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2: What is The Portal: Difference between revisions
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[00:07:55] Perhaps very dim people believe these things. What I'm interested in is trying to get the smartest, most dynamic and most agentic people in our society once again talking to each other and ignoring the people who are most focused on dampening all of our enthusiasm. Now perhaps, you think, look, this doesn't sound very scientific. | [00:07:55] Perhaps very dim people believe these things. What I'm interested in is trying to get the smartest, most dynamic and most agentic people in our society once again talking to each other and ignoring the people who are most focused on dampening all of our enthusiasm. Now perhaps, you think, look, this doesn't sound very scientific. | ||
[00:08:16] Shouldn't we be relying on the best systems we have? For example, isn't | [00:08:16] Shouldn't we be relying on the best systems we have? For example, isn't peer reviewed science the gold standard? Well, I would say no. Peer review is a relatively recent invention, and I would even say an intrusion into the hard sciences. In 1953 when the double helix was elucidated by Watson and Crick, they submitted it to the journal Nature. | ||
[00:08:39] But it was never a peer reviewed. Why? Because an editor's job was to figure out whether it was worthy of publication. And in fact, the editor at the time, if I recall correctly, said that anybody who saw this paper would be so influenced by it, that he couldn't take the risk sending it out for any kind of review. | [00:08:39] But it was never a peer reviewed. Why? Because an editor's job was to figure out whether it was worthy of publication. And in fact, the editor at the time, if I recall correctly, said that anybody who saw this paper would be so influenced by it, that he couldn't take the risk sending it out for any kind of review. | ||
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[00:08:56] Well, if that's true, let's say peer review isn't really the centerpiece of our science. Is the scientific method the centerpiece of our science? Well, at some level, sure, it's like proof checking, but a lot of the work that we do in science has been incredibly imaginative. And you might even say it's been irresponsible until it comes into final form and can be reconciled with experiment. | [00:08:56] Well, if that's true, let's say peer review isn't really the centerpiece of our science. Is the scientific method the centerpiece of our science? Well, at some level, sure, it's like proof checking, but a lot of the work that we do in science has been incredibly imaginative. And you might even say it's been irresponsible until it comes into final form and can be reconciled with experiment. | ||
[00:09:19] But instead, we've developed a culture in which immediately upon proposing something, we are told that the sine qua non of science is that there be an agreement between theory and experiment | [00:09:19] But instead, we've developed a culture in which immediately upon proposing something, we are told that the sine qua non of science is that there be an agreement between theory and experiment? Well, this is wholly untrue. In fact, if you go back to Paul Dirac's great Scientific American article in the early sixties, he says that it is much more important than a physical theory have mathematical beauty | ||
[00:09:47] and that we learn to trust a theory, even when it doesn't agree with experiment, if it has a kind of intellectual coherence to it. But how often are people pointed to something like Dirac's 1963 paper? In fact, you could look to Jim Watson, who's told us that in order to make great advances, we have to be irresponsible. | [00:09:47] and that we learn to trust a theory, even when it doesn't agree with experiment, if it has a kind of intellectual coherence to it. But how often are people pointed to something like Dirac's 1963 paper? In fact, you could look to Jim Watson, who's told us that in order to make great advances, we have to be irresponsible. | ||
[00:10:09] Now, this is a very odd feature of the world. Many of our top people do not seem to play by | [00:10:09] Now, this is a very odd feature of the world. Many of our top people do not seem to play by the rules that have been set for everyone else. And the question is, if we are in a situation in which we have unleashed such incredible destructive power as we did with the hydrogen bomb, and in potentially unlocking the cell, | ||
[00:10:28] why is it that we are so incredibly timid about what it is that we might do next? We have all the destructive power that we need already at our fingertips. What we don't have is the ability to escape our fate. In fact, what we need is to find The Portal, to find a way out, to find new economic vistas that will allow far | [00:10:28] why is it that we are so incredibly timid about what it is that we might do next? We have all the destructive power that we need already at our fingertips. What we don't have is the ability to escape our fate. In fact, what we need is to find The Portal, to find a way out, to find new economic vistas that will allow far | ||
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[00:11:48] if we can, or have our dreams fight each other, but at least start unlocking the potential of human imagination and not immediately grounding every new idea in some sort of race to see whether we can invalidate it, give it enough of a room to grow. You know, this is how we used to talk about protecting infant industries before we decided that free trade should always be the rule of the day and that we should have no barriers to protect, uh, new ideas in a nursery where they might learn to thrive before testing to see whether they can survive as adults. | [00:11:48] if we can, or have our dreams fight each other, but at least start unlocking the potential of human imagination and not immediately grounding every new idea in some sort of race to see whether we can invalidate it, give it enough of a room to grow. You know, this is how we used to talk about protecting infant industries before we decided that free trade should always be the rule of the day and that we should have no barriers to protect, uh, new ideas in a nursery where they might learn to thrive before testing to see whether they can survive as adults. | ||
[00:12:23] What we're going to do in this program is effectively to declare war. War on stasis. War on group think. War on everything that has enervated our society, and we're going to do it because we have the ability now to | [00:12:23] What we're going to do in this program is effectively to declare war. War on stasis. War on group think. War on everything that has enervated our society, and we're going to do it because we have the ability now to compete with the networks that previously grew up to distribute whatever it was that was portrayed as sense-making. | ||
[00:12:44] You can tell that there's something wrong with both CNN and Fox. If you're reading the New York times carefully, you can tell that the narrative arcs in the daily newspaper clearly have to have been thought out to cover many days in long before the facts are known. Somehow we are living in somebody else's reality. | [00:12:44] You can tell that there's something wrong with both CNN and Fox. If you're reading the New York times carefully, you can tell that the narrative arcs in the daily newspaper clearly have to have been thought out to cover many days in long before the facts are known. Somehow we are living in somebody else's reality. | ||
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[00:19:24] explain later, uh, shows that simply opening borders is in no way a free market solution, that you have to securitize rights and allow people to trade them in order to get free market economics to work in the immigration area. Another of which has to do with bilateral trade, and the geometry, uh, of markets culminating, uh, eventually in a model of humans in which they are allowed to change their tastes. | [00:19:24] explain later, uh, shows that simply opening borders is in no way a free market solution, that you have to securitize rights and allow people to trade them in order to get free market economics to work in the immigration area. Another of which has to do with bilateral trade, and the geometry, uh, of markets culminating, uh, eventually in a model of humans in which they are allowed to change their tastes. | ||
[00:19:53] Now, it sounds very strange to say that economic theory falls apart when human beings change their tastes. But since at least the late 1970s, uh, we've had an excuse in place in the work of Becker and Stigler that allows us to make assumptions about human beings that are known to be wildly untrue. And the way out, strangely enough, is through differential geometry, the | [00:19:53] Now, it sounds very strange to say that economic theory falls apart when human beings change their tastes. But since at least the late 1970s, uh, we've had an excuse in place in the work of Becker and Stigler that allows us to make assumptions about human beings that are known to be wildly untrue. And the way out, strangely enough, is through differential geometry, the differential geometry of markets. | ||
[00:20:19] So that's something that I think we're going to be very interested in bringing to you. I don't know whether the idea of geometric markets is something that can be easily explained to a mass audience, but this theory of geometric marginalism is in fact a starter theory. That, if that is successful, might allow us to discuss an even more profound attempt, which would be this concept that I've called | [00:20:19] So that's something that I think we're going to be very interested in bringing to you. I don't know whether the idea of geometric markets is something that can be easily explained to a mass audience, but this theory of geometric marginalism is in fact a starter theory. That, if that is successful, might allow us to discuss an even more profound attempt, which would be this concept that I've called geometric unity. | ||
[00:20:42] Now, when I talk about getting off the planet, I have no idea whether or not it is in fact possible to go beyond the solar system. Nobody's ever done it, it's been relatively irresponsible to think in these terms ever since we've understood what we're up against, uh, in particular in the form of Einstein's restrictions, through the general and special theories of relativity, | [00:20:42] Now, when I talk about getting off the planet, I have no idea whether or not it is in fact possible to go beyond the solar system. Nobody's ever done it, it's been relatively irresponsible to think in these terms ever since we've understood what we're up against, uh, in particular in the form of Einstein's restrictions, through the general and special theories of relativity, | ||
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[00:23:58] in roughly 45 years? I would say that this is the place that we have to bring the fight. People have not understood how vulnerable we are when we start to lose our most dynamic communities, and we find ourselves incapable of fighting for the resources either in terms of neurons or in terms of dollars that are necessary to sustain our hope of progress. | [00:23:58] in roughly 45 years? I would say that this is the place that we have to bring the fight. People have not understood how vulnerable we are when we start to lose our most dynamic communities, and we find ourselves incapable of fighting for the resources either in terms of neurons or in terms of dollars that are necessary to sustain our hope of progress. | ||
[00:24:23] Further, I think we're going to explain a lot of our theorizing, some of which has been covered in the annual edge essays, uh, for | [00:24:23] Further, I think we're going to explain a lot of our theorizing, some of which has been covered in the annual edge essays, uh, for edge.org, uh, 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, | ||
[00:24:52] 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 | [00:24:52] 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 "Go Virtual Young Man", which was in response to what I was just learning about in terms of Bitcoin. | ||
[00:25:12] Another one was about | [00:25:12] Another one was about 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, uh, on the pantomime and theatrics in order to conduct the business of our society. | ||
[00:25:34] Another one was on | [00:25:34] Another one was on Russell conjugation. Now, Russell conjugation, if you don't know, uh, has to do with how we emotionally shade our language so that people can, 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] So there's a large number of essays that I want to discuss with you, including one on | [00:25:56] So there's a large number of essays that I want to discuss with you, including one on anthropic capitalism. Now, the question of anthropic capitalism is simply this: was the last 200 years in anomaly? Was it a very bizarre time in which effectively markets were without parallel in organizing human activity? | ||
[00:26:17] 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? 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 is if central command was viable, then we're in a really tough spot. | [00:26:17] 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? 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 is if central command was viable, then we're in a really tough spot. | ||
[00:26:53] 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, uh, | [00:26:53] 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, uh, Andrew Yang on the democratic side, I'm at least hopeful that there are places in which these new ideas might have a hearing. | ||
[00:27:11] So, to sum up, what is The Portal? The Portal is a search for some way out of the stasis in which we have lived. If our lives have largely been lived in an intellectual bubble, that dates from the early seventies, it's time to pop that bubble and to find out what's on the outside. I hope you'll join me trying to find The Portal, and we can go through together. | [00:27:11] So, to sum up, what is The Portal? The Portal is a search for some way out of the stasis in which we have lived. If our lives have largely been lived in an intellectual bubble, that dates from the early seventies, it's time to pop that bubble and to find out what's on the outside. I hope you'll join me trying to find The Portal, and we can go through together. | ||
[00:27:34] Thank you. | [00:27:34] Thank you. | ||