Editing 2: What is The Portal (section)

=== Early Theorizing on Edge.org ===

''00:24:23''<br>
Further, I think we're going to explain a lot of our theorizing, some of which has been covered in the annual Edge essays for [https://www.edge.org/memberbio/eric_r_weinstein edge.org], in which, effectively we've engaged in a 10 year strategy. I've always wondered, 'What would be the best way of sneaking a weapon through airport security?' Even though I've never attempted to do anything like that, I always thought that the best way of doing it would be to do it in pieces, where each piece is not entirely understandable as being part of something that is being screened for. Well, that's what I chose to do in the Edge essays that we'll be discussing. I think the first essay I wrote was called [https://www.edge.org/response-detail/11861 Go Virtual Young Man], which was in response to what I was just learning about in terms of Bitcoin.

''00:25:12''<br>
Another one was about [https://www.edge.org/response-detail/11783 kayfabe], or the system of lies that is the substrate of professional wrestling. That was about my fear of an election cycle in which effectively everyone would know that everything was fake, but we would still be somehow dependent on the pantomime and theatrics in order to conduct the business of our society.

''00:25:34''<br>
Another one was on [https://www.edge.org/response-detail/27181 Russell conjugation]. Now Russell conjugation, if you don't know, has to do with how we emotionally shade our language so that people can understand what our content is, but they don't realize that we are emotionally coercing them to feel differently about things than they would if they simply thought about them from first principles.

''00:25:56''<br>
So there's a large number of essays that I want to discuss with you, including one on [https://www.edge.org/response-detail/26756 anthropic capitalism]. Now, the question of anthropic capitalism is simply this: was the last 200 years an anomaly? Was it a very bizarre time in which, effectively, markets were without parallel in organizing human activity? And is it possible, when we say something like late-stage capitalism, that we've actually blown through this period, where capitalism is itself a danger to our society? 

''00:26:28''<br>
Now, we have nothing else to pick up from it. If we look outside our windows in any major metropolitan area, we'll see that people are engaged in some self-organizing activity. And if our only two possibilities of keeping that going are either to allow the market to run relatively unfettered, or to begin telling people what to do as if central command was viable, then we're in a really tough spot.

''00:26:53''<br>
I think we're going to have to start thinking about new systems, and I don't know what those systems will be. But since we've been able to reach major candidates, like the up and coming [[Andrew Yang]] on the Democratic side, I'm at least hopeful that there are places in which these new ideas might have a hearing.