27: Daniel Schmachtenberger - On Avoiding Apocalypses
In this second episode of the Portal to be released during shelter-in-place restrictions during the Corona Virus Pandemic, we release an older discussion with Daniel Schmachtenberger on whether there is any plausible long term scenario for human flourishing confined to a single shared planet.
Daniel is seen as a leader of the growing Game B subculture of the human potential movement. This group bets that there is a second evolutionary stable strategy for cohabiting not based on conflict or rivalry, even for life raised in Game A (i.e. standard evolutionary and economic environments based on scarcity and rivalrous goods. Eric asks Daniel about where the bright spots and progress might be in this movement which refuses to accept the fate that that Eric has elsewhere put forward as the Twin Nuclei Problem of having unlocked the power of both Cell and Atom in the early 1950s without the wisdom to use it.
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Table of contents
02:40:00 - Relationships as a replacement for status
00:00:20 - Covid and DISC
00:14:00 - Daniel Schmachtenberger
00:18:27 - System validity gain vs. loss as a distributed local criteria for response.
00:23:50 - Source code of psychology
00:35:20 - Exponential tech (CRISPR, Mores Law, Genetic engineering )
00:38:10:00 - Solving problems with violence
00:41:00:00 - Inverse correlation between rational and emotional function
00:45:00:00 - Motivation for misinformation
00:46:50:00 - Russel conjugation (limbic stimulation)
00:56:15:00 - Short term behavior
00:58:00:00 - Solving for multipolar traps
1:15:10 - Magical thinking, the false safety experience and group think
1:17:11 - The importance of life experience
1:19:06 - The EU is a trap
1:21:16 - Sharp minds vs. sharp elbows
1:22:35 - The loss of the generator function and corruption
1:24:12 - The danger of knowledge
1:26:40 - The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) as training wheels for the cultural elite.
1:30:30 - The urge towards penetration
1:34:07 - How sound thinking is derailed: Profits vs. gating
1:37:42 - An economy of shame and terror
1:40:39 - The Looting Party origins of FUD (fear, uncertainty and distortion)
1:46:40 - No living heroes
1:49:33 - A little bit of gas
1:50:10 - Penetration options: Scaling beyond the Dunbar size
1:56:52 - The End of Capitalism
2:00:22 - Tech as a gamechanger in evolution
2:02:55 - Abstraction as crucial for evolution in hoomans
2:04:00 - Reputation tech for scaling
2:05:30 - Selection pressures as an eualizer between species
2:08:45 - Abstraction and toolmaking breaks the even distribution
2:16:00 - Hoomans maximally k-selected
2:10:00 - Orange man bad
2:13:00 - Solutions: Abstract pattern replicators (software updates)
2:14:48 - Neoteny [retarding maturation] and nurture capacity in hoomans
2:16:00 - Hoomans maximally k-selected
2:17:00 - Buddhism and the lack of violence
2:18:40 - Planned parenthood as an alternatives to violence?
2:21:00 - Population decline and steady state population and green energy
2:22:00 - Embracing population decline and selection for non-agressive traits
2:23:50 - Can women be lured away from the call of motherhood?
2:24:30 - Education of women makes children an opportunity cost
2:25:00 - Renewable hoomans and steady state ressources
2:26:00 - An economy of abundance makes it hard to get paid for your labor
2:27:40 - Alternatives to markets
2:28:00 - Back to Buddhism without getting killed
2:29:30 - Hacking ourselves a transition
2:30:30 - Sex and rivalry and weirdness
2:32:00 - Abstract emphathy + coordination closing the loop
2:33:40 - Private balance sheets
2:34:40 - Ownership, access, mutual exclusion
2:35:20 - Sharing is caring - commons
2:36:30 - Anti-rivalry
2:37:30 - Prostitution, commitment and status
2:40:00 - Relationships as a replacement for status
2:42:00 - Power vs. wisdom
2:43:30 - Religion + education = Cognitive ability and social harmony
2:44:00 - Eric not trying to be negative
2:44:30 - That's just crazy-talk, but....
2:46:10 - Scaling collective consciousness
2:48:00 - Motivating social engineering
2:50:10 - Bribing away military conflict
2:50:30 - Summarizing for test and avoiding group selection as subject
2:54:30 - Reservations and questions: Violence and ownership
2:55:50 - Abundance and maturity
2:58:00 - Development hacking towards maturity?
2:59:00 - Sex is sexy
3:02:00 - Sexual selection
3:05:00 - Blind evolution: Short term benefits - long term problems
3:06:00 - Status and feeling uncomfy
3:08:00 - Diminishing returns on enhanced status
3:11:00 - The Dunbar number and attention in modern social networks
Annotations for the portal player
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[sub-utility functions]
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estimates of the demand for mechanical ventilation in the United States during an influenza pandemic
Triage is the process of determining the priority of patients' treatments based on the severity of their condition or likelihood of recovery with and without treatment.
A gene drive is a genetic engineering technology that propagates a particular suite of genes throughout a population by altering the probability that a specific allele will be transmitted to offspring from the natural 50% probability.
Tristan Harris, founder of time well spent and the center for humane technology