Kind: captions
Language: en
Donald Trump was probably the biggest
person ever to be removed from social
media do you understand why that was
done Can you steal man the case for it
and against it everybody who's watching
this around the world basically saw
let's say us establishment or democrat
alligned folks just decapitate you know
the head of state from digitally right
like just boom gone okay and they're
like well if they can do that in public
to the US president who's ably the most
powerful in the world what does the
Mexican president stand against that
nothing regardless of whether it was
Justified on this guy that means they
will do it to anybody now the seal is
broken just like the bailouts as
exceptional as they were and the first
everybody was shocked by them then they
became a policy instrument and now
there's bailouts happening every single
bill is printing another whatever
billion dollars or something like
that the following is a conversation
with bology s Nason an angel investor
Tech founder philosopher and author of
the network State how to start a new
country he was formerly the CTO of
coinbase and general partner at Andre
harwoods this conversation is over 7
hours for some folks that's too long for
some too short for some just right there
are chapter timestamps there are Clips
so you can jump around or like I prefer
to do with podcasts and audio books I
enjoy you can sit down relax with a
loved human animal or consumable
substance or all three if you like and
enjoy the ride from start to finish
biology is a fascinating mind who thinks
deeply about this world and how we might
be able to engineer it in order to
maximize the possibility that Humanity
flourishes on this fun little planet of
ours also you may notice that in this
conversation my eye is red that's from
Jiu-Jitsu and also if I may say so from
a life well
lived this is Alex Freedman podcast to
support it please check out our sponsors
in the description and now dear friends
here's biy
sason at the core of your belief system
is something you call the uh prime
number maze I'm curious I'm curious we
got we got to start there if we can
start anywhere it's with mathematics
let's go all right great a rat can be
trained to turn at every even number or
every third number in a maze to to get
some cheese but evidently it can't be
trained to turn at prime numbers 2 three
five 7 and then 11 and so on and so
forth that's just too abstract and
frankly if most humans were dropped into
a prime number maze they probably
wouldn't be able to figure it out either
you know they'd have to start counting
and so actually pretty difficult to
figure out what the the Turning you know
rule was yet the rule is actually very
simple and so the thing I think about a
lot is just how many patterns in life
are we just like these rats and we're
trapped in a prime number Maze and if we
had just a little bit more you know
cogitation if we had you know a little
bit more cognitive ability a little bit
more whether it's uh you know brain
machine interface or just better physics
we could just figure out the next step
in that Prime we could just see it we
could just see the grid right and that's
what I think about like that that's a
big thing that drives me
is figuring out how we can actually
conceive understand that prime number
maze that we're living in so understand
which patterns are just complex enough
that they are beyond the limit of human
cognition yes and uh what do you make of
that are the limits of human cognition a
feature or a
bug I think mostly a bug I admire
ranagen I admire uh you know fine men I
admired these great mathematicians and
physicists who were just able to see
things that others couldn't and just by
writing it down you know that's that's a
Leap Forward you know people talk about
it's not the idea it's execution but
that's for trivial ideas for great ideas
for Max's equations or n's laws or you
know Quantum electrodynamics or some of
ronen's identities that really does
bring us forward especially when you can
check them you don't know how they work
right you have the phenomenal logical
but you don't have the theory underneath
it and then that stimulates the
advancement of theory to figure out why
is this thing actually working that's
that's actually you know statch you know
arose in part from the kind of
phenomenological studies that were
basically being done where people are
just getting steam engines and so on to
work and then they kind of abstracted
out thermodynamics and so on from that
right so the the practice led the theory
rather than vice versa to some extent
that's happening in neural networks now
as you're aware right and I think that's
um so just something that's true and
that works you if we don't know yet
that's amazing and that pulls us forward
so I I do think that the limits are are
more of a bug than a feature is
something that humans will never be able
to figure out about our universe about
the theory about the practice of our
universe yeah people will typically
quote cell's incompleteness with for
such a question and uh yeah there are
things that are provably unknowable or
provably unprovable um but I think you
can often get an approximate solution
you know the the hbert you know you know
Hilbert's problems like we will know we
must know uh at least we should know
that we can know push to get at least an
approximate solution push to know that
we no at least we push back that
Darkness enough so that we have lit up
that corner of the intellectual Universe
okay let's actually take a bit of a
tangent and explore bit in a way that I
did not expect we would but let's talk
about the nature of reality briefly I
don't know if you're familiar with the
work of Don Hoffman no I don't I know
Roger Penrose has like his Road to
Reality series for like basic physics
getting up to everything we know but go
ahead tell me it's even Wilder yeah in
modern physics we start to question of
what is fundamental and what is emergent
in this beautiful Universe of ours and
there's a bunch of folks who think that
SpaceTime as we know it the
four-dimensional space is emergent it's
not fundamental to the physics of the
universe and the same many argue I think
Sean Carol is one of them is that time
itself the way we experience it is also
emergent it's not fundamental to the way
our universe works anyway those are uh
the technical term I apologize for
swearing those are the mind fucks of uh
modern physics but if we stroll along
that road further we get somebody like
Donald Hoffman who makes the
evolutionary case that the reality we
perceive with our eyes is not only an
abstraction of objective reality but
it's actually completely detached like
we're in a video game essentially that's
uh consistent between each uh consistent
for All Humans but it doesn't it's not
at all connected to physical reality so
it's an version of the simulation
hypothesis is that his in a very distant
way
but uh the simulation says that there's
a sort of computational nature to
reality and then there's a kind of a
programmer that creates this reality and
so on now he's he says that we humans
have a brain that is able to perceive
the
environment and uh evolution is produced
from primitive life to complex life on
Earth produce the kind of brain that
doesn't at all need to sense the reality
uh directly so like this table according
to Donald Hoffman is not there well so
like not not just as an abstraction like
we don't sense the molecules that make
up the table but all of this is fake
interesting so I you know I I tend to be
more of a hard science person right and
so um you know so just on that people
talk about qualia you know like is your
perception of green the different from
different from my perception of green
and you know my counterargument on that
is well we know something about you know
spectrum of light and we can build
artificial eyes and if we can build
artificial eyes which we can you know
they're like they're not amazing but you
can actually you can do that you can
build artificial ears and so on
obviously we can build recording devices
and you know for cameras and things like
that well operationally the whole
concept of your perception of green you
see green as purple I see green is green
or what I call Green doesn't seem to add
up because it does seem like we can do
engineering around it right so the
Hoffman thing I get why people more
broadly will talk about a simulation
hypothesis because you know it's like
fan many others have talked about how uh
math is surprisingly useful to describe
the world you know like very simple
equations give rise to these complex
phenomena wfr is also on this um from
from a different angle with the cellular
autometer stuff but um it's almost
suspicious how well it works yeah but on
the other hand it's like uh you know it
it is yet we're still also in a prime
number maze you know there's things we
just don't understand and um you know so
Al so the within the constraints of the
non-prime numbers we find math to be
extremely effective surprisingly
effective yeah exactly so maybe maybe
the math we have gets us through the
equivalent of the even turns and the odd
turns but there's math we don't yet have
that is more complex or more complex
rules for otherwi just play all R just
rats and OCC I know that gets like very
abstract but you know there are unsolved
problems and in physics you know like
the condensed matter space there's a lot
of interesting stuff happening my
recollection I maybe you know out of
date on this like things like son and
luminescence we don't know exactly how
they work and sometimes those things
that are like at the edges of physics
you know in the late 1800s I think
Rutherford somebody I think it rord said
you know basically all physics is being
discovered Etc and that was obviously
before quantum mechanics you know that
that sort of edge case people looking at
the bomber and the passion series and
seeing you know this weird thing you
know with with the hydrogen spectrum and
it was quantized and you know that led
to uh like the sort of phenomenological
set of observations that led to quantum
mechanics and and and everything and you
know sometimes I think the UAP stuff
might be like that right people
immediately go to aliens for UAP like
the unidentified aerial phenomena right
and people have been uh there's
surprising amount of stuff out there on
this the UK has Declassified a bunch of
material you know Harry Reid was a
sendor has talked about this it's not an
obviously it's not an obviously
political thing it it which is good it's
something that is is there something
happening there right and people had
thought for a long time that the UAP
thing was a like American um kind of
counter propaganda to cover up their new
spy planes that were spying over the
Soviet Union to make anybody who talked
about them seem you know crazy and and
and hysterical or whatever but if the
UAP thing is real it could be
atmospheric phenomena like you know like
the Aurora Borealis or the northern
lights but some things we don't
understand it could be something like
the uh the bomber and passion series uh
you know which were the observations of
like emission Spectra before quantum
mechanics so that's like another option
as opposed to doesn't exist or Little
Green Men it could be physics we don't
understand yet as one possibility do you
think there's alien civilizations out
there so there's a lot of folks who have
kind of ridden and talked about this is
you know the Drake equation which is
like you know the multiplying all the
probabilities together there's perhaps
more sophisticated takes like the uh the
Dark Forest you know which says that if
the universe is like a dark Forest we're
the dumb ones that aren't hiding our
presence um there's one calculation I
saw I haven't reproduced it myself but
basically says that the uh the
assumption that other civilizations have
seen ours is wrong because when you have
like a spherical radius for like the you
know electromagnetic radiation that's
leaving our planet as that sphere gets
larger and larger it gets like smaller
and smaller amounts of energy so you
know you get farther out you're you're
not getting enough um you know uh you
know photons or or what have you to to
actually uh detect it um you know I
don't know I actually haven't looked
into the math behind it but I remember
remember seeing that argument so
actually it is possible that it's so
diffuse when you go past a certain you
know number of light years out that
people you know then alien civilization
wouldn't be able to detect it right
that's that's another argument that's
more basically about signals from them
from us to be able to signals colliding
enough to uh find the signal from the
noise right exactly intelligence signal
yeah Hansen Hansen has an article called
grabby aliens um have you seen his thing
this right and so there he's been on
this podcast oh great he's brilliant I
like him he he pushes you know
boundaries in interesting ways in every
ways in all of the ways in all the ways
that's right I I I like him overall he's
he's you know he he's an net Andy grabby
aliens so he he has he has this
interesting idea that uh the
civilizations uh quickly learn how to
travel close to the speed of light right
so we're not going to see them until
they're
here yeah that's possible I mean one of
the things is so here's for example a
mystery that we haven't yet Done Right
which or we haven't really figured out
yet which is um a biogenesis in the lab
right we've done lots of things where we
you've got you can show macro molecules
binding to each other you can show you
know evidence for the so-called RNA
world abiogenesis is to go from you know
like non-life to life right in the lab
you can show micro Evolution obviously
with bacteria you can do artificial
selection on them lots of other aspects
of um you know fundamental you know
biochemistry origins of Life stuff have
been established there's a lot of
plausibility arguments about the
Primitive environment and nitrogens and
carbons snapping together to get you
know the you know the RNA world is the
the the initial hypothesis but to my
knowledge at least we haven't actually
seen a biogenesis demonstrated now one
argument is you need just like this
massive world with uh you know so many
different reps before that actually
happens and um one possibility is if we
could do atomic level you know
simulations of molecules bouncing
against each other it's possible that in
some simulation we could find a path a
reproducible path a biogenesis and then
just you know replicate that in the lab
right um I I don't know okay uh but that
seems to me to be like a mystery that we
still don't fully understand like an
example of the prime number maze right
one of the most fascinating Mysteries
one of the most important y yeah and and
again there may be some biochemist who's
like oh B you you know about X Y and Z
that happened in the aogen field I I
freely confess I'm not like at you know
urant on it the last thing I remember
looking at it isant mean like up to the
moment oh nice that's a nice word that's
a aant yeah I'm probably mispronouncing
it but um we'll edit it and post to
pronounce correctly with AI yeah yeah we
we'll copy your voice and you will
pronounce it perfectly correctly yeah in
post one thing that I do think was
interesting is uh Craig Venter a while
back tried to make a minimum viable cell
um where he just tried to delete all of
the genes that were that were not
considered essential and so it's like a
new life form and this was like almost
20 years ago and so on and that thing
was a was was viable in the lab right
and so it's possible that you could you
kind of reverse engineer so you're
coming at the problem from different
directions like RNA molecules can do
quite a lot you've got some you know
reasonable assumptions as to how that
could come together uh you've got like
sort of strip down minimum viable life
forms and so there's it's not there
isn't stuff here you can see micro
Evolution you can see at the sequence
level you know if you do molecular
phalogenics you can actually track back
the bases there's actually so it's not
like there's no evidence here there's a
lot of tools to work with but this in my
view is a fascinating area and actually
also relevant to AI because another form
of a biogenesis would be if we were able
to give rise to a different branch of
life form the Silicon based as opposed
to carbon based you know to to stretch a
point um you give rise to something that
actually does meet the definition of
life for some definition of life right
what do you think that definition is for
an artificial life form because you
mentioned Consciousness yeah when will
it give us pause that we created
something that
feels by some definition or by some
spiritual poetic romantic philosophical
mathematical definition that it is alive
right and we would want to kill it so
couple of remarks on that one is um
Francis Crick of of Watson and Crick uh
before he died I think his last paper
was published on something called the
claustrum okay and the thing is that you
know sometimes in biology or in any you
know domain people are sort of
discouraged from going after the big the
big questions right but he proposed the
claustrum is actually the organ that is
the seat of Consciousness it's like this
sheath that like covers the brain and uh
for mice if you and and again I may be
recollecting this wrong so but you can
look better it my recollection is um in
mice if you disrupt this the mouse is
like very disoriented right it's like it
it's the kind of thing which you know
Watson and Crick were all about
structure implies function right they
found the structure of DNA this amazing
thing and you know they remarked In This
Very under understated way at the end of
the paper that well obviously this uh
gives a basis for how the genetic
material might be replicated and error
corrected because you know Helix un
wines and you CAU right so he was a big
structure function person and that
applies not just at the protein level
not just at the level of DNA but
potentially also at the level of organs
like the claustrum is kind of this
system integrating level right it's like
the the last layer in the neural network
or something you know um and uh and so
that's that's a kind of thing that I
think is worth studying um so
Consciousness is another kind of big a
biogenesis is a big question the prime
number am Consciousness is a big
question um and uh you know than
definition of life right uh there's
folks gosh there's I think so this one
is something I'd have to Google around
but there was a guy I think at Santa Fe
Institute or something who had some
definition of life and like some
thermodynamic definition um but you're
right that it's going to be a
multi-feature definition we might have a
touring test like definition frankly
which is just if enough humans agree
it's alive it's alive right and that
might frankly be the operational
definition because you know viruses are
like this boundary case you know are
they are they alive or not most people
don't think they're alive but they're
they're they're on they're kind of
they're more alive than a rock in a
sense well I think uh in a world that
we'll talk about today quite a bit which
is the digital world I think the most
fascinating philosophically and
technically definition of Life Is Life
in the digital world mhm so
chatbots essentially creatures whether
they're replicas of humans or totally
independent Creations perhaps in an
automatic way I think there's going to
be chat Bots that would ethically be
troubled by if we wanted to kill them
they would have the capacity to suffer
they would be very unhappy with you
trying to turn them off and then there
will be large groups of activists that
will protest and they'll go to the
Supreme Court of whatever the Supreme
Court looks like in in uh 10 20 30 40
years and they will uh demand that these
chat Bots would have the same rights as
us humans do you think that's possible I
saw that Google engineer who was
basically saying this had already
happened and I I I was surprised by it
because it just I when I looked at the
chat logs of it it didn't seem
particularly interesting on other hand I
can definitely see I mean gp3 for people
who you know haven't paying attention
shows that serious step ups are possible
and obviously you know you've talked
about a in your podcast a ton um is it
possible that GPT 9 or something is is
kind of like that or gpt1 15 or GPT 4
maybe but you for people just listening
there's a deep skepticism in your face
yeah you know the reason being
because um you know what's possible is
possible that you have like a partition
of society on literally this basis you
know um that's one model where there's
some people just like there's
vegetarians and non-vegetarians right
there may be
um machines have life and machines are
machines you know like or something like
that right uh you know you could you
could definitely imagine some kind of
partition like that in the future where
your fundamental political social system
that's a foundational assumption and you
know is a a i does it you know deserve
the same rights as like a human or for
example a corporation is in intermediate
uh do you see that thing which is how
human is are different corporations have
you seen that infographic it's actually
funny so it's like Spectrum there's a
spectrum so for example Disney is
considered about as human as like a dog
but like exgon I may remembering this
wrong but they had like a level with
like human at one end and like rock at
the other do have to do with corporate
structure what what I think it's about
people's empathy for that Corporation
their brand identity but it's
interesting to see that first of all
people sort of do think of Corporations
as being more or Le like The Branding is
really what they're responding to well
that's what I mean they're also
responding you know I have a brand of
human that I'm trying to sell MH and it
seems to be effective for the most part
sure although it has become like a
running joke that I might be a robot
right which means there's the brand is
cracking could it's seeping through but
I mean in that sense I just
I think uh I don't see a reason why
chatbots can't manufacture the brand of
Being Human of being sensient I mean
that is the touring test but it's like
the multiplayer touring test now that
actually a fair number of chat Bots have
pass the touring test I'd say there's at
least two steps up right one is um a
multiplayer touring test where you have
chatbots talking to each other and then
you ask can you determine the difference
between in chat Bots talking to each
other and clicking buttons and stuff and
apps and and humans doing that and I
think we're very far off I shouldn't say
very far off at least I don't know how
far off we are in terms of time but
we're still far off in terms of a group
of End chat Bots looking like their
digital output is like the group of
Inhumans like a go from the T Test to
the multiplayer T Test that's one
definition another definition is you
know to be able to kind of swap in and
you're not just convincing one human
that this is a human for a small you
know session you're convincing all
humans that this is a human for end
sessions remote work actually makes this
possible right that's another definition
of a multiplayer Turing test where
basically you have a chatbot that's
fully automated that is earning money
for you as an intelligent agent on a
computer that's able to go and get
remote work jobs and so on I would
consider that next level right if you
could have something that was like that
that was competent enough to I me
because everything on the computer can
be automated right literally you could
be totally hands-free just like
autonomous driving you could have
autonomous earning as a challenge
problem if you were Microsoft or apple
and you had legitimate access to the
operating system just like apple says
can you send me details of this event a
decentralized thing could in theory log
you know the actions of 10,000 or
100,000 or a million people and with
cryptocurrency you could even monitor a
wallet that was on that computer and you
could see you know what long run series
of actions were increasing or decreasing
this digital balance you see what I'm
saying right so you start to get at
least conceptually it'd be invasive and
and you know there' be a privacy issue
and so on conceptually you could imagine
an agent that could learn what actions
humans were doing that resulted in the
increase of their local cryptocurrency
balance okay there may be better ways to
formulate it but that I consider a
challenge problem is to go from the
touring test to a genuine intelligent
agent that can actually go and make
money for you if you can do that that's
a big deal people obviously have trading
Bots and stuff but that would be you
know the next level it's typing out
emails it's creating documents it's
actually it'll mimic human behavior in
its entirety yeah that's right and it
can it'll schedule zooms it'll send
emails it'll essentially because if you
think about it a human is hitting the
keys and clicking the mouse but just
like a self-driving car the wheel
rotates by itself right those keys are
effectively just it's like a like the
automator app in in apple right um
everything's just on the screen you're
seeing it there and it's just an AI it's
kind of hilarious that the I'm not a
robot click thing actually works cuz I I
I actually don't know how how that's
happen how it works but I think it has
to do with the movement of the mouse the
timing and they know that it's very
difficult for currently for a bot to
mimic human behavior in the way they
would click that little checkbox yeah
exactly I think it's something I mean uh
again my recollection on that is it's
like a pile of Highly OB fiscated
JavaScript with all kind it looks like a
very simple box but it's doing a lot of
stuff and it's collecting all kinds of
instrumentation and yeah exactly like a
like a robot is just a little too
deterministic or if it's got noise it's
like gaussian noise and the way humans
do it is just not something that you'd
eily be able to do without collecting
thousands and thousands and thousands of
human traces doing it but it is a
predator prey on that goad and then the
computer or millions of human traces I
don't know the computer just sees the
JavaScript it needs to be able to
look outside the simulation for the
computer the world is like it doesn't
the computer doesn't know about the
physical world so has to look outside of
its world and introspect back on this
simple box right is which is kind of you
know I think that's exactly what
mushrooms do or like psychedelics is you
get to go outside and look back in and
that's what a computer needs to do I you
know I do wonder whether they actually
give people Insight or they give people
the illusion of insight um is there a
difference yeah because well actual
Insight you know actual Insight is again
maxell's equations you're you're able to
shift the world with that there's a lot
of practical devices that work the
illusion of insight is I'm Jesus Christ
and nothing happens right so I don't
know I think those are quite different
uh I don't know I I think you can fake
it till you make it on that one which is
um Insight in some sense is revealing a
truth that was there all along yeah so I
mean I guess like I'm talking about
technical Insight where you you have
this is the thing you know we were
talking about actually before the
podcast like technical truths versus
political truths right some truths
they're they're on a spectrum and
there's some truths that are actually
entirely political in the sense that if
you can change the software in enough
people's heads you change the the value
of the truth for example the location of
a border is effectively consensus
between large enough groups of people uh
who is the CEO that's you know consensus
a certain group of people what is the
value of a currency or any stock right
that that market price is just the
psychology of a bunch of people like
literally if you can change enough
people's minds you can change the value
of the Border or the position of the
hierarchy or the value of the currency
those are purely political truths then
all the way on the other end are
technical truths that exist independent
of whatever any one human or All Humans
think like uh the gravitational constant
right or the diameter of a virus those
those are just those exist independent
of the human mind changing few Minds
doesn't matter those those remain
constant and um then you have things
that are interestingly in the Middle
where cryptocurrency has tried to pull
more and more things from the domain of
political truds into technical truds
where they say okay the one social
convention we have is um that if you
hold this amount of Bitcoin or or that
if you hold this private key you hold
this Bitcoin and then we make that very
hard to change because you have to
change a lot of technical TRS so you can
push things to this interesting
intermediate Zone the question is how
how how much of our world can we push
into that right and that takes
us in a nonlinear fascinating Journey to
the question I wanted to ask you in the
beginning which is um this political
world that you mention in the world of
political truth as we know it in the
20th century in the early 24st Century
what do you think works well and what is
broken about government the fun thing is
that we can't easily and peacefully
start new opt-in governments and like
startup governments yeah and what do I
mean by that is basically
um you can start a new company you can
start a new community you can start a
new currency even these days you don't
have to beat the former CEO in a duel to
start a new company um you don't have to
become head of the World Bank to start a
new currency okay um because of this yes
if you can if if you're if you want to
you can join I don't
know uh Microsoft or name some company
that's a GameStop and you can try to
reform it okay or you can start your own
and the fact that both options exist
mean that you know you've you can
actually just start from scratch and
that's just I mean the same reason we
have a clean piece of paper right I
mentioned this actually in in the
network State book I'll just quote this
bit but we want to be able to start a
new state peacefully for the same reason
we want a bare plot of Earth a blank
sheet of paper an empty text buffer a
fresh starp or a clean slate because we
want to build something new without
historical constraint right for the same
reason you hit plus and do docs. new you
know like create a new Doc it's for the
same reason right because you don't to
backspace you don't to have just like
128 bytes of space 128 kilobytes and
just have to backspace the old document
before creating the new one so that's a
fundamental thing that's wrong with
today's governments and it's a meta
point right because it's not any one
specific reform it's a meta reform being
able to start new countries okay so
that's one problem but there you know
you could push back and say that's
that's a feature because you know a lot
of people argue that tradition is power
through generation if you try a thing
long enough which is the way I see
marriage there's value to the struggle
and the journey you take through the
struggle and you grow and you develop
ideas together you grow intellectually
philosophically together and that's the
idea of a Nations that spans Generations
that you have have a tradition that
becomes
more that that strives towards the truth
and is able to arrive there or no not
arrive but take steps towards there
through the generations so you may not
want to keep starting new governments
you may want
to uh stick to the old one and uh
improve it one step at a time so just
because you're having a fight inside a
marriage doesn't mean you should get a
divorce and go on Tinder and started
dating around that's the uh that's the
push back so it's it's not obvious that
this a strong future to have to launch
new governments there's several
different kind of lines of attack or or
debate or whatever on this right first
is uh yes there's obviously value to
tradition and uh you know people say
this is Lindy and that's Lindy it's been
proven for a long time and so on but of
course there's a tension between
tradition and Innovation you know like
going to the Moon wasn't
Lindy just it was awesome and you know
like artificial intelligence is
something that's very new new is good
right and this is a tension within
Humanity actually itself because you
know it's way older than all of these
nations I mean humans are tens of
thousands of years old the answers of
humans are millions of years old right
and you go back far enough and the time
that we know today of the cile farmer
and
Soldier is if you go back far enough you
want to be truly traditional well
actually descended from hunter gatherers
who were mobile and wandered the world
and there weren't borders and so on they
kind of went where they want right and
you know people have you know had done
historical reconstructions of like
skeletons and and stuff like that
and uh many folks report that the
transition to Agriculture and being cile
um resulted in you know dimition of
height you know people had like tooth
decay and stuff like that the skeletons
people had traded off upside for
stability right that's what the state
was that was what these cile kinds of
things were now of course um they they
had more likelihood of living uh
consistently you could support larger
population sizes but it had lower
quality of life right and so the hunter
gatherer you know maybe that's actually
our Collective recollection of a Garden
of Eden where people you know just like
a a spider kind of knows innately how to
build webs or a beaver knows how to
build dams you know some people theorize
that uh the entire Garden of Eden is
like um a sort of built-in neural
network recollection of this you know
pre sessile era where we able to roam
around just pick off fruits and so on
low population density so point is that
I think what we're seeing is a V3 you go
from the hunter gatherer to the farmer
and Soldier the cesil nations are here
and they've got borders and so on to
kind of the V3 which is the digital
Nomad the new hunter gatherer we're
going back to the future because you
know it's even older than Nations is no
Nations right even more traditional than
tradition is you know being
International right and so we're
actually tapping into that other huge
thread in humanity which is the desire
to explore Pioneer wander innovate you
know I that's important way to make
America great again is to dissolve it
completely into Oblivion no that's a
joke see yeah I know it's a joke but the
thing well humor I'm learning this new
thing yes the new thing for the the
chapot emulation isn't fully working
there yeah yeah glitch that's we're in
the in the beta and let me say say one
other thing about this which is you know
there are I mean everybody in the world
to for okay let's say I don't know what
percentage let's say
99.99% uh it's rounds to that number
of political discourse in the US focuses
on trying to fix the system if those
folks I mean 0.01% of the energy is
going towards building a new system that
seems like a pretty good portfolio
strategy right or 100% are supposed to
go and edit this codebase from 200
something years ago I mean the most
American in the world is going and you
know leaving your country in in search
of a better life America was founded 200
years ago by the founding fathers it's
not just a nation of immigrants it's a
nation of immigrants right IM
immigration you know from other
countries to the US and actually also
immigration within the US there's this
amazing YouTube video called um it's
like 50 states US population I think
1790 to it says 2050 they've got a
simulation so you just stop it at 2019
or 2020 but it shows that like Virginia
was like number one early on and then it
lost ground and like New York gained and
then like Ohio was a big deal in the
early 1800s and it was like father of
presidents and general all these
presidents and later Illinois and
Indiana and then California only really
came up in the the 20th century like
during the Great Depression and now
we're entering the modern era where like
Florida and Texas have risen and New
York and California have dropped and so
Interstate competition it's actually
just like inter currency competition you
know you've got trading pairs right you
you know sell BTC by eth you sell you
know salon or Z you know sell Monero buy
zcash right each of those trading pairs
gives you signal for today on this
currency is down or up relative to this
other currency in the same way each of
those migration pairs someone goes from
New York to Ohio Ohio to California
gives you information on the
desirability of different states you can
literally form a pairs Matrix like this
over time U very much like the link
Matrix that's shaped America in a huge
way and so you know you you ask a if if
this nation of immigrants that was
founded by men younger than us by the
way the founding fathers were often in
their 20s right who um you know endorse
the concept of proposition Nation who've
given rise to a country of Founders and
and Pioneers uh who've literally gone to
the Moon right um those folks would
think that this is the end of history
that that's it we're done like we've
we've done everything else I mean
there's people in technology who believe
and I agree with them that we can go to
Mars that we might be able to end death
but we can't innovate on something that
was 230 years old you know so there is a
balance certainly to to strike the the
American experiment is fascinating
nevertheless so one argument you can
make is actually that we're in the very
early days of this V2 if so what you
describe as V2 you could make the case
that we're not ready for V3 that we're
just actually uh trying to figure out
the V2 thing you're trying to like skip
when are we ever
ready now again we go go back to
marriage I think and and having kids
kind of thing I think everyone who has
kids is never really ready to be kids
that's the whole point you dive in okay
but
the I mean you you mentioned that you
can laun is there other criticisms of
government that you can provide as we
know today before we kind of outline the
ideas of of V3 let's stick to V2 I'll
give a few right and so a lot of the
stuff will go into the version so I've
got you know this book the network State
um which which covers some of these
topics does Network State have a
subtitle um it is uh the network State
how to start a new country how to start
a new country and but um I just have it
at the network state.com I should say
it's an excellent book that you should
get I read it on Kindle but there's also
a website and uh BAGI said that is
constantly working on improving it
changing it by by the by the time the
whole project is over it'll be a
different book than it was yeah in the
beginning it's always shedding its old
skin well I I wanted to get something
out there and get feedback and and what
not just like an app right you know you
again you have these two polls of an app
is highly Dynamic and you're you're
accustomed to having updates all the
time and a book is supposed to be static
and there's a value in something static
something unchanged and so on but in
this case I'm glad I kind of shipped a
version 1.0 and uh you know the the next
version um you know I'm going to split
into like uh tentatively motivation
theory and practice like motivation like
what is the sort of political philosophy
and so on that motivates me at least to
do this which you can take or leave
right and then Theory as to why Network
state is now possible and I can Define
it in a second and then the practice is
zillions of practical details and
everything from roads to diplomatic
recognition and so on um funding
founding all that stuff a lot of the
stuff actually I left out of V1 simply
because I wanted to kind of get the
desirability of it on the table and then
talk about the the feasibility and I
should actually on that briefly in in
terms of things you can revolutionize
like um one of the biggest Innovations I
think that Tesla does with the way they
think about the car way they deploy the
car is not the automation or the
electric to me it's the uh over theair
updates mhm right be able to send
instantaneously uh updates to the
software that completely changes the
behavior the ux everything about the car
and so I do think it be interesting cuz
books are a representation of human
knowledge a um a snapshot of human
knowledge and it would be interesting
that we if we can somehow figure out a
system that allows you to do sort of
like a GitHub for books like if I buy a
book on Amazon without having to pay
again can I get updates like V point
v1.1
v1.2 and there's like release notes
right that that would be that would be
incredible inredible it's not not enough
to do like a second edition or a third
edition but like minor updates that's
not just on your website but actually go
into the the model that we used to buy
books right so I spent my money maybe I
I'll do a subscription service for five
bucks a month where I get regular
updates to the books and then there's an
incentive for authors to actually update
their books such that it makes sense for
the subscription and that that means
your book isn't just a snap shot but
it's a lifelong project right if you
care enough about the book so I think
there's a lot that can be done there
because actually in going through this
process in many ways the most
traditional thing I did was a
self-published eBook on Kindle right uh
why because basically like you know if
you actually ink a deal with a book
publisher first they you know they'll
give you some advance I I didn't need
the advance or anything but second is
all these constraints um oh you know you
want to translate into this or you want
to do this other format or we want to
update it you have to go and now talk to
this other party right you know and uh
also the the narrowing window of what
they'll actually publish it gets narrow
and narrower you see all these you know
meltdowns over young adult novels and
stuff on Twitter but it's it's it's more
than that so you know actually having an
Amazon page it's just like a marker that
a book exists okay and uh now I've got
an entry point where if someone says
okay I like this tweet but how do I kind
of get the um that that might be a
concept from like the the middle of
chapter 3 right how do I get the thing
from front to back I can just point them
at the network.com that is import this
right this one entry point okay and um
you mentioned like subscription and and
and money and so and so forth and I
think people are paying for Content
online now with News letters and so on
but I've chosen to and I will always
have the thing free um and I want it on
you can get the Kindle version on Amazon
simply because that you have to kind of
set a price for that but the network
state.com what I want to do is have that
optimized for free Android phone so
people in India or Latin America or
Nigeria can just tap and open it going
to do translations and stuff like that
uh Greg foder of alpace VR you know
founder of old space VR you know he sold
that and uh he coded the website and um
you know work with him on it and there's
another designer who um Elijah and uh
it's basically just a three-person group
and we thought we had something pretty
nice but one thing I was really uh
pleasantly surprised by is how many
people got in touch with us afterwards
and asked us if we could open source the
software to create this this website
right because it's actually you you can
try it on mobile I think it's actually
um in some ways a better experience than
kindall and uh so that was interesting
because um I do think of the website as
like a V1 version of uh this concept of
a book app right for example imagine if
you have the Bible and the Ten
Commandments aren't just text but
there's like a checklist and there's a
gateway to a Christian Community there
and um you know the practice is embedded
into the thing you know like do you know
brilliant.org amazing site I love this
site brilliant is basically mobile
friendly tutorials and you can kind of
just swipe through you know you're in
the line at Starbucks or you know
getting on a plane or something you just
swipe through and just get really nice
micro lessons on things and it's just
interactive enough that your brain is
working and you're problem solving and
uh sometimes you'll need a little pen
and paper but that format um of sort of
very mobile friendly just continuous
learning I i' I'd like to do a lot more
with that and so that's kind of where
we're going to go with the the book app
so the there's a lot of fun stuff about
the way you did at least V1 of the book
which is you have like a one sentence
summary one paragraph summary tldr and
like one image
summary which is
um I think honestly it's not even about
a short attention span it's a really
good exercise about summarization
condensation and really like helping you
think through what is the key Insight
like we mentioned the the prime number
in maze that reveals something Central
to The Human Condition which is
struggling against the limitation of our
of our minds and in that same way you
summarize the network state in the book
Let's actually jump right there and let
me ask you what is the network State
what is the network state so I'll give
it a sentence and also give it an image
right so the informal sentence a network
state is a highly aligned online
community with a capacity for Collective
action that crowdfunds territory around
the world and eventually gains
diplomatic recognition from pre-existing
States okay so just taking those pieces
highly aligned online community that is
not Facebook that is not Twitter people
don't think of themselves as facebookers
or twitteri right that's just a
collection of hundreds of millions of
people who just fight each other all day
right It's a Fight Club a company is
highly aligned where you know you'll put
a task into the company slack and on the
if you do in all hands about 100% of of
the people in a company slack will do it
so they're highly aligned that way but
online communities don't tend to be
highly aligned online communities tend
to be like a Game of Thrones fan club or
something like that or you know a
Twitter account you might get 0.1% of
people engaging with something it's not
the 100% if you combine the degree of
alignment of a company with the scale of
a community that's like what a highly
aligned you know online community is
right start to get it that or 10,000
people who can collectively do something
as simple as just all liking something
on Twitter for example why would they do
that they're they're Guild of electrical
engineers they're a guild of graphic
designers and you've got a thousand
people in this Guild and every day
somebody is asking a favor from The
Guild and the other 999 people are
helping them out for example I've just
launched a new project or I'd like to
get a new job can somebody help me and
so on and so you kind of give to get
you're you know you're helping other
people in the community and you're kind
of building up Karma this way and then
some you spend it down like stack
Overflow has this Karma economy it's not
meant to be an internal economy that is
um like making tons and tons of money
off of is sort of to keep score right
that's a highly align online community
part then capacity for Collective action
I just kind of described that which is
at a minimum you you don't have a highly
aligned online community unless you have
a thousand people and you paste in a
tweet and a thousand of them RT it or or
like it okay if you can't even get that
you don't have something if you do have
that you have the basis for at least
Collective digital action on something
okay and you can think of this as a
group of activists you can think of it
as for example let's say I mentioned a
guild but let's say there a group that
wants to raise awareness of the fact
that life extension is possible right
every day there's a new um tweet on I
don't know whether it's uh met foran
research or Sinclair's work or David
Sinclair right Andrew hubman has good
stuff here you know or um there's a
longevity VC there's a bunch of folks
work in this area every day there's
something there and literally the
purpose of this online community is r r
of longevity and of the thousand people
970 go and like that that's pretty good
right that's solid you've got something
there you've got you've got a laser
right you've got something which you
focus on something because most of the
web 2 internet is entropic you go to
Hacker News you go to Reddit you go to
Twitter and you're immediately struck by
the fact it's like 30 random things
random it's just a box of chocolates
it's meant to be you know we're some of
them look delicious some look delicious
novelty we can overc consume novelty
right so you know what we were talking
about earlier the balance between
tradition and Innovation right here is a
different version of that which is um
entropy going in a ton of different
directions due to novelty versus uh like
Focus you know it's like it's like Heat
versus work you know heat is entropic
and work force along a distance you're
going in in a direction right and so if
those 30 links on you know the next
version of Hacker News or red or
something like so brilliant is just
that's leveling you up the the 30 things
you click you've just gained a skill as
a function of that right so these kinds
of online communities I