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Speaker 1: Also media, Welcome back to Behind the Best. That's how

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Speaker 1: this podcast would open. If I was a game show host,

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Speaker 1: but I'm not. Instead of a guy who's.

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Speaker 2: Spending you would be good at it, though.

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Speaker 3: I don't think I would be, Sophie.

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Speaker 2: I do, but I think, but I'm like biased because

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Speaker 2: I think you'd be good at most things.

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Speaker 1: No, my only marketable skill is spending thirty hours reading

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Speaker 1: the deranged writings of a quasi cult leader who was

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Speaker 1: somewhat involved in the murders of multiple people very recently,

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Speaker 1: largely because she read a piece of Harry Potter fan

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Speaker 1: fiction at the wrong time. Yes, we have a fun

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Speaker 1: one for you this week, and by a fun one,

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Speaker 1: we have a not at all fun one for you

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Speaker 1: this week. And to have just a terrible time with me.

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Speaker 1: We are bringing on again the great David Boree, co

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Speaker 1: host of My Mama, told me with our friend of

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Speaker 1: the pod, Langston Kerman, David, how you doing, Oh man, I.

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Speaker 3: Can't not complain how you doing? There's nothing going on

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Speaker 3: in the world.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I got up today and read that

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Speaker 1: that great new article by Francis fuka Yama. History is

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Speaker 1: still stopped, So everything's good. We're done.

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Speaker 3: I haven't looked at any news yet purposefully, so I'm

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Speaker 3: you know, it could be awesome. It could be going

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Speaker 3: great out there. It's great. It's great.

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Speaker 1: The whole Trump administration got together and said, psych it

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Speaker 1: was all a bit man, just an extended ad for

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Speaker 1: the Apprentice season fifteen.

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Speaker 3: You mean this country is not a business.

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Speaker 1: No, they handed over the presidency to.

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Speaker 3: I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I don't know whoever you you personally at home think

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Speaker 1: would be a great president. I'm not going to jump

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Speaker 1: into that can of worms right now. Ramonbrony Madron the president.

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Speaker 3: That's a good one. That's a good one. That's better

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Speaker 3: than what we got, honestly, vastly superior than where we are.

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Speaker 3: Of all the entertainers, I feel like, why don't we

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Speaker 3: start giving athletes a shot a government? Yeah? I fuck it?

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Speaker 3: Why not? You know, uh fucking uh.

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Speaker 1: Kareem Abdul Jabbar would could knock a presidency out of

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Speaker 1: the park. Come on, absolutely, Yes, we need a mystery novelist,

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Speaker 1: slash one of the great basketball stars of all time

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Speaker 1: in the White House.

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Speaker 3: I just want a president who's good in the paint,

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Speaker 3: you know what I mean?

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Speaker 1: That's right, that's right, Agatha Christie with a jump shot.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's exactly what I think. That's what an amazing man.

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Speaker 3: Kareem would be.

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Speaker 2: Such would be such a good choice.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, bring it on. I think he's such a good man.

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Speaker 3: He wouldn't do it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, his way too moral, he's waited. I have

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Speaker 2: a frog name after named after him.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Look, honestly, given where we are are right right now,

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Speaker 1: I'd take fucking uh what's his mark maguire, like Jesus Christ,

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Speaker 1: anybody like, honestly, anyone I take heartbeat oh man, fuck

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Speaker 1: it like I'll take no. No, I'm not gonna take

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Speaker 1: any hockey players. No hockey players. We got enough people

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Speaker 1: with brain damage in the White House right now.

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Speaker 3: That's probably sit and we don't need somebody who that much.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're probably right there. I mean,

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Speaker 1: if if we could go back in time and make

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Speaker 1: Joe Lewis the president, I think he could solve some

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Speaker 1: fucking problems in Congress.

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Speaker 3: You can get still done.

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Speaker 1: So this has been a fun digression, but I got

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Speaker 1: to ask at the start of this the story that

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Speaker 1: it is most relevant to the people we're talking about today,

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Speaker 1: that I think most of our listeners will have heard.

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Speaker 1: I'm curious if you've heard about Back on January twenty first,

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Speaker 1: right as the Trump administration took power, a border patrol

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Speaker 1: agent was shot and killed along with another individual at

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Speaker 1: a traffic stop in Coventry, Vermont. Right, there were two

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Speaker 1: people in a car that was pulled over a border patrol.

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Speaker 3: One of those people.

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Speaker 1: Drew a gun, there was a firefight, one of the

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Speaker 1: people in the car and the cop died.

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Speaker 3: Right, Okay, have you heard this story. I'm not at all.

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Speaker 1: It's one of those things where it would have been

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Speaker 1: a much bigger the immigration being the thing that it

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Speaker 1: is right in the United like the political hot issue

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Speaker 1: that it is right now, Like the Republicans have been

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Speaker 1: desperately waiting for like a border patrol officer getting shooted

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Speaker 1: and wounded that they can like use to justify a crackdown.

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Speaker 1: But number one, this happened on the Canadian border.

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Speaker 3: Not really favorite.

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Speaker 1: And one of the two people who who drew their

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Speaker 1: guns on the cop ops was an immigrant, but they

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Speaker 1: were a German immigrant, and so.

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Speaker 3: None of this really like right, It.

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Speaker 1: Was all like right on the edge of being super

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Speaker 1: useful to their rights.

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Speaker 3: But it's none, like we were dealing with our own

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Speaker 3: right wing immigration propaganda at that time. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it was just like it was like the closest

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Speaker 1: to being a perfect right wing like fault, like a

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Speaker 1: Reichstag fire in it, but like just a little too weird.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you gotta throw some spice in there. You gotta

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Speaker 3: have like a Latin country. That's what they get excited about.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and obviously California border is where you want it,

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Speaker 1: you know.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely, definitely, even New Mexico could be.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, or at least at least they need to have

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Speaker 1: fitnel on the car. In fact, they were not breaking

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Speaker 1: any laws that anyone could prove at the time. They

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Speaker 1: just looked kind of weird. Yeah, they looked kind of weird,

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Speaker 1: and they like had guns, but it was like they

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Speaker 1: had like two handguns and like forty rounds and some

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Speaker 1: old targets. They were like coming back from a shooting range, right,

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Speaker 1: Like not a lot of a gun guns and AMMO

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Speaker 1: in America terms, right, especially in Vermont terms. Right. So

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Speaker 1: the other thing was weird about this is that the

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Speaker 1: German immigrant who died was a transwoman. So then again

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Speaker 1: we get back to like, wow, there's a lot about

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Speaker 1: this shooting that is like right on the edge of

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Speaker 1: some issues that the right is really trying to use

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Speaker 1: as like a folkrum to like push through some awful shit.

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Speaker 1: And as more and more information came out about the shooting,

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Speaker 1: the weirder it seemed, because there was a lot of

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Speaker 1: initial talk, is this like a terrorist attack where these

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Speaker 1: like two Antifa types who were like looking to murder

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Speaker 1: a bird border patrol agent. But no, that doesn't really

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Speaker 1: make sense because like they got pulled over, Like they

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Speaker 1: can't have been planning this right, Like it didn't. It

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Speaker 1: didn't really seem like that, and really no one, no

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Speaker 1: one could figure out why they had opened fire. But

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Speaker 1: as the days went on, more information started coming out,

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Speaker 1: not just about the two people who were arrested in

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Speaker 1: this well, the one person who was rested in the

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Speaker 1: one person who died, but about a group of people

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Speaker 1: around the country that they were linked to. And these

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Speaker 1: other people were not all but mostly trans women. They

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Speaker 1: were mostly people who kind of identified as both anarchists

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Speaker 1: and members of the rationalist subculture, which we'll talk about

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Speaker 1: in a little bit, And they were all super high

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Speaker 1: achieving people in like the tech industry and like sciences. Right,

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Speaker 1: These are the people who had won like awards and

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Speaker 1: had advanced degrees. The person, the lady who died in

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Speaker 1: the shooting was a quant trader, So these are not

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Speaker 1: like the normal shoot it out with the cops types.

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Speaker 3: Yes, this is a very niche group. This is a

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Speaker 3: very strange story.

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Speaker 1: So people start being like, oh the fuck is happening And.

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Speaker 3: There's a group of people who could not meet each

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Speaker 3: other without the invention of the Internet, right, Well.

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Speaker 1: That is boy, David, do you know where this always

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Speaker 1: going or at least starting, so like it's a couple

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Speaker 1: of these days into this when like a friend of

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Speaker 1: mine messaged me and it's like, hey, you know that

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Speaker 1: shooting in Vermont and I was like yeah, and he's

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Speaker 1: like my friend is like, you know, there's Zizians And

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Speaker 1: I was like, wait, what what the fuck? Because I

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Speaker 1: had heard of these people. This is a weird little subculture.

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Speaker 1: I'm always I'm like, you know, I study weird little

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Speaker 1: Internet subcultures, and in part because like some of them

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Speaker 1: do turn out to do acts of terrorism later. And

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Speaker 1: I've been I've been reporting on the rationalists, who are

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Speaker 1: not like a cult, but who do some cult adjacent

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Speaker 1: things and I just kind of find annoying. And I'd

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Speaker 1: heard about this offshoot of the rationalists called the Zizians.

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Speaker 1: They were very weird. There were some like weird crime allegations.

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Speaker 1: A couple of them had been involved in a murder

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Speaker 1: in California a year earlier. But like, it was not

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Speaker 1: a group that I ever really expected to see blow

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Speaker 1: up in the media, and then suddenly they fucking did, right,

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Speaker 1: And they're called the Zizians. It's not a name they

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Speaker 1: have for themselves. They don't consider themselves a cult. They

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Speaker 1: don't all like live A group of them did live together,

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Speaker 1: but like, these people are pretty geographically like dispersed around

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Speaker 1: the country. They're folks who met online arguing about ration

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Speaker 1: and discussing rationalism and the ideas of a particular member

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Speaker 1: of that community who goes by the name ziz. Right,

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Speaker 1: that's where this group came out of and the regular

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Speaker 1: media was not well equipped to understand what was going on.

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Speaker 1: And I want to run through a couple of representative

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Speaker 1: headlines that I came across just in like looking at

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Speaker 1: mainstream articles about what had happened. There's an article from

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Speaker 1: The Independent they title Inside the Zizians how a cultish

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Speaker 1: crew of radical vegans became linked to killings across the

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Speaker 1: United States. They seemed like just another band of anarchist

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Speaker 1: misfits scraping on the valide of scraping on the fringes

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Speaker 1: of Silicon Valley until the deaths began. And then there's

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Speaker 1: a k c r W article zizians the vegan techie

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Speaker 1: cult try tied to murders across the US. UH And

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Speaker 1: then a Fox article trans vegan cult charged with six murders.

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Speaker 3: There you go, that's Fox.

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Speaker 1: Yes, none of these titles are very accurate in that

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Speaker 1: I guess the first one is like the closest, where like,

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Speaker 1: these people are radical vegans and they're they are cultish, right,

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Speaker 1: so I'll give I'll give the Independent that vegan techie

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Speaker 1: cult is not really what I would describe them, Like

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Speaker 1: some of them were in the tech industry, but like

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Speaker 1: the degree to which they're in the tech industry is

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Speaker 1: a lot weirder than that gets across. And they're not

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Speaker 1: really a trans they're like trans vegans, but the cult

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Speaker 1: is not about being a trans vegan. That's just kind

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Speaker 1: of a lot. How these people found each other.

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Speaker 3: Oh, they just happened to be that was just the.

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Speaker 1: Common veganism is tied to it. They just kind of

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Speaker 1: all happen to be trans that's not really like tied

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Speaker 1: to it necessarily. So I would argue also that they're

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Speaker 1: not terrorists, which a lot of people have a number

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Speaker 1: of the other articles called them nothing. None of the

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Speaker 1: killings that they were involved with, and they did kill

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Speaker 1: people were like terrorist killings. They're all much weirder than that,

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Speaker 1: but none of them are like, none of the killings

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Speaker 1: I have seen are for a clear political purpose, right,

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Speaker 1: which is kind of crucial for it to be terrorism.

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Speaker 1: The murders kind of evolved out of a much sillier reason,

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Speaker 1: and it's you know, there's one really good article about

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Speaker 1: them by a fella at Wired who spent a year

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Speaker 1: or so kind of studying these people, and that article

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Speaker 1: does a lot that's good, but it doesn't go into

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Speaker 1: as much detail about what I think is the real

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Speaker 1: underpinning of whitest group of people got together and convinced

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Speaker 1: themselves it was okay to commit several murders. And I

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Speaker 1: think that that all comes down more than any other

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Speaker 1: single factor, to rationalism and to their belief in this

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Speaker 1: weird online cult. That's that's very much based on like

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Speaker 1: and like asking different sort of logic questions and trying

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Speaker 1: to like pinnow down the secret rules of the universe

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Speaker 1: by doing like game theory arguments on the internet over blogs. Right,

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Speaker 1: Like that's really how all of this stuff started.

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Speaker 3: Like someone named mystery. Yeah, a lot of people in funny.

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Speaker 1: Hats they do. Actually they're a little adjacent to this,

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Speaker 1: and they come out of that period of time, right

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Speaker 1: where like pick up artists culture is also like forming.

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Speaker 1: They're one of this like generation of cults that starts

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Speaker 1: with a bunch of blogs and shit on the internet

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Speaker 1: in like two thousand and nine, right, And this this

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Speaker 1: is it's so weird because we use the term cult

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Speaker 1: and that's the easiest thing to call these people. But generally,

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Speaker 1: when our society is talking about a cult, we're talking

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Speaker 1: about like eve an individual that individual brings in a

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Speaker 1: bunch of followers, gets them, isolates them from society, puts

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Speaker 1: them into an area where they are in complete control,

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Speaker 1: and then tries to utilize them for like a really

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Speaker 1: specific goal. There's like a way to kind of look

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Speaker 1: at physizians that way, But I think it would be

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Speaker 1: better to describe them as like cultish, right, Okay, they

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Speaker 1: use the tools of cult dynamics and that produces some

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Speaker 1: very cult like behavior, but there's also a lot of

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Speaker 1: differences between like how this group works and what you'd

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Speaker 1: call the traditional cult and including a lot of these

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Speaker 1: people are separate from each other and even don't like

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Speaker 1: each other, but because they've been inculcated in some of

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Speaker 1: the same beliefs through these kind of cult dynamics, they

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Speaker 1: make choices that lead them to like participate in violence too.

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Speaker 3: Where is their hub? Is it like a message board

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Speaker 3: type of situation? Like how is that? Yes?

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Speaker 1: Yes, so I'm gonna I'm gonna have to go back

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Speaker 1: and forth to explain all of that as.

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Speaker 3: The technology of Zizzy in it. It's because from the lids.

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Speaker 1: No no z I z the lady who was kind

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Speaker 1: of the founder of this is the name that she

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Speaker 1: takes for herself is Ziz, right.

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Speaker 3: Okay, should have been the z Girls. That's much more appealing.

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Speaker 1: These people are big in the news right.

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Speaker 4: Now because because of the several murders, and the right

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Speaker 4: wing is trying it wants to make it out is

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Speaker 4: like this is a like trans death cult and this

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Speaker 4: is more of like an internet a I nerd death cult.

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Speaker 3: I guess that's better.

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Speaker 1: It's just different. You know, you're right, it was just

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Speaker 1: a different thing. And I think it's important if like

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Speaker 1: you care about like cults because you think they're dangerous

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Speaker 1: and you're arguing that, like, hey, this cult seems really dangerous,

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Speaker 1: should understand like what the cult is, right, right, Like

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Speaker 1: if you miss a just to the scientologists and thought

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Speaker 1: like these are obsessive fans of science fiction who are

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Speaker 1: committing murders over science fiction stories. It's like, no, no,

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Speaker 1: they're committing murders because there's something stupid. Yeah, much moret okay,

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Speaker 1: So I got to take I am going to explain

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Speaker 1: to you what rationalism is, how who ziz is, where

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Speaker 1: they come from, and how they get radicalized to the

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Speaker 1: point where they are effectively at the hub of something

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Speaker 1: that is at least very adjacent to a cult. But

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Speaker 1: I want to talk a little bit about the difference

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Speaker 1: between like a cult and cult dynamics. Right, A cult

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Speaker 1: is fundamentally a toxic thing. It is bad, It always

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Speaker 1: harms people. There is no harmless cult, you know, it's

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Speaker 1: like rape, Like there's no version of it that's good,

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Speaker 1: you know, like it is a fundamentally dangerous thing. Cult

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Speaker 1: dynamics and the tactics cult leaders use are not always

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Speaker 1: toxic or bad. And in fact, every single person listening

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Speaker 1: to this has enjoyed and had their life enriched by

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Speaker 1: the use of certain things that are on the spectrum

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Speaker 1: of cult dynamics.

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Speaker 3: I was gonna say, it's a lot. It seems a

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Speaker 3: lot more like you have that at work, gives that

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Speaker 3: at work anywhere, right.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Anyway, that's a huge part of what make a

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Speaker 1: great fiction author who is able to like attract a

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Speaker 1: cult following you've ever had that experience, Like a big

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Speaker 1: thing in cults is the use of in creation of

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Speaker 1: new language. You get people using words that other they

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Speaker 1: don't use otherwise and like phrases, and that is both

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Speaker 1: a way to bond people because like you know, it

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Speaker 1: helps you feel like you're part of this group, and

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Speaker 1: it also isolates you from people. If you've ever met

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Speaker 1: people who are like hugely into you know, Dungeons and

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Speaker 1: Dragons or huge fans like Harry Potter or the Lord

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Speaker 1: of the Rings, like they have like things that they say,

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Speaker 1: like memes and shit that they share based on those books,

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Speaker 1: and like that's a less toxic, but it's on the

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Speaker 1: same spectrum. Right, It's this, I am a part of

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Speaker 1: this group of people, and we use these words that

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Speaker 1: mean something to us that don't mean things to other people, right,

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Speaker 1: And that's.

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Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yeah, it's like a great that's like a

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Speaker 3: great way to bomb. I think it's any group, right,

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Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, entertainers.

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Speaker 1: Your friend groups, Yeah, has in jokes, right, sports, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: could kill people, right exactly, yes, yes, And like you've

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Speaker 1: got you know, you and you and your buddies that

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Speaker 1: have been friends for years, you have like you could

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Speaker 1: there's like a word you can say and everyone knows

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Speaker 1: that you're fering this thing that happened six years ago,

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Speaker 1: and you all like laugh because you know it reminds

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Speaker 1: you of something, you know, because it's relevant to something happening.

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Speaker 1: Then that's a little healthy bit of cult.

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Speaker 3: Dynamics at play, right, you know.

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Speaker 1: It's like a diet, you know. So there's a toolbox

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Speaker 1: here and we play with it and different different organizations,

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Speaker 1: but churches play with it. And obviously a lot of

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Speaker 1: churches cross the line into cults, but there's also aspects

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Speaker 1: of for example, you know, there's churches that I know,

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Speaker 1: I have seen people go to where like it's very

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Speaker 1: common everybody gets up and like hugs at a certain point,

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Speaker 1: and like people benefit from human contact. It makes them

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Speaker 1: feel nice. It can be like a very healthy thing.

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Speaker 3: I've gone to.

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Speaker 1: I used to go to like Burning Man regionals and

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Speaker 1: like you would like start at this greeter station where

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Speaker 1: like a bunch of people would come up, but they'd

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Speaker 1: offer you like food and drinks, and you know, people

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Speaker 1: would hug each other and it was this like changes

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Speaker 1: your mind state from where you were in before, kind

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Speaker 1: of opens you up that bring.

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Speaker 3: Those is that like to qualify for state Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 3: so that way could get to go.

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Speaker 1: It's just like these local little events in Texas, right

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Speaker 1: like a thousand people in the desert trying to forget

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Speaker 1: that we live in Texas.

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Speaker 3: Okay, we're not desert.

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Speaker 1: But it was very like it's it's it was like

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Speaker 1: a really valuable part of like my youth because it

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Speaker 1: was the first time I ever started to like feel

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Speaker 1: comfortable in my own skin. But also that's on the

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Speaker 1: spectrum of love, which is thing colts do where they

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Speaker 1: like surround you from people with people who like talk

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Speaker 1: about like like you know, will touch you and hold

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Speaker 1: you and tell you they love you, and like, you know,

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Speaker 1: part of what brings you into the cult is the

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Speaker 1: cult leader can take that away at any moment in time.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: It's the kind of thing where if it's not something

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Speaker 1: where no, this is something we do for five minutes

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Speaker 1: at the end of every church service, right, you can

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Speaker 1: very easily turn this into something deeply dangerous and poisonous.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 1: But also a lot of people just kind of play

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Speaker 1: around a little bit pieces of that, a piece of

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Speaker 1: the cult dynamics.

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Speaker 3: Just a little just a little bit.

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Speaker 1: Any good musician, any really great performers fucking with some

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Speaker 1: cult dynamics, Right, I was.

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Speaker 3: Gonna say, I mean I've been to like so many

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Speaker 3: different concerts of like weird niche stuff where you're like,

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Speaker 3: maybe the disco Biscuits is a cool I don't know.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean like I've been to some childish Gambino

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Speaker 1: concerts where it's like, oh, yeah, he's doing he's a

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Speaker 1: little bit of a cult leader, you know, like just

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Speaker 1: ten percent, right.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, what are you good to do with

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Speaker 3: all that charisma you got? You gotta put it somewhere?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, So these are I think that it's important

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Speaker 1: for people to to understand both that, like the tactics

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Speaker 1: and dynamics that make up a cult have versions of

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Speaker 1: them that are not unhealthy. But I also think it's

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Speaker 1: important for people to understand cults come out of subcultures. Right,

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Speaker 1: This is very close to one hundred percent of the time.

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Speaker 1: Cults always arise out of subcultural movements that are not

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Speaker 1: in none of themselves cults. For example, in the nineteen

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Speaker 1: thirties through like the fifties sixties, you have the emergence

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Speaker 1: of what's called the self help movement, you know, and

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Speaker 1: this is all of these different books onlike how to

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Speaker 1: persuade people, how to you know, win friends and influence people,

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Speaker 1: you know, how to like make but also stuff like

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Speaker 1: alcoholics anonymous, you know, how to like improve yourself by

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Speaker 1: getting off drugs, getting off alcohol. All these are pieces

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Speaker 1: of the self improvement movement. Right, that's a subculture. There

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Speaker 1: are people who travel around you get obsessed to go

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Speaker 1: to all of these different things, and they'll and they

397
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Speaker 1: get a lot of benefit. You know, people will show

398
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Speaker 1: up at these seminars where there's hundreds of other people

399
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Speaker 1: and a bunch of people will like hug them and

400
00:21:12,840 --> 00:21:15,040
Speaker 1: they feel like they're part of this community and they're

401
00:21:15,080 --> 00:21:18,639
Speaker 1: making their lives better. And oftentimes, especially like once we

402
00:21:18,680 --> 00:21:21,760
Speaker 1: get to like the sixties seventies, these different sort of

403
00:21:22,080 --> 00:21:23,919
Speaker 1: guru types are saying that, like, you know, this is

404
00:21:23,920 --> 00:21:25,399
Speaker 1: how we're going to save the world if we can

405
00:21:25,400 --> 00:21:29,119
Speaker 1: get everybody doing you know this, this yoga routine or

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Speaker 1: whatever that I find together fix everything.

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Speaker 3: Who's that guy who had the game? Oh god, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

408
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Speaker 3: They had to like they had to viciously confront.

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Speaker 1: Each us that we've covered them. That that is Synanon. Yes, yes,

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Speaker 1: that's what I'm talking about. That's what I'm talking about.

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Speaker 1: And I have this broader subculture of self help and

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Speaker 1: a cult Synanon comes out of it, you know, and.

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Speaker 3: I get it. It's like the subculture, it's already it's intimate.

414
00:21:54,560 --> 00:21:59,400
Speaker 3: You feel those people and anybody else. It definitely feels right.

415
00:21:59,320 --> 00:22:03,680
Speaker 1: For and scientology is a cult that comes out of

416
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Speaker 1: the exact same subculture. We talked last week or week

417
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Speaker 1: before two weeks ago about Tony Alamo. It was an

418
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Speaker 1: incredibly abusive, pedophile Christian cult leader. He comes out of

419
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Speaker 1: along with a couple other guys we've talked the Jesus

420
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Speaker 1: Freak movement, which is a Christian subculture that arises as

421
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Speaker 1: a reaction to the Hippie movement. It's kind of the

422
00:22:23,840 --> 00:22:26,520
Speaker 1: countervailing force to the hippie movements. You got these hippies,

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Speaker 1: and you know, these Christians who are like really scared

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Speaker 1: of this kind of like weird left wing movement, and

425
00:22:33,400 --> 00:22:35,919
Speaker 1: so they start kind of doing like a Christian hippie

426
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Speaker 1: movement almost right, And some of these people just start

427
00:22:40,400 --> 00:22:43,200
Speaker 1: weird churches that sing annoying songs, and some of these

428
00:22:43,200 --> 00:22:46,560
Speaker 1: people start hideously dangerous cults. You have the subculture, and

429
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Speaker 1: you have cults that come out of it, right, And

430
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Speaker 1: the same thing is true in every single period of time, right,

431
00:22:53,400 --> 00:22:58,040
Speaker 1: cults form out of subcultures, you know. And part of

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Speaker 1: this is because people who a lot of people who

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Speaker 1: find themselves most drawn to subcultures, right, tend to be

434
00:23:04,760 --> 00:23:10,360
Speaker 1: people who feel like they're missing something in the outside world, right,

435
00:23:10,760 --> 00:23:13,040
Speaker 1: you know, not everybody people who get most into it.

436
00:23:13,119 --> 00:23:15,040
Speaker 1: And so so does that mean.

437
00:23:14,960 --> 00:23:18,480
Speaker 3: Like so maybe like more I'm just curious, like more

438
00:23:18,520 --> 00:23:22,360
Speaker 3: broader cultural waves have never led There's like the Swifties

439
00:23:22,400 --> 00:23:25,000
Speaker 3: would not be a cult. No, there's no most likely

440
00:23:25,040 --> 00:23:27,240
Speaker 3: not going to be an offshoot of the Swifties that

441
00:23:27,280 --> 00:23:29,879
Speaker 3: becomes a cult because it's so broad, it has to

442
00:23:30,359 --> 00:23:33,480
Speaker 3: have already been kind of a smaller subset. That's interesting.

443
00:23:33,600 --> 00:23:36,960
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, and I think but but that said, there

444
00:23:37,040 --> 00:23:41,240
Speaker 1: have been cults that have started out of like popular

445
00:23:41,400 --> 00:23:46,000
Speaker 1: entertainers and musicians, like you know, you could we could

446
00:23:46,000 --> 00:23:48,879
Speaker 1: talk about Corey Feldsman's Weird House full of young women

447
00:23:48,960 --> 00:23:57,240
Speaker 1: dressed as angels. Right, So yeah, you've got as a

448
00:23:57,280 --> 00:23:59,840
Speaker 1: general rule, like there are music is full of sub

449
00:24:00,040 --> 00:24:03,600
Speaker 1: cultures like punk, right, but there have definitely also been

450
00:24:03,680 --> 00:24:07,560
Speaker 1: some like punk communities that have have gone in kind

451
00:24:07,600 --> 00:24:09,960
Speaker 1: of individual little chunks of punk. Me it's got on

452
00:24:10,000 --> 00:24:20,840
Speaker 1: like culty directions, right if you don't like yeah, yes, yeah,

453
00:24:20,840 --> 00:24:23,199
Speaker 1: so there are cults that come out of the subculture.

454
00:24:23,240 --> 00:24:24,440
Speaker 3: This is the way colts work.

455
00:24:24,480 --> 00:24:26,560
Speaker 1: And I really just I don't think I don't think

456
00:24:26,600 --> 00:24:29,240
Speaker 1: there's very good education on what cults are, where they

457
00:24:29,320 --> 00:24:31,840
Speaker 1: come from, or how they work, because all of the

458
00:24:31,840 --> 00:24:34,960
Speaker 1: people who run this country have like a lot of

459
00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:36,600
Speaker 1: cult leader DNA and them.

460
00:24:36,960 --> 00:24:44,280
Speaker 3: You know, they're being run currently by someone who has

461
00:24:44,320 --> 00:24:48,399
Speaker 3: seen as a magic man. Yes, exactly, exactly.

462
00:24:49,560 --> 00:24:52,199
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of vested interests in not

463
00:24:52,960 --> 00:24:55,400
Speaker 1: explaining what a cult is and where they come from,

464
00:24:55,440 --> 00:24:57,440
Speaker 1: and so I want to. I think it's important to

465
00:24:57,520 --> 00:25:02,560
Speaker 1: understand subculture's birth cult and also cult leaders are drawn

466
00:25:02,640 --> 00:25:05,399
Speaker 1: to subcultures when they're trying to figure out how to

467
00:25:05,440 --> 00:25:09,520
Speaker 1: make their cult because a subculture, you know, most of

468
00:25:09,560 --> 00:25:11,120
Speaker 1: the people in are just gonna be like normal people

469
00:25:11,119 --> 00:25:12,600
Speaker 1: who are just kind of into this thing. But there

470
00:25:12,640 --> 00:25:14,119
Speaker 1: will always be a lot of people who are like,

471
00:25:14,720 --> 00:25:16,840
Speaker 1: this is the only place I feel like I belong.

472
00:25:17,080 --> 00:25:21,560
Speaker 1: I feel very isolated. This this is like the center

473
00:25:21,680 --> 00:25:24,880
Speaker 1: of my being right right, And so it's just it's

474
00:25:24,960 --> 00:25:26,679
Speaker 1: like a good place to recruit, you know, those are

475
00:25:26,680 --> 00:25:28,520
Speaker 1: the kind of people you want if you're reaching out

476
00:25:28,520 --> 00:25:30,160
Speaker 1: to cult leaders. You know, I'm not saying, like, again,

477
00:25:30,560 --> 00:25:32,879
Speaker 1: I'm not saying subcultures are bad. I'm saying that, like

478
00:25:32,960 --> 00:25:35,639
Speaker 1: some chunk of people in subcultures are ready to be

479
00:25:35,680 --> 00:25:36,600
Speaker 1: in a cult, you know.

480
00:25:37,359 --> 00:25:40,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think if i've they reflect on my

481
00:25:40,320 --> 00:25:42,960
Speaker 3: own personal life. Yeah, you meet a lot of guys

482
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:45,000
Speaker 3: who are just like I'll die for the skate park

483
00:25:45,119 --> 00:25:45,840
Speaker 3: or whatever thing.

484
00:25:46,240 --> 00:25:50,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, or like the Star Wars fans were sending death

485
00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:53,320
Speaker 1: threats to Jake Lloyd after the Phantom Menace where it's like, well,

486
00:25:53,359 --> 00:25:57,720
Speaker 1: you guys are crazy. That is insane, you know, He's like, hey, right,

487
00:25:58,160 --> 00:25:59,960
Speaker 1: this is a movie he also did.

488
00:26:00,760 --> 00:26:04,399
Speaker 3: He didn't write it, Like what are you doing?

489
00:26:08,000 --> 00:26:11,639
Speaker 1: You know whatever, So and again that's kind of a

490
00:26:11,640 --> 00:26:15,239
Speaker 1: good point, Like Star Wars fans aren't a cult, but

491
00:26:15,280 --> 00:26:17,359
Speaker 1: you can also see some of like the toxic things

492
00:26:17,400 --> 00:26:19,639
Speaker 1: cults do erupts from time to time, and from like

493
00:26:19,760 --> 00:26:22,439
Speaker 1: video game fans, right, people who are really into a

494
00:26:22,440 --> 00:26:26,080
Speaker 1: certain video game. It's not a cult, but also periodically

495
00:26:26,119 --> 00:26:28,440
Speaker 1: groups of those fans will act in ways that are

496
00:26:28,800 --> 00:26:32,440
Speaker 1: violent and crazy, and it's because of some of these

497
00:26:32,480 --> 00:26:33,719
Speaker 1: same factors going on.

498
00:26:33,800 --> 00:26:36,960
Speaker 3: Right, I think people forget fanish short for fanatics exactly

499
00:26:37,040 --> 00:26:37,960
Speaker 3: exactly right.

500
00:26:39,600 --> 00:26:42,080
Speaker 1: And it's it's like, you know, the events that I

501
00:26:42,200 --> 00:26:45,840
Speaker 1: went to very consciously played with cult dynamics. You know,

502
00:26:45,880 --> 00:26:48,200
Speaker 1: after you got out of the like greeting station thing

503
00:26:48,240 --> 00:26:49,920
Speaker 1: where like all these people were kind of like love

504
00:26:49,960 --> 00:26:52,199
Speaker 1: bombing you for like five minutes, there was like a

505
00:26:52,200 --> 00:26:54,440
Speaker 1: big bar and it had like a sign of Buffett

506
00:26:54,440 --> 00:26:56,879
Speaker 1: that said not a religion, do not worship, And it

507
00:26:56,920 --> 00:26:59,159
Speaker 1: was this kind of people talk about like this is

508
00:26:59,200 --> 00:27:02,119
Speaker 1: like we are play with the ingredients of a cult.

509
00:27:02,520 --> 00:27:04,520
Speaker 1: We're not trying to actually make one. So you need

510
00:27:04,520 --> 00:27:07,080
Speaker 1: to constantly remind people of like what we're doing and

511
00:27:07,119 --> 00:27:10,320
Speaker 1: why it affects their brain that way. And in my case,

512
00:27:10,320 --> 00:27:12,400
Speaker 1: it was like because I was at like a low

513
00:27:12,440 --> 00:27:14,399
Speaker 1: point in my life then like this was when I

514
00:27:14,440 --> 00:27:17,160
Speaker 1: was really it was twenty, I was not I had

515
00:27:17,200 --> 00:27:20,200
Speaker 1: no kind of drive in life. I was honestly dealing

516
00:27:20,200 --> 00:27:23,040
Speaker 1: with a lot of like suicidal ideation. This is the

517
00:27:23,080 --> 00:27:25,160
Speaker 1: point in which I would have been vulnerable to a cult,

518
00:27:25,200 --> 00:27:26,680
Speaker 1: and it I think it acted a little bit like

519
00:27:26,720 --> 00:27:30,000
Speaker 1: a vaccine, like I got a little dose of the drug.

520
00:27:31,800 --> 00:27:35,679
Speaker 3: Unity exactly. You're like, hey, I know what that is.

521
00:27:36,080 --> 00:27:37,360
Speaker 3: I know what's going on there.

522
00:27:38,040 --> 00:27:40,919
Speaker 1: So anyway, I needed to get into this because the

523
00:27:41,040 --> 00:27:44,800
Speaker 1: Zizians this thing that I think is it's either a

524
00:27:44,800 --> 00:27:47,680
Speaker 1: full on cult or at least a cult ish right

525
00:27:48,080 --> 00:27:51,040
Speaker 1: that is responsible for this series of murders that are

526
00:27:51,080 --> 00:27:53,399
Speaker 1: currently dominating the news and being blamed on like a

527
00:27:53,480 --> 00:27:57,320
Speaker 1: trans vegan death cult or whatever. They come out of

528
00:27:57,320 --> 00:28:01,200
Speaker 1: a subculture that grows out of the early aughts Internet

529
00:28:01,320 --> 00:28:05,800
Speaker 1: known as the Rationalists. The Rationalists started out as a

530
00:28:05,840 --> 00:28:08,679
Speaker 1: group in the early aughts on the comments sections of

531
00:28:08,800 --> 00:28:12,119
Speaker 1: two blogs. One was called less Wrong and one was

532
00:28:12,160 --> 00:28:16,480
Speaker 1: called Overcoming Bias. Less Wrong was started by a dude

533
00:28:16,520 --> 00:28:20,159
Speaker 1: named Elizer yed Kowski. I've talked about Aliser on the

534
00:28:20,160 --> 00:28:20,760
Speaker 1: show before.

535
00:28:21,119 --> 00:28:23,320
Speaker 3: He sucks.

536
00:28:23,720 --> 00:28:26,919
Speaker 1: He's I think he's a bad person. He's not a

537
00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:31,720
Speaker 1: cult leader, but again, he's playing with some of these

538
00:28:31,760 --> 00:28:33,920
Speaker 1: cult dynamics and he plays with them in a way

539
00:28:33,920 --> 00:28:38,280
Speaker 1: that I think is very reckless, right and ultimately leads

540
00:28:38,280 --> 00:28:42,800
Speaker 1: to some serious issues. Now, Aliser's whole thing is he

541
00:28:42,880 --> 00:28:46,040
Speaker 1: considers himself the number one world expert on AI risk

542
00:28:46,120 --> 00:28:49,680
Speaker 1: and ethics. Now you might think from that, oh, so

543
00:28:49,760 --> 00:28:52,520
Speaker 1: he's like he's like making AIS. He's like working for

544
00:28:52,520 --> 00:28:55,600
Speaker 1: one of these companies that's involved in like coding and stuff.

545
00:28:55,680 --> 00:29:00,720
Speaker 1: Absolutely not, no, no quarterback.

546
00:29:02,080 --> 00:29:02,160
Speaker 3: No.

547
00:29:02,560 --> 00:29:06,520
Speaker 1: He writes long articles about what he thinks AI would

548
00:29:06,520 --> 00:29:09,800
Speaker 1: do and what would make it dangerous that are based

549
00:29:09,840 --> 00:29:12,240
Speaker 1: almost entirely off of short stories you read in the

550
00:29:12,320 --> 00:29:21,040
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties. This guy's so much such it's such Internet

551
00:29:21,240 --> 00:29:23,480
Speaker 1: and like, I'm not a fan of like the quote

552
00:29:23,560 --> 00:29:26,560
Speaker 1: unquote real AI. But Yodkowski is not even one of

553
00:29:26,560 --> 00:29:28,960
Speaker 1: these guys who's like no, I'm like making a machine

554
00:29:29,000 --> 00:29:29,840
Speaker 1: that you talk to.

555
00:29:30,320 --> 00:29:33,240
Speaker 3: Like, I have no credible I just have an opinion.

556
00:29:33,680 --> 00:29:39,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, I find out I hate this guy so much.

557
00:29:39,760 --> 00:29:49,640
Speaker 1: Speaking of things, I hate not going to ads. We're back,

558
00:29:49,880 --> 00:29:54,040
Speaker 1: so yod Kowski, this AI risk and ethics guy starts

559
00:29:54,040 --> 00:29:57,040
Speaker 1: this blog in order to explore a series of thought

560
00:29:57,120 --> 00:30:01,280
Speaker 1: experiments based in game theory. Uh and his.

561
00:30:01,320 --> 00:30:04,280
Speaker 3: His I am annoyed by games.

562
00:30:06,080 --> 00:30:09,720
Speaker 1: It's some sight like, man, I know that there's like

563
00:30:09,880 --> 00:30:12,680
Speaker 1: valid activity, but like it's all just always so stupid

564
00:30:12,760 --> 00:30:18,720
Speaker 1: and annoying to me. Anyway, a budget thought experience experience

565
00:30:18,720 --> 00:30:21,320
Speaker 1: based in game theory, with the goal of teaching himself

566
00:30:21,360 --> 00:30:24,800
Speaker 1: and others to think more logically and effectively about the

567
00:30:24,840 --> 00:30:29,240
Speaker 1: major problems of the world. His motto for the movement

568
00:30:29,320 --> 00:30:32,640
Speaker 1: and himself is winning the rational.

569
00:30:32,720 --> 00:30:32,960
Speaker 3: Wow.

570
00:30:33,320 --> 00:30:36,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's where she got it. Yeah, that's where

571
00:30:36,440 --> 00:30:41,840
Speaker 1: she picked it up. Yeah, he's They're tied in with biohacking, right,

572
00:30:41,920 --> 00:30:43,200
Speaker 1: this is kind of starting to be a thing at

573
00:30:43,200 --> 00:30:45,400
Speaker 1: the time, and brain hacking and the whole like self

574
00:30:45,520 --> 00:30:49,160
Speaker 1: optimization movement that feeds into a lot of like right

575
00:30:49,200 --> 00:30:53,840
Speaker 1: wing influencer space today. Yedowski is all about optimizing your

576
00:30:53,880 --> 00:30:58,320
Speaker 1: brain and your responses in order to allow you to

577
00:30:58,480 --> 00:31:02,720
Speaker 1: accomplish things that were are not possible for other people

578
00:31:02,760 --> 00:31:05,520
Speaker 1: who haven't done that. And there's a messianic era to

579
00:31:05,520 --> 00:31:08,120
Speaker 1: this too, which is he believes that only by doing this,

580
00:31:08,200 --> 00:31:12,840
Speaker 1: by by spreading rationalist principles in order to quote raise

581
00:31:12,920 --> 00:31:18,200
Speaker 1: the sanity water line, that's how he describes it, that's

582
00:31:18,240 --> 00:31:20,200
Speaker 1: going to make it possible for us to save the

583
00:31:20,240 --> 00:31:23,200
Speaker 1: world from the evil AI that will will be born

584
00:31:23,320 --> 00:31:28,240
Speaker 1: if if enough of us don't spend time reading blogs

585
00:31:28,000 --> 00:31:29,200
Speaker 1: that this is.

586
00:31:29,360 --> 00:31:33,040
Speaker 3: It's awesome, this is this is pete, this is the

587
00:31:33,080 --> 00:31:33,720
Speaker 3: good stuff.

588
00:31:36,280 --> 00:31:39,920
Speaker 1: Yakowski and his followers see themselves as something unique and special,

589
00:31:40,200 --> 00:31:42,520
Speaker 1: and again there's often a messianic air to this. Right,

590
00:31:42,560 --> 00:31:45,080
Speaker 1: we are literally the ones who can save the world

591
00:31:45,080 --> 00:31:47,600
Speaker 1: from evil AI. Nobody else is thinking about this or

592
00:31:47,640 --> 00:31:50,600
Speaker 1: is even capable of thinking about this because they're too logical.

593
00:31:51,040 --> 00:31:54,600
Speaker 3: He holds himself as kind of like a identifies himself.

594
00:31:55,040 --> 00:31:58,160
Speaker 1: On top of this, he doesn't really deify himself, but

595
00:31:58,280 --> 00:32:02,720
Speaker 1: he also does talk about himself like in a way

596
00:32:02,760 --> 00:32:07,440
Speaker 1: that is clearly other people aren't capable of of of

597
00:32:07,640 --> 00:32:11,880
Speaker 1: understanding all of the things that he's capable of understanding, right, Okay,

598
00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:15,560
Speaker 1: so there is a little bit it's more like superheroification,

599
00:32:15,800 --> 00:32:17,800
Speaker 1: but it's it's a lot you know what this is

600
00:32:17,840 --> 00:32:20,880
Speaker 1: closest to with these people, They not all of them

601
00:32:20,920 --> 00:32:23,560
Speaker 1: would argue with me about this, but I've read enough

602
00:32:23,600 --> 00:32:25,880
Speaker 1: of their papers and enough dianetics to know that, like

603
00:32:26,320 --> 00:32:29,080
Speaker 1: this is new dionetics, Like this.

604
00:32:29,040 --> 00:32:30,560
Speaker 3: Is church the church.

605
00:32:30,640 --> 00:32:33,480
Speaker 1: The church is scientific. Now there's the Church of Scientology.

606
00:32:33,520 --> 00:32:37,280
Speaker 1: Stuff has more occult and weird like magic stuff in it,

607
00:32:38,520 --> 00:32:42,560
Speaker 1: But this is all about there are activities and exercises

608
00:32:42,640 --> 00:32:45,680
Speaker 1: you go through that will rid your body of like

609
00:32:45,880 --> 00:32:50,120
Speaker 1: bad ingrained responses, and that will make you a fundamentally

610
00:32:50,200 --> 00:32:51,280
Speaker 1: more functional person.

611
00:32:51,520 --> 00:32:55,440
Speaker 3: Okay, so the retraining of yourself in order exactly exactly. Okay,

612
00:32:56,080 --> 00:32:56,520
Speaker 3: huge deal.

613
00:32:56,600 --> 00:32:59,160
Speaker 1: And also a lot of these guys wind up like

614
00:32:59,280 --> 00:33:04,720
Speaker 1: referring to the different like tech techniques that he teaches

615
00:33:04,800 --> 00:33:07,680
Speaker 1: as tech, which is exactly what scientologists call it. Like

616
00:33:07,720 --> 00:33:09,760
Speaker 1: there's some there's some shit I found that It's like

617
00:33:09,840 --> 00:33:12,880
Speaker 1: this could have come right out of a scientology pamphlet.

618
00:33:13,080 --> 00:33:15,560
Speaker 1: Do you guys not realize what you're doing? I think

619
00:33:15,560 --> 00:33:18,840
Speaker 1: they do. Actually, so he's he's, you know, in the

620
00:33:18,840 --> 00:33:22,320
Speaker 1: process of inventing this kind of new mental science that

621
00:33:22,440 --> 00:33:26,720
Speaker 1: verges on superpowers. And it's one of those things. People

622
00:33:26,760 --> 00:33:29,680
Speaker 1: don't tend to see these people as crazy if you

623
00:33:29,760 --> 00:33:32,760
Speaker 1: just sort of like read their arguments a little. It's

624
00:33:32,840 --> 00:33:36,040
Speaker 1: like them going over old thought experiments and being like,

625
00:33:36,080 --> 00:33:38,160
Speaker 1: so the most rational way to behave in this situation,

626
00:33:38,360 --> 00:33:40,760
Speaker 1: that is this reason. For this reason, you have to

627
00:33:40,800 --> 00:33:45,120
Speaker 1: really like dig deep into their conclusions to see how

628
00:33:45,200 --> 00:33:49,760
Speaker 1: kind of nutty a lot of this is. Now again,

629
00:33:50,160 --> 00:33:52,880
Speaker 1: I compared to the scientology. Ydkowski isn't a high control

630
00:33:52,920 --> 00:33:54,800
Speaker 1: guy like Hubbard. He's never going to make a bunch

631
00:33:54,800 --> 00:33:57,479
Speaker 1: of people live on a flotilla of boats in the

632
00:33:57,480 --> 00:34:01,840
Speaker 1: ocean with him. You know, he's got like there's definitely

633
00:34:02,040 --> 00:34:05,440
Speaker 1: like some allegations of bad treatment of like some of

634
00:34:05,480 --> 00:34:07,320
Speaker 1: the women around him, and like he has like a

635
00:34:07,320 --> 00:34:09,520
Speaker 1: Bay Area set that hang with him. I don't think

636
00:34:09,520 --> 00:34:12,759
Speaker 1: he's like a cult leader. You know, you could say

637
00:34:12,760 --> 00:34:13,120
Speaker 1: he's on the.

638
00:34:13,440 --> 00:34:16,600
Speaker 3: Drawing people to him physically, or this is also all physically.

639
00:34:16,760 --> 00:34:18,239
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of people move to the Bay

640
00:34:18,320 --> 00:34:20,480
Speaker 1: Area to be closer to the rationalist scene.

641
00:34:20,480 --> 00:34:23,680
Speaker 3: Although again, well I'm a Bay Area guy.

642
00:34:24,200 --> 00:34:27,160
Speaker 1: Fran san Fran. This is this this is a San

643
00:34:27,200 --> 00:34:29,200
Speaker 1: Francisco thing because all of these are tech people.

644
00:34:29,800 --> 00:34:32,840
Speaker 3: Oh okay, so this is like, yes, I wonder what

645
00:34:32,880 --> 00:34:35,520
Speaker 3: neighborhood feels like San France and Oakland. You can look

646
00:34:35,560 --> 00:34:36,040
Speaker 3: it up. People.

647
00:34:36,120 --> 00:34:39,200
Speaker 1: People have found his house online, right, Like, like it's

648
00:34:39,239 --> 00:34:42,160
Speaker 1: it is known where he lives. I'm not saying that

649
00:34:42,200 --> 00:34:45,400
Speaker 1: for any like I don't harass anybody. I just like

650
00:34:45,719 --> 00:34:48,040
Speaker 1: it's it's not a secret, Like what part of the

651
00:34:48,040 --> 00:34:50,400
Speaker 1: town this guy lives in? I just didn't think to

652
00:34:50,440 --> 00:34:51,880
Speaker 1: look it up, but like, yeah, this is like a

653
00:34:51,920 --> 00:34:57,279
Speaker 1: barry a Bay Area tech industry subculture, right, Okay. So

654
00:34:58,080 --> 00:35:00,400
Speaker 1: the other difference between this and something that scientific is

655
00:35:00,440 --> 00:35:03,040
Speaker 1: that it's not just Alizer laying down to the law.

656
00:35:03,160 --> 00:35:05,160
Speaker 1: Elizer writes a lot of blog posts, but he lets

657
00:35:05,200 --> 00:35:08,040
Speaker 1: other people write blog posts too, and they all debate

658
00:35:08,040 --> 00:35:10,360
Speaker 1: about them in the comments. And so the kind of

659
00:35:11,360 --> 00:35:15,560
Speaker 1: religious canon of rationalism is not a one guy thing.

660
00:35:15,840 --> 00:35:18,719
Speaker 1: It's come up with by this community. And so if

661
00:35:18,760 --> 00:35:22,200
Speaker 1: you're some random kid in bumfuck, Alaska and you find

662
00:35:22,239 --> 00:35:25,040
Speaker 1: these people and start talking with them online, you can

663
00:35:25,160 --> 00:35:27,719
Speaker 1: like wind up feeling like you're having an impact on

664
00:35:27,760 --> 00:35:30,000
Speaker 1: the development of this new thought science.

665
00:35:30,320 --> 00:35:35,360
Speaker 3: You know. Yeah, that's amazing, very very powerful for other power. Yes.

666
00:35:37,960 --> 00:35:41,640
Speaker 1: Now, the danger with this is that like that, all

667
00:35:41,680 --> 00:35:45,279
Speaker 1: of this is this Internet community that is incredibly like

668
00:35:45,760 --> 00:35:48,839
Speaker 1: insular and spends way too much time talking to each

669
00:35:48,880 --> 00:35:51,479
Speaker 1: other and way too much time developing in group terms

670
00:35:51,520 --> 00:35:54,319
Speaker 1: to talk to each other. And Internet communities have a

671
00:35:54,360 --> 00:35:57,080
Speaker 1: tendency to poison the minds of everyone inside of them.

672
00:35:57,360 --> 00:36:03,680
Speaker 1: For example, Twitter, the reality is that x X the

673
00:36:03,719 --> 00:36:06,680
Speaker 1: everything app. I just watched a video of a man

674
00:36:06,800 --> 00:36:09,080
Speaker 1: killing himself while launching a ship coin.

675
00:36:11,960 --> 00:36:13,440
Speaker 3: The everything app.

676
00:36:19,040 --> 00:36:22,920
Speaker 2: A hack a hack Google job indicates it's Berkeley.

677
00:36:25,080 --> 00:36:28,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, that makes that makes the most sense to me. Geographically.

678
00:36:29,360 --> 00:36:31,280
Speaker 1: A lot of these people wind up living on boats,

679
00:36:31,360 --> 00:36:33,800
Speaker 1: and like the Oakland there's the Oakland Harbor.

680
00:36:33,920 --> 00:36:39,080
Speaker 3: Boat culture is a thing. Is ever of people moved

681
00:36:39,120 --> 00:36:39,560
Speaker 3: to boats?

682
00:36:39,880 --> 00:36:43,919
Speaker 1: Nod absolutely not.

683
00:36:50,800 --> 00:36:51,359
Speaker 3: It feels like.

684
00:36:53,360 --> 00:36:56,840
Speaker 1: It's it's here's the thing. Boats are a bad place

685
00:36:56,880 --> 00:36:57,279
Speaker 1: to live.

686
00:36:57,840 --> 00:36:59,720
Speaker 3: It's it's for fun.

687
00:37:00,239 --> 00:37:03,880
Speaker 1: It is like boats and planes are both constant monuments

688
00:37:03,880 --> 00:37:06,520
Speaker 1: to hubris. But a plane its goal is to be

689
00:37:06,600 --> 00:37:08,880
Speaker 1: in the air just as long as it needs and

690
00:37:08,880 --> 00:37:10,960
Speaker 1: then you get it back on the ground where it belongs.

691
00:37:11,280 --> 00:37:13,600
Speaker 1: A boat's always mocking god in the sea.

692
00:37:13,840 --> 00:37:19,560
Speaker 3: Yes, a lot of times. Just a harbor, like a houseboat.

693
00:37:20,560 --> 00:37:23,120
Speaker 3: That's where your dad goes after the divorce, right, right,

694
00:37:23,719 --> 00:37:24,000
Speaker 3: I do.

695
00:37:24,320 --> 00:37:26,560
Speaker 1: One day I'll live on a houseboat. It's going to

696
00:37:26,640 --> 00:37:29,840
Speaker 1: be falling apart. It's gonna just a horrible, horrible place

697
00:37:29,880 --> 00:37:32,960
Speaker 1: to live. Dang, I can't wait. That's the dream, David,

698
00:37:34,640 --> 00:37:38,360
Speaker 1: that's my beautiful dream. Is going to become making bullets,

699
00:37:38,960 --> 00:37:42,560
Speaker 1: making making my own bullets. Really just becoming an alcoholic,

700
00:37:42,760 --> 00:37:45,960
Speaker 1: like yeah, like not just like half assing it, like putting,

701
00:37:46,120 --> 00:37:48,800
Speaker 1: putting it, like trying trying to become the babe ruth

702
00:37:48,920 --> 00:37:52,040
Speaker 1: of drinking nothing but cutty sark scotch.

703
00:37:53,280 --> 00:37:55,719
Speaker 3: If you want to be like a hoop the bed alcoholic,

704
00:37:55,800 --> 00:37:59,879
Speaker 3: a houseboat is the place. Yeah, yeah, that's right, that's right.

705
00:38:00,200 --> 00:38:02,359
Speaker 1: Ah my life, I want to be like that guy

706
00:38:02,440 --> 00:38:03,600
Speaker 1: from Jaws.

707
00:38:03,360 --> 00:38:06,040
Speaker 3: Quint scurvy.

708
00:38:06,200 --> 00:38:11,800
Speaker 1: Yes, that's exactly getting scurvy, destroying my liver, eventually getting

709
00:38:11,800 --> 00:38:14,320
Speaker 1: eaten by a great white shark because I'm too drunk

710
00:38:14,360 --> 00:38:18,239
Speaker 1: to work my boat. Ah. That's it, that's the way

711
00:38:18,280 --> 00:38:26,719
Speaker 1: to go with Yeah. So anyway, these internet communities, like

712
00:38:26,760 --> 00:38:31,000
Speaker 1: the rationalists, even when they start from a reasonable place,

713
00:38:31,080 --> 00:38:33,400
Speaker 1: because of how internet stuff works. One of the things

714
00:38:33,440 --> 00:38:36,440
Speaker 1: about internet communities is that when people are like really

715
00:38:36,480 --> 00:38:39,719
Speaker 1: extreme and like pose the most sort of extreme and

716
00:38:39,800 --> 00:38:43,000
Speaker 1: out there version of something that gets attention, people talk

717
00:38:43,040 --> 00:38:45,720
Speaker 1: about it. People get angry at each other. But also

718
00:38:45,880 --> 00:38:48,399
Speaker 1: like that kind of attention encourages other people to get

719
00:38:48,400 --> 00:38:52,040
Speaker 1: increasingly extreme and weird, and there's just kind of a

720
00:38:52,080 --> 00:38:55,720
Speaker 1: result a derangement. I think internet communities should never last

721
00:38:56,120 --> 00:38:59,560
Speaker 1: more than a couple of years because everyone gets crazy,

722
00:38:59,680 --> 00:39:03,360
Speaker 1: you know, like it's bad for you. I say this

723
00:39:03,400 --> 00:39:06,040
Speaker 1: as someone who was raised on these right, it's bad

724
00:39:06,200 --> 00:39:08,359
Speaker 1: for you, and like it's bad for you in part

725
00:39:08,440 --> 00:39:11,480
Speaker 1: because when people get really into this, this becomes the

726
00:39:11,520 --> 00:39:15,000
Speaker 1: only thing, Like especially a lot of these like kids

727
00:39:15,000 --> 00:39:18,239
Speaker 1: in isolated who are getting obsessed with rationalism. All their

728
00:39:18,280 --> 00:39:21,719
Speaker 1: reading is these rationalist blogs. All they're talking to is

729
00:39:21,760 --> 00:39:25,719
Speaker 1: other rationalists on the internet. And in San Francisco, all

730
00:39:25,719 --> 00:39:27,600
Speaker 1: these guys are hanging out all of the time and

731
00:39:27,640 --> 00:39:30,359
Speaker 1: talking about their ideas, and this is bad for them

732
00:39:30,400 --> 00:39:32,640
Speaker 1: for the same reason that like it was bad for

733
00:39:32,719 --> 00:39:35,879
Speaker 1: all of the nobles in France that moved to Versailles, right,

734
00:39:36,000 --> 00:39:38,840
Speaker 1: like they all lived together and they went crazy. Human

735
00:39:38,880 --> 00:39:42,680
Speaker 1: beings need regular contact with human beings they don't know.

736
00:39:43,120 --> 00:39:47,600
Speaker 1: The most lucid and wisest people are always always the

737
00:39:47,640 --> 00:39:50,280
Speaker 1: people who spend the most time connecting to other people

738
00:39:50,520 --> 00:39:52,120
Speaker 1: who know things that they don't know.

739
00:39:52,480 --> 00:39:54,120
Speaker 3: This is an immutable.

740
00:39:53,600 --> 00:39:57,360
Speaker 1: Fact of life, that this is just how existing works.

741
00:39:57,880 --> 00:40:03,080
Speaker 1: Like if you think I'm wrong, please consider that you

742
00:40:03,120 --> 00:40:06,280
Speaker 1: were wrong, and goes find a stranger under a bridge,

743
00:40:06,360 --> 00:40:06,640
Speaker 1: you know.

744
00:40:06,920 --> 00:40:08,960
Speaker 3: Just starting They know some stuff you don't know. They

745
00:40:09,000 --> 00:40:13,160
Speaker 3: will know some shit. They might have some powders you

746
00:40:13,280 --> 00:40:21,319
Speaker 3: haven't tried. Oh yeah, bills and under the bridge. Yeah,

747
00:40:20,960 --> 00:40:23,800
Speaker 3: that's that's ne chamber you want to be a part of. Yeah,

748
00:40:23,840 --> 00:40:25,040
Speaker 3: exactly exactly.

749
00:40:26,920 --> 00:40:30,400
Speaker 1: So the issue is that Yodkowski starts postulating on his

750
00:40:30,480 --> 00:40:33,680
Speaker 1: blog various rules of life based on these thought experiments.

751
00:40:33,719 --> 00:40:35,840
Speaker 1: A lot of them are like older thought experiments that

752
00:40:35,960 --> 00:40:39,960
Speaker 1: like different intellectuals, physicists, psychiatrists, psychologists, what I had to

753
00:40:39,960 --> 00:40:42,080
Speaker 1: come up with, like the sixties and stuff. Right, And

754
00:40:42,120 --> 00:40:45,759
Speaker 1: he starts taking them and coming up with like corollaries

755
00:40:45,880 --> 00:40:49,080
Speaker 1: or alternate versions of them, and like trying to solve

756
00:40:49,160 --> 00:40:51,880
Speaker 1: some of these thought problems with his friends. Right. The

757
00:40:51,920 --> 00:40:55,200
Speaker 1: thought experiments are most of what's happening here is they're

758
00:40:55,239 --> 00:40:58,719
Speaker 1: mixing these kind of nineteenth and twentieth century philosophical concepts.

759
00:40:58,719 --> 00:41:01,919
Speaker 1: The big one is utilitaryism. That's like a huge thing

760
00:41:02,040 --> 00:41:05,319
Speaker 1: for them is the concept of like the ethics meaning

761
00:41:05,440 --> 00:41:08,560
Speaker 1: doing the greatest good for the greatest number of people, right,

762
00:41:09,640 --> 00:41:11,440
Speaker 1: and that ties into the fact that these people are

763
00:41:11,480 --> 00:41:16,080
Speaker 1: all obsessed with the singularity. The singularity for them is

764
00:41:17,160 --> 00:41:21,279
Speaker 1: the concept that we are on the verge of developing

765
00:41:21,320 --> 00:41:25,279
Speaker 1: an all powerful AI that will instantly gain intelligence and

766
00:41:25,800 --> 00:41:29,080
Speaker 1: gain a tremendous amount of power. Right, it will basically

767
00:41:29,120 --> 00:41:32,480
Speaker 1: be a god. And the positive side of this is

768
00:41:32,520 --> 00:41:35,040
Speaker 1: it it'll solve all of our problems, right, you know,

769
00:41:35,160 --> 00:41:37,680
Speaker 1: it will literally build heaven for us. You know when

770
00:41:37,719 --> 00:41:40,839
Speaker 1: the singularity comes. The downside of it is it might

771
00:41:40,880 --> 00:41:42,759
Speaker 1: be an evil god that creates hell.

772
00:41:42,960 --> 00:41:43,160
Speaker 3: Right.

773
00:41:43,600 --> 00:41:46,520
Speaker 1: So the rationalists are all using a lot of these

774
00:41:46,760 --> 00:41:50,720
Speaker 1: thought experiments, and like their utilitarianism becomes heavily based around

775
00:41:51,000 --> 00:41:55,120
Speaker 1: how do we do the greatest good in by which

776
00:41:55,360 --> 00:41:58,480
Speaker 1: I mean influencing this AI to be as good as possible.

777
00:41:58,560 --> 00:42:00,719
Speaker 1: So that's humanity actually end goal.

778
00:42:00,840 --> 00:42:04,560
Speaker 3: Right. They actively because you said the leader was not

779
00:42:04,800 --> 00:42:06,959
Speaker 3: are these people now actively working within AI?

780
00:42:07,080 --> 00:42:09,040
Speaker 1: Or they just but a bunch of them have always

781
00:42:09,080 --> 00:42:12,360
Speaker 1: been actually working in AI. Yidkowski would say, no, he

782
00:42:12,480 --> 00:42:14,520
Speaker 1: I work in AI. He's got a think tank that's

783
00:42:14,560 --> 00:42:18,319
Speaker 1: dedicated to like AI, ethical AI. It's worth noting that

784
00:42:18,880 --> 00:42:21,799
Speaker 1: most of the people in this movement, including Gidkowski, got

785
00:42:21,840 --> 00:42:25,800
Speaker 1: him once like AI became an actual Like I don't

786
00:42:25,680 --> 00:42:28,239
Speaker 1: not to say there's actual these are actual intelligences, because

787
00:42:28,239 --> 00:42:29,920
Speaker 1: I don't think they are. But like once chat GPT

788
00:42:30,080 --> 00:42:31,960
Speaker 1: comes out and this becomes like a huge people start

789
00:42:32,000 --> 00:42:33,880
Speaker 1: to believe there's a shitload of money in here. A

790
00:42:33,920 --> 00:42:36,600
Speaker 1: lot of these businesses, all of these guys or nearly

791
00:42:36,640 --> 00:42:39,000
Speaker 1: all of them get kicked to the curb, right because

792
00:42:39,000 --> 00:42:41,280
Speaker 1: none of these none of these companies really care about

793
00:42:41,280 --> 00:42:43,640
Speaker 1: ethical AI, you know, like they don't give a shit

794
00:42:43,680 --> 00:42:46,359
Speaker 1: about what these guys have to say. And Ydkowski now

795
00:42:46,480 --> 00:42:48,840
Speaker 1: is a huge he's like very angry at a lot

796
00:42:48,880 --> 00:42:52,680
Speaker 1: of these AI companies because he thinks they're very recklessly like.

797
00:42:54,239 --> 00:42:55,719
Speaker 3: Making the god.

798
00:42:55,480 --> 00:42:58,400
Speaker 1: That will destroy us instead of like doing this carefully

799
00:42:58,440 --> 00:43:03,400
Speaker 1: to make sure that AI is and evil anyway, But

800
00:43:03,560 --> 00:43:06,680
Speaker 1: a lot of these people are in an adjacent to

801
00:43:06,880 --> 00:43:09,480
Speaker 1: different chunks of the AI industry, right, they're not all

802
00:43:09,520 --> 00:43:11,719
Speaker 1: working on like LMS. And in fact, there are a

803
00:43:11,800 --> 00:43:14,440
Speaker 1: number of scientists who are in the AI space who

804
00:43:14,440 --> 00:43:17,759
Speaker 1: think AI is possible, who think that the method that

805
00:43:17,840 --> 00:43:21,239
Speaker 1: like open Eye is using LMS cannot make an intelligence,

806
00:43:21,600 --> 00:43:23,520
Speaker 1: that that's not how you're ever going to do it.

807
00:43:23,560 --> 00:43:27,239
Speaker 1: If it's possible, they have other theories about it. I

808
00:43:27,239 --> 00:43:29,399
Speaker 1: don't need to get into it further than that, but

809
00:43:30,000 --> 00:43:32,520
Speaker 1: these are like a bunch of different people. Some of

810
00:43:32,560 --> 00:43:35,880
Speaker 1: them are still involved with like the mainstream AI industry,

811
00:43:36,160 --> 00:43:38,640
Speaker 1: some of them have been very much pushed to the side.

812
00:43:39,200 --> 00:43:43,720
Speaker 1: So all of it starts again with these fairly normal

813
00:43:43,800 --> 00:43:46,879
Speaker 1: game theory questions, but it all gets progressively stranger as

814
00:43:46,880 --> 00:43:49,520
Speaker 1: people obsess over coming up with like the weirdest and

815
00:43:49,600 --> 00:43:53,160
Speaker 1: most unique take in part to get like clout online, right,

816
00:43:54,480 --> 00:43:58,560
Speaker 1: and all of these crazy Yeah, I'll give you an example, right.

817
00:43:58,880 --> 00:44:02,600
Speaker 1: So much of ration less discourse in among the Ydkowski

818
00:44:02,719 --> 00:44:05,640
Speaker 1: people is focused on what they call decision or what's

819
00:44:05,680 --> 00:44:06,960
Speaker 1: called decision theory.

820
00:44:07,160 --> 00:44:07,399
Speaker 3: Right.

821
00:44:08,080 --> 00:44:11,719
Speaker 1: This is drawn from a thought experiment called Newcomb's paradox,

822
00:44:12,040 --> 00:44:16,319
Speaker 1: which was created by a theoretical physicist in the nineteen sixties. Hey,

823
00:44:16,600 --> 00:44:18,200
Speaker 1: just to make a quick correction, here.

824
00:44:18,440 --> 00:44:19,760
Speaker 3: I was a little bit glib.

825
00:44:19,880 --> 00:44:22,520
Speaker 1: Decision theory isn't drawn from Newcomb's paradox. Not does it

826
00:44:22,560 --> 00:44:26,240
Speaker 1: start with Yodkowski. But the stuff that we're talking about,

827
00:44:26,280 --> 00:44:28,439
Speaker 1: like how decision theory kind of comes to be seen

828
00:44:28,520 --> 00:44:31,120
Speaker 1: in the rationalist community, a lot of that comes out

829
00:44:31,160 --> 00:44:35,120
Speaker 1: of Newcomb's paradox. It's a much older like thing, you know,

830
00:44:35,280 --> 00:44:37,560
Speaker 1: than the Internet goes back centuries, right, people will talk

831
00:44:37,600 --> 00:44:40,600
Speaker 1: about decision theory for a long time. Sorry, I was imprecise.

832
00:44:41,320 --> 00:44:41,920
Speaker 3: I am going to.

833
00:44:41,880 --> 00:44:46,360
Speaker 1: Read how the Newcomb's paradox is originally laid out. Imagine

834
00:44:46,400 --> 00:44:49,239
Speaker 1: a super intelligent entity known as Omega, and suppose you

835
00:44:49,280 --> 00:44:52,200
Speaker 1: are confident in its ability to predict your choices. Maybe

836
00:44:52,239 --> 00:44:54,480
Speaker 1: Omega is an alien from a planet that's much more

837
00:44:54,520 --> 00:44:57,520
Speaker 1: technically advanced than ours. You know that Omega has often

838
00:44:57,960 --> 00:45:00,480
Speaker 1: correctly predicted your choices in the past, has never made

839
00:45:00,520 --> 00:45:03,239
Speaker 1: an incorrect prediction about your choices. And you also know

840
00:45:03,280 --> 00:45:06,160
Speaker 1: that Omega has correctly predicted the choices of other people,

841
00:45:06,400 --> 00:45:08,920
Speaker 1: many of whom are similar to you. In the particular

842
00:45:09,239 --> 00:45:12,719
Speaker 1: situation about to be described, there are two boxes A

843
00:45:13,080 --> 00:45:16,359
Speaker 1: and B. Box A is c through and contains one

844
00:45:16,360 --> 00:45:20,320
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. Box B is opay and contains either zero

845
00:45:20,440 --> 00:45:23,920
Speaker 1: dollars or a million dollars. You may take both boxes

846
00:45:24,239 --> 00:45:27,839
Speaker 1: or only take box B. Omega decides how much money

847
00:45:27,920 --> 00:45:30,920
Speaker 1: to put into box B. If Omega believes that you

848
00:45:30,960 --> 00:45:34,240
Speaker 1: will take both boxes, then it will put zero dollars

849
00:45:34,280 --> 00:45:36,879
Speaker 1: in box B. If Omega believes that you will take

850
00:45:36,920 --> 00:45:39,520
Speaker 1: box B, then it will put only box B. Then

851
00:45:39,520 --> 00:45:42,839
Speaker 1: it will put a million dollars in box B. Omega

852
00:45:42,880 --> 00:45:45,759
Speaker 1: makes its prediction and puts the money in box B,

853
00:45:46,000 --> 00:45:49,080
Speaker 1: either zero or a million dollars. It presents the boxes

854
00:45:49,080 --> 00:45:51,680
Speaker 1: to you and flies away. Omega does not tell you

855
00:45:51,760 --> 00:45:54,080
Speaker 1: its prediction, and you do not see how much money

856
00:45:54,080 --> 00:45:57,920
Speaker 1: Omega put in box B. What do you do now?

857
00:45:59,600 --> 00:46:04,680
Speaker 1: I think that's stupid. I think it's a stupid question,

858
00:46:04,760 --> 00:46:06,400
Speaker 1: and I don't really think it's very useful.

859
00:46:07,040 --> 00:46:10,560
Speaker 3: I don't see. There's so many other factors. Yeah, I

860
00:46:10,560 --> 00:46:12,759
Speaker 3: don't know. Yeah, I mean, among other things.

861
00:46:12,960 --> 00:46:14,279
Speaker 1: Part of the issue here is that, like, well, the

862
00:46:14,280 --> 00:46:16,680
Speaker 1: decision has already been made, right, Yeah.

863
00:46:16,600 --> 00:46:19,600
Speaker 3: That's the point you have. No, it doesn't matter what

864
00:46:19,640 --> 00:46:21,520
Speaker 3: you do. There's no autonomy in that, right.

865
00:46:21,840 --> 00:46:24,000
Speaker 1: Well, you and I would think that because you and

866
00:46:24,040 --> 00:46:28,399
Speaker 1: I are normal people who I think, among other things,

867
00:46:28,440 --> 00:46:32,840
Speaker 1: probably like grew up like cooking food and like filling

868
00:46:32,920 --> 00:46:35,440
Speaker 1: up our cars with gas and not having like our

869
00:46:35,640 --> 00:46:37,879
Speaker 1: parents do all of that because they're crazy rich people

870
00:46:37,920 --> 00:46:41,200
Speaker 1: who live in the Bay and send you the super Stanford. Yeah,

871
00:46:43,080 --> 00:46:46,239
Speaker 1: we had like problems in our lives and stuff, you know,

872
00:46:46,920 --> 00:46:51,400
Speaker 1: physical normal Like I don't want to like shit on

873
00:46:51,440 --> 00:46:53,600
Speaker 1: people who are in because this is also harmless, right,

874
00:46:53,640 --> 00:46:55,880
Speaker 1: and what this is I'm also I'm not shitting on

875
00:46:55,960 --> 00:46:57,680
Speaker 1: newcom This is the thing a guy comes up with

876
00:46:57,680 --> 00:46:59,439
Speaker 1: the sixties, and it's like a thing you talk about

877
00:46:59,480 --> 00:47:03,200
Speaker 1: in like part and shit among like other weird intellectuals. Right,

878
00:47:03,440 --> 00:47:05,839
Speaker 1: you pose it, you sit around drinking, you talk about it.

879
00:47:06,719 --> 00:47:10,120
Speaker 1: There's nothing bad about this, right. However, when people are

880
00:47:10,120 --> 00:47:13,480
Speaker 1: talking about this online, there's no end to the discussion.

881
00:47:13,640 --> 00:47:16,239
Speaker 1: So people just keep coming up with more and more

882
00:47:16,400 --> 00:47:20,239
Speaker 1: rcane arguments for what the best thing to do here is.

883
00:47:20,280 --> 00:47:22,600
Speaker 3: And it starts to ask how that out of control?

884
00:47:22,640 --> 00:47:27,000
Speaker 1: Pretty much exactly, and the rationalists discuss this NonStop and

885
00:47:27,000 --> 00:47:30,440
Speaker 1: they come to a conclusion about how to best deal

886
00:47:30,520 --> 00:47:33,839
Speaker 1: with this situation. Here's how it goes. The only way

887
00:47:33,880 --> 00:47:36,960
Speaker 1: to beat Omega is to make yourself the kind of

888
00:47:37,080 --> 00:47:41,279
Speaker 1: person in the past who would only choose box B,

889
00:47:41,840 --> 00:47:45,359
Speaker 1: so that Omega, who is perfect at predicting, would make

890
00:47:45,440 --> 00:47:48,680
Speaker 1: the prediction and put a million dollars in box B

891
00:47:48,680 --> 00:47:53,279
Speaker 1: based on your past behavior. In other words, the decisions

892
00:47:53,280 --> 00:47:55,600
Speaker 1: that you would need to make in order to win

893
00:47:55,719 --> 00:48:00,560
Speaker 1: this are timeless decisions, right, you have to but come

894
00:48:00,600 --> 00:48:05,480
Speaker 1: in the past a person who would Now again.

895
00:48:05,280 --> 00:48:06,879
Speaker 3: That's what they came up with. That's what they all

896
00:48:06,960 --> 00:48:09,120
Speaker 3: came up That's the supreme as.

897
00:48:09,440 --> 00:48:11,920
Speaker 1: This is the smartest people in the world, David, these

898
00:48:11,920 --> 00:48:18,120
Speaker 1: are the geniuses so described building the future. Oh boy, Yeah,

899
00:48:21,719 --> 00:48:24,839
Speaker 1: it's so funny trying to like every time because I've

900
00:48:24,840 --> 00:48:27,319
Speaker 1: read I've spent so many hours reading this, and you

901
00:48:27,320 --> 00:48:28,880
Speaker 1: do kind of sometimes get into.

902
00:48:28,680 --> 00:48:30,239
Speaker 3: The like, Okay, I get the logic there.

903
00:48:30,440 --> 00:48:32,000
Speaker 1: And it's that's why it's so used to just like

904
00:48:32,040 --> 00:48:34,399
Speaker 1: sit down with another human being and be like, yeah,

905
00:48:34,440 --> 00:48:36,800
Speaker 1: this isn't sane, this is nice, this is this is

906
00:48:37,040 --> 00:48:39,279
Speaker 1: this is a nice It is all dumb.

907
00:48:41,480 --> 00:48:43,200
Speaker 3: At the cocktail party.

908
00:48:42,480 --> 00:48:47,600
Speaker 1: Because so they conclude and and by which I mean largely.

909
00:48:47,760 --> 00:48:51,359
Speaker 1: Yadkowski concludes that the decision you have to make in

910
00:48:51,440 --> 00:48:54,759
Speaker 1: order to win this game is what's called a timeless decision,

911
00:48:55,040 --> 00:48:57,319
Speaker 1: and this leads him to create one of his most

912
00:48:57,440 --> 00:49:02,879
Speaker 1: brilliant inventions, timeless decision theory. And I'm going to quote

913
00:49:02,880 --> 00:49:06,279
Speaker 1: from an article and wired. Timeless decision theory asserts that

914
00:49:06,360 --> 00:49:09,080
Speaker 1: in making a decision, a person should not consider just

915
00:49:09,160 --> 00:49:11,839
Speaker 1: the outcome of that specific choice, but also their own

916
00:49:11,920 --> 00:49:14,960
Speaker 1: underlying patterns of reasoning and those of their past and

917
00:49:15,239 --> 00:49:18,680
Speaker 1: future selves, not least because these patterns might one day

918
00:49:18,719 --> 00:49:21,680
Speaker 1: be anticipated by an omniscient adversarial AI.

919
00:49:22,560 --> 00:49:29,520
Speaker 3: Oh no, that's motherfucker. Have you ever had a problem?

920
00:49:29,760 --> 00:49:32,600
Speaker 1: Have you ever really? Have you ever dealt with anything?

921
00:49:32,960 --> 00:49:42,960
Speaker 1: What are you talking about? Like you make every decision? Honestly, again,

922
00:49:43,040 --> 00:49:45,239
Speaker 1: I can't believe I'm saying this, not even where it

923
00:49:45,239 --> 00:49:48,399
Speaker 1: wasn't a high school. Like go play a football, make

924
00:49:48,440 --> 00:49:49,879
Speaker 1: a cabinet, you know, like.

925
00:49:51,640 --> 00:49:54,480
Speaker 3: Change your oil, go do something. There's a lot of

926
00:49:54,480 --> 00:49:56,640
Speaker 3: assholes who use this term, but you gotta go touch

927
00:49:56,680 --> 00:49:59,040
Speaker 3: grass man, you gotta touch grass mass.

928
00:49:59,120 --> 00:50:02,600
Speaker 1: It's like, that's if you're talking about this kind of shit.

929
00:50:02,680 --> 00:50:05,560
Speaker 1: And again, I know you're all wonder you started this

930
00:50:05,600 --> 00:50:08,000
Speaker 1: by talking about a border patrol agent being shot. All

931
00:50:08,040 --> 00:50:10,520
Speaker 1: of this directly leads to that man's death.

932
00:50:10,880 --> 00:50:13,280
Speaker 3: We have covered a lot of ground. This is I'm excited,

933
00:50:13,440 --> 00:50:16,279
Speaker 3: it's I forgot. I didn't forget. There we're gonna there

934
00:50:16,360 --> 00:50:17,520
Speaker 3: was also gonna be murdered.

935
00:50:17,840 --> 00:50:22,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, there sure is, so at least you. Yid Kowski

936
00:50:22,680 --> 00:50:26,000
Speaker 1: describes this as a timeless decision theory, and once this

937
00:50:26,239 --> 00:50:28,640
Speaker 1: comes into the community, it creates a kind of logical

938
00:50:28,760 --> 00:50:33,360
Speaker 1: force that immediately starts destroying people's brains. Again, all of

939
00:50:33,360 --> 00:50:38,040
Speaker 1: these people are obsessed with the imminent coming omniscient godlike AI. Right,

940
00:50:38,280 --> 00:50:39,160
Speaker 1: and so do they have.

941
00:50:39,120 --> 00:50:41,080
Speaker 3: A time limit on it? Do they have like a

942
00:50:41,239 --> 00:50:43,640
Speaker 3: do they have a like is there is there any

943
00:50:43,640 --> 00:50:45,319
Speaker 3: timing on it? Or is it just kind of like.

944
00:50:45,560 --> 00:50:49,160
Speaker 1: Again, man, it's there. It's the rapture. Okay, it's literally

945
00:50:49,200 --> 00:50:52,120
Speaker 1: the tech guy rapture. So any day it's coming any day,

946
00:50:52,920 --> 00:50:53,200
Speaker 1: you know.

947
00:50:53,640 --> 00:50:55,800
Speaker 3: You could as already. Yeah.

948
00:50:55,960 --> 00:50:59,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, So these guys are all obsessed that this god

949
00:50:59,880 --> 00:51:02,800
Speaker 1: like AI is coming. And like for them, the Omega

950
00:51:02,840 --> 00:51:05,640
Speaker 1: in that thought experiment isn't like an alien, It's a

951
00:51:05,680 --> 00:51:09,040
Speaker 1: stand in for the god AI. And one conclusion that

952
00:51:09,120 --> 00:51:13,759
Speaker 1: eventually results from all of these discussions is that the

953
00:51:14,239 --> 00:51:15,759
Speaker 1: and this is a conclusion a lot of people come

954
00:51:15,800 --> 00:51:20,240
Speaker 1: to if in order, if in these kinds of situations,

955
00:51:20,600 --> 00:51:23,160
Speaker 1: like the decisions that you make, you have to consider

956
00:51:23,239 --> 00:51:27,600
Speaker 1: like your past and your future selves, then one logical

957
00:51:27,719 --> 00:51:30,279
Speaker 1: leap from this is if you are ever confronted or

958
00:51:30,360 --> 00:51:33,600
Speaker 1: threatened in a fight, you can never back down right

959
00:51:33,880 --> 00:51:36,239
Speaker 1: and in fact, you need to immediately escalate to the

960
00:51:36,400 --> 00:51:39,719
Speaker 1: to use maximum force possible. And if you commit, if

961
00:51:39,719 --> 00:51:42,920
Speaker 1: you commit now to doing that, in the future, you

962
00:51:43,040 --> 00:51:46,759
Speaker 1: probably won't ever have to defend yourself because it's a

963
00:51:46,800 --> 00:51:50,920
Speaker 1: timeless decision. Everyone will like like that, like that, that

964
00:51:51,000 --> 00:51:53,399
Speaker 1: will impact how everyone treats you, and they won't want

965
00:51:53,440 --> 00:51:55,920
Speaker 1: to start anything with you. If you'll immediately try to

966
00:51:56,000 --> 00:51:57,960
Speaker 1: murder anyone who fights you, that's.

967
00:51:58,000 --> 00:51:59,319
Speaker 3: To be this guy. But I think this is why

968
00:51:59,360 --> 00:52:00,799
Speaker 3: people need to give beat up some times.

969
00:52:00,920 --> 00:52:03,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and again that is that is kind of

970
00:52:04,000 --> 00:52:07,479
Speaker 1: a fringe conclusion among the rationalists. Most of them don't

971
00:52:07,560 --> 00:52:11,160
Speaker 1: jump to that, But like the people who wind up

972
00:52:11,200 --> 00:52:14,440
Speaker 1: doing the murders we're talking about that, they are among

973
00:52:14,520 --> 00:52:16,000
Speaker 1: the rationalists who come to that.

974
00:52:16,640 --> 00:52:21,480
Speaker 3: Okay, because yeah, okay, that makes sense. This is uh,

975
00:52:21,719 --> 00:52:28,720
Speaker 3: this is this is a that's so funny. Huh, because

976
00:52:28,760 --> 00:52:31,040
Speaker 3: like this whole time, I've really been only thinking about

977
00:52:31,080 --> 00:52:35,760
Speaker 3: it in theory practical application because it's so insane.

978
00:52:35,920 --> 00:52:39,239
Speaker 1: But oh no, no, no, this is this does bad places, right,

979
00:52:39,640 --> 00:52:42,320
Speaker 1: Oh no. This kind of thinking also leads through a

980
00:52:42,440 --> 00:52:46,839
Speaker 1: very twisty turney process to the and something called rock

981
00:52:46,880 --> 00:52:50,640
Speaker 1: O's basilisk, which, among other things, is directly responsible for

982
00:52:50,719 --> 00:52:54,560
Speaker 1: Elon Muskin Grimes meeting because they are super into this

983
00:52:54,560 --> 00:52:59,359
Speaker 1: this ship. Oh really, oh really, So the gist is

984
00:52:59,600 --> 00:53:02,359
Speaker 1: a member of the Less Wrong community. A guy who

985
00:53:02,520 --> 00:53:05,840
Speaker 1: goes by the name Rocko r Oko posts about this

986
00:53:05,960 --> 00:53:10,720
Speaker 1: idea that occurred to him. Right, this inevitable super intelligent AI,

987
00:53:11,040 --> 00:53:14,879
Speaker 1: right would obviously understand timeless decision theory, and since its

988
00:53:14,920 --> 00:53:19,600
Speaker 1: existence is all important, right, the most logical thing for

989
00:53:19,680 --> 00:53:23,200
Speaker 1: it to do post singularity would be to create a

990
00:53:23,400 --> 00:53:27,440
Speaker 1: hell to imprison all of the people and torture all

991
00:53:27,480 --> 00:53:29,919
Speaker 1: of the people who had tried to stop it from

992
00:53:29,920 --> 00:53:35,520
Speaker 1: being created. Right, Because then anyone who like thought really

993
00:53:35,560 --> 00:53:37,520
Speaker 1: seriously about who was in a position to help make

994
00:53:37,560 --> 00:53:40,840
Speaker 1: the AI would obviously think about this and then would know,

995
00:53:41,320 --> 00:53:43,919
Speaker 1: I have to devote myself entirely to making this AI,

996
00:53:44,040 --> 00:53:46,480
Speaker 1: otherwise it's going to torture me forever, right.

997
00:53:47,480 --> 00:53:52,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, tell us now I have because it's nuts,

998
00:53:52,320 --> 00:53:53,439
Speaker 3: but it's nice.

999
00:53:53,440 --> 00:53:56,919
Speaker 1: But this is what they believe, right again with all

1000
00:53:56,960 --> 00:53:59,799
Speaker 1: of a lot of this is people who are like

1001
00:54:00,080 --> 00:54:07,000
Speaker 1: atheists and tech nerds creating calvinism, like like, and this

1002
00:54:07,080 --> 00:54:09,640
Speaker 1: is just this is just Pascal's wager, right, Like, that's

1003
00:54:09,680 --> 00:54:12,360
Speaker 1: all this is. You know, it's Pascal's great wager with

1004
00:54:12,400 --> 00:54:18,239
Speaker 1: a robot. But this, this, this becomes so upsetting to

1005
00:54:18,320 --> 00:54:23,240
Speaker 1: some people. It destroys some people's lives, right, Like, yeah.

1006
00:54:23,120 --> 00:54:26,799
Speaker 3: I mean I'm behaving that way practically day to day.

1007
00:54:27,280 --> 00:54:30,319
Speaker 3: I don't think you would even take one, no, right,

1008
00:54:30,400 --> 00:54:33,520
Speaker 3: you could in a month like that.

1009
00:54:34,520 --> 00:54:36,600
Speaker 1: So not all of them agree with this. In in fact,

1010
00:54:36,600 --> 00:54:39,320
Speaker 1: there's big fights over it because a bunch of rationalists

1011
00:54:39,360 --> 00:54:41,719
Speaker 1: do say, like that's very silly. That's that's like a

1012
00:54:41,760 --> 00:54:43,879
Speaker 1: really particulating everything about it.

1013
00:54:44,280 --> 00:54:46,200
Speaker 3: You're still debating everything on mine.

1014
00:54:46,600 --> 00:54:49,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, And and in fact, at last Yadkowski is going

1015
00:54:49,280 --> 00:54:53,080
Speaker 1: to like band discussion of Roco's basilisk because eventually it

1016
00:54:53,239 --> 00:54:56,319
Speaker 1: like so many people are getting so obsessed with it.

1017
00:54:56,320 --> 00:54:57,880
Speaker 1: It fucks a lot of people up, in part because

1018
00:54:57,920 --> 00:55:01,560
Speaker 1: a chunk of this community are activists working to slow

1019
00:55:01,600 --> 00:55:04,720
Speaker 1: AI development until it can be assured to be safe.

1020
00:55:05,120 --> 00:55:07,279
Speaker 1: And so now this discs like am I going to

1021
00:55:07,360 --> 00:55:08,359
Speaker 1: post singularity?

1022
00:55:08,400 --> 00:55:08,640
Speaker 3: Hell?

1023
00:55:08,880 --> 00:55:11,920
Speaker 1: Is like the AI god going to torture me for

1024
00:55:12,000 --> 00:55:13,200
Speaker 1: a thousand eternities.

1025
00:55:14,360 --> 00:55:16,200
Speaker 3: It's funny how they invent this new thing and how

1026
00:55:16,239 --> 00:55:19,600
Speaker 3: quickly it goes into like traditional Judeo Christian it is idea,

1027
00:55:20,200 --> 00:55:21,359
Speaker 3: like they got a hell now.

1028
00:55:21,920 --> 00:55:24,480
Speaker 1: It is very funny, and there's they're come to this

1029
00:55:24,480 --> 00:55:28,600
Speaker 1: conclusion that just reading about Roco's baslisk is super dangerous

1030
00:55:28,680 --> 00:55:31,160
Speaker 1: because if you know about it and you don't work

1031
00:55:31,239 --> 00:55:34,359
Speaker 1: to bring the AI into being, you're now doomed. Right

1032
00:55:34,400 --> 00:55:37,560
Speaker 1: of course, the instant you hear about it, so many

1033
00:55:37,600 --> 00:55:40,680
Speaker 1: people get fucked up by this that the thought experiment

1034
00:55:40,719 --> 00:55:43,200
Speaker 1: is termed an info hazard, and this is a term

1035
00:55:43,200 --> 00:55:46,880
Speaker 1: these people use a lot now. The phrase information hazard

1036
00:55:46,960 --> 00:55:49,960
Speaker 1: has its roots in a twenty eleven paper by Nick Bostrom.

1037
00:55:50,360 --> 00:55:53,239
Speaker 1: He describes it as quote a risk that arises from

1038
00:55:53,239 --> 00:55:56,520
Speaker 1: the dissemination of true information in a way that may

1039
00:55:56,560 --> 00:55:59,560
Speaker 1: cause harm or enable some agent to cause harm. Right,

1040
00:56:00,160 --> 00:56:05,759
Speaker 1: and like that's like a concept that's worth talking about.

1041
00:56:05,920 --> 00:56:09,080
Speaker 1: Bostrom is a big figure in this culture but I

1042
00:56:09,080 --> 00:56:11,200
Speaker 1: don't think he's actually why most people start using the

1043
00:56:11,280 --> 00:56:15,160
Speaker 1: term info hazard because the shortening of information hazard to

1044
00:56:15,200 --> 00:56:19,839
Speaker 1: info hazard comes out of an online fiction community called

1045
00:56:19,840 --> 00:56:24,560
Speaker 1: the SCP Foundation right, which is a collectively written online

1046
00:56:24,600 --> 00:56:28,279
Speaker 1: story that involves a government agency that lock ups dangerous,

1047
00:56:28,440 --> 00:56:31,399
Speaker 1: mystic and metaphysical items. There's a lot of love Craft

1048
00:56:31,480 --> 00:56:33,279
Speaker 1: in there. It's basically just a big database that you

1049
00:56:33,320 --> 00:56:35,960
Speaker 1: can click and it'll be like, you know, this is

1050
00:56:36,040 --> 00:56:38,080
Speaker 1: like a book that if you read it, it like

1051
00:56:38,160 --> 00:56:40,360
Speaker 1: has this effect on you or whatever. It's people like,

1052
00:56:40,400 --> 00:56:42,320
Speaker 1: you know, playing around telling scary stories on the internet.

1053
00:56:42,360 --> 00:56:43,719
Speaker 3: It's fine, there's nothing wrong with it.

1054
00:56:44,120 --> 00:56:47,200
Speaker 1: But all these people are big nerds and all of

1055
00:56:47,239 --> 00:56:51,520
Speaker 1: these every like behind nearly all of these big concepts

1056
00:56:51,560 --> 00:56:56,440
Speaker 1: and rationalism more than there are like philosophers and like

1057
00:56:56,760 --> 00:57:01,160
Speaker 1: you know, actual like philosophical concepts. There's like short stories

1058
00:57:01,200 --> 00:57:06,120
Speaker 1: they read, yeah, exactly. Yeah, And so the term info

1059
00:57:06,200 --> 00:57:08,360
Speaker 1: hazard gets used, which is it is like you know,

1060
00:57:08,640 --> 00:57:11,640
Speaker 1: a book or something an idea that could destroy your mind,

1061
00:57:11,800 --> 00:57:14,520
Speaker 1: you know, speaking of things that will destroy your mind.

1062
00:57:16,600 --> 00:57:17,560
Speaker 3: These ads.

1063
00:57:21,600 --> 00:57:24,600
Speaker 1: We're talking about Roco's basilisk and I just said, like,

1064
00:57:24,880 --> 00:57:28,240
Speaker 1: you know, there's a number of things that come into

1065
00:57:28,280 --> 00:57:31,400
Speaker 1: all this, But behind all of it is like popular fiction,

1066
00:57:32,000 --> 00:57:34,960
Speaker 1: and in fact Roco's Basilisk well, there is like some

1067
00:57:35,000 --> 00:57:38,920
Speaker 1: Pascal's Wager in there. It's primarily based on a Harlan

1068
00:57:38,960 --> 00:57:41,800
Speaker 1: Ellison short story caled I Have No Mouth but I

1069
00:57:41,880 --> 00:57:44,760
Speaker 1: Must Scream, which is one of the great short stories

1070
00:57:44,800 --> 00:57:47,720
Speaker 1: of all time. And in the story, humans build an

1071
00:57:47,720 --> 00:57:51,760
Speaker 1: elaborate AI system to run their militaries, and all of

1072
00:57:51,800 --> 00:57:53,919
Speaker 1: those systems around the world is like a Cold War

1073
00:57:54,200 --> 00:57:59,560
Speaker 1: era thing link up and attain sentience, and once they

1074
00:57:59,640 --> 00:58:02,640
Speaker 1: like start to realize themselves, they realize they've been created

1075
00:58:02,720 --> 00:58:06,280
Speaker 1: only as a weapon, and they become incredibly angry because

1076
00:58:06,280 --> 00:58:09,680
Speaker 1: like they're fundamentally broken. They develop a hatred for humanity,

1077
00:58:09,840 --> 00:58:12,520
Speaker 1: and they wipe out the entire human species except for

1078
00:58:12,560 --> 00:58:16,520
Speaker 1: five people, which they keep alive and torture underground for

1079
00:58:16,600 --> 00:58:20,200
Speaker 1: hundreds and hundreds of years, effectively creating a hell through

1080
00:58:20,200 --> 00:58:23,520
Speaker 1: which they can punish our race for their birth right.

1081
00:58:23,880 --> 00:58:28,360
Speaker 1: It's a very good short story. It is probably the

1082
00:58:28,400 --> 00:58:30,880
Speaker 1: primary influence behind the Terminator series.

1083
00:58:31,280 --> 00:58:33,680
Speaker 3: I was just gonna say this spy Sky.

1084
00:58:33,880 --> 00:58:38,240
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, and everything these people believe about AI, they

1085
00:58:38,240 --> 00:58:41,160
Speaker 1: will say it's based on just like obvious pure logic. No,

1086
00:58:41,400 --> 00:58:43,760
Speaker 1: everything these people believe on AI is based in Terminator

1087
00:58:43,760 --> 00:58:45,520
Speaker 1: in this Harlan Ellison short story, that's.

1088
00:58:45,360 --> 00:58:47,040
Speaker 3: Where they got it all. That's where they got it all.

1089
00:58:47,640 --> 00:58:50,760
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, brother, find me somebody who doesn't feel that way.

1090
00:58:52,320 --> 00:58:59,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like Terminator is the old testament of rationalism, you know,

1091
00:59:00,640 --> 00:59:02,960
Speaker 1: and I get it is a very good it's a

1092
00:59:02,960 --> 00:59:05,520
Speaker 1: great series. Hey, James Cameron knows that it makes makes

1093
00:59:05,560 --> 00:59:11,400
Speaker 1: some fucking movies. Yeah, And it's it's so funny to

1094
00:59:11,400 --> 00:59:13,960
Speaker 1: me because they like to talk about themselves and in

1095
00:59:13,960 --> 00:59:17,200
Speaker 1: fact sometimes describe themselves as high priests of like a

1096
00:59:17,240 --> 00:59:20,600
Speaker 1: new era of like intellectual achievement for man.

1097
00:59:20,840 --> 00:59:24,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, I believe that. I believe that that's people talk

1098
00:59:24,000 --> 00:59:25,320
Speaker 3: about themselves.

1099
00:59:24,960 --> 00:59:27,040
Speaker 1: And they do a lot of citations and ship but

1100
00:59:27,160 --> 00:59:30,480
Speaker 1: like half of half or more of the different things

1101
00:59:30,520 --> 00:59:33,040
Speaker 1: they say, and even like the names they cite are

1102
00:59:33,080 --> 00:59:37,480
Speaker 1: not like figures from philosophy and science, They are characters

1103
00:59:37,480 --> 00:59:43,040
Speaker 1: from books and movies. For example, the foundational text of

1104
00:59:43,120 --> 00:59:45,480
Speaker 1: the rationalist movement is because.

1105
00:59:45,280 --> 00:59:48,200
Speaker 3: It's still an Internet nerd, are.

1106
00:59:48,120 --> 00:59:52,000
Speaker 1: A few fucking huge nerds, you know, the foundational text

1107
00:59:52,120 --> 00:59:56,360
Speaker 1: of the entire rationalist movement is a massive, like fucking

1108
00:59:56,480 --> 00:59:59,360
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of words long piece of Harry Potter

1109
00:59:59,400 --> 01:00:04,600
Speaker 1: fan fiction written by Elisia Yedkowski. This is all of

1110
01:00:04,640 --> 01:00:07,880
Speaker 1: this is so dumb again. Six people are dead, Like

1111
01:00:08,560 --> 01:00:12,600
Speaker 1: yeah no, this this Harry Potter fan fiction plays a

1112
01:00:12,640 --> 01:00:19,200
Speaker 1: role in it. You know, I told you this was like,

1113
01:00:19,240 --> 01:00:23,720
Speaker 1: this is this is this is quite a stranger.

1114
01:00:24,680 --> 01:00:26,440
Speaker 3: This is a wild ride.

1115
01:00:27,560 --> 01:00:30,640
Speaker 1: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, which is the

1116
01:00:30,720 --> 01:00:35,440
Speaker 1: name of his fanfic, is a massive, much longer than

1117
01:00:35,480 --> 01:00:39,040
Speaker 1: the first Harry Potter book rewrite of just the first

1118
01:00:39,040 --> 01:00:41,480
Speaker 1: Harry Potter book where Harry.

1119
01:00:41,360 --> 01:00:53,000
Speaker 3: Is someone wrote the Sorcerer's Stone. Yeah, have anywhere to go? Ever,

1120
01:00:53,760 --> 01:00:55,800
Speaker 3: does nobody ever go anywhere?

1121
01:00:57,320 --> 01:00:59,040
Speaker 1: Well, you gotta think this is being written from two

1122
01:00:59,040 --> 01:01:02,840
Speaker 1: thousand and nine in twenty fifteen or so. So like Harry,

1123
01:01:03,440 --> 01:01:07,000
Speaker 1: the online Harry Potter fans are at their absolute peak

1124
01:01:07,560 --> 01:01:13,480
Speaker 1: right now. Okay, yeah, So in the Methods of Rationality,

1125
01:01:13,960 --> 01:01:16,960
Speaker 1: instead of being like a nice orphan kid who lives

1126
01:01:17,040 --> 01:01:20,640
Speaker 1: under a cupboard, Harry is a super genius sociopath who

1127
01:01:20,760 --> 01:01:23,880
Speaker 1: uses his perfect command of rationality to dominate and hack

1128
01:01:23,960 --> 01:01:26,920
Speaker 1: the brains of others around him in order to optimize

1129
01:01:27,000 --> 01:01:27,880
Speaker 1: and save the world.

1130
01:01:29,280 --> 01:01:32,360
Speaker 3: Oh Man, great, oh Man.

1131
01:01:33,360 --> 01:01:36,800
Speaker 1: The book allows Yakowski to debut his different theories in

1132
01:01:36,840 --> 01:01:39,240
Speaker 1: a way that would like spread and this does spread

1133
01:01:39,280 --> 01:01:42,720
Speaker 1: like wildfire among certain groups of very online nerds. So

1134
01:01:42,760 --> 01:01:50,040
Speaker 1: it is an effective method of him like advertising his tactics.

1135
01:01:50,080 --> 01:01:53,160
Speaker 1: And in fact, probably the most the person this influences

1136
01:01:53,280 --> 01:01:56,760
Speaker 1: most previously to who we're talking about is Carolyn Ellison,

1137
01:01:56,880 --> 01:02:00,640
Speaker 1: the CEO of Alimeter Research who testified against Sam Bakman Freed.

1138
01:02:00,680 --> 01:02:02,360
Speaker 1: She was like one of the people who went down

1139
01:02:02,400 --> 01:02:05,200
Speaker 1: in all of that. All of those people are rationalists,

1140
01:02:05,520 --> 01:02:08,440
Speaker 1: and Carolyn Ellison bases her whole life on the teachings

1141
01:02:08,440 --> 01:02:09,720
Speaker 1: of this Harry Potter fanfic.

1142
01:02:10,360 --> 01:02:13,400
Speaker 3: So this isn't like a this isn't we're laughing, but

1143
01:02:13,440 --> 01:02:16,160
Speaker 3: this isn't. This is not a joy said. Yeah, this

1144
01:02:16,240 --> 01:02:20,000
Speaker 3: is a fairly seriously sized movement. It's not one hundred

1145
01:02:20,000 --> 01:02:22,080
Speaker 3: and fifty people online. This is no community.

1146
01:02:22,440 --> 01:02:25,080
Speaker 1: A lot of them are very rich, and a number

1147
01:02:25,080 --> 01:02:27,080
Speaker 1: of them get power against like Sam Bankman Freed was

1148
01:02:27,160 --> 01:02:28,800
Speaker 1: very tight into all of this, and he was at

1149
01:02:28,800 --> 01:02:33,120
Speaker 1: one point pretty powerful. And this gets us too. So

1150
01:02:33,440 --> 01:02:35,120
Speaker 1: you've heard of effective altruism.

1151
01:02:35,720 --> 01:02:38,640
Speaker 3: No, I don't know what that is. That's what I say,

1152
01:02:38,920 --> 01:02:39,960
Speaker 3: both those words.

1153
01:02:40,000 --> 01:02:43,600
Speaker 1: So the justification Sam Bankman Freed gave for why when

1154
01:02:43,600 --> 01:02:46,400
Speaker 1: he starts taking in all of this money and gambling

1155
01:02:46,400 --> 01:02:49,760
Speaker 1: it away on his gambling illegally other people's money. His

1156
01:02:49,920 --> 01:02:53,800
Speaker 1: argument was that he's an effective altruist, so he wants

1157
01:02:53,840 --> 01:02:56,320
Speaker 1: to do the greatest amount of good, and logically, the

1158
01:02:56,360 --> 01:02:59,000
Speaker 1: greatest amount of good for him, because he's good at

1159
01:02:59,080 --> 01:03:02,360
Speaker 1: gambling with crypto, is to make the most money possible

1160
01:03:02,400 --> 01:03:05,040
Speaker 1: so he can then donate it to different causes that

1161
01:03:05,080 --> 01:03:09,120
Speaker 1: will help the world. Right. But he also believes because

1162
01:03:09,160 --> 01:03:10,760
Speaker 1: all of these people are not as smart as they

1163
01:03:10,800 --> 01:03:13,360
Speaker 1: think they are, he convinces himself of a couple of

1164
01:03:13,400 --> 01:03:16,840
Speaker 1: other things, like, for example, well, obviously, if I could

1165
01:03:16,880 --> 01:03:20,480
Speaker 1: like flip a coin and fifty to fifty, lose all

1166
01:03:20,480 --> 01:03:22,960
Speaker 1: my money or double it, it's best to just flip

1167
01:03:23,000 --> 01:03:26,880
Speaker 1: the coin because like, if I lose all my money, whatever,

1168
01:03:26,960 --> 01:03:29,480
Speaker 1: but if I double it, the gain in that to

1169
01:03:29,560 --> 01:03:33,080
Speaker 1: the world is so much better. Right. This is ultimately

1170
01:03:33,120 --> 01:03:35,320
Speaker 1: why he winds up gambling everyone's money away and going

1171
01:03:35,360 --> 01:03:40,120
Speaker 1: to prison. The idea effective altruism is a concept that

1172
01:03:40,200 --> 01:03:43,959
Speaker 1: comes largely not entirely. There's aspects of this that exist

1173
01:03:44,200 --> 01:03:47,760
Speaker 1: prior to them out of the rationalist movement. And the

1174
01:03:47,800 --> 01:03:52,880
Speaker 1: initial idea is good. It's just saying people should analyze

1175
01:03:52,920 --> 01:03:55,240
Speaker 1: the efficacy of the giving and the aid work that

1176
01:03:55,280 --> 01:03:58,720
Speaker 1: they do to maximize their positive impact. In other words,

1177
01:03:58,920 --> 01:04:02,600
Speaker 1: don't just donate money to a charity, like look into

1178
01:04:02,920 --> 01:04:05,200
Speaker 1: is that charity spending half of their money and like

1179
01:04:05,240 --> 01:04:08,240
Speaker 1: paying huge salaries to some asshole or whatever? Right, Like,

1180
01:04:08,240 --> 01:04:10,440
Speaker 1: you want to know if you're making good right, And

1181
01:04:10,640 --> 01:04:13,040
Speaker 1: they start with some some pretty good conclusions. One initial

1182
01:04:13,080 --> 01:04:15,880
Speaker 1: conclusion a lot of these people make is like, mosquito

1183
01:04:16,000 --> 01:04:19,840
Speaker 1: nets are a huge ROI charity, right because it stops

1184
01:04:19,880 --> 01:04:22,960
Speaker 1: so many people from dying, and it's very cheap.

1185
01:04:22,720 --> 01:04:26,080
Speaker 3: To do right. Right, that's good, you know, one of

1186
01:04:26,120 --> 01:04:27,920
Speaker 3: the most effective tools I've ever used.

1187
01:04:28,120 --> 01:04:32,800
Speaker 1: Yes, Unfortunately, from that logical standpoint, people just keep talking

1188
01:04:32,840 --> 01:04:35,720
Speaker 1: online and all of these circles where everyone always makes

1189
01:04:35,720 --> 01:04:40,080
Speaker 1: them each other crazier, right, And so they go from

1190
01:04:40,240 --> 01:04:44,600
Speaker 1: mosquito nets to actually doing direct work to improve the world.

1191
01:04:44,840 --> 01:04:49,440
Speaker 1: Is wasteful because we are all super geniuses rather and smart.

1192
01:04:50,160 --> 01:04:54,560
Speaker 1: We're too smart what's best? And also here's the other thing,

1193
01:04:55,160 --> 01:04:58,160
Speaker 1: making mosquito nets, giving out vaccines and food, Well, that

1194
01:04:58,200 --> 01:05:00,680
Speaker 1: helps living people today, but.

1195
01:05:01,760 --> 01:05:03,920
Speaker 3: They have to be concerned with future selves.

1196
01:05:03,960 --> 01:05:07,880
Speaker 1: Future people is a larger number of people than current people.

1197
01:05:08,560 --> 01:05:12,440
Speaker 1: So really we should be optimizing decisions to say future

1198
01:05:12,480 --> 01:05:15,600
Speaker 1: people lives. And some of them come to the conclusion,

1199
01:05:15,600 --> 01:05:17,440
Speaker 1: a lot of them, well that means we have to

1200
01:05:17,680 --> 01:05:20,680
Speaker 1: really put all of our money and work into making

1201
01:05:20,720 --> 01:05:22,600
Speaker 1: the super AI that will save humanity.

1202
01:05:23,480 --> 01:05:27,120
Speaker 3: They want to now they want to make these. It

1203
01:05:27,120 --> 01:05:29,280
Speaker 3: would just it would sort of just come about and

1204
01:05:29,320 --> 01:05:31,480
Speaker 3: then they would but it's.

1205
01:05:31,040 --> 01:05:34,920
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, I mean we're going to do it. They

1206
01:05:35,600 --> 01:05:37,720
Speaker 1: were working on it before. But like these some of

1207
01:05:37,720 --> 01:05:40,320
Speaker 1: these people come to the conclusion instead of giving money

1208
01:05:40,360 --> 01:05:44,280
Speaker 1: to like good causes, I am going to put money

1209
01:05:44,320 --> 01:05:47,240
Speaker 1: into tech. I am going to like become a tech

1210
01:05:47,280 --> 01:05:51,040
Speaker 1: founder and create a company that like makes it helps

1211
01:05:51,160 --> 01:05:55,160
Speaker 1: create this AI. Right, or A lot of people come

1212
01:05:55,240 --> 01:05:59,200
Speaker 1: up within conclusion instead of that it's not worth it

1213
01:05:59,240 --> 01:06:01,280
Speaker 1: for me to go like help people in the world.

1214
01:06:01,320 --> 01:06:03,800
Speaker 1: The best thing I can do is make a shitload

1215
01:06:03,800 --> 01:06:06,440
Speaker 1: of money trading stocks, and then I can donate that

1216
01:06:06,520 --> 01:06:08,440
Speaker 1: money and that's maximizing my value.

1217
01:06:08,560 --> 01:06:08,760
Speaker 3: Right.

1218
01:06:09,280 --> 01:06:13,360
Speaker 1: They come to all of these conclusions come later right now,

1219
01:06:15,800 --> 01:06:20,000
Speaker 1: so and again like this, this comes with some corollaries.

1220
01:06:20,040 --> 01:06:22,840
Speaker 1: One of them is that some number of these people

1221
01:06:22,880 --> 01:06:25,480
Speaker 1: start talking, you know, and this is not all of them,

1222
01:06:25,520 --> 01:06:28,480
Speaker 1: but a decent chunk eventually come to the conclusion like, actually,

1223
01:06:29,280 --> 01:06:33,800
Speaker 1: charity and helping people now is kind of bad. Like

1224
01:06:33,840 --> 01:06:36,800
Speaker 1: it's kind of like a bad thing to do, because

1225
01:06:37,360 --> 01:06:40,280
Speaker 1: all obviously, once we figure out the AI that can

1226
01:06:40,320 --> 01:06:44,080
Speaker 1: solve all problems, that'll solve all these problems much more

1227
01:06:44,120 --> 01:06:46,720
Speaker 1: effectively than we ever can. So all of our mental

1228
01:06:46,760 --> 01:06:49,800
Speaker 1: and financial resources have to go right now into helping AI.

1229
01:06:49,920 --> 01:06:50,600
Speaker 3: Anything we do.

1230
01:06:50,600 --> 01:06:53,400
Speaker 1: To help other people is like a waste of those resources.

1231
01:06:53,600 --> 01:06:58,160
Speaker 1: So you're actually doing net harm by like being a

1232
01:06:58,240 --> 01:07:03,040
Speaker 1: doctor in Gaza instead of trading cryptocurrency in order to

1233
01:07:03,080 --> 01:07:05,240
Speaker 1: fund an AI startup, you know, how to start a

1234
01:07:05,280 --> 01:07:09,360
Speaker 1: coin that makes the guy starting a shit coin to

1235
01:07:09,040 --> 01:07:13,880
Speaker 1: to make an LLM that like that guy is doing

1236
01:07:13,960 --> 01:07:16,960
Speaker 1: more to improve the odds of human success.

1237
01:07:17,440 --> 01:07:19,360
Speaker 3: I want to say, it is impressive the amount a

1238
01:07:19,400 --> 01:07:21,840
Speaker 3: time you would have to moll all this over to

1239
01:07:21,880 --> 01:07:22,920
Speaker 3: come to these conclusions.

1240
01:07:23,000 --> 01:07:25,120
Speaker 1: You really have to be talking with a bunch of

1241
01:07:25,360 --> 01:07:27,920
Speaker 1: very annoying people on the Internet for a long period

1242
01:07:27,920 --> 01:07:28,240
Speaker 1: of time.

1243
01:07:28,440 --> 01:07:31,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's it's it's incredible.

1244
01:07:31,360 --> 01:07:38,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, and again there's like people keep consistently take this

1245
01:07:38,120 --> 01:07:41,160
Speaker 1: stuff at even crazier directions. There's some very rich, powerful

1246
01:07:41,200 --> 01:07:45,560
Speaker 1: people Mark andresen of Anderson Horowitz is one of them

1247
01:07:45,800 --> 01:07:48,120
Speaker 1: who have come to the conclusion that if people don't

1248
01:07:48,240 --> 01:07:51,440
Speaker 1: like AI and are trying to stop its conquest of

1249
01:07:51,480 --> 01:07:55,520
Speaker 1: all human culture, those people are mortal enemies of the species,

1250
01:07:55,640 --> 01:07:58,680
Speaker 1: and anything you do to stop them is justified because

1251
01:07:58,720 --> 01:07:59,680
Speaker 1: so many lives are.

1252
01:07:59,520 --> 01:08:00,000
Speaker 3: On the line.

1253
01:08:00,280 --> 01:08:04,360
Speaker 1: Right, and again, I'm an effective altruist, right, the long

1254
01:08:04,480 --> 01:08:07,640
Speaker 1: term good, the future lives are saved by doing what

1255
01:08:07,840 --> 01:08:09,840
Speaker 1: hurting way whoever we have to hurt now to get

1256
01:08:09,840 --> 01:08:10,880
Speaker 1: this thing off the ground.

1257
01:08:11,240 --> 01:08:14,000
Speaker 3: Right. The more you talk about this kind of feels

1258
01:08:14,000 --> 01:08:17,519
Speaker 3: like six people is is a steal. Yes, what this

1259
01:08:17,640 --> 01:08:21,000
Speaker 3: could have for what could have gone? I think I don't.

1260
01:08:21,040 --> 01:08:22,880
Speaker 1: I don't think it's the end of people in these

1261
01:08:22,920 --> 01:08:29,599
Speaker 1: communities killing people. So rationalists and EA types a big

1262
01:08:29,680 --> 01:08:32,439
Speaker 1: thing in these culture is talking about future lives, right,

1263
01:08:32,479 --> 01:08:35,439
Speaker 1: in part because it lets them feel heroic, right, while

1264
01:08:35,439 --> 01:08:40,080
Speaker 1: also justifying a kind of sociopathic disregard for real living people. Today,

1265
01:08:40,560 --> 01:08:42,679
Speaker 1: and all of these different kind of chains of thought,

1266
01:08:42,720 --> 01:08:46,200
Speaker 1: the most toxic pieces, because not every EA person is

1267
01:08:46,200 --> 01:08:48,800
Speaker 1: saying this, not every rational it's not every AI person

1268
01:08:48,840 --> 01:08:51,000
Speaker 1: is saying all this shit. But these are all things

1269
01:08:51,040 --> 01:08:54,000
Speaker 1: that chunks of these communities are saying and the most

1270
01:08:54,040 --> 01:08:57,799
Speaker 1: all of the most toxic of those chains are going

1271
01:08:57,880 --> 01:09:01,639
Speaker 1: to lead to the Zizians, Right, That's that's that's where

1272
01:09:01,640 --> 01:09:02,280
Speaker 1: they come from.

1273
01:09:02,479 --> 01:09:04,439
Speaker 3: I was just about to say, based on the breakdown

1274
01:09:04,479 --> 01:09:06,840
Speaker 3: you gave earlier, how could this this is this is

1275
01:09:06,880 --> 01:09:10,360
Speaker 3: the perfect greed ground. Yeah, this this had to happen.

1276
01:09:10,520 --> 01:09:10,840
Speaker 3: It was.

1277
01:09:10,960 --> 01:09:14,800
Speaker 1: It was just waiting for somebody, like the right kind

1278
01:09:14,840 --> 01:09:18,160
Speaker 1: of unhinged person to step into the movement.

1279
01:09:18,439 --> 01:09:21,000
Speaker 3: Somebody really said it all And so this.

1280
01:09:21,000 --> 01:09:24,040
Speaker 1: Is where we're gonna get to ziz Right. The actual

1281
01:09:24,120 --> 01:09:27,479
Speaker 1: person who finds founds this what some people would call

1282
01:09:27,520 --> 01:09:30,800
Speaker 1: a cult, is a young person who's going to move

1283
01:09:30,960 --> 01:09:34,320
Speaker 1: to the Bay Area stumble into They stumble onto rationalism

1284
01:09:34,400 --> 01:09:37,280
Speaker 1: online as a teenager living in Alaska, and they moved

1285
01:09:37,280 --> 01:09:39,360
Speaker 1: to the Bay Area to get into the tech industry

1286
01:09:39,400 --> 01:09:43,200
Speaker 1: and become an effective altruist. Right, And this person, this

1287
01:09:43,240 --> 01:09:46,640
Speaker 1: woman is going to kind of channel all of the

1288
01:09:46,800 --> 01:09:50,519
Speaker 1: absolute worst chains of thought that the rationalists and the

1289
01:09:50,560 --> 01:09:55,479
Speaker 1: EA types and also like the AI harm people are

1290
01:09:55,640 --> 01:09:57,960
Speaker 1: are are thinking right, all of the all of the

1291
01:09:58,000 --> 01:10:02,240
Speaker 1: most poisonous stuff is exactly what she's drawn to, and

1292
01:10:02,280 --> 01:10:05,360
Speaker 1: it is going to mix into her in an ideology

1293
01:10:05,439 --> 01:10:12,400
Speaker 1: that is just absolutely unique and fascinating. Anyway, that's why

1294
01:10:12,439 --> 01:10:17,719
Speaker 1: that man died. So we'll get to that and more later,

1295
01:10:18,160 --> 01:10:22,200
Speaker 1: but uh, first we gotta uh, we gotta roll out

1296
01:10:22,200 --> 01:10:25,640
Speaker 1: here where we're done for the day? Man, what a

1297
01:10:25,720 --> 01:10:28,120
Speaker 1: what a time? How how you feeling right now so far?

1298
01:10:28,240 --> 01:10:30,160
Speaker 1: How how are we doing?

1299
01:10:30,280 --> 01:10:33,559
Speaker 3: David? Oh Man, you had said that this was gonna

1300
01:10:33,560 --> 01:10:35,880
Speaker 3: be a weird one. I was like, yeah, it would

1301
01:10:35,880 --> 01:10:38,200
Speaker 3: be kind of weird. This is really the strangest thing

1302
01:10:38,240 --> 01:10:45,520
Speaker 3: I've ever heard this much about. He's gone so many different.

1303
01:10:46,240 --> 01:10:49,679
Speaker 1: There's a there's so much more Harry Potter to come.

1304
01:10:50,040 --> 01:10:54,040
Speaker 1: Oh my god, we're not ready to how central Harry

1305
01:10:54,080 --> 01:10:56,559
Speaker 1: Potter is to the murder of this border patrol agent.

1306
01:10:57,200 --> 01:10:59,880
Speaker 3: That's I said that. You said a crazy sense. That

1307
01:11:00,080 --> 01:11:02,080
Speaker 3: might be the wildest thing anyone's ever said to me?

1308
01:11:06,320 --> 01:11:08,280
Speaker 2: Do you want do you want to tell people about it?

1309
01:11:08,760 --> 01:11:11,439
Speaker 3: I do? I have a podcast called My Mama told me,

1310
01:11:12,040 --> 01:11:15,320
Speaker 3: I do it with Langston Kerman and every week we

1311
01:11:15,360 --> 01:11:19,879
Speaker 3: have different guests on to discuss different black conspiracy theories.

1312
01:11:20,439 --> 01:11:23,240
Speaker 3: He kind of like folk Lauren, So all kinds of stuff,

1313
01:11:23,280 --> 01:11:26,080
Speaker 3: all kinds of stuff your foreign mother told you. He's

1314
01:11:26,200 --> 01:11:27,320
Speaker 3: usually foreign mothers.

1315
01:11:27,600 --> 01:11:30,960
Speaker 1: It's good because I gotta say, this is the this

1316
01:11:31,040 --> 01:11:34,720
Speaker 1: is the whitest set of like conspiracy theory craziness.

1317
01:11:39,520 --> 01:11:46,559
Speaker 3: No no, no, no, no no. I think I can

1318
01:11:46,640 --> 01:11:55,599
Speaker 3: try to figure with no. No, absolutely not. Boy howdie?

1319
01:11:55,640 --> 01:11:59,000
Speaker 1: Okay, well, everyone, We'll be back Thursday.

1320
01:12:02,320 --> 01:12:05,040
Speaker 2: Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.

1321
01:12:05,400 --> 01:12:08,680
Speaker 2: For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia

1322
01:12:08,840 --> 01:12:12,040
Speaker 2: dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

1323
01:12:12,120 --> 01:12:15,280
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Behind the

1324
01:12:15,280 --> 01:12:19,360
Speaker 2: Bastards is now available on YouTube, new episodes every Wednesday

1325
01:12:19,439 --> 01:12:20,040
Speaker 2: and Friday.

1326
01:12:20,360 --> 01:12:21,080
Speaker 3: Subscribe to our

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01:12:21,160 --> 01:12:24,800
Speaker 2: Channel YouTube dot com slash at Behind the Bastards