no there's
2:28:33a unless you know how to do it properly
2:28:35you're gonna make that you're gonna get
2:28:36sicker or you're more likely to get the
2:28:37to catch the virus which is just
2:28:39absolute crap
2:28:41and
2:28:42they put that out there and it's pretty
2:28:43clear the reason why they did that was
2:28:45because there was actually a shortage of
2:28:47masks and they really needed it for
2:28:49health workers which makes sense like i
2:28:51agree like it you know but
2:28:53the cost
2:28:54of lying to the popul to the to the
2:28:57public when that then comes out
2:28:59people aren't as stupid as they think
2:29:00they are as a you know and that's that's
2:29:03i think where this distrust of ex
2:29:05experts has largely come from a they've
2:29:07lied to people
2:29:08overtly but b
2:29:10people have been treated like idiots
2:29:12now that's not to say that there aren't
2:29:14a lot of stupid people who have a lot of
2:29:15wacky ideas around covid and all sorts
2:29:17of things but if you treat the general
2:29:19public like children
2:29:21they're going to see that they're going
2:29:22to notice that and that is going to just
2:29:24dis like absolutely decimate the trust
2:29:26in the public institutions that we
2:29:28depend upon and honestly the best thing
2:29:30that could happen
2:29:32i wish like if like faulty or you know
2:29:34and these other like leaders who i mean
2:29:36god i would
2:29:37i can't imagine how nightmare his job
2:29:39has been over the last few years hell on
2:29:40earth like so you know i i you know i
2:29:43have i have a lot of sort of sympathy
2:29:45for the position he's been in but like
2:29:47if he could just come out and be like
2:29:48okay look guys
2:29:50hands up we didn't handle this as well
2:29:52as we could have
2:29:53these are all the things i would have
2:29:55done differently in hindsight i
2:29:56apologize for this and this and this and
2:29:58this that would go so far
2:30:01and maybe i'm being naive who knows
2:30:02maybe this would backfire but i don't
2:30:04think it would like to someone like me
2:30:05even because i've like i've lost trust
2:30:07in a lot of these things i'm unfortunate
2:30:09that at least no people who i can go to
2:30:10who i think are good like have good
2:30:12epistemics on this stuff um but you know
2:30:14if they if they could sort of put their
2:30:15hands on my okay these are the spots
2:30:17where we screwed up this this this um
2:30:20this was our reasons yeah we actually
2:30:21told a little white lie here we did it
2:30:22for this reason we're really sorry but
2:30:24they just did the radical honesty thing
2:30:26the radical transparency thing
2:30:28that would go so far
2:30:30to build rebuilding public trust and i
2:30:32think that's what needs to happen yeah i
2:30:33know i totally agree with you
2:30:34unfortunately
2:30:36yeah his job was very tough and all
2:30:38those kinds of things but
2:30:40um
2:30:41i see arrogance and arrogance prevented
2:30:44him from being honest in that way
2:30:46previously and i think arrogance will
2:30:48prevent him from being honest in that
2:30:50way now we need leaders and i think
2:30:53young people are seeing that that kind
2:30:55of
2:30:58talking down to people from a position
2:31:00of power
2:31:02i'm i hope is is the way of the past
2:31:04people really like authenticity and they
2:31:06they like
2:31:08leaders that are like a man and a woman
2:31:10of the people
2:31:12and i i think that just i mean he still
2:31:15has a chance to do that i think i mean
2:31:17yeah sure you know i i don't think you
2:31:19know if i i doubt he's listening but if
2:31:20he is like hey i i i think he you know i
2:31:23don't think he's irredeemable by any
2:31:25means i think there's you know
2:31:27um i don't know i don't have an opinion
2:31:28whether there was arrogance or there or
2:31:29not um just know that i think
2:31:33like coming clean on the you know it's
2:31:35understandable to have up during
2:31:37this pandemic like i won't expect any
2:31:38government to handle it well because it
2:31:39was so difficult like so many moving
2:31:42pieces so much like lack of information
2:31:44and so on um but
2:31:46the step to rebuilding trust is to go
2:31:48okay look we're doing a scrutiny of
2:31:50where we went wrong and i and for my
2:31:52part i did this wrong in this part and
2:31:54that would be huge all of us can do that
2:31:55i mean i was struggling for a while
2:31:57whether i want to talk to
2:31:58to him or not i talked to his boss
2:32:00francis collins
2:32:02um
2:32:03another person that's screwed up in
2:32:05terms of trust
2:32:07um
2:32:08lost a little bit of my respect to there
2:32:10seems to have been
2:32:13a kind of dishonesty in the
2:32:16in the back rooms
2:32:18in that p they didn't trust people to be
2:32:21intelligent
2:32:22like we need to tell them what's good
2:32:24for them
2:32:26we know what's good for them that kind
2:32:27of idea
2:32:28to be fair
2:32:30the the thing that's
2:32:32what's it called i heard the phrase
2:32:34today uh nut picking
2:32:36social media does that so you've got
2:32:38like nitpicking nut picking is where
2:32:41the the the craziest stupidest
2:32:44you know if you have a group of people
2:32:45let's call you know let's say people who
2:32:47are vaccine i don't like the term
2:32:48anti-vaccine people who are vaccine
2:32:49hesitant vaccine speculative you know
2:32:53what social media did or the media or
2:32:55anyone you know
2:32:57their opponents
2:32:58would do is pick the craziest example so
2:33:00the ones who are like you know i think i
2:33:02need to inject myself with like
2:33:05motor oil at my ass or something yeah
2:33:07you know
2:33:07select the craziest ones and then
2:33:10have that beamed to you know so from
2:33:12like someone like fauci or francis's
2:33:13perspective
2:33:14that's what they get because they're
2:33:15getting the same social media stuff as
2:33:17us they're getting the same media
2:33:18reports i mean they might get some more
2:33:19information but they're they too are
2:33:22going to get these the nuts portrayed to
2:33:24them so they probably have a
2:33:26misrepresentation of what the actual
2:33:27public's intelligence is well that's
2:33:30that's just yes and that just means
2:33:31they're not social media savvy so one of
2:33:34the skills of being on social media is
2:33:36to be able to filter that in your own
2:33:37mind like to understand to put into
2:33:39proper context realize that what you are
2:33:41seeing social media is not anywhere near
2:33:43an accurate representation
2:33:45of humanity not picking a leather and
2:33:47there's nothing uh wrong with putting uh
2:33:50motor oil up your ass it's just one it's
2:33:51one of them
2:33:54i i do this every weekend okay
2:33:57uh how did that analogy come from in my
2:33:59mind like what i don't know i think we
2:34:01need to there's some freudian thing you
2:34:03would need to deeply investigate with a
2:34:05therapist
2:34:06okay what about ai are you worried about
2:34:10agi superintelligence systems or
2:34:13paperclip maximizer type of type of
2:34:15situation
2:34:17yes i'm definitely worried about it
2:34:19but i feel kind of
2:34:21bipolar in the some days i wake up and
2:34:24i'm like you're excited about the future
2:34:26well exactly i'm like wow we can unlock
2:34:27the mysteries of the universe you know
2:34:29escape the game um and
2:34:32this this you know if because i spend
2:34:34all my time thinking about these
2:34:35molecule problems that you know what
2:34:37what is the solution to them
2:34:39well you know in some ways you need this
2:34:40like
2:34:41omni-benevolent omniscient omni-wise
2:34:47coordination mechanism that can like
2:34:49make us all not do the the molecule
2:34:52thing uh or like provide the
2:34:54infrastructure would redesign the system
2:34:56so that it's not vulnerable to this
2:34:57molecule process um and in some ways you
2:35:00know that's that's the strongest
2:35:01argument to me for like the race to
2:35:03build agi is that maybe you know we
2:35:06can't survive without it
2:35:07but the flip side to that
2:35:09is
2:35:11the
2:35:12the the the unfortunately now that
2:35:13there's multiple actors trying to build
2:35:15ai agi you know this is this was fine
2:35:18ten years ago when it was just deep mind
2:35:19but then other
2:35:21companies started up and now it created
2:35:22a race dynamic now it's like that's the
2:35:25whole thing is it the same
2:35:26it's got the same problem it's like
2:35:28whichever company is the one that like
2:35:30optimizes for speed at the cost of
2:35:32safety will get the competitive
2:35:34advantage and so it will be the more
2:35:35likely the ones to build the adi you
2:35:37know and and that's the same cycle that
2:35:39you're in and there's no clear solution
2:35:41to that because you can't just go like
2:35:43um
2:35:44slapping
2:35:45you know
2:35:47if you go and try and like
2:35:48stop all the different companies
2:35:51then
2:35:51it will you know the good ones will stop
2:35:54because they're the ones you know within
2:35:56you know within the west's reach but
2:35:57then that leaves all the other ones to
2:35:59continue and then they're even more
2:36:00likely so it's like it's a very
2:36:02difficult problem with no clean solution
2:36:04um
2:36:05and
2:36:06you know at the same time you know i i
2:36:09know the
2:36:10at least some of the folks at deepmind
2:36:12and they're incredible and they're
2:36:12thinking about this they're very aware
2:36:14of this problem and they're like you
2:36:15know
2:36:16i think some of the smartest people on
2:36:18earth yeah the the culture is important
2:36:20there because they are thinking about
2:36:21that and they're
2:36:22some of the best machine learning
2:36:24engineers
2:36:26so it's possible to have a
2:36:28a company or a community of people that
2:36:30are both great engineers and are
2:36:32thinking about the philosophical topics
2:36:33exactly and importantly they're also
2:36:34game theorists
2:36:36you know and because this is ultimately
2:36:38a game theory problem the thing this
2:36:40this monologue mechanism and like you
2:36:42know what this ra how do we voice
2:36:45arms race scenarios um you need people
2:36:47who aren't naive to be thinking about
2:36:49this and again like luckily there's a
2:36:51lot of smart non-naive game theorists
2:36:53within within that group yes i'm
2:36:55concerned about it and i i think it's
2:36:57again a thing that we need
2:36:59people to be thinking about um in terms
2:37:01of like how do we create
2:37:03how do we mitigate the arms race
2:37:05dynamics and how do we
2:37:07solve
2:37:08the thing of it's got boston calls it
2:37:10the orthogonality problem whereby
2:37:14because obviously there's a chance you
2:37:15know that the belief the hope is is that
2:37:17you build something that's super
2:37:18intelligent
2:37:19and
2:37:20by definition of being super intelligent
2:37:22it will also become super wise and have
2:37:25the wisdom to know what the right goals
2:37:27are and hopefully those goals include
2:37:29keeping humanity alive right um but
2:37:32bostrom says that actually those two
2:37:34things you know um super intelligence
2:37:37and super wisdom
2:37:39aren't necessarily correlated they're
2:37:40actually kind of orthogonal things and
2:37:42how do we make it so that they are
2:37:44correlated how do we guarantee it
2:37:45because we need it to be guaranteed
2:37:46really to know that we're doing the
2:37:47thing safely but i think that like
2:37:50um merging of intelligence and wisdom
2:37:54at least my hope is that this whole
2:37:55process
2:37:56happens sufficiently slowly that we're
2:37:59constantly having these kinds of debates
2:38:02that we have enough time to um
2:38:05to figure out how to modify each version
2:38:07of the system as it becomes more and
2:38:08more intelligent yes buying time is is a
2:38:11good thing definitely anything that
2:38:12slows everything down we just everyone
2:38:15needs to chill out we've got
2:38:17millennia to figure this out yeah um
2:38:21or at least
2:38:23at least
2:38:24um well it depends again it's some
2:38:26people think that you know we can't even
2:38:28make it through the next few decades
2:38:29without having some kind of
2:38:33omni-wise
2:38:34coordination mechanism um and there's
2:38:36also an argument to that yeah i don't
2:38:38know
2:38:39well there is uh i'm suspicious of that
2:38:41kind of thinking because it seems like
2:38:43the entirety of human history is
2:38:46has people in it that are like
2:38:47predicting doom
2:38:49uh or just around the corner there's
2:38:50something about us
2:38:52that
2:38:53is strangely attracted to that thought
2:38:57it's almost like fun to think about the
2:38:59destruction of everything
2:39:02just objectively speaking
2:39:05i've
2:39:06talked and listened to a bunch of people
2:39:08and they are
2:39:09gravitating towards that it's almost
2:39:12i think it's the same thing that people
2:39:13love about conspiracy theories
2:39:15is they love to be the person that kind
2:39:17of figured out
2:39:19some deep
2:39:20fundamental thing about the that's going
2:39:22to be it's going to mark something
2:39:24extremely important about the history of
2:39:26human civilization because then
2:39:29i will be important right when in
2:39:31reality most of us will be forgotten and
2:39:33and and
2:39:35life will will go on i mean one of the
2:39:38sad things about
2:39:40whenever anything traumatic happens to
2:39:41you whenever you lose loved ones
2:39:44or
2:39:45just tragedy happens you realize life
2:39:47goes on
2:39:49even after a nuclear war that will wipe
2:39:51out
2:39:52some large percentage of the population
2:39:54and will torture
2:39:58people for
2:39:59years to come because of the sort of i
2:40:01mean the effects of a nuclear winter
2:40:05people will still survive
2:40:07life will still go on i mean it depends
2:40:09on the kind of nuclear war but in in
2:40:11case in yoko world it will still go on
2:40:13that's one of the amazing things about
2:40:15life it finds a way and so in that sense
2:40:18i just i feel like the doom and gloom
2:40:20thing
2:40:22is um
2:40:23well what we don't yeah we don't want a
2:40:24self-fulfilling prophecy yes that's
2:40:26exactly yes and i very much agree with
2:40:29that and i you know even i have a slight
2:40:32like feeling from the amount of time we
2:40:34spent in this conversation talking about
2:40:36this because it's like
2:40:37you know
2:40:38is this even a net positive if it's like
2:40:40making everyone feel oh
2:40:43in some ways like making people imagine
2:40:44these bad scenarios can be a
2:40:46self-fulfilling prophecy but at the same
2:40:47time
2:40:49that's how
2:40:50that's weighed off with at least
2:40:52making people aware of the problem
2:40:54and gets them thinking and i think
2:40:55particularly you know the reason why i
2:40:56want to talk about this to your audience
2:40:58is that
2:40:59on average they're the type of people
2:41:00who gravitate towards these kind of
2:41:02topics because they they're
2:41:03intellectually curious and
2:41:04and they can sort of sense that there's
2:41:06trouble brewing yeah they can smell that
2:41:08there's you know i think there's a
2:41:09reason people are thinking about this
2:41:10stuff a lot is because
2:41:12the probability
2:41:14the probability you know it's increased
2:41:15in probability over certainly over the
2:41:17last few years
2:41:18um trajectories have not gone favorably
2:41:21let's put it in you know since 2010. so
2:41:24um it's right i think for people to be
2:41:27thinking about it but that's where
2:41:29they're like i think whether it's a
2:41:30useful fiction or whether it's actually
2:41:32true or whatever you want to call it i
2:41:34think having this faith this is where
2:41:36faith is valuable
2:41:37because it gives you at least this like
2:41:39anchor of hope
2:41:41and and i and i'm not just saying it to
2:41:42like trick myself like i do truly i do
2:41:45think there's something out there that
2:41:46wants us to win yeah i think there's
2:41:48something that really wants us to win
2:41:49and it just you just have to be like
2:41:52just like
2:41:54okay now i sound really crazy but like
2:41:56open your heart to it a little bit yeah
2:41:58and
2:42:00it will give you the like
2:42:03the sort of breathing room with which to
2:42:05marinate on the solutions we are the
2:42:08ones who have to come up with solutions
2:42:10but
2:42:12we
2:42:14can use that there's like this
2:42:16hashtag positivity there's value in that
2:42:19yeah you have to kind of imagine all the
2:42:21destructive trajectories that lay in our
2:42:24future and then believe
2:42:26in the possibility of avoiding those
2:42:28trajectories all while he's an
2:42:31audience all while sitting back which is
2:42:34majori the the two people that listen to
2:42:36this are probably sitting in a beach
2:42:38smoking some weed
2:42:41um
2:42:43that's a beautiful sunset or they're
2:42:45looking at just the waves going in and
2:42:47out
2:42:47and ultimately there's a kind of deep
2:42:49belief there and um
2:42:51the the momentum of humanity to figure
2:42:54it all out i think we'll make it
2:42:56but we've got a lot of work to do which
2:42:58is which what makes this whole
2:43:00simulation this video game kind of fun
2:43:03this battle of polytopia
2:43:05i still man i love those games so much
2:43:08so good
2:43:09and that that one for people who don't
2:43:11know but uh battle polytopia is a it's a
2:43:13big it's like a
2:43:15really radical sim simplification of a
2:43:18civilization type of game it still has a
2:43:21lot of the skill tree development a lot
2:43:24of the strategy
2:43:26um
2:43:27but it's easy enough to play in a phone
2:43:29yeah it's kind of interesting they've
2:43:31really they've really figured it out
2:43:33it's it's one of the most elegantly
2:43:34designed games i've ever seen it's
2:43:36incredibly complex
2:43:37and yet being again it walks that line
2:43:39between complexity and simplicity in
2:43:40this really really great way um
2:43:44and they use pretty colors that
2:43:45hack the dopamine reward circuits in our
2:43:48brains very well yeah it's fun
2:43:50video games are so fun yeah
2:43:53most of this life is just about fun
2:43:55escaping all the suffering to find the
2:43:57fun
2:43:58uh what's energy healing i have in my
2:44:00notes energy healing question mark
2:44:02what's that about
2:44:04uh oh man um god your audience are gonna
2:44:07think i'm mad uh
2:44:09so
2:44:11the two crazy things that happened to me
2:44:13the one was the voice in the head that
2:44:14said you're gonna win this tournament
2:44:16and then i won the tournament
2:44:18the other craziest thing uh that's
2:44:20happened to me was in
2:44:222018
2:44:24um
2:44:25i started getting
2:44:27uh this like weird
2:44:29problem in my ear where
2:44:31it was kind of like low frequency sound
2:44:33distortion
2:44:34uh where voices particularly men's
2:44:36voices became incredibly unpleasant to
2:44:38listen to
2:44:39um it would it would like create this it
2:44:42would be falsely amplified or something
2:44:44and it was almost like a physical
2:44:45sensation in my ear which was really
2:44:46unpleasant
2:44:48and i it would like last for a few hours
2:44:50and then go away and then come back for
2:44:51a few hours and go away and i went and
2:44:53got hearing tests and they found that
2:44:54like the bottom end i was losing the the
2:44:57hearing in that ear
2:44:58um and
2:45:01i also in the end i got the doctor said
2:45:04they think it was this thing called
2:45:05meniere's disease um which is this very
2:45:09unpleasant disease where people
2:45:10basically end up losing their hearing
2:45:11but they get this like
2:45:13um it often comes with like dizzy spells
2:45:15and other things because it's like the
2:45:16inner ear gets all messed up um
2:45:19now i don't know if that's actually what
2:45:20i had um but that's what at least a
2:45:22couple of one doctor said to me um but
2:45:24anyway so i had three months of this
2:45:26stuff this going on it was really
2:45:27getting me down i was and i was at
2:45:29burning man
2:45:30um of all places
2:45:32i don't mean to be that person talking
2:45:33about burning man um but i was there
2:45:36and again i'd had it and i was unable to
2:45:38listen to music which is not what you
2:45:39want because burning man is a very loud
2:45:41intense place
2:45:42and i was just having a really rough
2:45:43time and on the final night
2:45:45i get talking to this uh girl who's like
2:45:48a friend of a friend
2:45:49and i mentioned i was like oh i'm really
2:45:51down in the dumps about this and she's
2:45:52like oh well i've done a little bit of
2:45:54energy healing would you like me to have
2:45:55a look
2:45:57sure now this is again
2:46:00deep i was you know
2:46:01no time in my life for this i didn't
2:46:03believe in any of this stuff i was just
2:46:05like it's all it's all woo
2:46:06nonsense um
2:46:08i was like sure have a go
2:46:10and she starts like
2:46:12with her hand and she says oh there's
2:46:14something there and then she leans in
2:46:16and she starts like sucking
2:46:18over my ear not actually touching me but
2:46:19like close to it like with her mouth
2:46:22and it was really unpleasant i was like
2:46:24bro can you stop she's like no no
2:46:25there's something there i need to get it
2:46:26i was like no no i really don't like it
2:46:27please this is really loud she's like i
2:46:29need to just bear with me and she does
2:46:31it i don't know how long for a few
2:46:32minutes
2:46:33and then she eventually
2:46:35collapses on the ground like freezing
2:46:37cold crying
2:46:39not you know and i'm just like i don't
2:46:41know what the hell is going on like i'm
2:46:42like thoroughly freaked out as there's
2:46:44everyone else watching just like what
2:46:45the hell me like warm her up and she was
2:46:47like
2:46:49she was really shaken up
2:46:51and
2:46:52she's like i don't know what that
2:46:54she said it was something very
2:46:56unpleasant and dark don't worry it's
2:46:58gone i think you'll be fine in a couple
2:46:59you'll have the physical symptoms for a
2:47:00couple of weeks and you'll be fine
2:47:02but you know she was like that
2:47:05you know so i was i was so rattled a
2:47:07because
2:47:08the potential that actually i had
2:47:10something bad in me that made someone
2:47:12feel bad and and and that she was scared
2:47:15that was what you know i was like wait i
2:47:16thought you you do this this is the
2:47:18thing
2:47:19and now you're terrified like you pulled
2:47:20like some kind of an exorcism or
2:47:22something yeah what the is going on
2:47:23yeah um so it
2:47:26like just
2:47:27the most insane experience um and
2:47:30frankly it took me like a few months to
2:47:32sort of
2:47:33emotionally recover from it
2:47:34um but my ear problem went away about a
2:47:38couple of weeks later and touchwood i've
2:47:40not had any issues since
2:47:42so
2:47:44that gives you uh
2:47:47like hints that maybe there's something
2:47:49out there
2:47:50i mean
2:47:51i i don't i i again i don't have an
2:47:53explanation for this
2:47:55the most probable explanation was uh you
2:47:57know i was a burning man i was in a very
2:47:58open state let's just leave it at that
2:48:00um and
2:48:03you know
2:48:05placebo is an incredibly powerful thing
2:48:07in a very not understood thing so almost
2:48:10assigning the word placebo to it reduces
2:48:13it down to a way that it doesn't deserve
2:48:15to be reduced down maybe there's a whole
2:48:17science of what we call placebo maybe
2:48:19there's a
2:48:20placebo is a door self-healing yeah you
2:48:22know
2:48:23and i mean i don't know what the problem
2:48:25was like i was told it was many years i
2:48:27don't want to say i definitely had that
2:48:29because i don't want people to think
2:48:30that oh that's how you know if they do
2:48:31have that because it's terrible disease
2:48:32and if they have that that this is going
2:48:33to be a guaranteed way for it to fix it
2:48:35for them i don't know
2:48:36um
2:48:37and i also don't i don't
2:48:39you're absolutely right to say like
2:48:41using even the word placebo is like it
2:48:43comes with this like baggage of
2:48:46of like frame
2:48:47and i don't want to reduce it down all i
2:48:49can do is describe the experience and
2:48:51what happened i cannot put
2:48:54an ontological framework around it i
2:48:56can't say why it happened what the
2:48:58mechanism was what the problem even was
2:49:01in the first place
2:49:02um i just know that something crazy
2:49:04happened and it was while i was in an
2:49:06open state and fortunately for me it
2:49:08made the problem go away but what i took
2:49:10away from it again it was part of this
2:49:13you know this took me on this journey of
2:49:14becoming more humble about what i think
2:49:16i know because as i said before i was
2:49:18like i was in the like richard dawkins
2:49:20train of atheism in terms of there is no
2:49:22god there's and everything like that is
2:49:24we know everything we know you
2:49:26know the only way we can get through
2:49:28uh we know how medicine works and it's
2:49:30molecules and and chemical interactions
2:49:32and that kind of stuff
2:49:33and now it's like
2:49:35okay well there's there's clearly more
2:49:38for us to understand um and that doesn't
2:49:41mean that it's a scientific as well
2:49:43because
2:49:44you know
2:49:45the beauty of the scientific method is
2:49:47that it still it still can apply to this
2:49:49situation like i don't see why you know
2:49:51i would like to try and test this
2:49:52experimentally um i haven't really you
2:49:55know i don't know how we would go about
2:49:56doing that we'd have to find other
2:49:57people with the same condition i guess
2:49:59and like
2:50:00try and repeat repeat the experiment um
2:50:04but it doesn't just because something
2:50:05happens
2:50:06that's sort of out of the realms of our
2:50:09current understanding it doesn't mean
2:50:10that it's
2:50:11the scientific method can't be used for
2:50:13it yeah i think the scientific method
2:50:15sits on a foundation
2:50:17of those kinds of experiences as a
2:50:21scientific method is a process
2:50:24to
2:50:25um
2:50:26carve away at the mystery
2:50:29all around us
2:50:30and experiences like this is just a
2:50:32reminder that uh we're mostly shrouded
2:50:35mysteries though that's it it's just
2:50:37like a humility like we haven't really
2:50:39figured this whole thing out
2:50:41but at the same time we have
2:50:43found ways to act you know we're clearly
2:50:46doing something right because think of
2:50:48the technological scientific
2:50:49advancements the knowledge that we have
2:50:51that was would blow people's minds even
2:50:54from 100 years ago yeah and you know
2:50:56we've even allegedly gone out to space
2:50:58and landed on the moon although i still
2:51:00haven't i have not seen evidence of of
2:51:02the earth being round but i'm still i'm
2:51:05keeping an open mind
2:51:07uh speaking of which uh you studied
2:51:09physics and astrophysics
2:51:13uh would when just just to go to that
2:51:16and we jump just to jump around
2:51:18through the fascinating life you've had
2:51:21when did you
2:51:22how did that come to be like when did
2:51:24you fall in love with astronomy and
2:51:26space
2:51:27and things like this as early as i can
2:51:29remember um i was very lucky that my my
2:51:32mum and my dad but particularly my mom
2:51:35my mom is like the most
2:51:37nature she is mother earth it's the only
2:51:40way to describe her just she's like
2:51:42doctor doolittle animals flock to her
2:51:44and just like sit and look at her
2:51:45adoringly as she sings
2:51:48yeah she's just she just is mother earth
2:51:50and she has always been fascinated by
2:51:54you know she doesn't have any
2:51:55you know she ever went to university or
2:51:57anything like that she's actually phobic
2:51:58of maths if i try and get her to like
2:52:00you know i was trying to teach her poker
2:52:01and she hated it um
2:52:03but she's
2:52:05so deeply curious
2:52:07um and that just got instilled in me
2:52:09when you know we would sleep out under
2:52:10the stars whenever it was you know the
2:52:12two nights a year when it was warm
2:52:13enough in the uk to do that um and we'll
2:52:16just lie out there until until we fell
2:52:18asleep looking at
2:52:19looking for satellites looking for
2:52:21shooting stars and and i was just
2:52:23always i don't know whether it was from
2:52:25that but i've always naturally
2:52:26gravitated to like
2:52:28the biggest
2:52:30the biggest questions and also the like
2:52:32the most layers of abstraction
2:52:34i love just like what's the meta
2:52:36question what's the meta question and so
2:52:37on um so i think it just came from that
2:52:39really and it and and then on top of
2:52:41that like physics
2:52:43you know it also made logical sense and
2:52:45that it was a
2:52:48it was it was the degree it was a degree
2:52:50that was a subject that ticked the box
2:52:52of being you know answering these really
2:52:54big picture questions but it's also
2:52:56extremely useful it like has a very high
2:52:58utility um in terms of i didn't know
2:53:01necessarily i thought i was going to
2:53:02become like a research scientist i my
2:53:04original plan was i want to be a
2:53:05professional astronomer so it's not just
2:53:07like a philosophy degree that asks the
2:53:08big questions and it's not uh
2:53:12like
2:53:13biology in the path to be going to
2:53:14medical school or something like that
2:53:16which is all overly pragmatic not overly
2:53:19is um
2:53:20this is very
2:53:22pragmatic
2:53:23yeah physics is a good combination of
2:53:25the two yeah at least for me it made
2:53:27sense and i was good at it i liked it um
2:53:30yeah i mean i it wasn't like i did an
2:53:31immense amount of soul-searching to
2:53:33choose it or anything it just was like
2:53:34this
2:53:36it made the most sense i mean you have
2:53:38to make this decision in the uk age 17
2:53:41which is crazy um because you know in us
2:53:43you go the first year you do a bunch of
2:53:45stuff right and then you choose your
2:53:46major
2:53:47um yeah i think the first few years of
2:53:49college you focus on the drugs and only
2:53:52as you get closer to the end
2:53:54do you start to think oh this
2:53:56wasn't about that and i'm
2:53:58uh i owe the government a lot of money
2:54:02um
2:54:03how many alien civilizations are out
2:54:04there when you when you looked up at the
2:54:06stars with your mom
2:54:07[Music]
2:54:08and you were counting them
2:54:10what's your mom think about a number of
2:54:12alien civilizations i actually don't
2:54:14know
2:54:15i would imagine she would take the
2:54:17viewpoint of you know she's pretty
2:54:18humble and she knows how many you know
2:54:21there's a huge number of
2:54:22potential spawn sites out there so she
2:54:24would sponsor spawn sites yeah
2:54:27you know this is our sport
2:54:29we have spawn sites in polytopia we
2:54:30spawned on earth you know it's
2:54:32hmm yeah spawn sights
2:54:35why does that feel weird to say
2:54:38spawn because it makes me feel like it's
2:54:41um
2:54:43there's only one source of life and it's
2:54:45spawning in different locations that's
2:54:47why the word spawn
2:54:49because like it feels like life that
2:54:50originated on earth
2:54:52really originated here right it is it is
2:54:55a unique to this particular
2:54:58yeah i mean but i don't in my mind it
2:55:00doesn't exclude
2:55:02you know the completely different forms
2:55:03of life and different biochemical
2:55:06soups
2:55:07can't also spawn but
2:55:09i guess it implies that there's some
2:55:11spark that is yeah which i kind of like
2:55:14the idea of it yeah and then i i get to
2:55:17think about respawning
2:55:19like after it dies like what happens if
2:55:21life on earth ends is it
2:55:24is it going to restart again probably
2:55:26not
2:55:27it depends maybe earth is depends on the
2:55:29type of you know what what's the thing
2:55:31that kills it kills it off right if it's
2:55:32a paper clip maximizer not that you know
2:55:34for the for the example but you know
2:55:36some kind of very
2:55:38self-replicating
2:55:40you know high on the capabilities very
2:55:42low on the wisdom type thing so whether
2:55:44that's you know grey goo green goo
2:55:47you know like nano bots or
2:55:49just a shitty misaligned ai that thinks
2:55:52it needs to turn everything into paper
2:55:53clips um
2:55:56you know if it's something like that
2:55:57then it's going to be very hard for life
2:55:59you know complex life because by
2:56:01definition you know a paperclip
2:56:02maximizer is the ultimate instantiation
2:56:04of molecule deeply low complexity over
2:56:07optimization on a single thing
2:56:08sacrificing everything else turning the
2:56:10whole world into i although something
2:56:11tells me like if we actually take a
2:56:13paper clip maximizer it destroys
2:56:15everything it's a really dumb system
2:56:17that just and envelops the whole of
2:56:19earth
2:56:20and that diverse beyond yeah
2:56:24i didn't i didn't know that part but
2:56:25okay great that's what it takes it
2:56:27becomes a multi-planetary paperclip
2:56:29maximizer well it just it just
2:56:30propagates i mean it it depends whether
2:56:33it figures out how to jump the vacuum
2:56:34gap
2:56:35um
2:56:36but
2:56:37again i mean this is all silly because
2:56:38it's a hypothetical thought experiment
2:56:40which i think doesn't actually have much
2:56:41practical application to the ai safety
2:56:42problem but it's just a fun thing to
2:56:44play around with but yeah if by
2:56:45definition it is maximally intelligent
2:56:47which means it is maximally good at
2:56:51navigating the environment around it in
2:56:53order to achieve its goal
2:56:54but
2:56:55extremely bad at choosing goals in the
2:56:57first place so again we're talking about
2:56:58this orthogonality thing right it's very
2:57:00low on wisdom but very high on
2:57:02capability um then it will figure out
2:57:04how to jump the vacuum gap between
2:57:05planets and stars and so on and thus
2:57:07just turn every atom it gets its hands
2:57:09on into paper clips yeah uh by the way
2:57:11for for people who which is maximum
2:57:13virality by the way that's what virality
2:57:15is
2:57:16but does not mean that morality is
2:57:17necessarily all about maximizing paper
2:57:19clips in that case it is so for people
2:57:21who don't know this is just a thought
2:57:23experiment example of an ai system
2:57:24that's very
2:57:26that has a goal and is willing to do
2:57:28anything to accomplish that goal
2:57:30including destroying all life on earth
2:57:32and all human life and all of
2:57:34consciousness in the universe you know
2:57:36for the goal of producing
2:57:38a maximum number of paper clips
2:57:40okay uh or whatever its optimization
2:57:43function was that it was set up but
2:57:45don't you think could be making
2:57:46recreating lexus maybe it'll tile the
2:57:48universe and lex uh go on i like this
2:57:52idea now i'm scared that's better that's
2:57:54that's more interesting than paperclip
2:57:56that could be infinitely optimal if i
2:57:57were to say
2:57:58so it's still a bad thing because it's
2:58:00permanently capping
2:58:02what the universe could ever be it's
2:58:04like that's that's its end or achieving
2:58:06the optimal that the universe could ever
2:58:08achieve but that's up to different
2:58:10people have different perspectives uh
2:58:12but don't you think within the paperclip
2:58:14world
2:58:15that would
2:58:16emerge just like in the zeros and ones
2:58:19that make up a computer that would
2:58:20emerge beautiful complexities
2:58:23like it it won't
2:58:26suppress
2:58:27you know as you scale to multiple
2:58:29planets and throughout they'll emerge
2:58:31these little worlds
2:58:33that uh on top of the fabric of
2:58:36maximizing paper clips there will be
2:58:39that that would emerge like little
2:58:41societies of
2:58:43of a
2:58:44paper clip well then we're not with them
2:58:46we're not describing a paper clip
2:58:47maximizer anymore because by the like if
2:58:50you think of what a paper clip is it is
2:58:51literally just a piece of bent iron yes
2:58:54right
2:58:55so if it's
2:58:57maximizing that throughout the universe
2:58:58it's taking every atom it gets its hand
2:59:00on into somehow turning it into iron or
2:59:02steel
2:59:04and then bending it into that shape and
2:59:05then done and on
2:59:06by definition like paper clips there is
2:59:09no there is no way for well okay so
2:59:11you're saying that paper clips somehow
2:59:13will just emerge and create
2:59:16through gravity or something no no no no
2:59:18because there's there's a dynamic
2:59:20element to the whole system it's not
2:59:21just
2:59:22it's creating those paper clips and the
2:59:25act of creating there's going to be a
2:59:27process and that process will have a
2:59:29dance to it because it's not like
2:59:31sequential thing there's a whole complex
2:59:34three-dimensional system of paper clips
2:59:36uh you know like you know people like
2:59:38string theory right it's supposed to be
2:59:39strings that are interacting in
2:59:40fascinating ways i'm sure paper clips
2:59:43are very string like they can be
2:59:44interacting very interesting ways as you
2:59:46scale exponentially through
2:59:48three-dimensional
2:59:50i mean i'm sure
2:59:51the paperclip maximizer has to come up
2:59:54with the theory of everything it has to
2:59:56create like wormholes right it has to
2:59:59break uh like it has to understand
3:00:01quantum mechanics i i love you i love
3:00:03your optimism this is where i'd say this
3:00:06we're going into the realm of
3:00:07pathological optimism whereby it's um
3:00:10i'm sure there will be a
3:00:12i i think there's an intelligence that
3:00:14emerges from that system so you're
3:00:16saying that basically intelligence is
3:00:18inherent in the fabric of reality and
3:00:20will find a way kind of like goldblum
3:00:22says life will find a way you think life
3:00:24will find a way even out of this
3:00:26perfectly homogeneous dead soup it's not
3:00:29perfectly homogeneous it has to it's
3:00:32perfectly maximal in the production i
3:00:34don't know why people keep thinking it's
3:00:36harmonic it's it maximizes the number of
3:00:38paper clips that's the only thing it's
3:00:40not trying to be homogeneous it's trying
3:00:42true it's true maximize paper clips so
3:00:44you're saying you're saying that because
3:00:47it because you know kind of like in the
3:00:49big bang or you know it seems like you
3:00:51know things there were clusters there
3:00:53was more stuff here than there that was
3:00:55enough of the pathonicity that
3:00:56kick-started the evolutionary process
3:00:58the little weirdnesses that will make it
3:00:59even out of yeah so yeah emerges
3:01:02interesting okay well so how does that
3:01:04line up then with the the whole heat
3:01:06death of the universe right because
3:01:08that's that's another sort of
3:01:09instantiation of this it's like
3:01:10everything becomes so far apart and so
3:01:12cold and so
3:01:14perfectly
3:01:15mixed that it's like
3:01:17homogenous grayness do you think that
3:01:21even out of that homogeneous greatness
3:01:23where there's no
3:01:24you know negative
3:01:26entropy that you know there's no uh free
3:01:28energy
3:01:29that we understand
3:01:30even from that
3:01:32new yeah the paperclip maximizer or any
3:01:36other intelligent systems will figure
3:01:38out ways to travel to other universes to
3:01:41create big bangs within those universes
3:01:43or through black holes to create whole
3:01:45other worlds to break
3:01:47the what we consider the limitations of
3:01:49physics
3:01:52the paperclip maximizer will find a way
3:01:55if a way exists and we're we should be
3:01:57humble to realize that we've been yet
3:01:59but because it just wants to make more
3:02:00paper clips yeah so it's going to go
3:02:01into those universes and turn them into
3:02:03paper clips yeah but we
3:02:05humans not humans but complex systems
3:02:08exist on top of that we're not
3:02:10interfering with it
3:02:12this complexity emerges
3:02:15from this simple base state the simple
3:02:17basis whether it's yeah whether it's
3:02:19you know plank lengths or paper clips is
3:02:21the base unit yeah
3:02:23you can think of like the universe as a
3:02:25paper clip maximizer because it's doing
3:02:27some dumb stuff like physics seems to be
3:02:29pretty dumb
3:02:31it has
3:02:32like i don't know if you can summarize
3:02:33it yeah yeah the the laws are fairly
3:02:36basic
3:02:37and yet out of them amazing complexity
3:02:39emerges and its goals seem to be pretty
3:02:41basic and dumb
3:02:43if you can summarize as goals i mean i
3:02:45don't i don't know what's a nice way
3:02:46maybe
3:02:47um
3:02:49maybe laws of thermodynamics could be i
3:02:52don't know if you can assign goals to
3:02:54physics but if you formulate in the
3:02:56science in the sense of goals it's very
3:02:58similar to
3:02:59paper clip maximizing in in the dumbness
3:03:01of the goals but the
3:03:03the pockets of complexity has emerged is
3:03:06where beauty emerges that's where life
3:03:08emerges that's where intelligence that's
3:03:10where humans emerge and i i think we're
3:03:13being very down on this whole paperclip
3:03:14maximizer thing now the reason we hate
3:03:17it i think yeah because what you're
3:03:18saying is that you
3:03:20think that the force of emergence itself
3:03:24is another like unwritten
3:03:26unwritten but like another fake to in
3:03:29law of the of of reality yeah and and
3:03:32you you're trusting that emergence will
3:03:34find a way to even out of seemingly the
3:03:37most molechy awful out you know plain
3:03:40outcome emergence will still find a way
3:03:42i love that as a philosophy i think it's
3:03:43very nice i would
3:03:46wield it carefully because
3:03:48there's
3:03:48large error bars on on that and the
3:03:50certainty of that yeah um and while we
3:03:53build the paper clip maximizer and find
3:03:55out classic yeah molok is doing
3:03:57cartwheels man yeah but the thing is it
3:04:00will destroy humans in the process which
3:04:02is the thing which is the reason we
3:04:04really don't like it we we seem to be
3:04:06really holding on to this whole human
3:04:08civilization thing
3:04:09would you would that make you said if
3:04:11ai systems that are beautiful that are
3:04:14conscious that are interesting and
3:04:15complex and intelligent
3:04:18ultimately lead to the death of humans
3:04:19that make you sad if humans led to the
3:04:21death of humans sorry
3:04:23like if they would supersede humans oh
3:04:25if some ai yeah ai would uh
3:04:29would end humans i mean that's that's
3:04:31that's the reason why i'm like in some
3:04:32ways in less emotionally concerned about
3:04:35ai risk as then say bio you know bio
3:04:38risk because at least with ai there's a
3:04:41chance you know if if we're in this
3:04:43hypothetical where it wipes out humans
3:04:45but it does it for some like
3:04:47higher purpose it needs our atoms to an
3:04:49energy to do something at least now
3:04:51there's the universe is going on to do
3:04:53something interesting
3:04:54um whereas if it wipes everything you
3:04:56know bio like just kills everything on
3:04:58earth and that's it and there's no more
3:05:00you know earth cannot spawn anything
3:05:02more meaningful in the in the few
3:05:04hundred million years it has less left
3:05:05because it doesn't have much time left
3:05:07um
3:05:08then
3:05:10uh
3:05:11yeah i i don't know
3:05:13so one of my favorite books i've ever
3:05:15read is uh nova scene
3:05:17by james lovelock who sadly just died um
3:05:19he wrote it when he was like 99.
3:05:21he died aged 102 so it's a fairly new
3:05:23book
3:05:24um and he sort of talks about that that
3:05:27he thinks it's you know
3:05:29so building off this gaia theory where
3:05:31like earth is like living
3:05:34some form of intelligence itself and
3:05:36that this is the next like step right is
3:05:38this this whatever this new intelligence
3:05:41that is maybe silicon based as opposed
3:05:43to carbon-based goes on to do um and
3:05:46it's really sort of in some ways an
3:05:47optimistic but rudely fatalistic book um
3:05:50and i don't know if i fully subscribe to
3:05:52it but it's a beautiful piece to read
3:05:53anyway
3:05:54so am i sad by that idea i think so yes
3:05:57and actually yeah this is the reason why
3:05:59i'm sad by the idea because if something
3:06:01is truly brilliant and wise and smart
3:06:03and truly super intelligent
3:06:06it should be able to figure out
3:06:07abundance
3:06:09so
3:06:10if it figures out abundance it shouldn't
3:06:11need to kill us off it should be able to
3:06:13find a way for us it should be there's
3:06:15plenty the universe is huge
3:06:17there should be plenty of space for it
3:06:18to go out
3:06:19and do all the things it wants to do and
3:06:21like give us a little pocket where we
3:06:23can continue doing our things and we can
3:06:25continue to do things and so on um and
3:06:27again if it's so supremely wise it
3:06:28shouldn't even be worried about the game
3:06:30theoretic considerations that by leaving
3:06:32us alive we'll then go and create
3:06:33another like super intelligent agent
3:06:34that it then has to compete against
3:06:36because it should be omni-wise and smart
3:06:38enough to not have to concern itself
3:06:39with that
3:06:40unless unless it deems humans to be kind
3:06:42of
3:06:44like uh like
3:06:46the humans are a source of none of a
3:06:48lose-lose kind of dynamics
3:06:52well
3:06:52yes and no
3:06:54we're not molecules that's why i think
3:06:56it's important to say well maybe humans
3:06:58are the source of molecule
3:07:00no i mean i think
3:07:01game theory is the source of moloch and
3:07:04you know because molecule exists in in
3:07:06non-human systems as well it happens
3:07:08within like agents within a game in
3:07:10terms of like you know
3:07:11uh it applies to agents but it like it
3:07:14can apply to you know
3:07:16uh a species that's on an island
3:07:19of animals you know rats out competing
3:07:22the ones that like massively consume all
3:07:24the resources are the ones that are
3:07:25going to win out over the more like
3:07:27chill
3:07:28socialized ones and so you know creates
3:07:30this malthusian trap like moloch exists
3:07:32in little pockets in nature as well well
3:07:34so it's not a strictly human i wonder if
3:07:36it's actually a result the consequences
3:07:38of the invention of predator and prey
3:07:40dynamics
3:07:41maybe it needs to ai will have to kill
3:07:44off
3:07:45every organism
3:07:47that you're talking about killing of
3:07:48competition
3:07:50not competition but just um
3:07:54like the way
3:07:55it's like uh
3:07:58like the weeds or whatever in in a
3:08:00beautiful flower garden
3:08:02the parasites yeah
3:08:04on on the whole system now of course it
3:08:05will it will it won't do that completely
3:08:08it'll put them in a zoo like we do with
3:08:09parasites it'll ring fence yeah and
3:08:11there'll be somebody doing a phd on like
3:08:13they'll prod humans with a stick and see
3:08:16what they do
3:08:16[Laughter]
3:08:18but uh i mean in terms of letting us run
3:08:21wild
3:08:22outside of the uh uh you know a
3:08:24geographically constrained region that
3:08:26might be
3:08:27uh that you might have uh decided
3:08:30against that no i think there's
3:08:32obviously the capacity for beauty and
3:08:33kindness and
3:08:35non-uh
3:08:37non-malic behavior amidst humans so i'm
3:08:39pretty sure ai will preserve us
3:08:41uh let me
3:08:43you i don't know if you answered the the
3:08:45aliens question you no i didn't you had
3:08:47a good conversation with toby uh toby
3:08:49yes about various sides of the universe
3:08:52i think did did he say no i'm forgetting
3:08:54but i think he said it's a good chance
3:08:56we're alone
3:08:58so the the the classic you know fermi
3:09:00paradox question is
3:09:02um
3:09:03there are so many spawn points and
3:09:07yet
3:09:08you know it didn't take us that long to
3:09:10go from harnessing fire to
3:09:12sending out radio signals into space
3:09:15so surely
3:09:16given the vastness of space we should be
3:09:18and you know even if only a tiny
3:09:20fraction of those create
3:09:21life and other civilizations too we
3:09:23should be the universe should be very
3:09:24noisy there should be evidence of
3:09:26dyson spheres or whatever you know like
3:09:28at least radio signals and so on but
3:09:29seemingly things are very silent out
3:09:31there um now of course it depends on who
3:09:33you speak to some people say that
3:09:34they're getting signals all the time and
3:09:35so on and like i don't want to make an
3:09:37epistemic statement on that but um
3:09:41it seems like there's a lot of silence
3:09:43and so that raises this paradox
3:09:45and then
3:09:47they
3:09:48the the you know the drake equation
3:09:50so the drake equation is like uh
3:09:53basically
3:09:54just a simple thing of like trying to
3:09:55estimate the number of possible uh
3:09:57civilizations within the galaxy by
3:09:58multiplying the number of uh stars
3:10:01created per year by the number of stars
3:10:02that have planets planets that are
3:10:03habitable blah blah blah so all these
3:10:05like different factors um and then you
3:10:07plug in numbers into that and you you
3:10:08know depending on like the range of you
3:10:10know your lower bound and your upper
3:10:12bound
3:10:13point point estimates that you put in
3:10:15you get out a number at the end for the
3:10:16number of civilizations
3:10:18but what toby and his crew did um
3:10:21differently was toby this is a
3:10:23researcher at the future humanity
3:10:24institute uh
3:10:26they instead of
3:10:29they realize that it's like basically a
3:10:31statistical quirk that if you put in
3:10:32point sources even if you think you're
3:10:34putting in conservative point sources
3:10:35because on some of these variables the
3:10:38the uncertainty is so large it spans
3:10:41like maybe even like a couple of hundred
3:10:43orders of magnitude
3:10:45um
3:10:46by putting in point sources it's always
3:10:48going to lead to um overestimates
3:10:50um and so they
3:10:52by putting stuff on a log scale
3:10:54actually they did it on like a log log
3:10:55scale on some of them um and then like
3:10:57ran the simulation across the whole
3:11:00um bucket of uncertainty across all
3:11:02those orders of magnitude when you do
3:11:04that
3:11:05then actually the number comes out much
3:11:07much smaller and that's the more
3:11:09statistically rigorous you know
3:11:10mathematically correct way of doing the
3:11:12calculation it's still a lot of hand
3:11:14waving as science goes it's it's like
3:11:16definitely
3:11:17you know just waving i don't know what
3:11:18an analogy is but it's hand wavy um and
3:11:22uh anyway when they did this and then
3:11:24they did a bayesian update on it as well
3:11:26to like factor in the fact that there is
3:11:28no evidence that we're picking up
3:11:30because you know no evidence is actually
3:11:32a form of evidence right um and
3:11:35the long and short of it comes out that
3:11:36the
3:11:37we're roughly around 70 to be the only
3:11:41uh
3:11:42intelligent civilization in our galaxy
3:11:44thus far and around 50 50 in the entire
3:11:46observable universe which sounds so
3:11:48crazily counterintuitive but their math
3:11:51is
3:11:52legit
3:11:53well yeah the math around this
3:11:54particular equation which equation is
3:11:56ridiculous on many levels but uh the
3:12:00the the the powerful thing about the
3:12:02equation is there's the different things
3:12:05different components that can be
3:12:07estimated
3:12:09and the error bars on which can be
3:12:11reduced with science
3:12:13and enhanced throughout since the
3:12:16equation came out the error box have
3:12:18been coming out on different atoms yeah
3:12:19that's right aspects and so that it
3:12:21almost kind of says
3:12:23uh what like this gives you a mission to
3:12:25reduce the error bars on these estimates
3:12:28now over a period of time and once you
3:12:30do you can better and better understand
3:12:32like in the process of redoing the error
3:12:34bars you'll get to understand actually
3:12:37what is the right way to
3:12:39find out where the aliens are how many
3:12:41of them there are and all those kinds of
3:12:43things so i don't
3:12:45think it's good to use that for an
3:12:47estimation i think you do have to think
3:12:48from like
3:12:50more like from first principles just
3:12:52looking at what life is on earth
3:12:54like and trying to understand the very
3:12:58physics-based biologic
3:13:00chemistry biology-based question of what
3:13:02is life
3:13:04maybe computation based what the is
3:13:06this thing right and that like how
3:13:09difficult is it to create this thing
3:13:11right it's one way to say like how many
3:13:13plants like this are out there all that
3:13:15kind of stuff but
3:13:17it feels like from our very limited
3:13:20knowledge perspective the right ways
3:13:22to think
3:13:24how how does what is this thing and how
3:13:26does it originate from
3:13:29from very simple non-life things
3:13:31how does complex
3:13:34life like things emerge
3:13:37from from a rock
3:13:39to a bacteria
3:13:41protein
3:13:42and these like weird systems that
3:13:45encode information and pass information
3:13:47from self-replicate and then also select
3:13:50each other and mutate in interesting
3:13:51ways such that they can adapt and evolve
3:13:54and build increasingly more complex
3:13:56systems right well it's a form of
3:13:57information processing yeah right
3:13:59right
3:14:00whereas information transfer
3:14:02but then also an energy processing which
3:14:05then results in
3:14:07if i guess information processing maybe
3:14:09i'm getting buggered well
3:14:10it's doing some modification and yeah
3:14:12the input is some energy right it's able
3:14:15to extract yeah
3:14:17extract resources uh from its
3:14:20environment in order to achieve a goal
3:14:22but the goal doesn't seem to be clear
3:14:24right the
3:14:26goal is well the goal is to make more of
3:14:28itself
3:14:29yeah but in a way that uh
3:14:32increases i mean i don't know if
3:14:34evolution
3:14:36is a fundamental
3:14:38law of the universe but it seems to want
3:14:40to
3:14:42replicate itself in a way that maximizes
3:14:45the chance of its survival
3:14:47individual agents within yeah an
3:14:49ecosystem do yes yes evolution itself
3:14:52doesn't give a right it's a very it
3:14:54don't care it's just like
3:14:57oh you optimize it well at least it's
3:14:59certainly um
3:15:01yeah it doesn't care about the the
3:15:02welfare of the individual agents within
3:15:04it but it does seem to i don't know i i
3:15:06think it's i think the mistake is that
3:15:08we're anthropomorphizing and to even try
3:15:10to you know give
3:15:11evolution a mindset
3:15:14um because it is there's a really great
3:15:16post by eliezer uh yudkowski on um
3:15:20uh less wrong which is um
3:15:23an alien god
3:15:25and he talks about like the mistake we
3:15:27make when we try and like put our mind
3:15:30think through things from an
3:15:31evolutionary perspective as though like
3:15:32giving evolution like some kind of
3:15:34agency and what it wants
3:15:36um yeah worth reading but
3:15:38yeah i i would like to say
3:15:41that having interacted with a lot of
3:15:42really smart people that say that
3:15:44anthropomorphization is a mistake i
3:15:46would like to say that saying that
3:15:48anthropomorphization is a mistake is a
3:15:50mistake i think there's a lot of power
3:15:53in anthropomorphization
3:15:55if i can only say that word correctly
3:15:56one time i i i think that's actually a
3:15:59really powerful way to reason through
3:16:01things and i think people especially
3:16:03people on robotics seem to run away from
3:16:05it as fast as possible
3:16:07and uh i i just can you give an example
3:16:10of like how it helps in robotics
3:16:13oh in uh
3:16:14that
3:16:15our world is a world of humans
3:16:18and to see robots as fundamentally just
3:16:22tools
3:16:24runs away from the fact that
3:16:26we live in a world of a dynamic world of
3:16:29humans that like these all these game
3:16:31theory systems we've we've talked about
3:16:34that a robot that ever has to interact
3:16:36with humans and i don't mean like
3:16:38intimate friendship interaction i mean
3:16:41in a factory setting where it has to
3:16:42deal with the uncertainty of humans all
3:16:44that kind of stuff you have to
3:16:46acknowledge that the robot's behavior
3:16:49has an effect on the human
3:16:51just as much as the human has an effect
3:16:53on the robot and there's a dance there
3:16:56and you have to realize that this entity
3:16:58when a human sees a robot
3:17:00this is obvious in a physical
3:17:02manifestation of a robot they feel a
3:17:04certain way they have a fear they have
3:17:06uncertainty they um
3:17:09they they have their own personal life
3:17:11projections we have pets and dogs and
3:17:13the thing looks like a dog they have
3:17:14their own memories of what a dog is like
3:17:16they have certain feelings and that's
3:17:18going to be useful in a safety setting
3:17:20safety critical setting which is one of
3:17:22the most trivial settings for a robot
3:17:25in terms of how to avoid
3:17:27any kind of dangerous situations and a
3:17:29robot should really con consider that in
3:17:33navigating its environment and we humans
3:17:35are right to reason about how a robot
3:17:38should consider navigating its
3:17:40environment through anthropomorphization
3:17:42i i i also think our brains are designed
3:17:45to think in in in
3:17:48human
3:17:50um
3:17:51human terms like game theory
3:17:55i think is um
3:17:57is is best applied in the space of human
3:18:00decisions
3:18:01and so
3:18:02uh right you're dealing i mean with
3:18:04things like ai ais they are you know we
3:18:08can somewhat
3:18:10like i don't think it's
3:18:11the reason i i say anthropomorphization
3:18:14we need to be careful with is because
3:18:15there is a danger of
3:18:17overly applying overly wrongly assuming
3:18:20that that this
3:18:22artificial intelligence is going to
3:18:23operate in any similar way to us because
3:18:26it is
3:18:27operating on a fundamentally different
3:18:28substrate like even
3:18:31dogs or even mice or whatever in some
3:18:33ways like
3:18:35anthromorphizing them is less of a
3:18:36mistake i think than an ai even though
3:18:38it's an ai we built and so on because at
3:18:40least we know that they're running from
3:18:42the same substrate and they've and
3:18:43they've also evolved from the same out
3:18:45of the same evolutionary process
3:18:48you know they've followed this evolution
3:18:49of like needing to compete for resources
3:18:52and
3:18:53needing to find a mate and that kind of
3:18:54stuff whereas an ai that has just popped
3:18:57into an existence somewhere on a like a
3:18:59cloud server
3:19:00let's say you know or whatever however
3:19:02it runs and whatever whether i don't
3:19:04know whether they have an internal
3:19:05experience i don't think they
3:19:05necessarily do in fact i don't think
3:19:07they do but
3:19:08the point is is that to try and
3:19:11apply any kind of modeling of like see
3:19:13thinking through problems and decisions
3:19:15in the same way that we do
3:19:16has to be done extremely carefully
3:19:18because they are
3:19:20like
3:19:21they're so alien
3:19:23their method of whatever their form of
3:19:25thinking is it's just so different
3:19:27because they've never had to evolve
3:19:28you know in the same way
3:19:30yeah i was beautifully put i was just
3:19:32playing devil's advocate i do think in
3:19:34certain contexts anthropomorphization is
3:19:36not going to hurt you yes engineers run
3:19:38away from it too fast
3:19:41for the most point you're right uh do
3:19:43you have advice for young people
3:19:47today
3:19:48like the the 17 year old that you were
3:19:51of uh how to live life you can be
3:19:54proud of how to have a career you can be
3:19:56proud of in this world full of molex
3:20:00think about the win-wins
3:20:02look for win-win situations
3:20:05and
3:20:06be careful not to
3:20:09you know overly use your smarts to
3:20:11convince yourself that something is
3:20:12win-win when it's not so that's
3:20:14difficult and i don't know how to advise
3:20:15you know people on that because it's
3:20:17something i'm still figuring out myself
3:20:19um
3:20:20but have that as a sort of
3:20:21default
3:20:23mo
3:20:24uh
3:20:25don't see things everything as a
3:20:27zero-sum game try to find the positive
3:20:28sumness and like find waste if it if
3:20:31there isn't seem to be one
3:20:32consider playing a different game so
3:20:34that i would suggest that
3:20:36um do not become a professional poker
3:20:38player
3:20:39because people always ask they're like
3:20:40oh she's a pro i want to do that too
3:20:43fine you could have done it if you were
3:20:44you know when i started out it was a
3:20:46very different situation back then poker
3:20:48is you know
3:20:50uh
3:20:51a great game to learn in order to
3:20:52understand the way ways to think and
3:20:55i recommend people learn it but don't
3:20:56try to make a living from it these days
3:20:58it's almost it's very very difficult to
3:21:00the point of being impossible um
3:21:03and then
3:21:06really
3:21:07really be aware of how much time you
3:21:08spend on your phone and on social media
3:21:12and really try and keep it to a minimum
3:21:14be aware that basically every moment
3:21:16that you spend on it is bad for you so
3:21:18it doesn't mean to say you can never do
3:21:19it but
3:21:20just have that running in the background
3:21:22this i'm doing a bad thing for myself
3:21:23right now
3:21:24um i think that's the general rule of
3:21:26thumb
3:21:28of course about becoming a professional
3:21:30poker player if there is a thing in your
3:21:32life
3:21:32that uh
3:21:34that's like that and nobody can convince
3:21:37you otherwise just do it
3:21:39um
3:21:40don't listen to anyone's advice
3:21:43find a thing that you can't be talked
3:21:45out of too that's that's
3:21:47i like that yeah
3:21:49uh
3:21:50you you were uh a lead guitarist in the
3:21:52metal band oh did i write that down for
3:21:55something uh
3:21:57what that did you uh what would you do
3:21:59it for the
3:22:01the
3:22:02the the performing was it the the pure
3:22:05the the music of it
3:22:06was it just being a rock star why'd you
3:22:09do it um
3:22:11so we only ever played
3:22:13two gigs
3:22:15we we didn't last you know it wasn't a
3:22:17very we weren't famous or anything like
3:22:19that um
3:22:20but i
3:22:23i was very into metal like it was my
3:22:25entire identity
3:22:27sort of from the age of 16 to 23. the
3:22:29best metal band of all time ah don't ask
3:22:32me that it's so hard to answer uh
3:22:35ah
3:22:36so i know i had a long argument with um
3:22:40i'm a guitarist more like a classic rock
3:22:42guitarist
3:22:43so you know i've had friends who are
3:22:46very big pantera fans and so there was
3:22:48often arguments about
3:22:51what's the better metal band metallica
3:22:52versus pantera this is a more kind of
3:22:5490s maybe discussion
3:22:57but i was always on the side of
3:22:58metallica
3:23:00both musically and in terms of
3:23:02performance and the the depth of war and
3:23:04lyrics and and so on so um but they were
3:23:08basically everybody was against me
3:23:10because if you're a true metal fan
3:23:12i guess the idea goes is you can't
3:23:14possibly be a metallica fan i think
3:23:16metallica's pop it's just like it's they
3:23:18sold out
3:23:19metallica are metal like they they
3:23:22were the
3:23:23i mean again you can't say who was the
3:23:25godfather of metal blah blah but like
3:23:26they
3:23:28were so groundbreaking
3:23:30and so brilliant um
3:23:32i i you've named literally two of my
3:23:34favorite bands like that's that when you
3:23:35ask that question who are my favorites
3:23:37like those were two that came up a third
3:23:39one is children of bodom um who i just
3:23:41think
3:23:43they just take all the boxes for me um
3:23:47yeah i don't know it's
3:23:50nowadays like i kind of sort of feel
3:23:51like a repulsion to the
3:23:54i mean i was that myself like i'd be
3:23:55like who do you prefer more come on
3:23:57who's like no you have to rank them but
3:23:58it's like this false zero sumness that's
3:24:00like why they're so additive like
3:24:02there's no conflict there
3:24:05when people ask that kind of question
3:24:06about anything movies
3:24:08i feel like it's hard work
3:24:11and it's unfair but it's it's you should
3:24:14pick one yeah like and i that's actually
3:24:16you know the same kind of it's like a
3:24:18fear of a commitment people ask me
3:24:19what's your favorite band it's like
3:24:22but i you know it's good to pick exactly
3:24:24and thank you for yeah thank you for the
3:24:25tough question yeah uh well maybe not no
3:24:28i don't know
3:24:29when a lot of people are listening um
3:24:31can i just like what what is it
3:24:33uh no it does it it's are you still into
3:24:36metal uh funny enough i was listening to
3:24:38a bunch before i came over here oh like
3:24:40you do you use it for
3:24:42like motivation yeah or get you in a
3:24:44certain way yeah i was weirdly listening
3:24:45to 80s hair metal before i came does
3:24:48that count as metal i think i think so
3:24:50it's it's like proto-metal and it's
3:24:52happy it's optimistic
3:24:54happy proto-metal um
3:24:56yeah i mean these things you know all
3:24:57these genres bleed into each other um
3:24:59but yeah sorry to answer your question
3:25:01about
3:25:02guitar playing
3:25:03my relationship with it was kind of
3:25:04weird and that i was
3:25:06deeply uncreative
3:25:09my objective would be to hear some
3:25:10really hard technical solo and then
3:25:13learn it memorize it and then play it
3:25:14perfectly but i was
3:25:16incapable of trying to write my own
3:25:18music like the idea was just absolutely
3:25:20terrifying um
3:25:22uh but i was also just thinking i was
3:25:24like it'd be kind of cool to actually
3:25:26try
3:25:27starting a band again and getting back
3:25:29into it and right
3:25:31but
3:25:32it's scary
3:25:33that's scary i mean i i put out some
3:25:36guitar playing just other people's
3:25:37covers like i play comfortably numb
3:25:39on on the internet nice it's scary too
3:25:42it's scary putting stuff out there
3:25:44uh
3:25:45and i had this similar kind of
3:25:46fascination with technical playing both
3:25:48on piano and guitar
3:25:50you know uh one of the first
3:25:52um
3:25:55one of the reasons i started learning
3:25:57guitar is the from ozzy osbourne mr
3:26:00crowley solo
3:26:01and one of the first solos i learned is
3:26:03that
3:26:04um
3:26:06and it's there's a beauty to it there's
3:26:07a lot of beauty right yeah
3:26:10is there some tapping but it's it's just
3:26:12really fast
3:26:14it's beautiful like arpeggios yes
3:26:15arpeggios yeah and but there's a melody
3:26:18that you can hear through it but there's
3:26:19also build up
3:26:21it's a beautiful solo but it's also
3:26:23technically just visually the way it
3:26:24looks
3:26:25when a person is watched you feel like a
3:26:27rockstar player
3:26:29but it ultimately has to do with
3:26:31technical
3:26:32you
3:26:33you're not developing the part of your
3:26:35brain that i think
3:26:37requires you to generate beautiful music
3:26:40it is ultimately technical in nature and
3:26:42so that took me a long time to
3:26:44let go of that and just be able to write
3:26:47music myself and
3:26:48and that's a different
3:26:50that's a different journey i think
3:26:52i think that journey is a little bit
3:26:54more inspired in the blues world for
3:26:56example or improvisation is more valued
3:26:58obviously in jails and so on but
3:27:00um i i think ultimately it's a more
3:27:02rewarding
3:27:04journey because you get to
3:27:06your relationship with the guitar then
3:27:08becomes
3:27:09a kind of escape
3:27:11from the world where you can create
3:27:13create i mean creating stuff is
3:27:16uh and it's something you work with
3:27:18because my relationship with my guitar
3:27:19was like it was something to tame and
3:27:21defeat
3:27:23yeah
3:27:24which was kind of what my whole
3:27:25personality was back then like i was
3:27:27just very like you know as i said like
3:27:28very competitive very just like must
3:27:31bend this thing to my will
3:27:33whereas
3:27:34writing music is you were it's like a
3:27:36dance you work with it
3:27:37but i think because of the competitive
3:27:39aspect for me at least that's still
3:27:41there
3:27:42which creates anxiety about uh playing
3:27:44publicly or all that kind of stuff i
3:27:47think there's just like a harsh
3:27:48self-criticism within the whole thing
3:27:50it's really really it's it's it's really
3:27:52tough to hear some of your stuff
3:27:55i mean that there is
3:27:57there's certain things that feel really
3:27:58personal and and on top of that as we
3:28:00talked about poker offline
3:28:03there are certain things that you get to
3:28:04certain height in your life and that
3:28:06doesn't have to be very high but you get
3:28:07to a certain height and then you put it
3:28:09aside for a bit
3:28:11and it's hard to return to it because
3:28:13you remember being good
3:28:15and it's hard to um like you being at a
3:28:18very high level in poker it might be
3:28:20hard for you to return to poker every
3:28:22once in a while and you enjoy it knowing
3:28:24that you're just not as sharp as it used
3:28:26to be because you're not doing it every
3:28:28single day
3:28:29uh that that's something i always wonder
3:28:30with i mean even just like in chess with
3:28:32kasparov some of these greats just
3:28:34returning to it it's just it's almost
3:28:36painful yes yeah and i feel that way
3:28:39with guitar too you know because i used
3:28:40to play like every day a lot
3:28:44so returning to it is painful because
3:28:46like
3:28:47it's like accepting the fact that this
3:28:48whole
3:28:50ride is finite and
3:28:53the you have you have a prime
3:28:55there's a time when you're really good
3:28:57and now it's over and now we're on a
3:28:58different chapter of life i was like
3:29:02but you can still you can still discover
3:29:05joy within that process it's been tough
3:29:07especially with some level of like
3:29:09as people get to know you there's a and
3:29:12people film stuff
3:29:13you you don't have
3:29:15the privacy of just
3:29:17sharing something with a few people
3:29:19around you yeah
3:29:21that's a beautiful privacy that that's
3:29:23the point well the internet is
3:29:25disappearing yeah that's a really good
3:29:27point yeah
3:29:29but all those pressures aside if you
3:29:31really you can step up and still enjoy
3:29:34the out of uh
3:29:36a good musical performance um
3:29:38what what do you think is the meaning of
3:29:40this whole thing
3:29:42what's the meaning of life
3:29:44wow
3:29:45it's in your name as we talked about you
3:29:47have to have to live up do you feel
3:29:50the requirement to have to live up to
3:29:51your name
3:29:54because live yeah
3:29:56no because i don't see it i mean my
3:29:59well again it's kind of like
3:30:02no i don't know
3:30:03because my full name is olivia yeah so i
3:30:06can retreat in that and be like oh
3:30:07olivia what does that even mean um
3:30:09live up to live uh
3:30:12no i i can't say i i do because i've
3:30:14never thought of it that way okay and
3:30:15then your name backwards is evil that's
3:30:17what i also talked about
3:30:19um there's there's like layers i mean i
3:30:22i feel the urge to to live up to that to
3:30:24be to be the inverse of evil yeah um or
3:30:27even better because i don't think you
3:30:29know
3:30:30is the inverse of evil good or is good
3:30:32something completely
3:30:33separate to that i think my intuition
3:30:36says it's the latter but i don't know
3:30:37anyway again getting in the weeds um
3:30:39what is the meaning of all this uh of
3:30:42life
3:30:43um why are we here
3:30:46i think to
3:30:49explore have fun and understand
3:30:52um and make more of here and to keep the
3:30:54game going over here more more of more
3:30:57of
3:30:58this whatever this is more of experience
3:31:02just to have more of experience and
3:31:03ideally positive experience
3:31:05um and
3:31:08more
3:31:09complex you know to i guess try and put
3:31:10it into a sort of vaguely scientific
3:31:12term um
3:31:15make it so that the program required the
3:31:18length of code required to describe the
3:31:20universe is as long as possible
3:31:22uh and you know highly complex and
3:31:25therefore interesting
3:31:27because again like
3:31:28i know you know we bang the the
3:31:31the metaphor to death but like
3:31:33tiled with
3:31:35x you know told with uh paper clips
3:31:37doesn't require that much of a code to
3:31:39describe
3:31:40um obviously maybe something emerges
3:31:42from it but at that steady state
3:31:43assuming a steady state it's not very
3:31:45interesting whereas
3:31:47it seems like our universe is over time
3:31:49becoming more and more complex and
3:31:50interesting there's so much richness and
3:31:52beauty and diversity on this earth and i
3:31:54want that to continue and get more i
3:31:56want more
3:31:57more more diversity and i in the very
3:31:59best sense of that word um
3:32:01is i to me the
3:32:03the the the goal of all this uh yeah
3:32:07yeah and somehow
3:32:09have fun in the process yes
3:32:11because we do create a lot of fun things
3:32:13along instead of in this
3:32:16creative force
3:32:17and all the beautiful things we create
3:32:19somehow there's like a
3:32:21funness to it and perhaps that has to do
3:32:23with the finiteness of life the
3:32:25finiteness of all these experiences
3:32:28which is what makes them kind of unique
3:32:31like the the fact that they end there's
3:32:32this uh whatever it is
3:32:35falling in love or um
3:32:38creating a piece of art
3:32:40or creating a bridge
3:32:42or
3:32:43creating a rocket or creating a
3:32:47i don't know just the the businesses
3:32:50that do that that that build something
3:32:53or
3:32:54solve something
3:32:56the fact that it is born and it dies
3:32:59um somehow
3:33:02uh embeds it with
3:33:05fun with joy
3:33:06for the people involved i don't know
3:33:08what that is
3:33:09the finiteness of it it can do some
3:33:12people struggle with the you know i mean
3:33:14a big
3:33:15thing i think
3:33:16that one has to learn is is being okay
3:33:18with things coming to an end
3:33:21and
3:33:21uh
3:33:23in terms of like some projects and so on
3:33:25right people cling on to things beyond
3:33:26what they're meant to be doing you know
3:33:28beyond what make is reasonable
3:33:31and i'm gonna have to come to terms with
3:33:33this podcast coming to an end i really
3:33:36enjoy talking to you i i think it's
3:33:37obvious as we've talked about many times
3:33:40you should be doing a podcast you should
3:33:42you're already doing
3:33:43a lot a lot of stuff publicly to the
3:33:46world which is awesome and you're a
3:33:47great educator you're a great mind
3:33:49you're a great intellect but it's also
3:33:50this whole medium of just talking about
3:33:52it it's good it's a fun one it's it
3:33:54really is good and it's it's just
3:33:57it's nothing but like oh it's just so
3:33:59much fun
3:34:00and you can just get into so many
3:34:03yeah there's this space to just explore
3:34:05and and see what comes and emerges and
3:34:07yeah yeah to understand yourself better
3:34:09and if you're talking to others to
3:34:10understand them better yeah and together
3:34:11with them i mean i you should do your
3:34:14you should do your own podcast but you
3:34:15should also do a podcast with c as you
3:34:17talked about
3:34:18the two of you have such
3:34:20uh
3:34:21different minds that like melt together
3:34:24in just hilarious ways fascinating ways
3:34:26just uh the tension of ideas there is
3:34:29really powerful but in general i think
3:34:31you you got a beautiful voice so thank
3:34:33you thank you so much for talking today
3:34:35thank you for being a friend thank you
3:34:36for honoring me with this conversation
3:34:39with your valuable time thanks liv thank
3:34:41you
3:34:42thanks for listening to this
3:34:43conversation with little berry to
3:34:45support this podcast please check out
3:34:46our sponsors in the description
3:34:48and now let me leave you with some words
3:34:50from richard fineman
3:34:52i think it's much more interesting to
3:34:54live not knowing than to have answers
3:34:57which might be wrong
3:34:59i have approximate answers and possible
3:35:01beliefs and different degrees of
3:35:02uncertainty about different things
3:35:05but
3:35:05i'm not absolutely sure of anything and
3:35:08there are many things i don't know
3:35:10anything about such as whether it means
3:35:12anything to ask why we're here
3:35:15i don't have to know the answer
3:35:17i don't feel frightened not knowing
3:35:19things by being lost in a mysterious
3:35:22universe without any purpose which is
3:35:24the way it really is as far as i can
3:35:26tell
3:35:28thank you for listening and hope to see
3:35:30you
3:35:30next time
3:35:39you

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