Kind: captions
Language: en
if you're a Chinese emperor like 2000
years ago one of your biggest problems
in life is that if you give too much
power to your ministers and Generals
they might rebel against you the will to
power and want to kill you and your
family and establish their Dynasty
and I found a solution which is based on
bioengineering now you can ask
bioengineering two thousand years ago in
China yes it's called castration whoa
frustration is bioengineering you take a
man you cut something off you get a
different kind of man that is perfectly
fit for the purposes of the emperor I
didn't know they did that yeah Unix I
mean new eunuchs existed I didn't know
they were Generals you had unique
generals and unique ministers because
they pose much less of a threat they
can't establish their own Dynasty wow
and you had in there were periods in
Chinese history when most of the
Imperial Administration was Unix do you
like dark view of humanity like you know
you want a government job yes just give
us your testicles and we'll give you a
government job and this was not just
China you see the same thing happening
in in the Byzantine empire in the
caliphate in the Islamic caliphate
because this was kind of bioengineering
of a thousand to two thousand years ago
that again you need this this special
kind of human
which has Intelligence and discipline
but doesn't pose the threat of
establishing their own Dynasty that's
the solution
so of course this was very limited but
you had other you know you have the I
know the Christians
they also have a problem with with
humans as they are because humans are
not very good in obeying all the kind of
uh uh uh dictates of Christianity
so they try to change Humanity but they
fail
they don't have the ability to really
intervene deep inside the human genome
the human brain like Christianity
doesn't like sex very much it doesn't
have it has a negative view of sex
but what to do I mean you can't change
the human sexual Earth they tried a lot
of times but even monks and nuns did not
always keep their vows of Chastity you
have popes where children
so Christianity had a very big trouble
like overcoming this sexual urge of
humans
and um you know you fast forward to the
future what would some fundamentalist
religious regime Christian or Muslim or
whatever do
with genetic engineering they can what I
often say is that the people who develop
the technology they usually think about
the good usages we will use this to cure
disease we will use this to to improve
people's lives but you also need to take
a moment think about the politician you
most hate in the world or think about
the religious movement of the
ideological movement that uh which was
the worst in history from your
perspective and take a few minutes to
think what would they do yeah with the
technology that I'm developing right now
it doesn't mean we stop all
technological development
but it means that we have to be very
careful especially about thing about
something like genetic engineering which
is to some extent irreversible we have
never seen like something like that in
history that the Chinese emperor they
could create eunuchs but it was just one
generation they could not create an
entire kind of new specie of human Unix
it doesn't work
but now it could be done
so that's one very big danger and the
other big danger it comes from AI
because AI also is something completely
new in human history
it's the first time that we invent
something that can take power away from
us going back to the will to power every
previous invention in history gave more
power to humans because even if the tool
was extremely powerful an atom bomb
the decision how to use it always
remained in human hands it was not the
atom bomb that decided to uh to bomb
Hiroshima it was Truman and the the the
American Army it was human beings so
even a nuclear bomb actually empowers
Humanity AI is the first invention that
breaks this because it can make
decisions by its own that's the whole
idea
so it potentially can take power away
from us we already see it beginning to
happen uh you know increasingly you
apply to to the bank to get a loan
and the bank says no and why not because
the algorithm said no
and you apply for a university or you
apply for a job and increasing late in
AI making a decision about your life
and we will see it in more and more
areas now again it's not all bad it can
improve many decision-making processes
it can really improve medicine but we
should be aware of the danger when this
technology is in the wrong hands
all when we don't understand it's its
true potential
because another new thing about Ai and I
think we talked about this last time I
was here so I won't go into too much
details it's it could eliminate human
privacy completely
throughout history again Emperors and
kings and popes always dreamed about
following people all the time and and
and watching them supervising them they
they couldn't do it it didn't have the
technology what do you think so I've
heard you say that imagine that North
Korea gets a hold or a government-like
gets a hold of a device that can read
effectively your mood so when you see a
poster of the supreme leader and you
have anger up cool you're arrested and
you're locked away
what what is the real world response to
that like how do we like do you have a
the response is is political I mean I
mean don't get there but you know that
other countries are going to do it so
there's going to be the tragedy of the
comments this is where I like I get into
the hey I'm optimistic I'm living my
life I'm trying to create beautiful
things but at the same time in the back
of my mind I'm like humans are never
going to stop like we're never going to
stop the tragedy of the commons is real
and so whatever solution we put in place
has got to deal with the tragedy of the
commons yes I mean again this is where
I'm not optimistic because the only way
to really regulate a technology like AI
is through International
cooperation yeah if you think about you
know autonomous weapon systems which are
extremely dangerous if
only America bans them but the Chinese
or the Russians keep developing them
then very soon America will say hey we
don't want to be to be left behind we
have to do it also we don't want to do
it but we have to do it so the only one
you can regulate it is through some kind
of international agreement Corporation
and there's International tensions in
the world just increase then I'm not
optimistic at all about the potential to
regulate this technology Within
certain within a country you can
regulate it to some extent you can
protect people's privacy for instance
you can have laws that say that if
somebody collects my private information
they can only use it to help me they
cannot use it to manipulate me or to
sell it to a third party now this is
obvious because we have these kinds of
laws about so many other things like who
is my personal doctor it's known for for
years for Generations that you have this
exactly these kinds of laws
my personal doctor has a lot of very
private information about me
and he or she use it in order to help me
they are not allowed to use it to
manipulate me or to sell it to some
political party or to some Corporation
so why is Facebook allowed to do it so
this should be very very simple that's
one defense of our our privacy
another thing that we can regulate
is that we should never allow all the
information to be concentrated in one
place whether this one place is a
government agency or whether this one
place is a corporation this is the high
road to a dictatorship somebody that has
all the information of all the people
they basically control everybody
you know I mean even if you think about
it on a global scale
that you think in 20 years you have some
country that somebody in in China or
somewhere have the entire personal
records of every politician every judge
every journalist every military officer
in that country from the time they're a
little like every illness they had every
sexual encounter every bribe they took
they know that this is no longer an
independent country this had become a
kind of data colony
to control that the colony you don't
need to send soldiers in to to police
people you just take the data out
and if you have enough information you
can control this country by remote
control for for afar
so uh I think we need to have
regulations
against these kinds of things and and it
can be done and similarly when we think
about the new developments like the
metaverse we have to think very very
carefully about uh uh what's happening
there
uh again I'm I'm historian so I always
look at things from a very long-term
perspective but hey we know this this
has been a fantasy of humans for
thousands of years it really goes back
to ancient philosophical and religious
debates about what is a human being
you know you go back to early
Christianity so you have two camps
you have one Camp which says humans are
embodied beings the body is in the
center
which was the old Jewish view you are
not your mind you are not a spiritual
entity a soul you are a body
in the Book of Genesis God creates Adam
and Eve from clay and they don't exist
before that they exist only as bodies
they in the New Testament Jesus rises
from the dead in the flesh
and uh when he preaches to people about
the kingdom of God he means a a physical
kingdom here on Earth with physical
bodies with biological bodies so this
was one view as humans are our bodies
Our biological entities and then there
was the other view which increa which
was influenced by Greek philosophy and
so forth and which increasingly became
dominant which says no humans are not
bodies humans are an immaterial soul
or Spirit trapped within a physical body
the body is bad is evil is corrupt is
dirty is ugly
the soul is completely pure and
spiritual we're back to narratives which
of those narratives do you believe
I I'll get to that in in a moment I'll
just complete my thought that what we
see now in the metaverse is exactly this
argument being replayed
that is can we uh as as humans just
shift to the immaterial realm of the
metaverse and leave our biological
bodies behind
or is it impossible or even dangerous to
try and separate
our kind of mental existence
from our bodily in in physical existence
or maybe give you a little bit of Hope
for some of the people working in the
metaverse so I am very grounded in
biology
so the things that I'm interested in
with that very much coexist now will it
be interesting for a entirely virtual
species to uh inhabit maybe that could
be cool but that doesn't help us so even
people thinking about uploading their
Consciousness I've thought through that
one a lot uh it would be a copy of me
but it wouldn't be me so all of the
sadness of death and all that that I
would be hoping to avoid by doing that
doesn't help maybe it kind of gives the
same sense of having a kid but it
wouldn't by any means save me from
having to deal with death so but the
metaverse is still really interesting to
me now I'm a person when I say I'm
grounded in biology I'm talking about
understanding the microbiome and how
wildly that influences my thoughts and
am I just a shell for microbes maybe and
so like I'm I take a very very grounded
approach to that
now having said that so hopefully that
gives you a little bit of optimism not
everybody's trying to divorce from the
body it's I think most of the day
all the important you know increasingly
your social life your job is
increasingly in the metaverse the
biology of the situation will make that
a disaster so I I would highly as
somebody developing in the metaverse I
will highly caution people against that
because you have to feed your microbes
you have to love and bond and there's
there's so many things that we pick up
on anyway I totally see how it it
derails but if people are talking about
like hey you can't ignore the body this
is a very real thing you have to pay
attention to this fun place to visit you
can't live there
um hopefully we can avoid some of the
nonsense that comes along with like
social media where nobody even talked
about let's talk about how this becomes
deranging because social media has been
incredible in my life I don't have an
addictive personality so that probably
helps so it's very easy for me to go I
spend a little bit of time on it what
time I do spend is incred incredibly
empowering because I have trained the
algorithm to give me useful things not
things that compare me to other people
and make me feel terrible uh so it's
like you know you have to be very
thoughtful about stuff like that so my
hope is that we get a little bit wiser
of course not everybody will
but it really does come back to this
idea of narrative like I tell myself a
narrative about what the virtual space
is it's going to keep me I think from
hitting the major roadblocks I'm sure
there will be things I can't anticipate
yet but the the thing that I want to
make sure that we touch on is I am not
religious but I worry that the thing
that you're talking about where we have
to be thoughtful about Gene editing and
we have to come together as a big
cooperative
I don't know how that happens without
a without something filling the Godlike
hole in all of our brains where we want
some Grand meaning
some thing that we can orbit around
there is no God's hole in our brain
interesting I mean the people think you
don't worry about God is dead at all I
mean we managed without him for many
periods in history and we've been doing
quite well in in recent Generations uh
without him I think that some people
connect God and morality how do we come
together then as a huge species like as
one planet to fight the big things
what's the big narrative we all revolve
around I think the big narrative is the
biological narrative that we are all
Homo sapiens that we are all have the
same basic experiences that we all want
to fall in love that we all have uh very
deep ties with our family members that
we all we don't want to be sick it's we
don't like pain that we don't want to
die that we're afraid to die I mean
these are things that are common to all
humans you don't need God for them and
also very important you don't need God
for Morality some people say that and it
was common in history to have this
argument that even if God doesn't exist
we have to believe in him because
without God people will just kill and
murder and rape and and we now have
empirical evidence that this is
absolutely not true I don't think it
breaks down like that I think people are
missing something more subtle with that
I'm just playing with these ideas please
don't I hope it doesn't come across like
I think I know but
I feel like the thing is more subtle so
I haven't believed in God since I was
like 15.
so I totally get as I've never felt
compared compelled to steal murder rape
none of the like none of that enter my
mind
but when I look at sort of the broad
sweep of humanity I realize that people
will fall in line with whatever the sort
of dominant philosophy of their tribe is
so by way of example I'm I feel almost
ridiculous bringing this up to you
because you're a historian and I'm very
much not but the thing that stopped the
Conquistadors from coming up and taking
over what we now think of as America the
thing that originally stopped the
Americans from coming across uh the
camachus tribe I believe is a name and
so how do they become the tribe when all
the other Native American tribes were
falling by the wayside and getting
relegated to reservations why didn't
they because of sheer brutality and
reading the book Empire of the summer
moon was utterly fascinating when he was
like they were the only tribe that
fought on Horseback instead of riding
the horse to the fight and getting off
and so they were able to
just bring this level of viciousness
that we've seen throughout history in
all different kinds of tribes and
peoples but hearing it described you
realize oh it was actually really
effective so thinking of yourself as a
warrior
um treating the other people as the
other that you need to stop them kill
them torture maim whatever you kill all
adults you take either the women in the
adult males you take women and children
but if they're infants and you kill them
too because it's too much vassal it's
like it's actually effective but it's
super gnarly and so what is the thing
that given how many times we've seen
that whether it's the I've never stopped
it I mean yeah did the same thing and
they believed in God so God doesn't stop
these kind of Terrible Things From
Heaven a thousand percent agree so
that's why I said God shaped hole I'm
trying to figure out what that because
it isn't God I want to be very clear in
my stance I mean we need morality that's
that's certainly true so how do we make
that like a thing that everyone's like
yeah because as you were describing uh
getting everybody to recognize the
biology of it so I have said a thousand
times on my Tombstone I want them to put
you're having a biological experience
that like you and I could not agree more
about like I want that to work I just
don't think it will and so how or maybe
this how do we make you're having a
biological experience so cool and so
infectious that it propagates and and
people come together hmm
um
you know first of all with regard to the
example you gave so yes
throughout history viciousness was an
effective way to build Empires but now
is nuclear weapons it's only a way to
destroy all of us
so the same way that AI is a game
changer in the same way that genetic
engineering is a game changer nuclear
weapons were also a game changer that
you can no longer conquer the world by
force the only thing you will achieve is
the annihilation of everything just to
be clear really fast on that all I'm
saying is that they became the tribe not
by being genetically Superior by having
a belief system that made them
Unstoppable yes so and and this now
becomes more and more dangerous to have
this kind of of belief system
um we need I mean again if if you have a
lot of people in the world different
groups with this kind of belief system
you end up with World War III and with
the type of weapons we now have not just
nuclear weapons but also increasingly Ai
and Robotics and so forth this is the
end of humanity unless the thing the
belief system that's powerful is one of
beauty I just don't know how to make
Beauty contagious in the way that the
will to power is contagious
well I don't either but
one thing that makes me hopeful is that
you don't see a kind of constant level
of violence throughout history you do
see periods of peace and periods of War
we just we we have just experienced as I
said earlier uh some of the most
peaceful decades in human history
so this this makes me hopeful
and
um we need to find ways to connect
people I don't think God is a good way
because different people have different
gods and you know coming from Israel
both sides believe in God but he tells
them different things and it tells the
Jews that Jerusalem is yours and he
tells the Muslims Jerusalem is yours and
then they fight over it and the tragedy
is that it's a completely unnecessary
conflict you know if it was some kind of
objective necessity like you have two
people alone on an island there is the
last apple or the last piece of bread
whoever gets it survives the other dies
then I say okay you know this is a
situation when conflict is maybe is
inevitable but this is not the case in
my country
there is enough food there is enough
Territory between the Mediterranean and
the Jordan River to feed and to house
everybody
humans usually don't really fight about
objective biological things the same way
that wolves or chimpanzees fight they
don't really fight about territory they
find about fantasies in their minds
that both sides have a fantasy about
Jerusalem which is just incompatible
with the the story with the mythology of
the other side and this is what they
fight about about the fantasy in their
in their mind I mean going back to the
to the metaverse in a way when you go to
Jerusalem I've I teach them at the
Hebrew University so it's a place like
with biological glasses of an ape you
see it's just like every other place you
have trees you have Stones you have
buildings it's the same like Los Angeles
like any other place
but then you put on a different set of
glasses you put on religious glasses and
you see angels and you see Divinity and
you see Sacred Stones and sacred trees
and everything is sacred
you know a sacred place is a place plus
a story about the place and this is at
the bottom of most conflicts in the
world also you look at again the Russian
invasion of Ukraine is it about
territory Russia is the biggest country
in the world the minimal territory this
is the thing they need more territory no
it's about the fantasies in in the head
I think that the more we come back to
the level of organ of the body of
biology the more common ground that we
have
throughout history you you you got the
opposite narrative what's up everybody
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first month you go to narrative again
from religions like Christianity that
the body is the source of all the bad
things in life
and the mind this is a kind of the uh
our most spiritual more beautiful better
part and most of the time it's the
opposite
that on the level of the body
we can relate to every other human being
in the world because biologically we are
the same
what creates this huge distance between
us is the fantasies that the mind
imagines and produces
so I I think that again if I have hope
for the for Humanity in the 21st century
is actually getting a little away from
our from thinking too much from from the
mind
and grounding ourselves a little more in
our body some of the things that are
happening technologically become a
little bit dangerous because you can
hack a human and if you could explain
what you mean by hacking a human and
then how do we end up hacking ourselves
in a positive way
well I think this is maybe the most
important thing to know about living
right now in the 21st century that we
are now hackable animals we have the
technology to decipher how humans or or
what do you think what you want to
predict human choices to manipulate
human Desires in ways which were never
possible before
basically to hack a human being you need
two things
you need a lot of data especially
biometric data not just about where you
go and what you buy but what is
happening inside your body and inside
your brain and secondly you need a lot
of computing power to make sense of all
that data now previously in history this
was never possible nobody had enough
data and enough computing power to hack
human beings even if the KGB of the
Gestapo followed you around 24 hours a
day eavesdropping on every conversation
you had watching everybody you meet
still they did not have the biological
knowledge
to really understand what's happening
inside you and they certainly didn't
have the computing power necessary to
make sense even of the data they were
able to collect
so the KGB could not really understand
you could not really predict all your
choices or manipulate all your desires
and so forth
and but now it's changing what the KGB
couldn't do corporations and governments
today are beginning to be able to do and
this is because of the merger of the
revolution in biotech we are getting
better in understanding what's happening
inside Us in the body in the brain and
at the same time the revolution in
infotech which gives us the computing
power necessary when you put the two
together when infotech merges with
biotech what you get is the ability to
create algorithms that understand me
better than I understand myself and then
these algorithms cannot just predict my
choices but also manipulate my desires
and basically sell me anything whether
it's a product or a politician and that
so that's what you're calling hacking
that you're hitting me with the right
emotional message at exactly the right
time based on my biometric data yeah
this is one of the things you can do
then you can predict you can manipulate
you can eventually also re-engineer or
replace if you really hack a system you
really understand how it functions then
usually you can also re-engineer it or
you can completely replace it and again
one of the dangers that we are facing
today in the 21st century is that
computers and AI would be able to
replace humans in more and more tasks
and maybe push millions of humans out of
the job market as a result all right so
I I fully understand the dangers and we
will talk about some of what we were
talking about off camera which is we've
got this whole story called neon future
where we're exploring that notion of
what happens to what you've called the
useless class when they're pushed out of
the job market what does that do
economically but go going just staying
with the the notion of the hackability
for a second so it's funny as you were
describing it and I know you bring the
sense of like uh there's some like real
significant problems we need to take a
very serious look at and I get almost
giddy with excitement because I have
potentially delusional levels of
optimism I'm very open to that no I
agree I mean the thing about this
ability to hack humans is that it has
also potentially tremendous positive
consequences and this is why it's so
tempting if it was only bad then it was
it would have been like an easy deal to
say okay we don't want that and let's
stop researching or going in that
direction but it is extremely tempting
because it can provide us for example
with the best health care in history
something which goes far beyond anything
we've seen so far this can mean that
maybe in 30 years the poorest person on
the planet can get a Better Health Care
from her or his smartphone than the
richest person today gets from the best
hospitals and the best doctors the kind
of things you can just know about what's
happening in your body
um is nothing like we've seen so far
yeah now that that's really
extraordinary and if you had to take the
positive look and say okay we have this
ability let's just say it's already
there we've got all this biometric data
it's kicking off
um how would you
encourage people to leverage that to
empower themselves and I'll use an
example that I found profoundly
interesting from your book so you said
that growing up that it was unclear to
you that you were gay but that now
Stanford has developed an algorithm that
essentially can look at three or four
photos of somebody's face and predict
with 91 accuracy whether or not they're
gay which seems impossible but if that's
true the level of data that we could
give ourselves about our like deepest
most hardwired desires there would be a
level of clarity there that seems useful
how would you encourage people to use
that well it's a very good example I
mean the Stanford algorithm actually
there is a lot of problems with that
research and let's put it aside but
first key message from from that is how
little people actually know about
themselves
and um one of the most important things
in my life and also in I think in my
scientific career was the realization of
how little I know about myself and
humans in general there was so many
important ideas and important facts we
don't realize about ourselves I was 21
when I finally realized that I was gay
which is you know when you think of it
it's it's absolutely amazing I mean it
should have been obvious at age you know
16 15 and an algorithm would have
realized it very quickly and you can
build algorithms like that today or in a
few years you just need to to follow
your eye movements like you you go on on
the beach or you look at the computer
screen and you see an attractive guy and
attractive girl and just follow the
focus of the eyes where do the eyes go
and whom do they focus on should be very
easy and such an algorithm could have
told when I was 15 that I was gay
and the implications are really
mind-boggling when an algorithm knows
such an important thing about you before
you know it about yourself now it can go
in all kinds of directions it really
depends on where you live and what you
do with it in some countries you can be
in trouble now with the police and the
government uh you might be sent to some
re-education facility
in some countries like with you know
surveillance capitalism so maybe I don't
know about myself that I'm game but
Coca-Cola knows I'm gay because they
have these algorithms and they want to
know that because they need to know
which commercials to show me let's say
Coca-Cola knows that I'm gay and I even
know it about myself that they know it
and Pepsi doesn't
Coca-Cola will show me a commercial with
a shirtless guy drinking Coca-Cola but
Pepsi will make the mistake of showing a
girl in the bikini and next day without
my realizing why when I go to the
supermarket when I go to the uh to the
restaurant I will order Coca-Cola not
Pepsi I don't know why but they know so
they might not even share this kind of
information with me now if the algorithm
does share the information with me again
it's it a lot depends on context one
scenario is that you're 15 years old you
go to a birthday party of somebody from
your class and somebody just heard that
there is this cool new algorithm which
tells you sexual orientation
and everybody agrees it will be a lot of
fun to just have this game that
everybody takes turn with the algorithm
and and everybody else looking and
seeing the results would you like to
discover about yourself in such a
scenario
this this can be quite quite a shocking
experience okay but even if it's done in
like complete privacy you know it's it's
a it's a very deep philosophical
question what does it mean to discover
something like that about yourself from
an algorithm
what what does it mean about human life
about human identity we have very little
experience with these kinds of things
you know from very ancient times
all the philosophers and Saints and
sages tell people to get to know
yourself better it's one of the maybe
the most important thing in life is to
get to know yourself better
but for all of history this was a
process of self-exploration which you
did through things like meditation and
maybe Sports and maybe art and
contemplation and all these things what
does it mean when the process of
self-exploration is being outsourced to
a big data algorithm and the
philosophical implications are quite
mind-boggling
it's interesting so let's talk about
that so the implications you're
Outsourcing the self-discovery process
to me that sounds so profoundly useful
because all day the people that write
into me they're asking basically one
essential question how do I find the
thing that I love because I tell people
you need to develop a passion in your
life I don't think you find it I think
you develop it but they need to start
from an area of real interest it needs
to be actually something that at a hard
wiring level they're just they get that
response so their next question is like
how right how do I get into that how do
I discover the thing that triggers me
like that and if I discover it then how
do I develop it into a passion if you
had an algorithm something that we're
able to
use the more manipulative techniques
that you were talking about that
Coca-Cola is doing or whatever but give
it to you in a way that can move you in
a desired Direction so I'll give you a
specific example that you give in the
book so talking about how let's say
there was an algorithm that knew you'd
just broken up with somebody knew that
you were in the grips Of Heartache
because they're they're reading your
Biometrics in fact give it to us that
that example that you you put so the
Biometrics they're reading you the it's
the song it knows what songs to pick
yeah I mean so something is as simple as
choosing music so you you will just get
dumped by your boyfriend or girlfriend
and the the algorithm that controls uh
the music that you listen to chooses the
songs that are the best fit for your
current mental state and of course this
brings up the the question of what is
the Matrix what do you actually want
from the music do you want the music to
uplift you or do you want the music to
kind of connect you to the deepest level
of sadness and depression
and ultimately we can say that the
algorithm can follow different kinds of
instructions if you know what kind of
emotional state you want to be in you
can just tell the algorithm what what
you want and it will do it if you are
not sure you can tell the algorithm
follow the recommendation of the best
psychologists today so let's say you
have the five stages of grief
so okay walk me with music through these
five stages of grief and the algorithm
can do that better than any human DJ and
what we really need to understand in in
this regard is that what music and most
of art plays on in the end is the human
biochemical system at least according to
the dominant view of out in the modern
Western World we had different views in
different cultures but in the modern
Western World the idea of art is that
out is above all about inspiring human
emotions it doesn't necessarily have to
be Joy great art can Inspire also
sadness can can Inspire anger can
Inspire fear it can be a whole palate of
emotional states but out is about
inspiring human emotions so the
instrument
artists play on and whether it's
musicians or poets or Movie Makers they
are actually playing on the homo sapiens
biochemical system
and we might reach a point quite soon
when an algorithm knows this instrument
better than any human artist a movie or
a poem or a song
that will not move you that will not
inspire you might inspire me and
something that will inspire me in one
situation might not inspire me in
another situation and as time goes on
and the algorithm gathers more and more
data about me it will become more and
more accurate in reading my biochemical
system and knowing how to play on it as
if it was a piano like okay you want joy
I press this button and out comes the
perfect song the only song in the world
that can actually make me joyful right
now
that's so interesting to me alright so
right now real world you can snap your
fingers and you can have one algorithm
that's tied to one uh biochemical
process in your life for real what would
you want to Monitor and get that
feedback on no that's easy I mean a
health care if there is like something
seriously wrong in my body that I don't
know about like I don't know cancer or
something I would like the algorithm to
find that out I don't want to wait until
I mean the usual process
is that it has to go through your own
mind you can't Outsource it I mean today
when you need to diagnose cancer there
are exceptions but in most cases there
is a crucial moment when you feel
something is wrong in my body and you go
to this doctor and that doctor and and
you do this test and that test until
they finally realize okay we just
discovered you have cancer in your liver
or whatever
um but because it relies on your own
feelings in this case feelings of pain
very often uh it it's quite late in the
process
by the time you start feeling pain
usually the cancer has spread and maybe
it's not too late but it's going to be
expensive and painful and problematic to
treat it
but if we can you know Outsource this
don't go through the Mind through the
through my my feelings I want an
algorithm that with biometric sensors is
monitoring my health 24 hours a day
without my being aware of it
it can potentially discover this liver
cancer but it is just a tiny just a few
cells are beginning to to to to to split
and to spread and it's so easy and cheap
and painless to take care of it now
instead of two years later when it's
already spread and it's it's a big
problem so this is something that I
think almost everybody would sign on to
and this is the big Temptation because
it comes with the whole other the long
tail of dangers I mean this algorithm
that the the the Healthcare System knows
almost everything about you
so one of the biggest battles in the
21st century is likely to be between
privacy and health
and I guess that health is going to win
most people will be willing to give up a
very significant amount of privacy in
exchange for far better Healthcare now
we do need to try and and enjoy both
worlds to create a system that give us a
very good health care but without
compromising our privacy keeping the yes
you can use the data to tell me that
there is a problem and and we should do
this or that to solve it but I don't
want this data to be used for other
purposes without my knowing it whether
we can reach such a balance and like you
know have your cake and eat it too
that's a big political question
I have a hypothesis I know you don't
believe that history repeats but that
humans do have a biology we have a
nature humans are like something
and I think there's two things man and
this is like a random entrepreneur
stabbing in the dark here but I've
engaged with people enough that I'm
pretty confident that I'm on the right
track I think there's two things that
lead to this kind of thing where we're
fighting over something that in the end
really isn't that important one some
people need to be chased by a lion so
without an extrinsic real danger that
forces you to be like yo we may not see
eye to eye but you can help me keep my
family safe and in return I will help
you keep your family safe without that
that impulse to protect or whatever goes
awry or just that they can't handle
boredom something we talked about
briefly before it started rolling and
then there the other thing is
Nietzsche's Will To Power and yeah I did
not understand
the culture War until I started reading
about Nietzsche and the idea that we
have we want to it can manifest
beautifully we want to get better we
want to improve we want that control
over our life to to manifest what we
could be
but then there's also the toll booth
person that isn't going to let you
through if you don't have exact change
because they can and that they get to
feel that sense of okay I matter I I
have some control over the world and
that desire to have power coupled with
there's nothing real to fight against
puts humans in a very weird situation
where they will pick up on minor things
and we just run in opposite directions
so that we have the expression of
the will to power now I am new to
Nietzsche so I do not claim to fully
understand him but it seems like he saw
it as a pretty broad spectrum it could
be a beautiful thing it could be an ugly
Petty thing
so I don't want to paint it with like
these dark overtones and wolves howling
in the background but like that it can
manifest in a pretty ugly way I I
completely agree that much of what we
see now is not an ideological battle
it's uh certain politicians
uh who as you say that what is driving
them is power not ideology and they are
using
um divisive
issues
you know the way to gain power is to
take a certain issue and politicize it
and they they are searching for issues
that can get people enraged that can and
then harnessed harness this energy to
get to power so a lot of the issues that
you know people are fighting over if
they were de-politicized
they could have been solved much more
easily
but you take these issues and you turn
them into these big ideological battles
and then nobody wants to to back down
and become this tribal Affair and this
is the the way that these leaders are
right to power and and again we see it
so many times in history it's really
terrible I think that the job of leaders
should be actually to heal the community
to bring it together
and this is why also I think that you
know many people today say that uh that
we see the research the Resurgence of
nationalism all over the world but
actually much of the world you see a
crisis of nationalism and the Resurgence
of tribalism of tearing Nations into
their components and destroying actually
the national Community like I said
before nationalism when it is understood
correctly it's a Force for good in the
world the basic kind of message of
nationalism is uh the the ability to
care about people you don't know which
is amazing you know from a biological
perspective we are kind of programmed to
care about a very small number of people
that we know personally our family our
friends and to prefer them over
everybody else
and the big task of nationalism is to
come and say and say to us no there is a
much larger community of people that you
need to care about so for instance you
take money away from your family
and you give it to build a healthcare
system this is these are taxes so that
strange people that you never met in
your life on the other side of the
country you'll never meet them but
because you're a good Patriot and you
care about them you pay your taxes
honestly so that they get some basic
health care or education or a sewage
system
and
um similarly like you now I don't know
you're a mayor or you're a a prime
minister or something and you need to
appoint somebody for a job
and you have two options you have your
cousin
which is not qualified at all but he's
your cousin man and you have like a very
qualified person who is a stranger
millions of years of evolution are
screaming in your ear are you an idiot
give it to your cousin
but patriotism tells you no you should
give the job to the qualified person
because they would do a better job for
the community
and that's that's the the the the the
the the good side
of of nationalism
and what we see now in many parts of the
world is politicians who describe
themselves as nationalists but they are
actually not trying to create
uh uh Harmony in the National Community
they don't strengthen the national
Community they tear it apart
they deliberately look for any crack for
any wound in kind of the national body
here there's a problem this is something
that people don't agree on and instead
of trying to heal it they kind of poke
their finger into it and try to enlarge
it as much as possible to inflame it
because if this is their ticket to power
and in this way they destroy the
national community
and uh turn the nation into boring
tribes and then they Place themselves at
the head of One Tribe
and tell people you have to follow me
otherwise the other tribe will Destroyer
and you're completely right this is
simply uh the will to power it works we
see unfortunately in many parts of the
world we see that it is working not just
in the U.S I mean though elections this
this week in Brazil the elections are
next week in my country in Israel it's
exactly the same
instead of leaders who are trying to
heal the national Community you see
leaders that try to destroy it and get
power by kind of leading Just One Tribe
yeah this is why like I'm a super
optimistic guy as I was saying before we
started rolling like when it comes to AI
the metaverse all that stuff you're
gonna have to slap me back to reality
because I'm so optimistic but on this I
am pessimistic only because when I look
at the human animal and the way that
we're wired and what biology tells us to
do
I don't see it feels like a positive
feedback loop that has been magnified a
thousand-fold by social media and so now
information is coming at us so fast it's
mimified so it becomes very easy to
digest yeah I have a level of confusion
because so much is coming at me
if I feel insecure nothing from a
biology perspective nothing is more
intoxicating than the certainty of
righteous indignation so the reason that
somebody can acquire Power by poking at
something is they're telling me exactly
how to feel about something very
concrete and so it's like you should
hate those people because they have guns
you should hate those people because
they believe in abortion you should hate
those people because on and on and so it
now in all of my confusion I have
absolute certainty
and through a weird Quirk of evolution
that calms my mind and distracts me from
all the like internal emotional turmoil
that I was having and it's like
the only way that I see that running its
course so that we it's like labor once a
woman goes into labor there is no
stopping it she's either going to die or
she's going to give birth to the child
those are your two options there's
nothing in between yeah because you're
you're in that positive feedback loop I
feel like and Lord knows I want you to
tell me that we're not but I feel like
we're in a positive feedback loop right
now of people racing away from each
other
and the only way that they will come
back to the middle is through enough
suffering and every war proves that
after a while you just don't want to
fight anymore and you've seen too many
people die and it's like oh my God this
is so horrible now I'm willing to
compromise now I'm willing to come back
to the table
and if you see a way out of this because
I am a big believer in Nelson Mandela
when I read long walk to Freedom that
changed me at some deep fundamental
level where he was like hey they
imprisoned me for 27 years and what's my
answer when I come back out to find what
I've heard you refer to as a middle way
so way number one is to remain oppressed
clearly he wasn't prepared to do that
way number two is to become the
oppressor and he was like you give up
your Humanity when you become the
oppressor so he's like you might be in
power but you give something up that's
not worth giving up the Third Way the
way in the middle is to heal people to
bring them back together and so I'm like
if he can do that like none of us have
an excuse
but I don't think that we can I think he
was such a freakishly rare human I just
don't know who we turn to
less optimistic about the metaverse and
all that and we'll discuss this in a
minute but but I'm more optimistic we
can trade optimism yeah I'm the opposite
I'm more optimistic about I mean not
like terribly optimistic but a little
more optimistic about our chances you
know kind of politically and and so
forth first of all I look at the long
term process of History uh we started
tens of thousands of years ago hundreds
of thousands of years ago is isolated
bands I mean a hundred thousand years
ago you have humans living in small
hunter-gatherer bands of a few dozen
individuals
and over history you see that the
direction is very very clear humans find
ways to trust More and More Strangers to
come together into larger and larger
groups even though kind of evolution
evolutionarily it makes no sense
I mean we are programmed to trust just a
very very small number of individuals
that we know personally and yet we have
our Nations we have countries of
hundreds of millions of people if we
have a trade Network which covers
basically the entire globe
so humans find ways how to uh uh to to
to overcome these Tendencies and to
develop Trust
and when you look specifically even at
the issue of violence and War the last
few decades have been the most peaceful
era in human history
now I know there have been conflicts and
and wars in the last few decades I come
from Israel you don't need to tell me I
lived in the Middle East all my life but
when you look at the statistics
it's the most peaceful era in human
history it's an era when humans had more
chance to die from eating too much
than from human violence
in most of the world it became
unacceptable for one country to just
invade and Conquer its neighbors because
it's it's stronger
um you see it in the state budgets maybe
in better than any other place for most
of History the number one item on the
budget of every King and South and
Emperor is the Army the Army the Navy
the fortresses the military
in recent decades the average
expenditure of governments all over the
world together the average on the
military is about six percent wow that's
amazing because this is what enabled the
resources to shift to again education
welfare uh Healthcare most countries
spend much more on Education Health Care
and Welfare than they spend other than
on their military you can reboot your
life your health even your career
anything you want all you need is
discipline I can teach you the tactics
that I learned while growing a billion
dollar business that will allow you to
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and that tells us that it's possible now
we shouldn't be complacent and think
that oh this is now that's it we have
peace we can just relax no peace didn't
come from some changing the laws of
nature or because of divine intervention
it came because people countries built
good institutions not just on a national
level but on the international level it
is 1945 countries have built a
rule-based uh International System which
had many problems but still managed to
provide more peace than in any pre