0:00

We

0:00

are a survival species We

0:02

are a bunch of survivors and that doesn't

0:04

mean that there hasn't been horrible tragedies and genocides

0:07

and awful things in the past and it also

0:09

we haven't ever faced full kinds of existential

0:11

threat, but I do think that humanity

0:14

has a knack for surviving

0:16

and That

0:18

if we get scared enough, I think

0:20

maybe reason will prevail out of pure fear and

0:23

out of pure survivor instinct Welcome

0:27

to bankless where we explore the frontier of internet money and internet finance This is how

0:30

to get started how to get better how

0:32

to front run the opportunity. This is Ryan Sean Adams I'm

0:34

here with David Hoffman and we're here to help you become more

0:37

bankless Society

0:40

is off track. We all feel it. What's wrong. How do we

0:43

fix it without throwing out all the good parts? We

0:45

have Tim Urban on the podcast today who wrote an

0:47

excellent book Subtitled

0:49

a self-help guide on how to

0:53

solve society's

0:54

problems

0:55

We're gonna

0:57

talk about a few of those problems today and Tim's

0:59

answer on how to solve them Number one, we talked about the power

1:02

games versus the liberal games. That's one takeaway

1:04

from today's episode number two We

1:07

talked about the importance of liberalism to crypto protocols Number

1:13

three, we talked about how to find out whether

1:15

your crypto tribe is a low-rung echo chamber Is a low-rung

1:17

echo chamber or a high mind

1:20

idea lab hint you want the second

1:22

number four? We talk about why we

1:24

must actually solve this problem

1:27

in order to survive as a society

1:29

and you know I asked him if ai is

1:31

going to come kill us towards the end because that's the new

1:33

thing that I always ask Apparently we do that

1:35

now we do that now ever since

1:38

that episode that shall not be named

1:40

David From your perspective. Why is this

1:42

episode with Tim Urban so significant

1:45

and just to make it abundantly clear? And Tim will also

1:47

do this liberalism not

1:49

liberals versus conservatives liberalism

1:51

as classic liberal western

1:54

values the thing that you've heard me and Ryan talk

1:56

about on the podcast here and there through

1:58

and through but consistently from day one,

2:01

Western Democratic liberal values. We

2:03

are starting this podcast exploring

2:05

that idea head on and

2:07

why if we are talking

2:09

about the layer zero of society, the

2:12

layer zero of our governance

2:14

systems, of our blockchains, why

2:16

they must be rooted in critical thinking

2:18

and what Tim calls ideal labs

2:21

instead of echo chambers. And so this

2:23

episode is really how to fix

2:26

society at the root level and

2:28

also talking about all the symptoms in which society

2:30

is going astray.

2:32

And I think really the important thing and

2:34

really the through line of this episode is

2:37

there are problems in society

2:39

that are clashing. You got the left

2:41

and the right and they're fighting. You got political

2:43

tribe one, political tribe two and they're fighting.

2:46

And in the crypto world, you have all these other

2:48

tribes and they're also fighting. And the thing

2:50

is they're all playing the same strategy.

2:52

They're all playing the same game. They're competing inside of

2:54

the same arena, using the same tool

2:56

sets to compete. And sometimes

2:59

this competition is good. Sometimes if this

3:01

competition can be productive and progressive and

3:04

two high rung people of different tribes

3:06

can come and debate and move society

3:08

forward or two low rung thinkers

3:11

can come together and clash and move society

3:13

backwards. And so whether we're discussing

3:15

this outside of the sphere of crypto or

3:17

inside of the sphere of crypto, it's still the same

3:19

game. And so hopefully we can guide you through

3:22

how these parallels exist no matter where we are

3:24

and why solving this problem at the root level

3:27

can create a utopia for us as soon

3:29

as we do figure out how to solve that problem. Yeah,

3:31

and I really think these lowercase

3:32

L liberal values are at the core

3:35

of crypto. Crypto is almost an instantiation

3:37

of these values in the digital

3:40

world. And so David, I'm super excited

3:42

to talk to you about that in the

3:44

debrief episode, which is our episode

3:46

that we record right after the

3:49

episode. It is included for

3:51

all bankless citizens. So if you're not a bankless

3:53

citizen upgrade, there's a link in the show notes and

3:55

you can get access to the premium RSS feed

3:58

where we put that out every single. week.

4:01

Guys, we're going to get right to the episode with

4:03

Tim. But before we do, we want to thank the sponsors

4:06

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5:11

Hey, Bankless

5:13

Nation, if you're listening to this, it's because you're

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7:12

Bankless Nation, we are super excited to introduce

7:14

our next guest, Tim Urban as a blogger. He's

7:16

a writer. He's an illustrator extraordinaire,

7:19

and most famous for his Wait

7:21

But Why blog, which is a fantastic blog.

7:23

He started back in 2013, covers a range of topics,

7:28

almost as diverse, well, probably

7:30

more diverse than Bankless actually, from

7:32

AI to political philosophy,

7:34

to like whatever Tim is interested in, science,

7:37

technology, human behavior. And

7:40

he recently wrote this book that we want

7:42

the Bankless community to learn a

7:44

little bit about. It's called What's Our Problem?

7:47

A self-help book for societies. This

7:49

is a fantastic book that David and I read

7:52

recently, and I think provides a

7:54

roadmap, an interesting set of parallels

7:57

for the crypto community as well. Tim, welcome

7:59

to Bankless. How are you doing? I'm

8:05

doing pretty well. Thank

8:10

you for having me. It's

8:15

great to have you. I

8:20

just want to

8:21

kick off and start with this question,

8:24

which is a common observation I think everyone

8:26

sort of sees. For lots of reasons

8:29

we could discuss, social media,

8:31

tribal media, stuff like that. But I think an even bigger

8:34

reason is that

8:36

the anger that there is is loud

8:38

and prominent and

8:41

broadcast over lots of channels. And

8:43

we are in contact with that anger all the

8:45

time, which makes it feel like

8:48

there's even more of it than there is.

8:51

People who aren't angry with each other are

8:54

not often screaming it from the hilltops about

8:56

how not angry they are. While

8:59

people who are, we are much more likely to do that. So

9:02

I think it's

9:03

a combo of those two things. Tim, we want to explore

9:05

in this podcast a concept that we have talked

9:07

about on Bankless a number of times but not

9:09

yet actually dove into headfirst.

9:13

And that is the topic of liberalism. And

9:16

I think understanding liberalism will be able to create

9:18

a stack of understanding,

9:22

knowledge that will actually get back to that

9:24

original question, why can't we talk to each

9:26

other anymore? We've talked about liberalism

9:29

and Western liberal values on the podcast, but

9:31

we've never actually taken the time to approach

9:34

that subject head-on. So I'm wondering if you can help

9:36

guide us through that conversation

9:39

and starting there because we've never actually defined

9:41

liberalism on this podcast. So maybe we can start there and

9:43

we'll build back up to talk about the way that

9:45

social media influences our thinking

9:48

and our mental models for things. But I want to start at the very

9:50

deep down

9:51

of how humans

9:53

created this foundation that we have

9:55

for ourselves called liberalism. So first if you could help us to

9:57

find what is liberalism and why is it going to happen?

9:59

good if we could start there if you don't mind. Well,

10:03

so first of all, this is lowercase L liberalism,

10:05

which is different than how it's used in the US, which

10:08

means politically left. That's

10:11

not what I'm talking about here. And that's

10:13

why I don't like that we use that term. It's such an important

10:15

term of its own. So lowercase L liberalism,

10:18

it wasn't invented by the US

10:21

in the 1700s. It was the

10:23

principles from it go back to the

10:25

ancient Greeks and lots of different places and

10:27

societies in between have grappled with

10:30

the concepts within it. But the modern

10:32

liberal democracies have kind of taken the latest crack

10:34

yet at this concept. And what

10:37

it is is that if you think about there's a spectrum

10:39

of how

10:40

people can be governed just with

10:42

freedom as the metric. On one side, if everyone has

10:44

total freedom, there's no rules, that's anarchy.

10:48

And on the total other end, you have totalitarian

10:51

dictatorship where there's no freedom

10:53

at all and there's no individual

10:55

rights at all. Whatever the

10:57

dictator says is what happens and that's

10:59

what you're limited to. And the dictator dies

11:02

and his son takes over. Now that

11:04

son's rules, that's the new rules and that's what everyone

11:06

will be living under. Now

11:09

anarchy often

11:10

turns into

11:12

the other side of the spectrum because then you

11:14

have warlords and people who are the

11:16

scariest on their block kind of are suddenly

11:19

writing rules and then the scariest among the scariest

11:21

kind of take over and then there's a gang

11:23

that kind of takes control of everything and now you have a dictatorship.

11:26

So we have a lot of human history that's kind of

11:29

going back and forth between chaos and then order. But

11:31

the order can be very oppressive

11:34

and what is lost in both cases is

11:37

kind of freedom, freedom and security

11:39

and that freedom. So liberalism

11:41

is kind of a compromise between

11:44

rules and individual

11:46

rights, individual freedom. It's not

11:49

complete freedom. There are rules, there

11:51

are laws. If you violate them, you can end up in jail

11:54

forever and so there are very hard

11:56

serious rules but they're broad and wide

11:58

and they basically create a... big wide fence

12:01

around an area, or I like to think

12:03

of it as a big house. And the walls

12:05

of the house, they are rules, and they are rules that you

12:07

can't break, you can't murder someone, you can't steal, et cetera.

12:10

But within the house, within those big broad

12:12

walls,

12:14

pretty much you're left to your own.

12:16

So the idea is that there are, it's that

12:19

this emerges from philosophers like John Locke

12:21

who said, I actually don't think that the state of nature,

12:24

that human nature is necessarily so

12:27

chaotic that it needs hardcore rules.

12:29

I think actually if you just build some

12:31

basic rules and keep people, keep

12:33

the most aggressive among us from

12:36

kind of

12:36

bullying, conquering everything, actually

12:39

things can work pretty much okay on their own. And

12:42

so you have, for example, instead of saying we're going

12:44

to enforce equality of outcome, right, which

12:46

is, someone might say that that's

12:48

equality, but it's such a totalitarian

12:51

version of equality that you end up with very little

12:54

freedom. And so that would be that

12:56

whatever you're doing, you're gonna end up with the same. So

12:59

liberalism says, let's go for equality of opportunity.

13:02

So we wanna try to do what we can to level

13:04

the playing field or at least

13:06

allow for upward mobility and things

13:08

like that. But beyond that, kind of you're on your own. That's

13:10

why even the constitution says, the pursuit

13:13

of happiness. In liberalism, you're not entitled

13:15

to happiness, you're entitled, but everyone's entitled to pursuit

13:18

and to try to go for it. So this

13:20

is where free markets emerge from, right? You have the

13:22

idea of free markets, but there are regulations,

13:24

right? You still can't, you can't commit fraud

13:26

and you can't steal and you can't have

13:29

monopolies. So there are rules, again, these wide

13:31

walls, but beyond that, go to town, build

13:34

the products you want, as long as they pass the basic

13:36

tests, you

13:36

can let the people

13:38

guide their own path. And you can say the same

13:40

with ideas, rather than a guiding scripture or

13:42

guiding, the Bible or

13:44

some other guiding thing that's going to be, this

13:46

is the way of the land, this is how, what

13:49

we believe here, it says that

13:51

we want a free marketplace of ideas.

13:53

So you can't, some speech, you can't have perjury,

13:55

you can't do libel, you can't incite

13:57

violence. Again, you have these broad rules.

14:00

But beyond that freedom of religion

14:02

freedom of speech so it's this very kind

14:04

of nuanced concept and

14:06

it really values the individual and

14:08

it says basically the government is there to serve the individuals

14:11

to keep. Have a monopoly on violence

14:13

but it can only be used to kind of keep

14:15

these broad rules in place and that

14:17

beyond that the individuals will run the show

14:20

and they will vote for who they want and they will start

14:22

the business is they want and they will. Promote the

14:24

ideas and start the movements they want and

14:26

let the people kind of guide their own path that's the

14:29

core idea

14:30

seems kind of a bit what a lot of americans

14:32

are people in western democracies might be

14:34

saying yeah right this is just that's how

14:36

things are but that's not it's actually interesting

14:38

cuz it's not.

14:40

That's not an obvious thing that's something that is

14:42

an artificial invention we made that

14:44

up it's very different than the

14:46

natural way i'm which is the most powerful

14:48

people make the rules for everyone else this is a very specific

14:50

kind of pretty complex and nuanced.

14:53

Form of government that we have developed

14:56

pretty recently and we're all living inside

14:58

this house that is not a house that it used

15:01

to exist in it's been built by humans and

15:03

it doesn't stand up by its own you know it stands

15:05

up if the people who are actually in the country are the

15:08

ones who are defending those basic

15:10

principles and who are enforcing the rules

15:12

and. And so yeah it's

15:14

something that we're all grew up in we think where

15:16

we think is normal but it's actually not

15:18

it's pretty awesome i think it reminds me tim of another

15:21

topic we explore a lot in crypto which is the

15:23

topic of money which is a social coordination

15:26

technology. That almost no one

15:28

thinks about we just sort of take for granted oh

15:30

yeah it's but like when you think about it when you stop and

15:32

you think about it too long you're like wait this

15:34

who invented money what backs it and

15:37

wait you have this like. This point

15:39

system that you use to allocate labor

15:41

and resources and figure out who can buy

15:43

what in society and everyone

15:46

just believes in it and so it kind

15:48

of works and you're like yeah.

15:50

That's what it is and that like no

15:52

one ever actually thinks about it and I feel the same

15:54

way about liberalism when you pause me think about

15:56

it reminds me of the book from you've all Harari

15:58

which we quote so often on bank list.

15:59

called sapiens where he talks about humanity's

16:02

great superpower is these shared myths

16:05

that we propagate basically. And liberalism

16:07

is this great shared myth. And

16:10

I want to contrast it with something you were saying towards

16:12

the end, which is you call it in your

16:14

book, the liberal games, right?

16:17

Which is in contrast to the power

16:19

games. And I think you were alluding to

16:21

something here, Tim, which is like the

16:24

state of nature, this is a John

16:26

Locke concept as well, is very much

16:28

like power games, like

16:31

in nature, violence as the settlement layer

16:34

for getting things done. And that's the way it has

16:36

been. That's the way kind of the state of nature

16:39

is. And liberalism is almost this

16:41

veneer that we put over top of it. So

16:43

here's this graphic. And by the way, your book, Tim, goes

16:45

through all of these fantastic graphics that just help

16:47

really sync mental model type concepts. But

16:50

you have two circles here, you have the liberal

16:52

games. And we've got liberal

16:54

laws and liberal norms on the top.

16:57

And that is an overcoating on

16:59

top of this other deeper

17:01

in the stack system called the power games.

17:03

Can you tell us about the power games versus the liberal

17:05

games and what you're trying to get across here? Yeah,

17:08

so I mean, the power games is pretty straightforward, right?

17:10

It's the rule in nature, you know, if you go watch

17:13

a David Attenborough special, there's no

17:15

laws, there's nothing fair about nature. It

17:17

is very simple rule. Everyone can

17:19

do whatever they want if they have the power to do so. So

17:23

if a bear wants to eat

17:25

a bunny, the bear can do that. If

17:27

he can catch the bunny, if he has the power to catch the bunny,

17:30

he can eat the bunny doesn't

17:31

matter if the bunny has a family if the bunny had

17:33

other plans, it's irrelevant because the bear

17:35

had the power to catch him. End of story if the bunny

17:38

and all the other bunnies are too fast,

17:41

they have the power to get away, they can and the

17:43

bear might starve to death. And that's

17:45

just how that comes. Right. And so that's the

17:47

law of nature,

17:48

and the power games, it's whoever has the power to

17:51

do what they want can do what they want. And everyone else is

17:53

kind of, you know, they're screwed. That's

17:55

also been lots of human societies, those

17:57

who have power usually

17:59

violently. Or maybe

18:01

they have the power of

18:03

everyone believes they have a direct line to God. So

18:05

whatever they say goes, they found a different way to have power

18:07

because everyone's scared of going to hell. Whatever

18:10

it is, if you find a way to have the power to

18:12

do what you want, you get to do what you want. And if you don't

18:14

have power, you better hope that the people who

18:17

do are nice and believe in fairness because

18:19

if they don't, you're screwed. And they can go and they can

18:21

take your wife and say, that's my wife now

18:23

and kidnap her. Take your children and

18:25

say they're slaves now. And that's the most

18:28

unfair thing we can imagine because we

18:30

grew up in a place where fairness matters. Right.

18:33

Individual rights are sacred. It doesn't matter who you

18:35

are or who you were born to or your age

18:37

or your gender or your race. You have

18:39

rights. That's at least the principle here. It's

18:42

not always been kept perfectly, but it's the thing we

18:44

believe we believe is right. But that's

18:46

not real. I mean, outside of this house

18:48

that we live in where things are supposed to be fair, there

18:50

is no such thing as fairness. Right. It's

18:53

just unfairness happens constantly. So

18:55

the reason I have it as a two part puzzle is because

18:57

you've got liberal

18:58

laws. Right. So that is

19:00

the Constitution and the

19:03

kind of pretty complex set of laws that we have here. And

19:05

so that is one piece of the puzzle. But

19:07

the thing is the

19:08

thing is interesting about if you have a totalitarian

19:10

dictatorship, you can have if you're in Hitler's

19:12

Germany,

19:14

you don't really need you know, you just need

19:16

the very intense set of rules and laws

19:18

dictated by the Fuhrer and the

19:21

military is going to enforce them and the police. And

19:23

that's really what you need. You

19:25

can just use the iron fist. But if you're going

19:28

liberalism doesn't have an iron fist, it's a very light

19:30

touch fist and it has again, it's very broad

19:32

walls. And actually, you can totally

19:35

violate the liberal games and start

19:37

playing the power games inside of the

19:39

house if people will let you. So

19:41

you can I call that legal cheating when you're kind

19:44

of

19:44

the laws are go part of the way. And

19:46

then these norms go

19:48

the rest of the way. You know, norms in

19:50

government about how government, you know,

19:53

this kind of unspoken rules about how government

19:56

functions and it, you know, Thomas Jefferson has

19:58

a quote where he says something like, you know,

19:59

more important than every single specific rule

20:02

is followed to the T in Senate

20:04

is that there's an unwritten rules and understanding

20:06

between people about how things are supposed to go,

20:09

the norms. And so when you see, you know, like if something's

20:11

endlessly filibustering, you know, it's like, yes,

20:13

that's legal, but it's also, I call

20:16

it legal cheating, because it's kind of actually breaking

20:18

the kind of unwritten handshake that you're

20:20

supposed to have in a liberal democracy. The social contract.

20:22

Yeah, the basic social contract. And you

20:24

can see that a lot. You if you notice, like the

20:27

times when things aren't going very well in liberal democracy,

20:29

it's often because they had they do have a soft spot where,

20:32

you know, people who want to break the norms, they can get away

20:34

with it. You know, if you try to play the power games

20:36

in a liberal

20:37

democracy, you can often get away with

20:39

a lot, unless the place is functioning

20:42

well, in which case the people in it are supposed to

20:44

stand up for the liberal norms and actually

20:47

say, no, that's not how we do things here and push back on

20:49

it.

20:50

So when you say they these liberal laws,

20:52

these liberal values are light touch, what

20:55

that means, I think, is for all these people who live

20:57

in this house

20:58

have a lot of flexibility. And that's the

21:00

beauty of this liberal code base

21:03

that we have in this modern world is that

21:05

things are supposed to enforce themselves because the

21:07

society that operates on top of them understand

21:10

them to be good, which leaves a lot of

21:12

tolerance and a lot of flexibility, a lot of freedom

21:14

by nature of what these laws are for

21:17

people to walk around this house. And

21:20

in good times, that just works because

21:22

the social contract manifests. But what you're

21:24

saying is that there's also the bad

21:26

scenario here, which is that

21:28

since there's tolerance, since there's flexibility

21:31

here, people can start to violate the

21:33

social contract and start to live

21:35

a life in ways that are just misaligned with the

21:37

purpose of a liberal foundation. Is that a way

21:39

to interpret this? Yeah. So here's one example, right?

21:42

So here's

21:43

a liberal law is the First Amendment, right?

21:46

The First Amendment says amongst other

21:48

things, it says, Congress shall

21:50

make no law abridging the freedom of speech. In other words,

21:53

the government cannot put

21:55

you in jail for saying the

21:58

wrong thing, including criticism. of the government

22:00

or criticism of anyone else or, you know,

22:03

screaming out racial slurs on the street corner.

22:06

You know what? It's ugly, but it's legal.

22:09

But

22:10

to actually have free speech, to have

22:12

an open and thriving marketplace of ideas,

22:14

which is the point, which is that you

22:17

need more than just that. So you need that, of course, if you

22:19

don't have the First Amendment, forget about it. And the countries that

22:21

don't have a good equivalent of the First Amendment,

22:23

obviously, there's a lot of things that will get you and, you

22:26

know, the government will arrest you for saying. But

22:29

to have true freedom of speech, you also

22:31

need that liberal norms puzzle piece. And what is

22:33

that? Which is the culture of freedom of speech,

22:35

the culture of that free speech

22:37

is something that we value here. So an example

22:40

could be

22:40

if there's a movement that says

22:43

we're not going to, we're going to, anytime

22:46

there's a debate or a talk

22:49

or some kind of event where

22:51

a certain set of ideas that we don't like

22:54

are being said, we're going

22:56

to show up

22:57

and we're going to shout

22:59

as loud as we can and drown out the ideas.

23:02

Or we're actually going to kind of block the doorway.

23:05

We're going to make it very scary to enter the event

23:07

and very difficult. And then we're going to scream the whole time

23:10

in the event hall so that no one can

23:12

hear. Right. That's legal,

23:14

right? You are not going to go to jail for that. It

23:16

is legal, you know, to scream

23:18

at the top of your lungs during

23:20

kind of an outdoor event. But

23:23

it is total violation of liberal norms.

23:26

Right. So it is what I would call legal cheating instead

23:28

of what you're supposed to do in the liberal games is say,

23:30

I don't like those ideas. I think they're bad. I think

23:32

they're dangerous. So I am going to hold

23:35

my own event or I'm going to try to debate that person. I'm going

23:37

to hold my own event or I'm going to write my own op-ed explaining

23:40

why those ideas are so bad point by point. And

23:42

I'm going to persuade people. I'm going to persuade people

23:44

that they're wrong and I'm right. And I'm going to create a movement

23:47

that is so powerful and so persuasive that

23:49

that person had no one who even want to show up to their

23:51

talks anymore or might way fewer and they won't have much

23:53

power because no one will believe them anymore because

23:55

I've exposed them. Or you know what? I

23:58

hate those ideas. I'm just going to check out.

23:59

I'm not gonna go to that event. I just don't wanna even hear

24:02

it, okay? That's all fun. That's

24:04

persuasion, it's a battle of persuasion. In

24:07

the power games, what you would say is,

24:09

well, I don't know if I can win the battle of persuasion,

24:11

so instead I'll go the much kind of easier thing,

24:14

which is I will scream

24:16

brute force to make sure no one can hear the ideas. I

24:18

will shut down that idea from ever being said. So

24:20

rather than try to persuade people it's wrong, I will make

24:23

sure no one even hears that idea in the first place. It's

24:25

total power games mentality, but as

24:27

long as you're not actually physically hurting them,

24:30

the law can't do anything. It's like in a totalitarian

24:32

dictatorship that valued free speech, they

24:35

might actually say anyone who shouts down speakers

24:37

is gonna be arrested, but we can't do that here. We

24:39

have too much freedom here for that. The government is not actually

24:41

powerful enough to even step in. They're not

24:43

allowed to step in. That is amongst

24:46

us to work out. So the

24:48

way that free speech would prosper is that people

24:50

who do that would be socially shunned

24:52

and socially criticized. And people would say, you

24:54

know, you're a bully, and you know, we don't wanna be friends

24:56

with you anymore because you're the kind of person that screams

24:59

and shouts down talks and we're gonna mock you. And

25:01

we can, you know, that is the country standing up for itself

25:03

saying, nope, that's not how we do things here. And

25:06

you need that or else it'll

25:08

be the people who shout the loudest, you know, get to

25:10

determine what's being said. None of this violates

25:12

the law. The legal piece is still fine. The First Amendment

25:15

hasn't ever been violated here, but free

25:17

speech has been totally curtailed. And so there's

25:19

a lot of examples like this where there always

25:21

will be groups that are trying to within the law, because

25:23

no one wants to get arrested, right? And that's a huge

25:25

deterrent. Within the law,

25:28

violate liberal norm parts of it

25:30

things in order to kind of play the power

25:32

games and coerce their way instead of persuade,

25:35

use coercion to get what they want. And

25:37

the sign of a healthy liberal

25:39

democracy isn't that those people don't exist because they will always

25:42

exist. The sign of a healthy liberal democracy

25:44

is that when that happens, the immune system, kind

25:46

of the liberal immune system kicks in and people

25:48

roundly criticize them and make it so unpopular

25:51

to do that, that, you know, you use social

25:53

pressure to make it stop.

25:55

And when, I think when we see

25:57

groups that are using coercion and kind of.

25:59

power games tactics to get what they want

26:02

and it's working. That's a sign that

26:04

something's not right. I think your

26:06

point here, Tim, is that the protection for the First

26:08

Amendment is not just in the Constitution.

26:10

It's not in our set of laws. Like, that's part of

26:13

it. But that's only like half

26:15

of it or one portion of it. The other portion

26:17

is the actual social enforcement

26:20

of that value, that norm enforcement.

26:23

It's interesting because we see the same thing with crypto,

26:25

right? So take something like Bitcoin. We

26:27

have a 21 million hard cap

26:29

in the total amount of Bitcoin supply that

26:32

is written in sort of the Constitution

26:34

and the code of Bitcoin, right? But

26:36

in order for that to be maintained, the

26:39

community, the social norms actually have to value

26:41

that because if the entire community

26:44

decides to run a different set

26:46

of code,

26:47

right, that doesn't value the 21 million,

26:50

that maybe puts in a one percent per year inflation

26:52

rate

26:53

and they choose to kind of fork, they choose

26:55

to devalue 21 million hard

26:57

cap as their priority, they can totally do it,

26:59

which is so funny because there is this myth in

27:02

crypto that like, you know,

27:04

hard caps and immutability is 100 percent

27:06

maintained by code. And that's not

27:08

true in the same way. The First Amendment isn't 100

27:11

percent maintained by the Constitution.

27:13

OK, it's maintained by the Constitution

27:16

plus the social contract

27:18

and norms that actually carry out

27:21

and enforce it.

27:22

It's the parallels here are quite striking.

27:24

I want to make another point here to Tim, because

27:26

this is another image like another illustration

27:29

that you put in your book, which is

27:31

this idea of different levels of,

27:34

I guess, civilization, maybe you call this

27:36

or human coordination on it. We call this pyramid.

27:38

But at the bottom, we have level one, which

27:41

is modernity, science, reason,

27:43

objective truth as the definition of

27:45

modernity. And we have level two, which is

27:47

what we've been talking about, which is liberalism.

27:49

That is the next stack up. Free

27:52

markets,

27:52

free speech, individualism, quality

27:54

of opportunity. And then we have level

27:56

three, which is where all

27:59

of the other things are kind

27:59

built on top of liberalism, which is built on

28:02

modernity. And level three is norms and policies

28:05

and laws and institutions.

28:07

I guess a few things that are striking, I want you to maybe

28:09

explain this to us in a little bit more detail.

28:12

Like why does liberalism sit on top of modernity

28:14

and why do the norms and policies and laws sit

28:16

on top of liberalism? But one broad point

28:19

I want to make is like, this is relatively

28:21

new social software that

28:23

humans are running. Like for most

28:25

of human existence, and you have this really cool chart

28:27

at the beginning of your book that shows like,

28:30

like of the 200,000 years of

28:32

human existence, we're in

28:35

sort of the late stages. Liberalism hasn't been around

28:38

for very long at all. And

28:40

this is completely new software

28:43

on the human time scale that we're running, modernity,

28:45

even liberalism and institutions

28:48

and laws and policies and norms around that. So this

28:51

is relatively new social software. But

28:53

explain this pyramid to us. What is the idea

28:55

that you're trying to convey? Yeah,

28:56

I think it's useful to

28:59

help understand the

29:01

difference between different political movements.

29:03

Because right now we have this kind of constrained,

29:07

you know, we have these terms, you know, something can be left

29:09

or far left, or it can be far right or whatever.

29:12

And I think we can define that a little better.

29:15

And so first of all, modernity, yeah, that

29:17

is something that is new, people forget

29:19

that in the scheme of things, it's a few hundred years

29:22

old, this concept that there exists one

29:24

objective truth.

29:25

And that science

29:28

and reason are methods

29:30

that we can use to

29:32

discover it and to get closer to

29:35

understanding what it is. Before

29:37

in the pre-modern

29:38

era, there were different religions, each

29:40

with their own kind of there were different denominations

29:43

of truth. So each religion would have their

29:45

sacred scripture, and that was

29:47

truth. And what was

29:50

so cool about this idea of objective truth in

29:52

science is that it was no matter who

29:54

you were, no matter what religion you believed in, no matter

29:56

where you lived in the world or what language you spoke,

29:59

you could all

29:59

contribute to the global project

30:03

of using science and

30:05

building science to collaborate

30:07

across generations and

30:09

across countries to work together towards

30:11

discovering an objective truth. That's something

30:13

we take for granted today but that's a pretty new thing and

30:15

of course that notion and the

30:18

spread of it is why we can do to thank

30:20

our you know thank that for all what

30:22

we know now about medicine about space

30:24

and about plate tectonics and just everything

30:27

we've learned that really has come from this global

30:29

project that was born in you know modernity most

30:31

of you know that's what accelerated this process but

30:34

anyway so there are movements right

30:37

so we talked about the liberal house and

30:39

within that house in a place like the US

30:41

you've got people on the left the right and the

30:43

center right and so these are all people

30:46

by being in the house what I mean by that is that they

30:48

all like liberalism they all like the liberal

30:50

house they think the Constitution is good

30:52

it's that the progressives in the house the

30:55

people on the left are more likely to look at the house's flaws

30:57

and say well where we not keeping our promises

31:00

our liberal promises in the Constitution so Martin Luther

31:02

King for example he talked about you know that

31:04

the Constitution is supposed to be a promissory note but

31:06

that the country has written black Americans

31:08

a bad check so basically he was saying

31:10

the problem isn't liberalism the problem is that the black

31:13

Americans haven't been receiving the full

31:15

benefits of liberalism the liberal house that's

31:17

a flaw in the liberal house right it's

31:19

a glitch in the software it needs to be repaired we

31:21

need to fix it that's what the civil rights movement was about

31:23

let's expose this through civil

31:25

disobedience and and through persuasion

31:28

let's expose this flaw this

31:30

way that we are violating our own Constitution and

31:32

let's fix it right the

31:33

goal was more liberalism

31:36

meanwhile you also have you know conservatives

31:38

in the house and they're more likely rather than look at the ways

31:40

the house's flawed to look at the ways that it's good

31:42

and that the ways that progressive ideas

31:45

and progressive ideas for change might erode

31:47

the support beams in the house so their goal is

31:49

to stand up for the kind of that in a lot of cases

31:52

the status quo or even how things used to be and

31:54

say inevitably some things are eroding

31:56

in the house and that's what they look

31:58

for you know where do we not have the right values that

32:01

we used to have. But they also, they

32:03

have the same goal. The Constitution should be upheld,

32:05

and that the liberal house is good, right? And people in the

32:07

center are gonna have, you know, a little bit of both, or it gonna

32:09

be more moderate.

32:11

All of those people are pro-house, okay?

32:14

And that's an important thing to distinguish. Now,

32:17

there are also movements right now that

32:20

are outside the house with wrecking balls. These

32:22

are movements who believe they're much

32:24

more revolutionary.

32:26

So what people call wokeness, right? I call

32:28

it social justice fundamentalism, which is fundamentally

32:31

different than liberal social

32:33

justice, which is the Martin Luther King style that I just described.

32:36

Social justice fundamentalism is my term for

32:38

less kind of culture war baggage-laden

32:41

term than wokeness, but it is

32:43

fundamentally different in that it's outside the house with

32:45

a wrecking ball.

32:46

And it stems from, and this is, by

32:48

the way, all Marxists and neo-Marxists

32:50

and all of its descendants, you know, all these movements, what

32:52

they have in common is they say, no, no, no, everyone

32:55

in the house, you're missing the big point. The house

32:58

itself is rotten to the core.

33:00

Liberalism is bad. It's

33:02

something that sounds good, but it's just the power games

33:05

in disguise. It inevitably entrenches

33:07

the power of the powerful and

33:09

entrenches the oppression of the oppression. And

33:12

this, what you supposedly call free markets is

33:14

actually, you know, this exploitative

33:16

system to keep oppressed people down, right?

33:18

And it inevitably fosters inequality, blah, blah, blah,

33:20

right, so that's, again, I don't happen

33:23

to agree with that, but it's a totally valid philosophical

33:25

point. And so if I believed that, I would

33:27

be out there with them with a wrecking ball. It's not that they're

33:29

bad, it's that they believe that we are, you know, in

33:31

the house, are missing the big point here. Zoom

33:34

out and see that the house is bad and we need to get

33:36

rid of it. And so a lot

33:38

of the actual scholars of social

33:40

justice fundamentalism, they say stuff like you

33:42

cannot dismantle, so A, we wanna dismantle

33:45

what they would call the master's house, right? They believe

33:47

that it is, you know, the master's house and

33:49

like, you know, to use a slave term, and they say

33:51

you cannot dismantle it with the master's

33:53

tools. So that's specific. That means not

33:55

only do we not like liberalism, but

33:57

we also don't like the tools that liberalism values.

33:59

free speech, all of that, we don't like that. So

34:02

that's why they would say that you can't just use free

34:04

speech and free markets to defeat,

34:07

to actually dismantle this house. You need to shut

34:09

down free speech. So there's this mentality that my opponent's

34:12

speech is actually dangerous and needs to be deplatformed,

34:15

right? So instead of persuasion, we're gonna actually use

34:17

coercion to try to deplatform, which again,

34:20

if I hated the liberal house and thought it was bad,

34:22

I also would say, screw the tools of it. I don't

34:24

believe in liberalism or the liberal tools.

34:27

And you'll see less emphasis on individuality

34:29

there. You'll see much more things like, you know, you'll see

34:31

the kind of treating groups as monolithic

34:33

groups. So you have like the black community is a term, right?

34:36

Which is not a term that we would be used in the liberal

34:38

house so much because it's, that kind of diminishes

34:40

the individual in favor of these big kind

34:42

of monolithic groups. And that's, so that's very Marxist.

34:45

These big monolithic groups of the oppressed and the powerful

34:47

in the US, social justice fundamentalism

34:49

is a brand of that that would use race

34:51

and gender and things like that, and supposed to like the working

34:54

class and the, you know, the ruling class, but

34:56

it's the same concept. It's outside the house with a

34:58

wrecking ball. So it's more revolutionary and it

35:00

wants to not just, if the first group in

35:02

the house, liberals, left, right and center,

35:05

they say level one and two of

35:07

this pyramid, they're great.

35:08

We want more of them, but we need to change the

35:10

norms, policies, laws, institutions. We need to, they're

35:13

arguing about level three. What can we do on

35:15

level three to better uphold

35:17

levels one and two? Marxist ideologies

35:19

like social justice fundamentalism, they say, no,

35:21

no, no, we need to go and actually overhaul

35:23

level two also. But the

35:25

thing about social justice fundamentalism

35:28

that's different from a lot of other Marxist ideologies,

35:31

they go a step further, because most Marxists actually

35:33

would still say level one is good. They actually,

35:35

they believe in science and objective truth. They

35:38

just think that liberalism is a misguided system

35:40

of government. Social justice fundamentalism

35:43

merges and you kind of the neo-Marxist

35:45

mentality with postmodernism.

35:47

So postmodernism is a set

35:50

of philosophies that emerged in this, you

35:52

know, 60s, 70s and 80s. A lot of them in Europe

35:54

and France

35:55

and came over to the US. And this

35:57

is, you know,

35:58

this goes a step further. Actually,

36:00

even what we're calling modernity, science

36:02

and objective truth, all of that is actually just

36:05

a metanarrative. It's a metanarrative

36:07

through which oppression flows. They actually

36:09

would say, we need to reject that too. We

36:11

need to reject this concept. You'll often hear woke

36:14

scholars and they'll say stuff like, there is no such

36:17

thing as an objective truth. They say stuff like, my truth,

36:19

your truth, and that lived experience

36:22

is the only way to understand certain

36:24

truths. It almost goes back to the concept of

36:26

different denominations of truth from the

36:28

past. Is that black Americans or women

36:31

or LGBTQ people, they have

36:33

a lens, they actually have access to different

36:35

denominations of truth that other people can't

36:37

see. This is a very postmodern

36:40

and actually a very premodern concept. It's

36:43

an explicit rejection of this idea of

36:45

modernity. Social justice

36:47

fundamentalism combines this postmodern, this

36:50

Marxist ideology that wants to get rid of

36:52

level two with the postmodern

36:54

ideology, which actually wants to go a step further and get rid of

36:56

level one as well, a full overhaul of the

36:58

pyramid. When you think of

37:00

what's the definition of radical, to me,

37:03

the more radical, the more revolutionary

37:05

the deeper in this pyramid

37:08

your progressivism goes. Liberal

37:10

progressive is progressive about level

37:12

three. They want to change stuff on level

37:14

three, but they become very conservative about

37:17

levels one and two. A Marxist

37:19

is progressive about levels three and two.

37:21

They want to overhaul both, but they're

37:24

conservative about level one. Social justice

37:26

fundamentalism wants to actually ... They're progressive

37:28

about all three levels. The

37:30

deeper your progressivism goes before it hits a wall

37:33

of conservatism, that's the more radical.

37:35

I think it's a great metric for how radical something

37:37

can be. I just think it's useful. Once I started

37:39

thinking it this way, I just clarified a lot. Again,

37:42

none of this ... I happen to disagree with social justice fundamentalism

37:44

and Marxism, but none of this is to insult

37:47

those things. I think a lot of people who believe those things would

37:49

look at this and agree with me that, yes, they do

37:51

want to overhaul

37:51

level two or maybe even level one. I

37:54

just think it can help us understand what we're even arguing

37:56

about. I think one of the issues is

37:58

that right now it's confusing and a lot of ... people

38:00

who are very much liberal social justice, you know, Martin

38:02

Luther King style people who value liberalism, they

38:05

think that wokeness is part of

38:07

their kind of tribe. They think that it's maybe very

38:10

extreme, you know, but that it's still kind

38:12

of fighting for the same thing. But it's actually, it's fundamentally

38:14

the opposite. Instead of being pro-house, it's

38:17

anti-house, right? That's as big a difference as you

38:19

can get. And so I think people who are pro-house

38:21

actually should reject wokeness and

38:23

its ideology. And people who believe

38:26

in that, they should agree that they're anti-house or

38:28

else they're actually kind of, they're in the wrong

38:29

place,

38:31

if that makes sense. I think that's why this was so

38:33

useful to me, Tim, is it helped me kind

38:35

of map, because like, I think most people that

38:37

you talk to just on the street will sort

38:40

of agree with the title of your book. Like, there

38:42

is a problem with society. I think we all kind

38:44

of feel that, right? And, you know,

38:46

this stacking of levels indicates

38:48

like how deep you want to go

38:50

in the stack where you think we need to go in the

38:53

stack in order to like fix the

38:55

problems of society. And

38:57

you can map this onto kind of the different

38:59

social political movements as

39:01

you just did, right? I also kind of map

39:03

this onto crypto and, you know, some people

39:05

talk about crypto being sort of a revolution

39:07

and being kind of a radical movement. It's actually

39:10

not that radical. If you look at it

39:12

from the stack model, because crypto

39:14

is very much on the stack, sits

39:16

above the stack of liberalism.

39:19

It is a level three sort of social

39:21

technology. In that crypto,

39:24

we look at this, free markets, crypto

39:27

free market, definitely. That's the thing. It

39:29

is a free market, right? Free speech,

39:31

censorship resistance. Okay, that is liberalism.

39:34

Individualism, property rights, digital

39:36

property rights. That's individualism. Equality

39:39

of opportunity. If you pay the fee to

39:41

get your block across and

39:43

transact it in the network, it gets across.

39:46

It doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't care about race,

39:48

gender, geography. You just

39:50

have to have an internet connection. So it has some equality

39:52

of opportunity here

39:53

where it really seeks to kind of shake

39:56

up the world. Is the top level, level

39:58

three, institutions.

40:00

crypto has some critiques

40:02

with how central banks and banks are

40:04

kind of managed in general, thinks

40:06

we can have a better liberal

40:09

digital property rights system. So it

40:11

was even useful for me to kind of map that

40:13

model of the world onto crypto and sort of see things

40:15

differently. So thank

40:17

you for this model. That's

40:20

really interesting. It's

40:23

a great way to put it is that crypto, it's only trying to revolutionize

40:25

level three. It

40:28

is something that I bet, you know, I

40:30

bet often the people who are

40:32

super into crypto are also very

40:35

passionate lowercase liberals. And

40:37

if anything, it's kind of like one of the best expressions

40:40

of lowercase l liberalism. This

40:43

concept of, you know, it's a very kind of

40:45

pure form of those ideals,

40:47

I think it is. And that's why we wanted to

40:49

do this podcast so much. Tim is because

40:51

I feel like we haven't talked enough as a crypto

40:53

community about the values that actually

40:56

undergird the system. And in many ways,

40:58

like the crypto movement is much less

41:01

radical than some of the other social

41:03

political movements going on in the space. Because

41:05

what we're just trying to say is we're

41:07

trying to take these liberal values and instantiate

41:10

that in the digital.

41:12

And I actually think that the nation state

41:14

constitutional apparatus hasn't

41:17

done that quite effectively. Like

41:19

we have these analog types of rights. But

41:21

how do you actually own unconfiscatable

41:24

property

41:25

in the digital world on the Internet? Right. Well,

41:28

I don't know. Does Facebook, does Twitter sort

41:30

of own my feed? Like, am I

41:32

just a surf on their feudal lands or can I actually own

41:34

something? And crypto

41:36

provides almost like a to us

41:39

anyway, a liberal alternative for

41:41

digital rights and digital property. And it's

41:44

very much aligned. That's why we wanted to go deeper in this cut. And

41:47

why your mental models were so helpful for me when

41:49

I kind of went through them is because I'm taking this and I'm

41:51

like applying it to this new frontier

41:54

into the digital. And, you know, when you

41:56

stack it up, like the crypto movement isn't

41:58

actually that radical.

41:59

It's just taking like

42:01

1700s constitutional

42:04

type ideas and extrapolating

42:06

that forward into the digital. It's

42:30

about like the woke left versus the extreme

42:32

right. And

42:35

that's kind of just like in the more mainstream

42:37

understanding for

42:40

how to interpret this conversation. And

42:43

in

42:43

crypto we have different parties. We

42:46

have different factions and

42:48

they appear very different. The

42:50

patterns are the same. Although the more

42:52

larger mainstream gargantuan factions that exist in the web2 world,

42:57

they play with the same strategies. And

42:59

that's why this is so interesting. When we

43:01

got into the height of the 2021 bull market, there

43:04

was this one tribe you call it,

43:06

the frog army. There's also the terra lunatics

43:08

with the terra luna blockchain. And Ryan and

43:11

I actually got into fights with these people, with

43:13

these monolithic like entities.

43:16

And they actually started to transcend down that

43:18

stack further than just the top of the pyramid. Most

43:21

of crypto

43:22

agrees with the whole like liberal freedom

43:24

of speech, that kind of stuff that you and Ryan were talking

43:26

about. But there were these some tribes that played

43:28

the

43:29

power games that operated outside

43:31

of the rules of the house. And they would

43:33

come into our YouTube chats when we were live

43:35

streaming and just absolutely span

43:37

the chat, silencing all forms of dissent.

43:40

And they would just make sure that anyone that had any dissenting

43:42

opinion didn't have a platform to stand on.

43:45

And so we're watching some of these power

43:48

strategies operate both like outside

43:50

of the crypto world and also inside of the

43:52

crypto world as well. And it's just

43:54

interesting to see these different tribes, these

43:56

different communities, no matter where they exist, be it inside

43:59

of crypto or outside of crypto. crypto, kind of play by the

44:01

same playbook, no matter what. And

44:03

the playbook is so elegantly like documented

44:05

in your book. And so this pyramid,

44:07

I think is interested to really answer the question to

44:10

the bankless listeners like why are these people talking

44:12

about this liberalism concept on a crypto podcast

44:14

is the answer is because like some parts

44:16

of these

44:17

crypto tribes, we all want to

44:20

rearchitect society because we think

44:22

that the institutions are failing us. Some

44:24

crypto tribes want to go real

44:26

deep. Some crypto tribes only want to stay

44:28

at the surface.

44:29

And I think this is really the important

44:32

point that bankless listeners should really pay attention to is

44:34

that we all want to rearchitect

44:36

society moving forward with different institutions.

44:39

And the level at which

44:41

your tribe in particular, whichever one

44:43

you identify with injects itself into

44:45

that pyramid that we were just looking at is

44:48

really important to understand. And

44:50

so Tim, I just want to kind of leave that

44:52

to you because go for it. Yeah. I

44:54

think like the pyramid is almost like the

44:57

biggest point here. And so if

44:59

there are people who are both kind of, I don't

45:01

know, really gung ho about crypto, but

45:04

one of them wants to use crypto to

45:07

overhaul level two

45:08

or to violate level two and someone

45:11

else is passionately wants to preserve

45:13

and enhance level two.

45:16

It's important to realize that

45:18

the liberal who wants

45:20

to use crypto to make things more liberal has

45:23

a lot more in common and a lot more common

45:25

goals with people who hate crypto, but

45:27

they're passionate liberals

45:29

than people who also their

45:31

fellow crypto people

45:33

who specifically want to use crypto to undermine

45:35

level two. Because it's like, think of backup, zoom out. What's

45:37

this all for? Right? What are

45:39

we actually doing here? Crypto is an end in itself. It's a

45:41

means for a lot of different things. And

45:44

so if one of the main reasons that you like crypto

45:46

is because you think it makes market, you know, it enhances

45:48

free markets and individualism and freedom and and

45:51

it actually it's the best version of the house and

45:53

someone else is out there with a wrecking ball. You know,

45:55

he's saying we can use crypto to knock down the house. You

45:58

guys are is nothing to do with each other.

45:59

You have nothing, you're much more, you have

46:02

to push back against that a

46:04

lot more than you to push back against fellow liberals

46:06

who think crypto is bad. I mean, it's just because that's

46:09

the bigger picture. Yeah, that's exactly right, Tim.

46:12

I want to maybe address some people are kind

46:14

of questioning this idea of lowercase L liberalism

46:16

again. Could you steel man the

46:18

argument though against

46:21

liberalism? So for

46:23

instance, this idea, you sort of alluded to it

46:25

briefly, that liberalism is just

46:27

another entrenched power structure. Right?

46:30

A lot of people right now are

46:32

looking at capitalism and,

46:35

you know, just millennials, for example,

46:37

people kind of they can't afford a house. The

46:39

economy is not so good

46:41

right now. It seems like wealth

46:44

inequality has exacerbated

46:46

to a degree that it's just like non

46:49

recoverable for younger generations. And

46:51

so they're seeing capitalism. They're seeing the free

46:54

markets that we're all talking about in crypto

46:56

and liberal values. And they're saying this is just

46:58

another unequal power structure. They

47:00

see a quality of opportunity and,

47:03

you know, they view that as worse than kind of the idea

47:05

of maybe equity and they see free speech and

47:08

they look at that and they say, well, this just enables

47:11

hate

47:11

propaganda. And they see these

47:13

concepts like individualism that a liberal

47:16

holds dear and they contrast

47:18

that with like, what about the power and the

47:20

value of the collective? Are you

47:23

sure that liberalism, because this your

47:25

book is kind of like

47:26

lays out the models, but then I think the conclusion

47:28

and also makes the case for why liberalism is

47:31

really important for the

47:33

United States in general and

47:35

for many countries. But can you steal man

47:37

the argument against liberalism before

47:39

we move on from this topic? Yeah,

47:41

I mean, definitely. I don't think liberalism

47:43

is perfect. Just to approach each thing

47:46

you said here one by one, like free

47:48

speech, I feel very strongly about that. I'm very pro-liberal

47:50

there. I think it's pretty

47:53

hard for me to

47:54

steal man the case against it because what people

47:57

have to realize is that sure,

47:59

free speech is a good thing. allows bad ideas

48:02

to be spoken, right? And sometimes

48:04

to persuade people. But

48:06

the only alternative,

48:08

the only alternative to free speech

48:10

is basically some ideas are not allowed to be said

48:13

and some ideas are. Now

48:14

who decides? Ask 10

48:17

Americans even, 10 people around the world. Ask 10

48:19

Americans what are the good ideas that

48:21

should be spoken and which ideas are dangerous. They're

48:24

gonna have 10 different answers. So what ends up happening

48:26

is the people with the most power, the most cultural

48:29

power, or if the First Amendment

48:31

goes away, the people with the biggest guns,

48:34

they get to decide what's true and

48:36

what's good and everyone else has to kind of abide

48:39

by that. And that's just A, it's

48:41

not fair, it's not right, it's not free, but B,

48:43

it's not wise. There's no humility there. The

48:45

premise is that I know, I already know what the

48:47

good and right ideas are. So I know which

48:49

ones should be silenced. The people who say dangerous

48:52

ideas shouldn't be platformed. The assumption

48:54

there is that I already know everything I need to know. I know

48:56

what's dangerous and I know it's not. But I would

48:58

use the example of interracial marriage.

49:01

96% of people thought it was immoral in 1959.

49:04

Pretty recent, 1959. 4% of

49:07

people thought it was okay. 96% of

49:10

people weren't bad people, right? They weren't racist

49:13

bad people. It's that

49:15

that's just what we all thought. That's

49:17

what almost everyone thought and almost everyone you know

49:19

would have thought interracial marriage is not moral.

49:22

Today, the number is 94% think it's fine and 6%

49:25

think it's immoral, right? So that is the entire

49:28

country has changed its mind. But if you went back

49:30

to 1959 and said, you know what? Certain

49:33

people, we were gonna let you decide. No dangerous

49:35

ideas will be aired anymore. You decide which ones.

49:37

Almost everyone, well, one of the dangerous ideas on

49:39

their list would have been interracial marriage is good. So

49:42

no one would have been able to speak that. Same with gay rights. Gay

49:44

rights would have been a no-go in 1959. Almost

49:47

everyone would have said, well, that we definitely don't want to be spoken.

49:50

We don't want kids hearing about gay rights, right? Yeah, that's

49:52

sodomy, it's whatever. And today,

49:54

I think we're pretty happy that free

49:56

speech prevailed because we were wrong.

50:00

The kind of underlying assumption when people today

50:02

think, you know, free speech allows dangerous ideas to flourish

50:04

is this idea that well, all the people in the past,

50:07

they had bad ideas. But today, it's

50:09

all clear. We figured it out. People in 50

50:11

years will not look back on us and

50:13

say, wow, they were really morally wrong about a bunch

50:15

of things or just their knowledge was off.

50:18

But actually, they'll say that, nope, they had it right.

50:20

Of course, that's not true, right? So free speech, I almost

50:23

refused to steel man the case against it, because I

50:25

just think that the only alternative

50:27

is powerful people censoring people.

50:29

And

50:31

of course, usually what the powerful people end up

50:33

deciding is offensive is any

50:35

challenge to their own power, any criticism

50:37

of themselves. Now, the other things

50:40

I think free markets capitalism, there's a very

50:42

strong steel man arguments against those, of course,

50:44

I mean, you know, you could argue that, you know, unchecked

50:47

capitalism is going to kill us all, because

50:49

it's going to lead to, you know, AI arms races

50:52

and stuff like this, right? Weapons arm races. And, and

50:54

of course, it inevitably creates vast

50:57

inequality, which is almost always the sign

50:59

of a crumbling society. Is inequality spikes,

51:01

goes to crazy extremes, and then the society crumbles.

51:04

So I think unmoored capitalism is a

51:06

very bad idea. I think that these should definitely

51:09

be a continually evolving dance

51:11

between freedom and regulation, the free

51:14

markets. I think we already have a lot of that. I

51:16

don't think, you know, any educated liberal

51:18

knows that we don't have pure free markets

51:20

and pure capitalism, right? We have a lot of rules

51:22

against monopoly and a lot of other things. medicine

51:54

and food and shelter,

51:57

usually, and have heat in the winter, you know, most

51:59

people, even people people in the US who are in the bottom 20%, they

52:01

have a lot of their basic needs met. That's incredible

52:03

revolution. And the media

52:06

in America is living like an absolute king compared

52:08

to people of the past. So I do think that's,

52:11

you know, inherently, again, if you think

52:13

about alternatives, if you say inequality

52:15

at all is bad, what

52:17

you're also saying is that freedom is bad, because inherently,

52:19

just different people have different talents, different motivations,

52:22

even people who are equally talented, equally motivated,

52:24

one wants to go into this profession, which makes a certain

52:27

kind of money, and this one goes into a different

52:29

one. So inequality is inevitable, if

52:31

you have freedom at all, right. And so I think that

52:34

it's hard to argue that we should have no inequality,

52:36

because then you end up with a totalitarian

52:38

communist dictatorship, which I don't think

52:40

is a good idea. I think that's going to lead to

52:43

mass poverty, and you're going to crush our productivity,

52:45

and it's going to be unfair, and you're going to end up in a bad

52:47

situation. But I definitely think

52:50

that unchecked free markets and capitalism is not

52:52

the right way at all. So I definitely feel like that's

52:54

something and then, and just in general, the idea

52:56

that like liberalism itself is, I would

52:59

totally agree that I would never say that liberalism

53:02

is the end all and be all system. I'm sure

53:04

it can be improved upon. I'm sure there are better systems.

53:07

I just can't think of any. I haven't seen any,

53:09

right? If someone can come to me and say, look

53:11

at this society in the past, you know,

53:14

that thrive for a long time, that was

53:16

productive, that was fair,

53:19

that had equal justice before the people

53:21

were equal under the law, and the

53:23

quality of life was better. I'm all ears,

53:25

right? I'm totally open to the

53:28

fact that our current system is definitely

53:30

flawed in lots of ways. It's definitely corrupt in

53:32

lots of ways. People take advantage of it. I think that democracy,

53:35

the voting system is definitely not perfect.

53:37

And so I think there's all kinds of flaws. It's

53:40

just that it seems like the best crack

53:42

yet, and that a lot of the work we can do is

53:44

to make the house better. I think that the part

53:46

of it is that we're not living in the best version of this house. Again,

53:49

look at the history of, you know, race in America, right?

53:51

I mean, black Americans have had far

53:53

from a fair ride in what's supposed

53:55

to be a fair country and women too,

53:57

right? And it's been, you know, women couldn't even vote

53:59

until. recently. So I think there's

54:01

two things to separate one is, you know, are we complaining

54:04

about the flaws in the system, which I'm

54:06

right, I'm right there with you, right? Let's fix the flaws

54:08

and let's get rid of corruption and let's keep

54:10

attacking that, or arguing against

54:12

the system as a whole, right? So that

54:15

means you're not just arguing for more regulation in

54:17

capitalism or free markets, you're arguing for the end of

54:19

free markets. Yeah, maybe I'm not doing a great

54:21

job of steel manning it. But look, I think the best stillman

54:24

I can give is that there are always inherently

54:26

going to be some stuff that we're all missing. And

54:29

if I went 1000 years in the future, I would

54:32

expect that we're in some kind of government that's very weird

54:34

and surprising to me. And that has been

54:36

a major improvement upon liberalism. So the general

54:38

concept that this is not the necessarily the best

54:41

possible system. Sure, absolutely.

54:43

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54:45

from people.

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59:20

I'm

59:30

going to try and make sure that all communities

59:32

have members of both.

59:59

for the Bitcoiners, and then the higher minds. You

1:00:02

call them the thought leaders. Nick Carter

1:00:04

of the Bitcoin tribe comes to mind for me. And

1:00:07

you have this idea of a ladder, where

1:00:09

everyone has their primitive mind, everyone has

1:00:11

their higher mind. And the idea is the more

1:00:13

that we can operate with our higher mind, the better that things

1:00:16

are.

1:00:16

And then I've also taken this same idea of

1:00:19

a ladder and overlaid it with a political compass,

1:00:21

which I'm sure you're familiar with. But

1:00:23

the idea is that there's this 3D political

1:00:25

landscape. You got authoritarians versus

1:00:28

libertarians, the right versus the left.

1:00:31

And in the crypto world, we have a similar

1:00:33

landscape of tribes. Sometimes

1:00:35

maybe you can actually map them onto the political compass,

1:00:37

but the point is that there's this nebulous

1:00:40

set of tribes that are spread over this landscape

1:00:43

in the crypto world. And each

1:00:45

and every single one operate

1:00:46

with this primitive mind versus

1:00:49

higher mind. And so I'm hoping that

1:00:51

the bankless listener can approach this next part of this conversation,

1:00:54

identifying with whatever tribe that they come

1:00:56

from. But Tim, you've identified

1:00:58

these archetypes, this primitive mind and this higher

1:01:01

mind that I think all communities have.

1:01:03

And I'm wondering if you can walk us through this mental model to understand

1:01:06

how

1:01:07

to think about these tribes that we all identify

1:01:09

with in the crypto space and maybe identify

1:01:12

the fact that one particular tribe that

1:01:14

we are in might be operating with a

1:01:16

primitive mind, whereas others might be operating

1:01:18

with a higher mind. If you could just walk us through that

1:01:20

part of the conversation. Sure, yeah. So

1:01:23

this is, I love that you did this because a lot of people point

1:01:25

out like, well, there's already two dimensions,

1:01:27

right? We have the political compass. And

1:01:30

what I would say to that is when I say the what you think

1:01:33

axis, right? The horizontal axis, left,

1:01:35

right, center, that is basically

1:01:37

shorthand for just, it's the realm

1:01:39

of what you think. Now we could always expand

1:01:41

that into two dimensions of its own,

1:01:43

like you did below, right? And I think that all

1:01:46

of that still qualifies though for the what

1:01:48

you think axis. So there's lots of realms

1:01:50

of what you think and we can discuss and there's lots

1:01:52

of different nuances to it. And I'm sure within crypto,

1:01:55

like you just described, it's not just a single

1:01:57

axis, right? There's all these different camps and

1:01:59

there's different camps.

1:01:59

within the camps. And that

1:02:02

to me still though, for this discussion, we can still

1:02:04

oversimplify it to

1:02:06

all within the realm of what you think, right? You

1:02:08

know, what your stances are. Now,

1:02:10

what I like to do here is add a vertical,

1:02:13

another axis, and if you already have two, then this is a third

1:02:15

one, but either way, it's a separate

1:02:18

axis entirely from all of

1:02:20

that, which is this, what

1:02:22

I would call like a how you think axis, it's my ladder

1:02:24

here. And the idea is that there's like

1:02:26

two different kind of broad, you

1:02:29

know, ways of thinking. And when

1:02:32

I talk about the, you know, higher mind,

1:02:35

it is kind of the ideal kind

1:02:37

of grown up way of thinking. So when your

1:02:39

higher mind is kind of doing

1:02:42

the thinking, you are basically just

1:02:44

looking for truth and you're not attached

1:02:47

to

1:02:48

your ideas. You're not attached,

1:02:50

you know, you don't identify with them, you

1:02:52

are simply, you're trying to get

1:02:55

closer to the truth, you're trying to be less wrong. And

1:02:57

so you inherently have a lot of humility because you know

1:02:59

that people are often wrong and you've been wrong

1:03:01

a lot in the past. And you're very open to disagreement

1:03:04

and to challenges to your ideas, because

1:03:06

you see that as you know, if my idea

1:03:08

is a little machine that I've built, well,

1:03:11

a challenger is kicking my machine. Now,

1:03:14

I'm not going to take that personally, if my idea is as

1:03:16

strong as I think it is, they're going to hurt their foot. My

1:03:18

machine is going to hold up strong and I'm going to say, see, I just

1:03:20

got a little bit more confident because I saw you

1:03:23

tried to do this and it didn't work. But if they kick

1:03:25

the machine and something falls off and it breaks,

1:03:28

in other words, they challenged my argument and they

1:03:30

point out a flaw and I realized, man, that was a good

1:03:32

point. Right? I'm not going to get offended or angry.

1:03:34

I'm going to say thank you, basically. Oh, wow, you just showed

1:03:37

me that I thought I was right about something. I'm not. And

1:03:39

so you're going to be very open to changing

1:03:41

your mind, right? This is all very basic.

1:03:43

It sounds so obvious. Of course, if you're looking for truth, you

1:03:46

would be open to someone telling you pointing out

1:03:48

flaws in your ideas. You would be open to changing

1:03:50

your mind. You would have humility about

1:03:53

them and you wouldn't identify with your ideas

1:03:55

because the only identity is just you as

1:03:57

the truth seeker. That's it, right? You know, the

1:03:59

actual.

1:03:59

thing you believe to be the truth isn't part of you, that's

1:04:02

just something that you're trying to understand. So

1:04:05

that's ideal, right? But of course we don't always think with

1:04:07

that part of our brain. So there's this other part, that primitive

1:04:09

mind, which actually really does, in

1:04:11

FMRI studies on people having certain views

1:04:13

challenged versus others, really does

1:04:16

map on to different parts of our brain. It maps onto

1:04:18

parts of our brain that are very emotional,

1:04:21

the amygdala, the limbic system, and other parts

1:04:23

of the limbic system, the fight or flight parts of our brain, the

1:04:25

survival parts of our brain. And also to

1:04:27

this thing called the default mode network, which is the part that

1:04:29

looks internally,

1:04:29

that's introspective, that associates

1:04:32

with our own identity.

1:04:33

And so when you're thinking with this part

1:04:35

of your brain, there's certain ideas

1:04:38

that your primitive mind is going to

1:04:40

associate with your identity and is going

1:04:42

to basically cling onto and

1:04:45

spend all of its energy, rather

1:04:47

than trying to find the truth, just trying

1:04:49

to be right, trying to prove that they're right,

1:04:51

trying to continue to believe with

1:04:53

conviction the things that they believe, and trying to prove

1:04:56

anyone else wrong. And when that part

1:04:58

of your brain is active, we have a totally different relationship with ideas.

1:05:01

Again, we think we're going for the truth, but we're very

1:05:03

delusional when our primitive mind is thinking we're not really

1:05:05

doing that. We're full of, what

1:05:07

is confirmation bias? Confirmation bias is the invisible

1:05:10

hand of the primitive mind in your head, which is

1:05:12

trying to, as you're sitting there thinking you're

1:05:14

looking for truth, the primitive mind is pushing

1:05:16

your search in a way that will end up just

1:05:18

where it wants it to go. So I'm trying to figure

1:05:20

out what's true. Oh, look where I found out, I confirm

1:05:22

my beliefs, low and behold, right? And

1:05:24

that's what will always happen because that

1:05:27

part of our brain gets, again, it's associates

1:05:29

certain ideas with our identity and it becomes indistinguishable.

1:05:32

So my belief in one of those

1:05:34

camps you said, or my belief that left-wing

1:05:37

politics is the best, or whatever

1:05:39

it is, that is part

1:05:41

of who I am, right? Or that the Bible

1:05:43

is true, that's part of who I am. And

1:05:46

the primitive mind has a hard time distinguishing

1:05:48

between your identity and your physical

1:05:50

body, which is why when you have your sacred

1:05:52

beliefs challenge, the fight or flight

1:05:54

parts of your brain will literally light up and you will

1:05:57

not just think the people who are saying them are automatically

1:05:59

wrong. because that's forgiven, but you'll actually think they're

1:06:01

bad people. You'll hate them. And

1:06:03

that's very quickly turns into very kind of base,

1:06:06

primitive tribalism, good old tribalism,

1:06:08

which is that very quickly you start to want

1:06:10

to be friends with the people who share that and

1:06:12

then the group themselves becomes this echo chamber

1:06:15

where they group will do kind of collaborative, low

1:06:17

rung thinking. And if you

1:06:19

will be kicked out of the group, if you

1:06:22

say that the group is wrong about the sacred beliefs, the whole

1:06:24

group sits there and just talks about how right they are and

1:06:26

they dehumanize the other people. So it's

1:06:28

the us versus them mentality and all

1:06:30

real thinking, all truth finding, all

1:06:33

humility, it all goes out the window. And so

1:06:35

I had the latter because it's not just one or the other

1:06:37

brain thinking. A lot of times these are both fighting

1:06:40

kind of for the controls in our head. You have some

1:06:42

part of you that really just wants to find the truth and then

1:06:44

another part that really just wants to be right. And so

1:06:47

it's kind of a tug of war, which is what I have with that rope

1:06:49

and those drawings on the right. But I think

1:06:51

what you're describing with the different camps, this is

1:06:53

an important access to add onto it because

1:06:56

you can actually not just say, all those camps

1:06:58

you mentioned, okay, you can

1:06:59

map them out in what they think, but then you can also

1:07:02

say, which of these camps or

1:07:04

which of these voices is,

1:07:07

deep down they're willing to change their mind

1:07:09

and they're actually just trying to figure out what's true

1:07:12

and they attack

1:07:13

ideas. They don't attack people and they don't get offended

1:07:15

or angry when someone says they're

1:07:17

wrong and which are doing it the

1:07:20

primitive mind way and they

1:07:22

attack people. They will actually

1:07:24

try to punish people for saying the wrong thing. And you

1:07:27

know, a sign of someone thinking with their primitive

1:07:29

mind is, you know there's nothing you could say or

1:07:31

show them. No piece of evidence that would make them say,

1:07:33

you know what, I guess I'm wrong about that. I need

1:07:35

to rethink that. So

1:07:37

it's important to just, it's nice once you have

1:07:39

that in your head, you can start to notice this axis alongside

1:07:42

all the what you think axes of the world.

1:07:44

Anyone who's just been through the last crypto bull market

1:07:47

knows that these things are very emotional

1:07:49

experiences, especially when there's a lot

1:07:51

of money to be made. There's a lot of wealth that's on

1:07:53

the line. And when we say money

1:07:56

and wealth, we say, you know, think scarce resources, which

1:07:58

is the same thing that. The

1:08:00

people of the political sphere, the trad political

1:08:02

sphere are also fighting over. Everyone

1:08:04

is ultimately fighting over scarce resources. Inside

1:08:08

of a crypto bull market, it just happens inside of

1:08:10

like two years. It happens in a very short consolidated

1:08:13

experiment, if you will. And so we

1:08:15

have all of these tribes running

1:08:17

through this moment in time in which there's

1:08:20

a lot of money to be made, but everyone kind of knows that

1:08:22

there's only going to be good for like two years. A

1:08:25

lot of scarcity mentality and the

1:08:27

sympathetic nervous system

1:08:29

gets like turned up to the max. And

1:08:31

so that's where a lot of like this tribalism comes from

1:08:34

in from the crypto space. Because it's really, really

1:08:36

easy to use your primitive mind in the crypto

1:08:38

world and a lot

1:08:41

harder to use your higher mind. Because

1:08:44

it's easier to find the tribe that chants

1:08:46

louder. And because if you

1:08:48

can find the bigger tribe that's chanting the

1:08:50

bigger chant, that tribe makes money

1:08:53

because that makes the number go up, at least

1:08:55

inside of that like short time of frame that

1:08:57

we have this bull market. And so we have

1:08:59

this

1:08:59

like

1:09:00

fight in the crypto space where we have the OGs

1:09:03

who are by definition of

1:09:05

the higher mind because they've made it through the cycles.

1:09:08

And then you have the new peas who are always

1:09:10

of the primitive mind because that is

1:09:12

what it is to go through a crypto bull market in its first

1:09:14

cycle. It's like everyone's kind of using their primitive mind

1:09:17

the first go around. And it's also

1:09:19

like, again, why we wanted to have you on this podcast. Now,

1:09:21

obviously, like why we try and do bankless is

1:09:23

because the idea of going

1:09:25

on the bankless journey is about ascending

1:09:27

the ladder, is about getting to the higher

1:09:29

mind and learning

1:09:30

to reflect on

1:09:33

when you're using your primitive mind and

1:09:35

when it's time to come to use the higher mind. And Tim,

1:09:37

I'm wondering if you have any thoughts for

1:09:39

like how to ascend the ladder, how to identify

1:09:41

when you are in a primitive mind state and

1:09:44

how to actually make it easier for bankless listeners

1:09:46

to climb up into a higher mind state. Do you have

1:09:48

any thoughts or advice for us on that? I think partially

1:09:50

is just being like even just having this ladder

1:09:53

as a concept in your head because no

1:09:55

one wants to be on the low rungs, right? When you're

1:09:57

on the low rungs, you're delusional.

1:09:59

are letting kind of primitive

1:10:02

emotions make your decisions. You're

1:10:05

completely blocked from learning new

1:10:07

things. You will continue to make

1:10:09

the same mistake over and over because of stubborn kind

1:10:11

of insistence that you're right. So it's not

1:10:13

good for, the person who suffers most from low rung

1:10:15

thinking is the low rung thinker. And

1:10:17

so I think, you know, there are signs,

1:10:20

of course, when you're doing this, if you can ask yourself, is there

1:10:22

anything that would make me say

1:10:24

I'm wrong about this? If the answer is no, okay.

1:10:27

I think I'm like caught up in kind of like

1:10:29

a religious fervor here. I think I am caught

1:10:32

up in like a tribal craze at this moment. And

1:10:35

you can also say, you know, do I get kind

1:10:37

of irrationally angry when

1:10:39

someone disagrees with me on this? When I see something,

1:10:41

you know, that tells me, you know, the people who disagree

1:10:43

with me, do I hate them? You know, these

1:10:45

are all signs that you are doing

1:10:48

that thing that all humans

1:10:50

do, right? It doesn't mean you're a bad person. It doesn't

1:10:52

mean you're a dumb person. Everyone does

1:10:54

it, right? And it just means, oh, I've slipped down on

1:10:56

the ladder.

1:10:57

And just having that thought

1:10:59

right there, boom, you're already up a few rungs. Just having

1:11:01

that thought, because when you're really down on the ladder, you don't know

1:11:04

you're doing it. You are totally lost

1:11:06

in it. And so a little bit of self reflection can

1:11:08

go a long way. And then of course, you know, what's the

1:11:10

best way to help yourself here is surround

1:11:12

yourself with other people that

1:11:14

value

1:11:15

high rung thinking, even if they don't use that term, they

1:11:18

just happen to be that. So there, again, as

1:11:20

a group, you still will sometimes slip down, but you will

1:11:22

find that like, it can be like a support group. If

1:11:24

you have people that tend to not identify

1:11:27

with ideas where the group itself likes to

1:11:29

disagree, right? If the group is always

1:11:31

agreeing on everything, I think you've fallen

1:11:33

into a low rung echo chamber, which is again, collaborative

1:11:36

low rung thinking. A

1:11:38

high rung group, which I would call an idea lab, it's

1:11:40

kind of the opposite of an echo chamber,

1:11:42

is just a place where

1:11:45

people attack ideas, but not people. It's

1:11:47

a place where disagreeing is

1:11:49

cool, where humility, we're saying, I don't know, makes you

1:11:51

seem smart, not wishy washy or dumb,

1:11:54

where people change their minds and where people disagree

1:11:56

for sport. And argument doesn't mean you're in

1:11:58

a fight. And when you're not, In an echo chamber,

1:12:00

you can see it where it's like, wow, everyone agrees

1:12:03

and we're having way too much fun agreeing and

1:12:05

talking about how bad the other people are. And

1:12:08

if I went and disagreed right now, it would

1:12:10

really kill the vibe in this room. And people

1:12:12

would like me less, and maybe I wouldn't even be part of

1:12:14

the group anymore. Okay, so now what you're doing is

1:12:16

you've fallen into a low-rung group that is going

1:12:18

to, if anything, bring out your low-rung thinking

1:12:21

side. It's gonna be, you know, it's like if you're

1:12:23

trying to recover as an alcoholic, it's like surrounding

1:12:25

yourself with going to an alcohol, you

1:12:27

know, drinking party every night. And so

1:12:29

I think, yeah, so I think, first of all, just have

1:12:31

the letter in your head and try to stay

1:12:32

aware and notice the signs that you're doing it, and then

1:12:35

try to remind yourself that this isn't good for me,

1:12:37

that I'm gonna, this is making me stupid. And

1:12:40

then try to surround yourself with other people that

1:12:42

tend to be on the high rungs and kind of keep that

1:12:44

as a core value in the group. I think this is

1:12:46

great advice for how to exist in a modern

1:12:48

society where we have all this low-rung thinking

1:12:51

kind of junk food, and you've just extolled the

1:12:53

benefits to the individual. And I would

1:12:55

say for any truth-finding exercise, whether

1:12:58

you're like in pursuit of science or in pursuit

1:13:00

of like a better way, a better system,

1:13:02

or

1:13:02

you're an investor, you definitely

1:13:05

don't want to fall prey to low-rung

1:13:07

thinking because you'll be wrong

1:13:09

much more often. And if you're looking,

1:13:11

as Tim said, to be less wrong, then

1:13:14

you have to pursue higher

1:13:15

mind thinking. That is the only

1:13:17

way. But let me add a little wrinkle to this, Tim,

1:13:19

because you just made the case that it's better

1:13:22

for individuals to pursue

1:13:24

high mind thinking and high-rung

1:13:26

thinking rather than low-rung thinking. However,

1:13:29

there's like this kind of exception

1:13:31

that I've noticed, and I'm almost wondering if

1:13:33

this kind of contributes to the

1:13:36

erosion of liberalism. And this is

1:13:38

this idea of like web-to-social-media

1:13:41

technologies, which actually, I know

1:13:44

you're an experienced Twitter user, as am I,

1:13:46

as is David, as are many like bankless listeners,

1:13:49

of course. I got to tell you

1:13:51

that our media engines, our media curation

1:13:54

engines like YouTube or Twitter or

1:13:56

Facebook or anything else actually

1:13:58

don't reward.

1:14:00

high rung thinking. They

1:14:02

reward dunking. If I

1:14:04

can have the hottest like tweet, if

1:14:07

I can enter the arena and like

1:14:10

just dunk on my opponent, doesn't even

1:14:12

have to be true.

1:14:13

It just has to be viral. It

1:14:15

has to be interesting. It has to catch

1:14:17

on. Or if I'm a content creator and

1:14:20

I want to create content,

1:14:21

guess what the L goes reward? Sensationalism.

1:14:24

They do not reward truth. And I'm wondering

1:14:27

your thoughts about this, because if

1:14:29

I'm an individual tweeter or content creator

1:14:32

or, you know, anything involved in

1:14:34

social media, there's actually net benefit for me to be

1:14:36

a low rung thinker because

1:14:39

I'll accrue more attention. I'll become more popular.

1:14:42

I'll be able to influence more people. And

1:14:44

I'm wondering if this is kind

1:14:46

of a pernicious problem that

1:14:48

we are facing now. And maybe the reason

1:14:51

for some erosion of liberalism, what do you make

1:14:53

of our web to

1:14:54

curation algorithms right now and how they're affecting

1:14:57

society? I think you're absolutely right

1:15:00

that these algorithms and

1:15:02

the way the incentive structure is set up encourages

1:15:05

low rung content creation, low

1:15:07

rung mentality publicly. For

1:15:10

any individual, what I would say is

1:15:12

that when you're creating content, when

1:15:14

you're putting stuff out there, you're kind of creating a magnet,

1:15:17

you're turning yourself into a magnet.

1:15:19

And the magnet is going to

1:15:21

attract people

1:15:23

who think the way you're talking, who

1:15:25

like the way you're talking. And it's going

1:15:27

to repel people who don't. So

1:15:30

if you get out there and you start saying, I'm just going

1:15:32

to be really politically aggressive

1:15:35

and I'm going to just kind of be really tribal, I'm

1:15:37

going to dunk on the other side, you're going to

1:15:39

get a bunch of followers. That's true. But you're

1:15:41

going to get followers who love people who dunk

1:15:43

on the other side, who are thinking of that way themselves,

1:15:45

who are really tribal. And you're going to repel

1:15:48

people who are thoughtful and nuanced and who

1:15:50

want to find the truth. And

1:15:52

so what happens now, you've gotten a bunch of followers

1:15:55

doing this. Now, what say, you know, but say you

1:15:57

say that's not actually who I am, right? I was just trying to manipulate.

1:16:00

the algorithms and get followers. Now I'm gonna write

1:16:02

something nuanced. I'm gonna write a nuanced tweet or

1:16:04

a post or make a YouTube video.

1:16:06

You're gonna get a ton of hate from your followers

1:16:08

because you're gonna have attracted the exact

1:16:10

kind of people who don't like that, and all the people who would've

1:16:13

loved that, they don't follow you. They're long

1:16:15

gone. They left a long time ago because you really

1:16:17

bored them or you repulsed them. So

1:16:20

I would say as a content creator of any kind, whether

1:16:22

it is in thought leadership or in

1:16:24

writing or in music or anything, make

1:16:27

the kind of stuff that is true to who you are.

1:16:29

Because you will then attract not just

1:16:32

followers but friends, right? You'll attract

1:16:34

people who want more

1:16:36

of that

1:16:36

and who like that and who agree with you. And maybe, yeah,

1:16:38

maybe it's a slower road because the

1:16:40

algorithm isn't gonna just totally help you as much,

1:16:43

but it happens over time. And now,

1:16:46

you're gonna be encouraged to do more of that. And

1:16:48

the alternative is you surround yourself with a

1:16:50

bunch of people who you don't actually like or who won't appreciate

1:16:52

the nuanced part of your brain. So I would say for

1:16:54

an individual, it's a no brainer too. If

1:16:57

you are super tribal and that's who you are and

1:16:59

that's who you like to be with, sure, go for it. Then go

1:17:01

do that and surround yourself with that. But I would say if you're not,

1:17:04

I think it's a huge mistake to try

1:17:06

to go

1:17:06

for just followers because the question

1:17:08

is which followers? And you want

1:17:10

that to be the right answer.

1:17:12

But yes, on a macro scale, I totally

1:17:14

agree this is a problem and I wish that algorithms

1:17:17

over time would adjust instead of just going for

1:17:19

pure engagement which is gonna inherently then

1:17:21

go for outrage and anger, would

1:17:24

actually tweak themselves a little bit and maybe

1:17:26

in a more macro sense, change the incentive structure.

1:17:29

Guys, there's so much more here to unpack

1:17:31

and it's all included in Tim's book which

1:17:33

I totally recommend. It is called What's

1:17:36

Our Problem? We'll include a link to it in the

1:17:38

show notes but the mental models here. We only

1:17:40

got through half of the agenda. Yeah, it's

1:17:42

just

1:17:42

like we have so much more. So guys,

1:17:44

this is all about how you can think better

1:17:47

in the society and how you can make

1:17:49

sure you are a high-rung thinker, how you can avoid

1:17:52

echo chambers. Echo chambers, I gotta

1:17:54

say, they're powerful in the short run

1:17:57

but they are long-term bearish,

1:17:59

okay?

1:17:59

accomplish something over the long run. But

1:18:06

Tim, I know we don't have too much time, but I really

1:18:08

need to pick your brain on this before we leave. We're

1:18:11

just talking about algorithms and kind of web two and how you're hopeful that we

1:18:13

can start to reward high-rung thinking

1:18:15

with our algorithms. I just

1:18:17

heard Max Tegmark make some comment. I

1:18:22

think he was maybe quoting someone else that basically the web two algorithms were

1:18:24

like our test show for AI, right?

1:18:27

And we've kind of failed that.

1:18:29

We

1:18:32

have these algorithms that are causing all of these ripple effects and unintended consequences

1:18:34

and we're falling into Moloch traps as a result of

1:18:36

this. And that was just our

1:18:38

trial run because now we have these super

1:18:41

powerful algorithms that are just starting

1:18:43

to hit the scene in the form of artificial intelligence. And

1:18:46

David and I here have been doing a series lately on

1:18:50

AI alignment, existential

1:18:52

threats, Eliezer Jutkowski, like,

1:18:55

you know, the roster of these people talking

1:18:57

about it. I know you've

1:18:59

had some thoughts in the past

1:18:59

about AI alignment in general.

1:19:04

This is beyond the scope of your book, but it seems like it's

1:19:06

another problem that's going to

1:19:08

affect society in the short

1:19:10

run. And then in the long run, maybe

1:19:12

we have this tail risk of existential

1:19:15

destruction ahead of us as well. What

1:19:19

are your thoughts on AI these days? Give

1:19:22

us your TLDR. Yeah, no,

1:19:24

I definitely want to write more about it. I

1:19:27

need to kind of

1:19:28

I'm in the middle of kind of just inhaling

1:19:30

a lot on it and hearing about what a ton of people are

1:19:33

saying and looking at a bunch of the new tools that are

1:19:35

out there. But yeah,

1:19:37

I think that we should be scared of existential

1:19:39

risk here in that, you know, I have in one of my posts, I have a term called

1:19:41

the human colossus, which is, you know, if you think about ancient tribes, you have a

1:19:43

little, you know, everyone can put their knowledge into the kind

1:19:45

of group

1:19:52

consciousness and it's a little knowledge tower that's

1:19:54

kind of in the center of the tribe.

1:19:56

And then as people moved into cities, you know, during the agricultural

1:19:59

revolution and after. You have a lot more

1:20:01

people and so the knowledge towers get

1:20:03

larger and then you have the invention

1:20:05

of writing and people can compare what

1:20:07

people are saying through time and space and the towers

1:20:10

get you know just skyscrapers you

1:20:12

know and eventually that tower of

1:20:14

knowledge and know-how and power eventually

1:20:17

you know turns into the industrial revolution

1:20:19

which puts the whole thing on steroids and I

1:20:21

think of it as this giant colossus that our

1:20:23

species has created that is kind of like Godzilla

1:20:26

tramping around and it is building building it

1:20:29

is making

1:20:29

you know it is producing and it

1:20:32

has created vast wealth and

1:20:34

it has made quality of life way better and it's

1:20:36

reduced poverty and some of these great things

1:20:39

but it also does not have a

1:20:41

conscience it doesn't actually have a

1:20:44

compass about where it's going it is just kind

1:20:46

of a product of you know billions

1:20:49

of in people's individual self-interest

1:20:51

you know and that

1:20:53

giant is the thing that is making

1:20:56

AI and

1:20:58

if we let that human colossus kind of now

1:21:00

create something way smarter than itself you're

1:21:03

taking your chances right and again that thing doesn't

1:21:06

really have a moral compass

1:21:08

it's not necessarily wise right it's it's

1:21:10

only as wise as kind of the systems that

1:21:12

it is incentivized by and if the only system

1:21:15

is incentivized by is pure capitalism this is talking

1:21:17

about steel manning you know the argument against if

1:21:19

the only system it has is pure kind of capitalism

1:21:22

I actually think that that is kind of a classic Molok

1:21:24

situation where you're going to you know

1:21:27

build something that is incredibly powerful

1:21:29

that was not created with wise you know

1:21:31

with wisdom and that's

1:21:33

why you know we have to not create

1:21:35

this thing the way we've created all the other

1:21:37

things you know the other things you want to create the best software

1:21:40

let's self-interest go at it and everyone will try to make

1:21:42

the best most appealing software and v1 will

1:21:45

be buggy and v2 will be buggy and by v10

1:21:47

the software is better and now we'll compete with all the other v10s

1:21:50

and the eventually the consumers

1:21:52

get the benefit of that we'll all end up with really great apps on

1:21:54

our phone that won the competition and gotten

1:21:56

iterated improved over time AI is just so different

1:21:58

than that you know if v1

1:21:59

V1 is buggy.

1:22:01

We now have a buggy god on the planet that

1:22:03

probably will not let us. That would probably,

1:22:05

they will not let us go change it and update it, because

1:22:07

it doesn't want to be changed and updated, and it's kind

1:22:09

of, ooh, we, actually, that's not how we wanted it to be

1:22:12

incentivized. Too late. This thing

1:22:14

is now more powerful than we are, and that's pretty

1:22:16

scary, and likewise, you know, competition, well, no,

1:22:18

whoever gets there first, maybe they can shut down

1:22:20

all our other efforts, and so maybe it's, you know,

1:22:23

the first V1 is now our god,

1:22:25

as opposed to the 10th V10 is

1:22:27

the best app, the first V1. So, you

1:22:29

know, that's the worst case scenario, and I don't know

1:22:32

if that's actually what'll happen. It's hard to, this is all

1:22:34

very unprecedented. I think anyone who is confidently

1:22:36

pessimistic or confidently optimistic,

1:22:39

either one, I don't believe them. I think we really

1:22:42

don't know, but of course, if we don't know, then let's

1:22:44

be cautious, right? Don't make it the dumbest experiment

1:22:46

in history to build this thing and see, maybe

1:22:48

it won't be, you know, actually as scary. So, I

1:22:51

think we cannot treat it like we normally do and say,

1:22:53

let's just, everyone get out there and build and innovate,

1:22:55

and you know, and we'll improve it over time. We have to have

1:22:57

some kind of other mechanism here that is kicking

1:23:00

in. So, I do hope people are listening to

1:23:02

the AI safety people and that

1:23:04

we get properly scared. The thing

1:23:06

that worries me most is that I just think it's hard for

1:23:08

people to believe something that's not in front of their eyes that

1:23:10

they've never seen before that's totally unprecedented and

1:23:13

be scared of that. I don't think they're scared till it's

1:23:15

too late. So, I think somehow we need to spread

1:23:17

enough fear, not so much that people

1:23:20

think it's the apocalypse, but enough that people start

1:23:22

saying, it is the only way to

1:23:24

build AI is to do it ethically and, you know,

1:23:26

to do it with a ton of AI safety

1:23:28

research alongside

1:23:31

and so, yeah, I'm not sure. I'm glad I'm not in charge of

1:23:33

this problem, but it is a little bit concerning.

1:23:36

Well, I mean, you're certainly not in charge

1:23:38

and yet we all are in charge because it's

1:23:40

all of our problems here. And I think,

1:23:43

you know, the title of your book, like what's our problem

1:23:45

self-help for society, right?

1:23:47

This is one of the areas we need help with. And

1:23:50

we've got a lot of low-rung thinking. We've got

1:23:52

this abandonment maybe of

1:23:55

liberal ideas that have driven so much

1:23:57

good and value. In our world, and

1:23:59

we have. these existential threats ahead and we

1:24:02

very much have to keep our wits about us as a species

1:24:04

if we're going to like survive the next hundred

1:24:06

years. I want to ask you this as

1:24:08

we close out Tim, in spite of all

1:24:10

of this,

1:24:12

what gives you hope?

1:24:14

Why do you think we can make it on the other side? Well,

1:24:19

a couple things give me help. I mean, one, we are a

1:24:21

survival species. We are

1:24:23

a bunch of survivors and that doesn't mean

1:24:26

that there hasn't been horrible tragedies and genocides

1:24:28

and awful things in the past. And

1:24:31

it also we have never faced full kinds of existential

1:24:33

threat. But I do think that

1:24:36

humanity has a knack for surviving

1:24:39

and that

1:24:41

if we get scared enough, you know,

1:24:44

I think maybe reason will prevail out

1:24:46

of pure fear and out of pure survivor instinct.

1:24:49

So that's one thing. I also believe

1:24:51

in the liberal house. I think it's a great

1:24:53

way to produce

1:24:55

emergent wisdom. I think

1:24:57

that no one of us is smart

1:25:00

enough to figure this out. But, you know, just

1:25:02

like no one of us can figure out,

1:25:04

you know, how to build particle colliders

1:25:06

or how to understand black holes, but

1:25:09

together with collaboration of thousands

1:25:11

of people over time and geography, we

1:25:14

can figure out stuff that's way above us. We actually

1:25:16

have a super intelligence, kind of a super wisdom

1:25:18

that we can do. We also can combine together

1:25:21

for mass stupidity, which is why I think

1:25:23

the reason I wrote this book is that I

1:25:25

think it's kind of the what's our problem, the concept

1:25:28

of the liberal house working

1:25:30

and us being able to have high rung discourse

1:25:33

is the limiting factor on everything else. If we can

1:25:36

do that, it gives us the best shot to

1:25:38

proceed wisely. It can be a compass into the future

1:25:41

if we can do this. If on the other hand,

1:25:44

you know, low rung

1:25:45

thinking and tribalism gets

1:25:48

the better of us, it's like we're

1:25:50

running ahead blind like a bulldozer

1:25:53

right off a cliff, I think. So to me,

1:25:55

it's like all the other problems, including

1:25:57

AI, the foundation, the root

1:25:59

of all. of how, you know, whether things will go

1:26:01

well or not, is this liberal house functioning

1:26:04

well? Because I think it gives us our best

1:26:06

shot. And groups that are outside with the wrecking balls, I think they're very,

1:26:08

very dangerous. And I think that the concept

1:26:10

that young kids aren't being taught civics as much,

1:26:13

think that they aren't being taught the value of free

1:26:15

speech or how to argue or how to, you know, seek

1:26:17

truth or how to be persuasive. And instead, they're

1:26:19

being kind of indoctrinated to believe in a certain

1:26:21

ideology and to silence people who disagree. That

1:26:23

is incredibly dangerous because you're training people to

1:26:26

basically break down the house as opposed to training them to uphold

1:26:28

it. And to me, this

1:26:29

house being sound and sturdy,

1:26:32

it gives us the best shot of getting it right.

1:26:34

I don't know if we can do it, but it gives us the best shot. So

1:26:37

I wouldn't say I feel confidently optimistic. But

1:26:39

I also, if I had gotten to my

1:26:41

head, I think I think we can do it. But

1:26:43

I do think that there are some very concerning

1:26:46

kind of trends that need to be curbed. And we need to kind

1:26:48

of, yeah, like you said, have our wits about us as

1:26:50

we go into this future of exploding technology

1:26:53

in, you know, God like power, it

1:26:55

gives the species, you know, we need reason

1:26:58

to kind of prevail. And bankless

1:27:00

listener, if you're wondering where to start, oftentimes

1:27:02

the

1:27:02

answer is to start with yourself. I

1:27:05

know after reading Tim's book, I was more

1:27:07

conscious of the way I respond on

1:27:09

Twitter and what the incentives are. And

1:27:12

you know, like you could start by not being an asshole

1:27:14

on social media. And when you have the opportunity

1:27:17

to score those points and to dunk and

1:27:19

to take the, you know, the low rung thinking

1:27:21

path,

1:27:22

you can take the high rung thinking path.

1:27:24

I'm not always perfect at this. I do try

1:27:27

and post Tim's book.