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Welcome back to Bitcoin Study Sessions.

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I'm joined by my co-host, Grant Reichert, and my name is Lucas Maddy.

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We are celebrating Christmas, enjoying all the great things that the world has to offer us, friends and family,

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and a chance to return to the farm and enjoy some cold weather and quiet and be able to see the stars.

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And we're also discussing the digital apocalypse.

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were diving into a book called Human Forever,

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The Digital Politics of Spiritual War.

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And this book is written by James Polos.

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He is a fascinating thinker.

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A bit of a visionary, I think, is a good way to put this,

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just in terms of the vision that he is laying out for us.

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James wrote this book and, interestingly enough,

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published it on Bitcoin through canonic.xyz, which we'll bring up here in a bit. James is a

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political philosopher, PhD from Georgetown. He hosts a show called Zero Hour on Blaze Media.

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And he's actually a wonderful listener. If you get a chance to listen to him on podcasts,

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which he does a number of them. He's a very eloquent speaker. He's, as with many of these

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authors, he's very careful with his choice of words and uses a dictionary of words as an armament

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to solidify his position and does it well in a way that it's easy to understand. I listened to

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a couple of hidden podcasts with a friend that has no idea about what Bitcoin is or this idea of

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kind of the digital world somewhat taking over through the algorithms and being unaware of that.

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And my friend thought that it was wonderful to listen to. So James Polis, Human Forever.

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And as always, to kick us off, Grant is going to give us a bit of a summary and we're going to have

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some discussion as we go throughout. So thank you for joining. Yeah. Yeah. And hopefully, you know,

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it's not going to be a huge summer that I'm going to do here. We're really going to hash this out

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in conversation. This is an excellent book. It has a sort of like interlocking set of vocabulary

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or memes. And you'll see a lot of the memes or vocabulary that constitute this book kind of

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floating through X. You'll see there's a shared vocabulary between Polis and some other Twitter

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accounts, talking about catechizing the bots, talking about terraforming humanity, talking

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about Bitcoin monasteries, the cyborg theocracy.

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These are all memes that have kind of entered into the discourse.

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This book helps excavate some of those for me.

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I've always wondered what some of these phrases that are really suggestive mean.

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And this, James didn't coin all of those, but he discusses all of those.

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And hopefully we're going to unpack some of those things.

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If you kind of ever stumbled upon through Bitcoin Twitter, some esoteric discussion of a digital apocalypse, then this hopefully will bring some of that home.

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It's kind of like the broadest, even just like content, like flavor, flavor based introduction.

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I was trying to just weave it together in my mind, kind of what this whole endeavor is, human forever, how to stay human forever in light of the digital apocalypse that we live in the wake of.

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I mean, the idea is generally the apocalypse has already occurred in 2007 with the release of the iPhone.

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We are living in year zero after the catastrophe.

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Our memories have been wiped.

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We no longer have human memory, only machinic data that stores all of our movements, interests, likes, everything about us.

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Our imagination operates freely, wheels in space, spins, wishes from ether is untethered to anything.

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but it's a wish-making capacity rather than a creative one.

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We seek instant perfection away from our flawed human body,

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kind of a transhumanist, post-humanist escape from the human sort of endeavor,

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even as a digital swarm of algorithm and bots kind of reconstitutes all of reality

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and tells us that that's possible.

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These bots and algorithms envelop and penetrate,

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and they overwhelm us in a sort of sensory overload

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that prevents any sort of maturation,

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any sort of development

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because it promises to deliver infinity in a moment.

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That's kind of not even a summary,

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just kind of like a flavor of the world

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that we're going to enter into here with Human Forever.

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As the broadest introduction,

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start with the phrase,

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that's not even something Polis came up with himself,

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cyborg theocracy.

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This is a phrase from Ardian Tola,

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who is the founder of Canonic.xyz, where this book is published. So the cyborg theocracy,

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a cyborg, what's a cyborg? It's just a man-machine hybrid. You know, any sort of,

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you know, you would say Robocop is an obvious cyborg, right? But less obvious, a human with

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a cell phone, with a smartphone is a cyborg because they've melded with that in a very

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serious sort of way. It's an extension of their memory, of their capacities, of who they are.

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So that's a cyborg.

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What is a cyborg theocracy then?

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Theocracy is a sort of like mode of governance or way of ruling a society, theos, like related to God.

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Theocracy rule by gods.

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But it's not rule by God.

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This is something I got from Joe Allen, another author who is published on Canonic.xyz.

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As I said, this discourse is woven together by many individuals.

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The cyborg theocracy.

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The theocracy is not ruled by gods, but it's ruled by technology as God and more so by a priestly class that promises it can communicate to that technology for us.

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It communicates with the bots, communicates with the algorithm, whether it's the engineers that have kind of privileged access to the technology or whether it's the ethicists who tell us how that technology must be used.

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These are people who are all kind of jockeying or competing to be the priestly class in our new cyborg theocracy.

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So if we sort of have a theocratic government where the god in that theocratic framework is technology, we have a priestly class that people are fighting to be the members of, engineers, ethicists.

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And we, the citizens being ruled, are all humble cyborgs on some sort of transitionary, you know, some people are escaping in as much as they can living in the woods. Other people are melding more and more Brian Johnson style, just going full bore into it, making themselves as less human and more post-human as possible to escape from all the dirty realities of being human, like dying, things like that.

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So that's kind of, broadly speaking, what this book is going to react against is this notion of the cyborg theocracy, which I think, as these authors talk about it, is really just a description of the world we are in using colorful but also suggestive language to get us to understand the real import of what is happening.

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that there is an underlying religiosity or an explicit overt religiosity to what people are

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doing with technology and technology's relationship to us. That if you don't look at it through the

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lens either explicitly of religion or at least as a way that humans express their religiosity,

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you're not going to fully understand what's happening.

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So I said that we're already living in this cyborg theocracy.

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A key part of this book, Human Forever, is also to get us to understand

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we're also living after the apocalypse.

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James does a lot of really good work tracing etymologies here,

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which is kind of the roots of words.

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And when you do that, you kind of understand a bit more about

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what the reality we inhabit, which is, of course,

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piece together through the words we use. We're living after the apocalypse. Apocalypse is a sort

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of revealing. It reveals something. The digital apocalypse, something has been revealed. In 2007,

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we had the release of the smartphone. That's the beginning of this digital catastrophe,

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digital apocalypse that we're all living in the wake of. And you can see, again, the beginning of

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a widespread cyborg style of living for even the man and woman in the street.

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where now we can use our imagination to summon instantly a sensory overload through TikTok,

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through live streams, through whatever sort of thing you want to do with whatever sort of app

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to satisfy whatever sort of wish you have that's really unmoored from anything

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except for your pure ability to wish as such.

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And this digital catastrophe, living in the wake of this, is causing a despair.

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It's causing a feeling that we no longer have sufficient answers to give to our offspring about why they should bother carrying out their lives.

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Because in the past, we gave fully human responses to that question, right?

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You would tell a human to live out a human life.

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You are going to want to pair up with a person to pair bond with.

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You're going to want to have children.

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You're going to want to be in community to help protect and raise those children.

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and you're going to want to develop your skills to participate in that community,

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we could give all of these human answers to the question of how do you live?

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But now, after 2007, the answers to these questions are changing.

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People are wondering what does it mean to live when we are cyborgs,

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when things have changed.

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He mentions in China there's something called the Tang Ping Movement,

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which is expressed as kind of lying flat, doing nothing.

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People who are not marrying, not buying houses, not having children, the response to living in the wake of digital catastrophe is to cease living, essentially.

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Some people are grasping at intensity through things like DMT trips or whatever computer analog to that, whatever virtual analog, you know, embracing insanity to try to escape into fantasy from responsibility, what remains of it, of being human and what that entails.

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So that's the cyborg theocracy and the digital catastrophe. Does that make sense, Lucas, as kind of a framework for where we're beginning here?

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Yeah, the cyborg theocracy reminds me of Jason Lowry's software when he introduces the god kings.

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You know, here's Vitalik and here's Elon and here's Jeff Bezos.

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And these are the keepers of the flame, I suppose, with regard to the technology.

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They're almost the lighters of the new flame, a sort of Promethean fire, right?

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It's like a new thing.

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Yeah. But these are like the technology that our lives are intrinsically tied to now have very few people that have administrator control. And those people that have administrator control are effectively gods because they can do things like de-platform.

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They can, you know, erase your digital existence or they can platform.

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They can amplify your digital existence.

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You know, you see, it's better odds to try and get Elon to retweet you than it is to win the lottery.

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And the net effect is probably about the same.

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because when that happens, it elevates a person to a status that is beyond what they ever imagined.

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It's Zeus coming down from the mount.

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Yeah.

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It's an anointing human.

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Yeah, it is.

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That's an interesting way to look at it.

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A retweet from one of the tech theocrats.

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I don't know what you would call them, but those people explicitly embracing their, almost explicitly, halfway pseudo,

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know their role as a new priestly class to communicate commune with the gods for us and

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conveying the blessing of the gods upon us yeah and the digital catastrophe is just so apparent

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um if you if you can disconnect and then you can look around and i noticed this the uh i used to

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ride a motorcycle a lot and um i quit riding motorcycle mainly because when you ride a

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motorcycle, you're not on your cell phone. You know, you obviously have to pay attention to the

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world around you and everything is a threat. And I would just go tool around town. And I realized

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that they teach you when you go get your license that you should try to make eye contact with the

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drivers that are approaching you because that way they know you're there. Right. And you can't,

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I mean, it is utterly terrifying. Just on an average Tuesday afternoon or a Friday morning or just whenever, I would say 80% of the people that you meet are head down on a cell phone.

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And so they're not really there. And what we know about the brain is that it's effectively like a computer and it's got a certain amount of a certain amount of bandwidth.

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And that bandwidth, when you start splitting it between the things that you're holding in your hand and whatever else is going on.

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Like I, I describe people that have a cell phone addiction as, you know, they're, they are disabled. They're one handed people. Um, they, they do everything in life with one hand, um, because they always have this other hand on their phone. Um, and so it's, it's made us physically limited. Um, it's made us motivationally limited, right? Because you, um, you don't need to get up and go somewhere.

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you can just press a button and it'll come to you whether it's your food or your clothes or your

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supplies or a guitar or a relationship or what passes for a relationship now or even skip that

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and go straight to the you know the extrapolation of or the the extraction of of whatever intimacy

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in the form of pornography. And to see this, I see this in my, I won't name it, but there's a

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family member I have that, you know, just spends nine hours a day on a phone. And by the way,

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that's only something that I note as odd because it's a grown adult. When you get into the 14-year-old,

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15 year old, 16 and below, it's actually, that's, that's the norm right now. I think the United

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States average right now for under, under 16 or under 15 or something like that is nine hours a

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day of screen time. And so you're awake for, you're awake for 16. Um, you know, you're on a screen

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more than you're sleeping. You're on a screen more than you are awake, um, in terms of other things,

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But then you've also got that attention residue of this, you know, if you, I'm looking at my phone on TikTok and then I put it down.

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Well, I'm not out of that.

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Like that, whatever I was, whatever I was looking at, it's still commanding my attention for probably somewhere around the next 20 minutes.

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This attention residue from context switching that pervades society.

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You, we had, we just had our family Christmas.

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You, you had your family Christmas.

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And, um, I have an uncle that is, uh, an incredible storyteller and, uh, he was able to make it through one very short story.

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And he finally looked around and realized that no one, no one made it with him.

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Like people started and then, you know, there's, there's 19 people there.

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And everyone had already switched to their cell phone because the second that there's a pause for effect, the second that there is the space between the notes that makes the music, people switch and they go back.

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So this digital catastrophe, you know, you and I spend a lot of time together and you know how I've been so active to try and do that because I find it pervading me and destroying my ability to write songs, destroying my ability to feel, to be connected emotionally to the world around me.

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um yeah this uh what was the what was the chinese word for the uh just quitting and i don't know

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yeah i don't know of course the phonetics on that if it's up down they always have the intonation

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marks i don't know yeah yeah but it's tangping is the movement and it's based on i think it might

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be a work of fiction but it's turned into a manifesto i forget but it's a sort of um a movement

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Yeah, and you can see maybe China, I can't speak for Chinese culture, but having heard other people discuss it, they're sort of, you know, even more vulnerable because they went through the cultural revolution that really stripped away a lot of the traditions they had and were left open.

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But of course, we can't, you know, in the United States, we're vulnerable, obviously, from what you're saying.

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This anecdote rings true to everybody listening, I imagine.

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That's a really, I do think that's a really valid point, though. Like, if you look at Eastern cultures, they are, they have a stronger culture, right? Because they don't have this break of heterogeneous ethnicities and races coming in with their own cultures. You know, if you're Chinese, you're Chinese. Like, there's no, there's no, you know, Irish Chinese. There's, there's no, there's no Latvian Chinese. But if you're American, then you're Chinese.

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In the block that you live, there's probably 30 different trace cultures that they have their own little unique thing.

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And so that melding, what happens with that melting pot is that everything melts.

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And so if everything melts, then it all goes into one flavor.

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um yeah when you're a little you're a little kid you go to the uh you go to the fountain uh at the

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convenience store and you get a soda and you do the uh the suicide right or you you put in like

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a little bit of every single one yeah and turns out by the way like coke tastes pretty good pepsi

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tastes pretty good sprite tastes pretty good and then you mix them all together and they taste like

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shit um yeah so yeah you you lose that culture when you mix everything yes and that is a part

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you've mentioned two things that are going to take us forward in this book the space between

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the music that's going to be an important part of what james discusses he has this notion of

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the implicit and the explicit and that we our culture and our society since the 1700s really

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has undergone a process of increasing disenchantment which is a removal of hidden or implicit spaces

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and things as we make reality more described in an explicit fashion with scientific theories that

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fully describe the operation of nature with books that fully detail the nature the the commitments

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of theology and politics things become less implicit there's less spaces between the notes

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that make the music and more an attempt to totally understand and grasp reality through reason and

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science that's a thing that we're losing um the implicit spaces but and in this notion of

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heterogeneity kind of forming into a gray homogenous glue goo that's also part of this

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and the next conceptual piece that james gives or the next one i'll throw out

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is the idea of the digital swarm and so considered etymologically again or just consider the word

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swarm like that's bugs that's a mass of things that are like each moving of their own kind of

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will that is not known to us but that together compose like this inhuman mass of tiny things

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moving around that we can't control and that kind of swarm about us right the digital swarm

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not alive but animated not organized not comprehensible to us on really even an analogy

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to masses of animate creatures,

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but the closest we can get.

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Within the digital swarm,

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which is things like bots and algorithms,

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all of these invisible processes

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that weave together to make a virtual reality,

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a reality within our phones that we then inhabit

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or within whatever virtual space,

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not just our phones,

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which are the common portal to it.

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Within the swarm, human organization,

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our all too human, real body,

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incarnate human organization

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is subordinate to an always-on machine algorithm

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that exists eternally and outside of space and time.

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In the past, and so this is the digital swarm,

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I think we're all vaguely familiar with this thing,

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we just don't really have a name for it.

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Digital swarm is a great term,

219
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a great way to put our, to grasp,

220
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maybe I want to say the enemy,

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but also it's kind of an amoral thing,

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neither good nor bad, it just is.

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And it's a thing, the digital swarm,

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that the priestly class believes they can control.

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But James, the way he describes it,

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they really can't control it either.

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Nobody controls the digital swarm.

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So there's kind of a dream to control it,

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a dream that the priestly class

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might harness the digital swarm

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to more fully complete their control of society.

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In the past, America kind of gained hegemony over the world

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by controlling the consumer imagination,

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dreamcraft as statecraft,

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This idea of an American dream that the world then adopted and we could kind of sell products to people and to ourselves to make, to fulfill, to say you are a part of the dream as well and create a global American consumer imagination.

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So now social engineers look at the digital swarm and they think we can wield this.

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We can wield this amoral, animate, non-human mass as another tool.

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Social engineers see this digital swarm, in fact, as like the perfect tool because it nudges.

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People think that they're free when they engage with the digital swarm, but it's entirely controlling and devouring us, right?

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But the digital swarm cannot be fully controlled even by the people that purport to be its priests.

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It always is kind of operating on us in a way that is inherently beyond our control just by the nature of it.

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Here's a sentence, a quote, I think that kind of outlines why.

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Polis says, our tools formally shape us in a way unlike and incomparable to the instrumental way we shape them,

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which is to say we make our tools with an intent for a purpose and hammer to hit a nail.

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But once we have the tool, it then is part of the environment that reshapes us in a way we didn't predict when we invented the tool.

246
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The same thing with Digital Swarm.

247
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We invent what we think is a tool, all of these algorithms that are intentional for a purpose.

248
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But then altogether as a digital swarm, they then reshape us in a way we did not predict and cannot control.

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And indeed, for the ruling faction, the problem with the digital swarm for them is not that it dehumanizes us,

250
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is not that it ends storytelling among families or causes everybody to be kind of bent down hypnotically over their phones.

251
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It's just that they don't control that hypnotism, right?

252
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The social media digital swarm is exactly what allowed unauthorized opinions, what the elites call misinformation, to escape into reality, right?

253
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And humans, we kind of impose a limitation on that in a sense because the machines can always operate perfectly, autonomously, independently, but they're tied down to us.

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for this reason the ruling faction the social engineers want to get rid of the humanity and

255
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humans in order to better control the tool in order to better control the humans something like

256
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that does that make sense as far as the digital swarm and how the priestly class desires to

257
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control it and yet they cannot perfectly control it yeah so the

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the introduction i think we've talked about this previously but the the introduction of the feed

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instead of the timeline to social media occurred around like 2012 or something like that.

260
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And this was this realization that the valuable metric to go after if you're running a social media platform is engagement.

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because engagement is attention and attention is time and time is the old like time time as we know

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is now becoming very apparent to those of us who are watching it pass by time is the only thing that

263
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you don't get more of other than bitcoin which is not something that you you don't you don't

264
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you're not born with bitcoin but you're born with time and so it's the thing that you're given

265
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that you can't get more of.

266
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Bitcoin is something you have to go out and trade.

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You have to trade your time for it.

268
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This algorithm obviously got out of control, right?

269
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So a hundred years, I heard this stat the other day

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and it's shocking.

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I hope it's not true,

272
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but I've heard it in two different places now.

273
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So I assume it's getting fairly close to being true

274
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is that like 100 years ago, attention span averaged like an hour.

275
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And now it's 43 seconds.

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Yeah.

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And so, you know, we've seen this.

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And it continues to go in that direction because that's valuable.

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So that's the metric that you're optimizing for when you run one of these companies.

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And it's out of your control because if you choose not to do that, then you become irrelevant and you no longer exist.

281
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And so it started with, you know, just a story.

282
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And then it became these like vines, right?

283
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Vine was really the thing that kind of clicked it off or, you know, this six second clip.

284
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And now that's like the standard, like six seconds, you know, is where we're going.

285
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And so what do we do?

286
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Like, how can we fight that?

287
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And thankfully, we have the answer.

288
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We have the solution.

289
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And that was for you and I, we were introduced to this by Jason Lowry, which is pay factor authentication.

290
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And that pay factor authentication simply means that I have my social media feed.

291
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It's my Instagram or my ex or my TikTok, et cetera.

292
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but I also have a little slider and that little slider says,

293
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you can't show me anything unless you send me X amount of sats.

294
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And therefore, if you want to target me,

295
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so like there's the people that I will choose.

296
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I will choose.

297
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I will say, I want to follow Grant.

298
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Show me everything that Grant says.

299
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I want to follow Donnie.

300
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Show me everything that Donnie says.

301
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But if you're outside of that,

302
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these ubiquitous, the for you page. If you're outside of that, once you move into that realm,

303
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you're subject to whatever the algorithm is trying to drive towards you. And of course,

304
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the phone is listening to you. So it gets all your keywords and everything that you're excited

305
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about. Somebody says Trump, and now you hear all this Trump stuff. Somebody says cyborg. And now

306
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I'm sure I'm going to see a bunch of Terminator stuff, right?

307
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So, but with my pay factor authentication, I've got my little slider and my little slider says that you can't show me anything unless you send me five cents worth of Bitcoin.

308
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And now, now they have to really think about it.

309
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Now they have to really say, well, is it worth us expending this?

310
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And this, you know, Jason Lowry kind of talked about this a lot, which is that it's it's costless effectively to spam a billion people a trillion times with just a six second clip.

311
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But if you impose even the smallest cost on that and this, you know, this is Adam Back's work. Like this is all he was trying to do with proof of work. All he was trying to do was not have spam. He was not he was trying to not get all of these, which is funny because he's you know, he comes out of that that kind of realm of like hackers and stuff.

312
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He's not that. But, you know, that that was the thing is that you found out if you were a hacker that you could hack this database and pull 400 million emails and you could send 400 million spam emails for the cost of.

313
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Three cents of electricity. Yeah. And all you all you need is a one in every 10,000 person to click on that thing.

314
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And I've read like some of the way that it was just affiliate programs that were existing that, hey, you know, if you get a click, you get five cents.

315
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And if that click turns into a sale, you get five dollars.

316
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And so, you know, if you do that and you've got a big enough bulk, then you're making millions.

317
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And so and you're doing it.

318
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The fundamental thing that's wrong about this or that's degrading to society is that you're just doing it ad nauseum.

319
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It's a shotgun approach.

320
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And what you end up with is at the least, it's a whole bunch of people wasting time. And at the worst, it's a whole bunch of people spending money that they don't need to spend for things that they don't want.

321
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Yeah. And so with pay factor authentication, I think we're going to have a weapon against that. And that weapon is going to be that not only am I not subject to your algorithm, I'll still be subject to your algorithm, but there's a cost associated with showing me that.

322
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And the other thing about that is instead of $5 Timu crap or $11 Amazon crap, if I'm going to show you something and it's going to cost me five cents to show it to you, well, wouldn't it be worthwhile for me to show you something valuable?

323
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and not only valuable, but wouldn't it be worthwhile for me to show you something valuable

324
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that you may want for the rest of your life? And so we go from this mentality of all I need is

325
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one in every 10,000 people to buy this piece of junk. It'll show up at their house. It'll be

326
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trash. They'll use it for three minutes and it'll break and we'll throw it away, but they'll say,

327
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oh, it was 11 bucks. I don't care. And then they'll do it again and again and again and again

328
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and to the point that they have spent, you know, the bulk of their life just buying shit and throwing

329
00:32:42,220 --> 00:32:48,880
it in the trash. Yeah. And the flip side of that is, well, maybe I'm going to make the best product

330
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that I ever can and they're going to be really pleased with it. And maybe now if I show that to

331
00:32:56,920 --> 00:33:03,680
them and I prove that value to them and they say, look, this is a knife and this is the best knife

332
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that I've ever had, and I'm going to have this for the rest of my life, I'm going to give it to my

333
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son, he's going to give it to his son, then what you get is the most valuable type of advertising,

334
00:33:15,180 --> 00:33:21,440
which is free advertising, right? Which is word of mouth, which is a warm introduction to a new

335
00:33:21,440 --> 00:33:31,300
client that you didn't have to pay for because you made the best product. Elon, we've brought

336
00:33:31,300 --> 00:33:40,420
this up, Elon is, um, is known to say that like, if you, if you look at a Tesla, um, I think,

337
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I think I have a Tesla and I think it, it has two, two Tesla badges on it, very small.

338
00:33:46,480 --> 00:33:51,040
And you know, they're honestly, they're kind of easily confused with other cars, right? Like I,

339
00:33:51,740 --> 00:33:57,880
oftentimes I see a, uh, a Volkswagen and I'm like, Oh, is that a Tesla? Oftentimes I see a Prius and

340
00:33:57,880 --> 00:34:02,900
I'm like, is that a Tesla? There's Toyotas that kind of look like Teslas. But he says, you know,

341
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the best products in the world don't need a brand. They don't need a badge. What they need is proof

342
00:34:10,280 --> 00:34:16,340
that they're the best product in the world. And so you should be able to, instead of, you know,

343
00:34:16,380 --> 00:34:21,360
have this giant marketing department thinking about all these schemes, you should have a giant

344
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research and development department working on innovations to make better products. And I think

345
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that's where we see this like hopefully this fundamental shift between um this transitory

346
00:34:31,880 --> 00:34:38,300
throwaway economy um which has transitory throwaway relationships and a long-lasting

347
00:34:38,300 --> 00:34:45,820
embedded economy um where you develop a a kinship i guess towards the products that

348
00:34:45,820 --> 00:34:53,000
really serve you because they serve you more than yeah you pay for them oh yeah i guess that's yeah

349
00:34:53,000 --> 00:34:54,540
That's what that makes me think of there.

350
00:34:55,400 --> 00:35:11,320
No, I think in your absolutely, this is directly to the heart of the matter, proof of work and your description of pay factor authentication as one potential weapon or mode of resistance against the digital swarm itself, which depends on its swarming nature.

351
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The fact that it's so numerous, innumerate, even that you can't stop it otherwise.

352
00:35:16,240 --> 00:35:25,600
And I was just thinking as you're talking, we even had pre-digitally kind of informal notions of this when you would have traveling vacuum sellers go door to door.

353
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They would say for some amount of your time, if you sit through my presentation, I will give you a set of knives.

354
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And then they would come in and they would show off their product and know my product has to be good enough for the knives that I'm giving each of these people to get their time.

355
00:35:39,420 --> 00:35:45,780
And that sort of pre-digital pay factor authentication bought them a discrete amount of attention span.

356
00:35:45,780 --> 00:35:49,440
And then they were able to demonstrate, hopefully, the superiority of their product.

357
00:35:49,680 --> 00:35:56,360
Everybody hopefully walked away satisfied with the encounter, either with the knives or with having the ability to sell to a customer.

358
00:35:56,960 --> 00:35:59,060
So I actually got the knives that way.

359
00:35:59,180 --> 00:35:59,340
I did.

360
00:35:59,560 --> 00:35:59,900
Yeah.

361
00:36:00,820 --> 00:36:01,260
Yeah.

362
00:36:01,340 --> 00:36:06,040
You know, the way that you get a great customer for life is by providing great service.

363
00:36:06,040 --> 00:36:12,620
It's not, you know, like there's there's a lot of like products that they might not be the best product.

364
00:36:12,620 --> 00:36:28,000
But if you have the best service and I think what happened is that as it as as technology found its way into production, it made the production of products cheap enough that they could be throw away.

365
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And therefore it exacerbated and it made it look like it was much more costly to service a product.

366
00:36:36,600 --> 00:36:55,484
So I could make a product that lasts for 100 years but I going to have to service it 15 times during that time Or I could make a product that lasts three years and then you just throw it away and buy another one And that became the dominant model But you speaking

367
00:36:55,484 --> 00:37:01,524
to like a great example of that, which is the Kirby door-to-door vacuum salesman. My mom has

368
00:37:01,524 --> 00:37:08,344
two Kirbys. She's 70 years old and she's had two Kirby vacuums for 50 years, you know, and they

369
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They service them and they keep parts in stock.

370
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And when you buy these things, they have a lifetime warranty.

371
00:37:17,384 --> 00:37:22,564
And that lifetime warranty, it doesn't mean that the product's never going to break.

372
00:37:22,644 --> 00:37:23,844
It doesn't mean it's perfect.

373
00:37:23,964 --> 00:37:26,984
It means that we're going to be here and we're going to service that.

374
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And you have not just made a purchase, you've entered into a relationship.

375
00:37:32,064 --> 00:37:41,684
and we look across the landscape of of the human experience now and not only do we have fewer

376
00:37:41,684 --> 00:37:51,624
relationships right the average male has zero best friends um the uh um the the the younger

377
00:37:51,624 --> 00:37:59,224
generation is not dating nearly as much as any any generation before they're not partying as much

378
00:37:59,224 --> 00:38:12,144
They don't have as many friends, et cetera. But not only that, like what what brands do we have an affinity to, you know, like growing growing up on the farm?

379
00:38:12,144 --> 00:38:27,444
Like you grow up on a farm and there are there was there's less of a divide between politics, Democrat and Republican, as there was between John Deere and Case and Ford and Chevy.

380
00:38:27,444 --> 00:38:36,664
right and um you know pioneer seed or whatever the other you know whoever pioneers kind of

381
00:38:36,664 --> 00:38:42,604
dominated um pretty hard but but you know like people had this like lifelong affinity with

382
00:38:42,604 --> 00:38:49,644
certain products and um yeah we don't see that anymore right so you just go from this to that

383
00:38:49,644 --> 00:38:59,024
to this to that um yeah so i we're stuck in the liminal state right of of of being exposed to the

384
00:38:59,024 --> 00:39:04,764
worst of that throwaway economy which comes with it the throwaway relationships which also

385
00:39:04,764 --> 00:39:13,724
entails throwaway memories um yes and and i hope and it feels like and i'm i'm very i am very hopeful

386
00:39:13,724 --> 00:39:20,124
that we're on the precipice of not only returning to lifelong relationships and affinities,

387
00:39:20,824 --> 00:39:24,524
but returning in a way that's even stronger than it was before.

388
00:39:25,624 --> 00:39:25,704
Yeah.

389
00:39:25,944 --> 00:39:31,324
Now, memory, we're going to talk about this a bit later on, is a huge theme of this book.

390
00:39:31,844 --> 00:39:38,324
Memory versus imagination versus reason and how human memory is on the decline.

391
00:39:38,544 --> 00:39:40,044
And that's at the base of a lot of this.

392
00:39:40,044 --> 00:39:52,784
But the next thread I want to pull on, and you immediately leaped on this when you began talking about pay factor authentication, that our time is a hard constraint for us.

393
00:39:53,004 --> 00:39:56,004
And it's a hard human biological constraint.

394
00:39:56,364 --> 00:39:56,884
We're mortal.

395
00:39:57,044 --> 00:39:58,644
We have a limited amount of time.

396
00:39:58,644 --> 00:40:04,364
And as we've talked about, you know, through Dear Gigi's essay, Bitcoin is time.

397
00:40:05,324 --> 00:40:12,344
And also Brady Swenson's kind of more fulsome and humanistic exploration of that in his talk.

398
00:40:13,484 --> 00:40:16,704
Our use of time is what makes us human.

399
00:40:16,864 --> 00:40:19,924
And the digital collapses time into an instant.

400
00:40:19,924 --> 00:40:27,044
Like there is no time in digital space until Bitcoin says we're going to have a 10 minute approximate block.

401
00:40:27,044 --> 00:40:41,624
And so it brings time into digital space. Digital politics is constrained by space time because any politics is. This is kind of the next idea in Polis's work here.

402
00:40:41,624 --> 00:41:06,504
So the priestly elite wants to use the digital swarm to control us, to do what Ardian Tola calls terraforming people, to remove the heterogeneity of humans, make us all the same, to make us controllable, to terraform us into one strip mall or global airport lounge of human experience because then we're easily controllable all as one sort of unit or mass.

403
00:41:06,504 --> 00:41:14,284
politics though in the past has been constrained by space-time which is what the human world we

404
00:41:14,284 --> 00:41:21,664
inhabit has space and time whereas digital space does not have space nor time the digital the

405
00:41:21,664 --> 00:41:29,444
digital occurs outside of that politics though as paulis describes it is about not that top-down

406
00:41:29,444 --> 00:41:36,304
control of the elite trying to make us into a certain thing but it's about the human constitution

407
00:41:36,304 --> 00:41:41,644
of community through ways of life that already exist. Politics is conducted through space-time

408
00:41:41,644 --> 00:41:48,464
because it's about the way of life of the people who own space over time, take ownership of that

409
00:41:48,464 --> 00:41:54,944
space, do things with that and in that space, improve it, things like that, over an amount of

410
00:41:54,944 --> 00:42:00,144
time, planning for the future with consideration of what has happened in the past. That is the

411
00:42:00,144 --> 00:42:06,724
constitution. The constitution is not a written document that causes a nation. Instead, the

412
00:42:06,724 --> 00:42:12,484
constitution is that thing that results from the ways of life of a community inhabiting space and

413
00:42:12,484 --> 00:42:19,344
time, which again is a pre-digital thing. Digital space does not have space nor time, so it cannot

414
00:42:19,344 --> 00:42:24,404
have a politics in the same sense. This book, again, the subtitle, The Digital Politics of

415
00:42:24,404 --> 00:42:33,004
spiritual war. So digital politics constrained by space and time, the terraformers, the elite

416
00:42:33,004 --> 00:42:38,764
factions that want to create this global airport lounge of experience, really, I think, want to

417
00:42:38,764 --> 00:42:46,764
remove space and time because they don't want a prairie, a mountain area, an island region, all with

418
00:42:46,764 --> 00:42:53,304
different cultures, you know, instead smooth all of that out, create one digital real world space,

419
00:42:53,304 --> 00:43:00,144
so that it approximates the digital and therefore the digital can more cleanly approximate real space

420
00:43:00,144 --> 00:43:04,144
and therefore they feed into each other more cleanly and they can control,

421
00:43:04,284 --> 00:43:09,904
use their digital control to control the real world, again, by making the real world more like the digital.

422
00:43:10,624 --> 00:43:14,764
So instead of controlling fantasy through the digital,

423
00:43:15,284 --> 00:43:19,884
one of the modes of resistance is to insist in working through space-time,

424
00:43:19,884 --> 00:43:22,424
through space and time in the real world,

425
00:43:22,424 --> 00:43:45,484
Which again, through DurrGG, Bitcoin is time is what Bitcoin does, brings time into digital space. And in that way, perhaps resist the terraformers who would remove space and time from reality in order to have digital models approximate reality one to one. Does that make sense as kind of description of politics, the politics of space time?

426
00:43:45,484 --> 00:43:51,384
I'm trying to understand exactly what this terraforming means.

427
00:43:51,384 --> 00:43:58,544
So, yeah, so imagine being. Yes. Well, OK, let me throw out what I think it is for being in Asia.

428
00:43:59,024 --> 00:44:06,684
You have there's a lot of people that are trying to make their real life, their physical life.

429
00:44:07,904 --> 00:44:21,024
Closer and closer to Hello Kitty or anime or something like that, like physical approximation, the surroundings that they have, the way that they talk, the way that they interact.

430
00:44:21,384 --> 00:44:28,364
etc. So is that what we're trying to do? Are we trying to looney tunes of the world so that we,

431
00:44:28,504 --> 00:44:36,204
you know, we run off the cliff and the legs keep spinning until we look down? Are we trying to,

432
00:44:37,024 --> 00:44:43,564
in this idea of like terraforming, we are trying to approximate the digital in the physical?

433
00:44:43,904 --> 00:44:49,184
Is that kind of where we're talking about? Yes. And the Hello Kitty thing is a really

434
00:44:49,184 --> 00:44:55,104
great example so first though terraforming as such the word terra earth and then forming forming

435
00:44:55,104 --> 00:44:59,064
right so terraforming the notion is like you can terraform the earth you can make the earth

436
00:44:59,064 --> 00:45:04,864
how you want it just like bulldoze it do things you want with it terraforming humanity then is

437
00:45:04,864 --> 00:45:10,364
kind of molding humanity to be what you want it to be and in the context of this work in digital

438
00:45:10,364 --> 00:45:17,324
politics um the elite faction wants to terraform humanity so that it is easier to control because

439
00:45:17,324 --> 00:45:24,204
the way that they control through the digital swarm is you create a virtual model of something

440
00:45:24,204 --> 00:45:30,144
and then you manipulate that virtual model and that's how like these planners love models right

441
00:45:30,144 --> 00:45:35,884
because the world is too tough to plan like if you're a central planner the world this this

442
00:45:35,884 --> 00:45:42,024
reality we inhabit is full of implicit spaces spaces between notes it's not knowable perfectly

443
00:45:42,024 --> 00:45:47,964
there's always a wrench in the gears. You can't control the world as it is. But the model that you

444
00:45:47,964 --> 00:45:53,284
make in your mind, and now the models we make in digital space are beautiful and perfect. So we can

445
00:45:53,284 --> 00:45:59,104
create these digital models of a society and say, ah, we can manipulate whatever variable we want,

446
00:45:59,184 --> 00:46:06,844
create a policy based on our virtual projection creation model of society, and then now reimpose

447
00:46:06,844 --> 00:46:13,704
that virtual model through law back onto real world reality and manipulate it through our model.

448
00:46:14,304 --> 00:46:19,884
The example you give is an interesting one because it's almost a way where the digital swarm

449
00:46:19,884 --> 00:46:25,784
escapes from the elite faction. They want to use this terraforming to control the populace,

450
00:46:25,944 --> 00:46:32,704
to do whatever, tax it, vaccinate it, you know, do all the things that it seems like governments

451
00:46:32,704 --> 00:46:33,744
are tending to want to do,

452
00:46:33,824 --> 00:46:35,464
impose a central bank digital currency,

453
00:46:35,624 --> 00:46:37,104
all these types of terraforming

454
00:46:37,104 --> 00:46:39,364
to be able to make the masses

455
00:46:39,364 --> 00:46:41,464
into something that is easy to control and govern.

456
00:46:41,884 --> 00:46:44,724
But the things like the empire of cute,

457
00:46:44,844 --> 00:46:45,944
the kawaii or whatever,

458
00:46:45,944 --> 00:46:47,824
where in certain cultures,

459
00:46:47,964 --> 00:46:49,124
they want to approximate

460
00:46:49,124 --> 00:46:51,664
this digital aesthetic of cuteness.

461
00:46:52,024 --> 00:46:53,704
It's a way that the digital swarm

462
00:46:53,704 --> 00:46:57,924
is operating outside of the elite faction

463
00:46:57,924 --> 00:46:59,824
and controlling people

464
00:46:59,824 --> 00:47:02,244
in a way that one might be benign

465
00:47:02,244 --> 00:47:09,424
towards the elite they might be okay with people emulating cuteness that is a digital creation

466
00:47:09,424 --> 00:47:16,324
but it's a way that the digital swarm tends to create a beautiful perfect model of reality and

467
00:47:16,324 --> 00:47:23,384
in the real world in reality we then adopt the kind of aesthetic the trappings of the model that

468
00:47:23,384 --> 00:47:29,864
was created in digital space terraforming ourselves in a sense voluntarily in the way that we always

469
00:47:29,864 --> 00:47:37,184
do when one culture becomes dominant and people all want to be part of the American dream or be

470
00:47:37,184 --> 00:47:44,224
part of that kawaii cuteness sort of thing i think that answer your question but well i it i mean it

471
00:47:44,224 --> 00:47:49,964
does answer the question but the the question that i would have in response to that is do we think

472
00:47:49,964 --> 00:47:57,944
that's do we think that's happening because if i look at the landscape of social media and yeah

473
00:47:57,944 --> 00:48:27,924
You know, just the digital world. I'm not so sure that I see convergence of culture. What I seem to see is that now because of this tool and and we're going to talk about here, I'm going to say that there's lots of benefits of community of it because now because of this tool, there's, you know, a million people over here who are, you know, vegan deer hunters who love to

474
00:48:27,944 --> 00:48:36,864
to play the flute. And then over here, there's modern monetary theorists who also engage in

475
00:48:36,864 --> 00:48:45,784
furry activity. And over here, then we've got, you know, I'm a, I'm a gay left-handed baseball

476
00:48:45,784 --> 00:48:51,804
catcher, like, and there's 4 million of them. Right. And so what we've done is we've, we've,

477
00:48:51,804 --> 00:49:01,004
It feels to me like instead of converging, it feels like we have ground into more fine detail, into a more granular.

478
00:49:01,644 --> 00:49:03,644
And maybe those things do end up converging.

479
00:49:04,044 --> 00:49:12,384
But yeah, you can find your tribe online no matter who that may be and how weird your interests are.

480
00:49:12,944 --> 00:49:14,424
There's two parts of that.

481
00:49:14,424 --> 00:49:28,604
First, you're totally right that the digital swarm is kind of balkanizing culture, breaking it apart in ways that the elite did not want or foresee, especially in the form of misinformation, quote unquote conspiracies, political resistance.

482
00:49:28,604 --> 00:49:38,564
But the other sort, that purely aesthetic adoption of identity, the elites love that because identities, I think, once somebody adopts those, they're easy to control.

483
00:49:38,824 --> 00:49:51,064
And the digital swarm loves that because once you have pronouns in bio and have adopted an identity, you have terraformed yourself in a way into a consumer of identities, right?

484
00:49:51,064 --> 00:49:59,264
You're picking something unmoored from history and memory, biography, a digital creation that then can be manipulated.

485
00:49:59,264 --> 00:50:09,904
If you are a digital identity, if some of digital identities become real for you, then as that digital identity changes in digital space, you change as well.

486
00:50:09,964 --> 00:50:18,164
So there's that feedback, that control that comes, again, maybe not from the elite factions, but maybe from the digital swarm itself,

487
00:50:18,164 --> 00:50:21,844
which is changing us and which are two separate things.

488
00:50:21,964 --> 00:50:26,724
The elites seek to control the digital swarm that is changing us,

489
00:50:26,804 --> 00:50:30,484
but their control of it has been unperfect and this worries them.

490
00:50:30,724 --> 00:50:34,584
The priestly class does not have a handle over the digital swarm

491
00:50:34,584 --> 00:50:38,124
or over the other technologies that they create to control us

492
00:50:38,124 --> 00:50:42,224
because, again, the tools that you create serve a purpose.

493
00:50:42,544 --> 00:50:45,984
They change us, but then they change us in unpredictable ways.

494
00:50:45,984 --> 00:51:04,444
And then we interact again with those tools, further change them, and we change in further unpredictable ways, which is all horrible for the elite class, which wants an easily, you know, tool to change a specific thing that then they can, you know, have a preordained result.

495
00:51:04,444 --> 00:51:24,344
But when you acknowledge that reality is not like that, that you change one variable and then a million others interact to create a future state that you did not fully plan, that's a horrible situation for a central planner who says, no, if you adopt my policy, all my models say, if you do B, you will get to C or something like that.

496
00:51:24,344 --> 00:51:36,564
But just to interrupt your question, you're totally right that the digital swarm operates outside of the control of the priestly class and some of the identities it creates are harmful to that priestly class.

497
00:51:36,564 --> 00:51:46,404
And this actually brings me kind of to the next point of the reading in that the crisis is ontological, not epistemological, that we are now in.

498
00:51:46,464 --> 00:51:49,864
It's a crisis of being, of what we are, and not of knowing.

499
00:51:49,864 --> 00:52:02,764
So the ontological questions that are now upon us as a result of living after the digital catastrophe in the midst of digital swarms is, who are we when digital swarms rule?

500
00:52:03,024 --> 00:52:09,124
Digital swarms that are not controlled even by the priestly class that purports to speak for them.

501
00:52:09,644 --> 00:52:14,844
Other questions, the digital swarms disenchant God in America, these big meta-narratives.

502
00:52:15,544 --> 00:52:17,924
Do we then worship the swarm?

503
00:52:17,924 --> 00:52:23,204
What is the thing that is in control if the digital swarm seems to be in control?

504
00:52:23,324 --> 00:52:24,444
What is the creator then?

505
00:52:25,024 --> 00:52:32,064
Is it bearable to be human if our triumph means that we have the current state that we have?

506
00:52:32,104 --> 00:52:34,644
If it all led to this, what did it mean to even be human?

507
00:52:34,904 --> 00:52:39,224
What can transcend the digital swarm, these alien masters of our creation, right?

508
00:52:39,524 --> 00:52:41,064
So these are all the questions.

509
00:52:41,204 --> 00:52:44,804
The big questions are now ontological, human forever.

510
00:52:44,804 --> 00:53:14,064
What does it mean to be human still and to maintain humanity in the face of this and to, in fact, have the temerity, the courage, like whatever, to dare to be human in the face of people like Brian Johnson who are saying, do you want to die? Humans die. You sure you want to be human? Like, what does it mean to preserve humanity when humans are weak and biological and they fail and we age, we become disabled? The digital swarm promises. Go ahead. Yeah.

511
00:53:14,804 --> 00:53:33,944
Well, I was going to say you brought that up earlier, and I didn't interject, but I will now because I look at what Brian Johnson's doing, and I'm not certain if what he's doing is not the most human thing.

512
00:53:35,004 --> 00:53:36,304
I mean, humans live.

513
00:53:36,904 --> 00:53:38,164
That's what humans do.

514
00:53:38,544 --> 00:53:39,544
And then they die.

515
00:53:39,544 --> 00:53:47,064
So, but they've just died because they didn't have a way not to die.

516
00:53:47,904 --> 00:53:58,264
You know, we also, we were killed by apes and tigers and woolly man, whatever, you know.

517
00:53:58,264 --> 00:54:03,344
And we froze because of the elements and we died of thirst.

518
00:54:03,344 --> 00:54:11,984
But now we don't do that because we created tools and protocols and we built things that allowed us not to.

519
00:54:12,444 --> 00:54:22,464
So I don't know if what Brian Johnson is doing is inhuman or if it's the most human thing, which is to want to live.

520
00:54:24,084 --> 00:54:26,064
You know, the will to live.

521
00:54:26,364 --> 00:54:29,164
So we described this with the Chinese thing, right?

522
00:54:29,164 --> 00:54:32,804
So the whatever, Taki Paki, Tang Pang.

523
00:54:32,804 --> 00:54:41,284
I mean, again, it would be just as incomprehensible to a Chinese person because we don't, I don't know the phonetics, is it Tang?

524
00:54:41,464 --> 00:54:41,704
Tang?

525
00:54:41,924 --> 00:54:43,284
You know, I don't know what the, whatever.

526
00:54:44,284 --> 00:54:51,484
So those, the people that are engaging in that, what they're doing is, I don't think we would describe that as living.

527
00:54:52,964 --> 00:54:55,164
If you're just, you know, lying across state.

528
00:54:55,624 --> 00:54:55,684
Oh yeah, definitely.

529
00:54:55,684 --> 00:54:57,104
That's not a good response for sure.

530
00:54:57,284 --> 00:54:57,484
Right?

531
00:54:57,544 --> 00:54:57,764
Yeah.

532
00:54:57,764 --> 00:55:16,464
And so maybe the most human thing to do is to approach with courage the obstacles that are in front of you and keeping you from being able to live.

533
00:55:17,404 --> 00:55:19,024
And I don't know.

534
00:55:19,544 --> 00:55:19,764
Yeah.

535
00:55:19,764 --> 00:55:43,664
Yeah. We lived through a period where the average age at death was 33 and now it's 70. Who's to say that it's unnatural to live to 70? Who's to say that it's unnatural to live to 150 or 300? We don't know. I mean, if you look in the Bible, there's people that live to 700, 900. Maybe that's true. Maybe that's not. We don't know.

536
00:55:43,664 --> 00:55:45,284
Yeah. But I think.

537
00:55:45,504 --> 00:55:46,704
So what is that?

538
00:55:46,704 --> 00:56:05,444
I think to say who's to say, though, is the cop out. We are to say. And the line, you're totally correct. It is fuzzy. Humans have been cyborgs ever since we invented the spear or something like that. We've always interacted with our environment and made ourselves part of our environment or part of the tools that we use in a way that other animals have not.

539
00:56:05,444 --> 00:56:13,564
So there is something about being human that is about changing reality to suit us through machines and technology.

540
00:56:13,564 --> 00:56:14,824
That is for sure.

541
00:56:15,084 --> 00:56:16,424
But there is still that question.

542
00:56:16,564 --> 00:56:25,804
I think we can't – I don't think we can totally dodge it by saying who's to say because then who is to say will be people who have the courage and the means to say.

543
00:56:25,984 --> 00:56:28,684
And they will say, no, it's perfectly fine to have a chip in your brain.

544
00:56:28,764 --> 00:56:29,724
That's what it means to be human.

545
00:56:29,724 --> 00:56:34,684
It's perfectly fine to inject the blood of your child into you, which is what Brian Johnson does.

546
00:56:35,444 --> 00:57:00,944
These things are perfectly natural. It's who's to say, I'm to say. And that's part. One of the ideas in this is that America has always had this idea. James calls it the creed of the spark. This is jumping ahead a bit. But this notion, it's a Faustian notion of there are the people who dare to dream because they make a deal with the devil in a certain sense.

547
00:57:00,944 --> 00:57:10,824
And the deal is almost in that person's mind thought to be a deal with God because they're bringing themselves closer to God.

548
00:57:11,004 --> 00:57:16,504
But the thing is always, is that desire to, is it really a desire to become God?

549
00:57:16,644 --> 00:57:21,744
And what is the human then in that relation if we're trying to beat death?

550
00:57:23,044 --> 00:57:24,264
I don't want to die.

551
00:57:24,544 --> 00:57:27,064
And that sounds uncomfortable, all the things leading up to death.

552
00:57:27,064 --> 00:57:35,884
But it does seem like mortality, vulnerability, aging, these have been a part of the human story.

553
00:57:36,504 --> 00:57:44,864
And the amelioration of them may have consequences beyond our knowing in relation to our humanity.

554
00:57:45,364 --> 00:57:47,004
So that's not an answer to your question.

555
00:57:47,064 --> 00:57:48,244
I think you raised the right question.

556
00:57:48,304 --> 00:57:50,284
Who is to say and what is the answer?

557
00:57:50,684 --> 00:57:53,744
I mean, it's just it depends on where you draw the line.

558
00:57:53,744 --> 00:58:00,344
If you're in the hospital and you need a blood transfusion to live another day, then nobody has a problem with your son giving you blood.

559
00:58:00,664 --> 00:58:01,164
Some people do.

560
00:58:01,304 --> 00:58:03,364
Some people have religious functions against it.

561
00:58:03,384 --> 00:58:03,784
Yeah, some.

562
00:58:04,104 --> 00:58:04,804
And that's true.

563
00:58:05,024 --> 00:58:05,664
Like there are some.

564
00:58:05,804 --> 00:58:14,584
But I would say that the vast majority of people would have no problem with that because they would say, oh, look, I need this in order to live another day, another week, another year.

565
00:58:14,584 --> 00:58:22,744
if you're in the hospital and you need a kidney and turns out, you know, like who's the best match

566
00:58:22,744 --> 00:58:27,184
for that? It's going to be a family member. You know, we celebrate the people that do that. We,

567
00:58:27,184 --> 00:58:33,044
we say, oh, look, he gave him a kidney. Like what a, what a selfless human virtuous act. Right.

568
00:58:33,204 --> 00:58:38,564
Yeah. And then we, we make it into the semantic issue where it's like, oh, well,

569
00:58:38,564 --> 00:58:43,544
it's only okay to do that if you're on the verge of death.

570
00:58:44,444 --> 00:58:47,604
But we're all on the verge of death.

571
00:58:47,684 --> 00:58:52,364
It just depends on what you define verge as, you know, is it in,

572
00:58:52,504 --> 00:58:56,484
is it in five weeks or is it in five years or is it in five decades?

573
00:58:56,964 --> 00:58:57,124
Yeah.

574
00:58:58,484 --> 00:59:01,884
And so I, you know, that's, that's where it gets fuzzy.

575
00:59:01,984 --> 00:59:04,064
Like everybody, I don't,

576
00:59:04,124 --> 00:59:07,764
I don't think anybody has a problem with putting it or I don't know, but,

577
00:59:08,564 --> 00:59:17,204
A lot of people say there's no problem with putting a chip in somebody's brain if they can't hear and they can't see.

578
00:59:17,204 --> 00:59:17,524
Right.

579
00:59:17,684 --> 00:59:19,084
They're quadriplegic.

580
00:59:19,704 --> 00:59:21,684
You know, we can restore them to normal.

581
00:59:22,084 --> 00:59:22,344
Yes.

582
00:59:22,364 --> 00:59:22,944
That's fine.

583
00:59:23,284 --> 00:59:28,544
But if we take someone normal and we do that, then now they're superhuman.

584
00:59:28,664 --> 00:59:32,184
Just like I have a cousin who was born with one kidney.

585
00:59:32,764 --> 00:59:35,584
And so when she was born, they put her on steroids.

586
00:59:35,584 --> 00:59:39,304
And so she was a pretty jacked four-year-old.

587
00:59:42,004 --> 00:59:43,864
Nobody has a problem with that.

588
00:59:44,204 --> 00:59:52,504
But if you took a regular four-year-old and you put that kid on steroids, everybody would think that that was the most inhumane, god-awful thing you could do.

589
00:59:53,184 --> 00:59:55,864
And so it's just this, like, what's your baseline?

590
00:59:56,564 --> 01:00:04,064
And basically that baseline is only as long as it's below what I'm at currently, I'm okay with it.

591
01:00:04,064 --> 01:00:09,504
As long as it as long as all it does is raise you up to where I'm at, that's fine.

592
01:00:09,844 --> 01:00:15,264
But if you're at my level and you want to be better than me, then now I think it's immoral.

593
01:00:15,384 --> 01:00:21,884
Kind of like the the woke kind of thing is like, who do we hate?

594
01:00:21,944 --> 01:00:22,544
The rich.

595
01:00:22,684 --> 01:00:23,644
Well, who's the rich?

596
01:00:23,784 --> 01:00:25,864
Well, it's anybody who has more money than me.

597
01:00:26,324 --> 01:00:26,484
Yeah.

598
01:00:26,564 --> 01:00:34,044
And so you can have one hundred million dollars and still call out, you know, you can you can be Elizabeth Warren.

599
01:00:34,064 --> 01:00:40,584
foreign who has hundreds of millions of dollars and still call Elon Musk a greedy capitalist,

600
01:00:40,884 --> 01:00:48,444
right? Just, you know, it's, it's all relative to the individual who is making that moral judgment.

601
01:00:48,444 --> 01:00:56,864
And so I actually, that's where I want to kind of throw back. And I say to you, I think who's to

602
01:00:56,864 --> 01:01:03,884
say is actually a way better. Like that's, that's a more holistic or a more thoughtful approach

603
01:01:03,884 --> 01:01:08,304
because otherwise it's just everybody's individual.

604
01:01:08,724 --> 01:01:12,784
Like who's to say that it's okay to have $100 million?

605
01:01:13,224 --> 01:01:14,704
Who's okay that it's not okay?

606
01:01:14,884 --> 01:01:17,244
Who's to say that it's okay to get a transfusion

607
01:01:17,244 --> 01:01:20,304
when you need it to live another day

608
01:01:20,304 --> 01:01:23,004
or when you just want to live a better life?

609
01:01:23,004 --> 01:01:24,824
And so I don't know.

610
01:01:25,164 --> 01:01:27,924
And I get stuck on this too

611
01:01:27,924 --> 01:01:31,324
because I follow this Brian Johnson thing with some interest

612
01:01:31,324 --> 01:01:36,604
because he was, you know, he's one of the backing partners of the network school.

613
01:01:36,644 --> 01:01:36,804
Right.

614
01:01:37,384 --> 01:01:45,404
And, you know, like the workout plans and the meals, that is blueprint-derived.

615
01:01:45,684 --> 01:01:49,164
And a lot of people, I never got to meet him, but a lot of people that met him,

616
01:01:49,224 --> 01:01:50,824
they're like, yeah, he's a really nice guy.

617
01:01:50,944 --> 01:01:53,044
Like, just a real sweet person.

618
01:01:53,204 --> 01:01:54,004
I've got his book.

619
01:01:54,844 --> 01:02:00,424
You hear him on his Netflix special, and he just seems like the sweetest dude.

620
01:02:00,424 --> 01:02:06,764
and then they're like well yeah but he's a vampire trying to live to 400 or trying to never die

621
01:02:06,764 --> 01:02:14,284
um but then you look at like well what's he doing you know i i mean do you do you hook yourself up

622
01:02:14,284 --> 01:02:18,684
and suck all the microplastics out of your blood that seems like a good idea because that's not

623
01:02:18,684 --> 01:02:24,704
human like that plastic is not human and that shit came through came to us through this you know

624
01:02:24,704 --> 01:02:33,364
profit motive maximization of short-term maximization of short-term profit that is a

625
01:02:33,364 --> 01:02:41,164
direct result of having money that loses value over time because if you didn't have that then

626
01:02:41,164 --> 01:02:45,664
the incentive is to play long-term games with long-term people as opposed to selling out for

627
01:02:45,664 --> 01:02:52,484
today so yeah yeah i don't know it's a to me it's a semantics question yep so i just first say

628
01:02:52,484 --> 01:02:58,424
brian johnson i have no beef with him he's kind of though a bait noir of like the joe allens the

629
01:02:58,424 --> 01:03:05,544
people who are um railing against transhumanism um and so kind of he gets brought up a lot as just

630
01:03:05,544 --> 01:03:10,584
kind of an example but again i don't know enough about i don't even follow his project enough to

631
01:03:10,584 --> 01:03:15,884
know what he's doing except for as kind of the caricature although i think he presents a caricature

632
01:03:15,884 --> 01:03:20,404
of himself kind of intentionally for social media intentionally yeah for sure yeah but the

633
01:03:20,404 --> 01:03:25,544
The transhumanist thing is like, well, I was just going to say, what's more transhuman?

634
01:03:26,064 --> 01:03:31,504
Is it more of a transhumanist approach to try to live for a long time?

635
01:03:31,504 --> 01:03:39,584
Or is it more of a transhumanist approach to code everything and to always have your cell phone attached to your –

636
01:03:39,584 --> 01:03:43,004
like to me, that's more of a cyborg than the guy who's shocking his penis.

637
01:03:43,344 --> 01:03:43,544
Yeah.

638
01:03:44,624 --> 01:03:48,024
I don't know, like shocking – that's just what a 13-year-old does when he's bored.

639
01:03:49,424 --> 01:03:49,824
Right.

640
01:03:49,824 --> 01:04:01,384
And so the longevity that is promised by the digital swarm, quote unquote transhumanists, etc.

641
01:04:01,684 --> 01:04:05,344
As part of this ontological question, you know, what does it mean to be human?

642
01:04:05,344 --> 01:04:21,104
And longevity is the lever that gets space for then other things like cloning or puberty blockers and gender changing, physical modifications, other sorts of things that people maybe would be less sanguine about.

643
01:04:21,104 --> 01:04:31,284
But not even to argue about those, just to say we're at the exact—I think we're at exactly the right spot in this book right now because these are ontological questions we're asking.

644
01:04:31,284 --> 01:04:38,984
And that's where James kind of wants us to be to realize it's not an epistemological question of what we can know about the future.

645
01:04:38,984 --> 01:04:39,764
Define those two terms.

646
01:04:40,004 --> 01:04:44,124
Break them down for us.

647
01:04:44,424 --> 01:04:46,404
Ontological is about being.

648
01:04:46,904 --> 01:04:49,524
What does it mean to be a human being?

649
01:04:50,484 --> 01:04:56,184
Epistemological is what it is to know something, to know a scientific fact about what it is to be human, say.

650
01:04:56,184 --> 01:05:09,004
So if you look at it all as an epistemological question, it's all about accumulating scientific data about the situation, coming better to know what DNA is, how the chemical compounds interact.

651
01:05:09,004 --> 01:05:18,704
If you look at it as an ontological question, you look at it as, is it changing the essential nature of what it means to be us?

652
01:05:18,944 --> 01:05:21,904
So again, the question of being versus knowing.

653
01:05:22,564 --> 01:05:25,964
And James wants us to focus on the ontological question.

654
01:05:26,184 --> 01:05:30,924
How did these technologies impact us ontologically?

655
01:05:31,164 --> 01:05:38,104
How did they impact our being, what we are, who we are, what we dream of becoming, how

656
01:05:38,104 --> 01:05:43,004
we love, how we procreate, how we recreate, what is meaningful to us?

657
01:05:43,264 --> 01:05:47,264
These are ontological questions about what it means to be a human being.

658
01:05:47,724 --> 01:05:50,124
And this is a very fuzzy area.

659
01:05:50,124 --> 01:05:53,084
Who is to say, what's your baseline?

660
01:05:54,064 --> 01:05:55,024
It's up for grabs.

661
01:05:55,024 --> 01:06:21,424
And that brings us to the next part of the book. The digital catastrophe then is in 2007, a specific historic point in time. So after that, we get the first generation. We get the people who are those who are born into the digital catastrophe, who have no memory of a pre-digital existence, a digital existence without the iPhone.

662
01:06:21,424 --> 01:06:36,724
That's the first generation in Polis's estimation. These are people who are going to answer the question, who's to say, what's your baseline? And they're going to do it without the memory of a pre-digital existence.

663
01:06:36,724 --> 01:06:41,104
The founding generation of the digital age is going to be answering new questions.

664
01:06:41,304 --> 01:06:43,984
They're going to be different people with different experiences.

665
01:06:44,384 --> 01:06:49,564
They're going to devote their identities to different wagers concerning this ultimate question.

666
01:06:49,744 --> 01:06:53,744
Because the ontological question, who we are, begets further.

667
01:06:54,324 --> 01:07:03,004
Once we respond to that, it determines how we live, what we love, who we love, and all these really important things.

668
01:07:03,064 --> 01:07:04,504
So we need to think about it.

669
01:07:04,504 --> 01:07:11,004
it's going to determine whether we have rebirth and renaissance or we have some sort of dystopian

670
01:07:11,004 --> 01:07:14,244
future so we have the first generation the generation that's really going to answer these

671
01:07:14,244 --> 01:07:19,244
questions in a full-throated sense year zero we also have this other concept i want to get on the

672
01:07:19,244 --> 01:07:24,324
table because it's going to help with this so the first generation the young kids zoomers i think

673
01:07:24,324 --> 01:07:32,464
you'd say um no pre-digital memory year zero we also have that polo says this is 2021 year zero

674
01:07:33,204 --> 01:07:38,344
Year zero is a reference to zero hour, the hour after the Nazi regime falls.

675
01:07:38,524 --> 01:07:48,044
And suddenly they have to erase all of the prior memories of, you know, a Germanic spirit tied to Nazism and the Holocaust.

676
01:07:48,044 --> 01:07:49,384
Right. All these horrible things.

677
01:07:49,384 --> 01:07:54,764
They had to say, we need to go forward with a different memory and kind of get rid of a historical memory.

678
01:07:55,824 --> 01:08:01,004
Redefine Nazism in a way that didn't entangle it with just being German, I guess.

679
01:08:01,224 --> 01:08:01,904
Something like that.

680
01:08:01,904 --> 01:08:04,244
Zero zero means the past must be destroyed.

681
01:08:04,764 --> 01:08:07,444
And so 2021, we have like a historical reset.

682
01:08:07,664 --> 01:08:10,704
We have a break with the continuities of the past.

683
01:08:10,704 --> 01:08:23,124
All of the rites of passage, like the homecomings, the prom dances, the in-person flesh to flesh body, like incarnate encounters that were rites of passage for a generation were suspended, right?

684
01:08:23,304 --> 01:08:31,104
People didn't do the things that in the past would have made boys into men or at least marked some point in that transition.

685
01:08:31,664 --> 01:08:34,744
Instead, there's a rupture with the past with this continuity.

686
01:08:34,744 --> 01:08:49,324
So the first generation not only does not have like a pre-digital memory, they also have this rupture from the past that has kind of cut them off from a sort of continuity of development in the way that at least we used to develop.

687
01:08:49,604 --> 01:08:54,604
So these are two things as far as like who's going to answer, who's to say, what's your baseline?

688
01:08:54,604 --> 01:09:01,804
We now have a generation with a different sort of memory, a different sort of relation to history than we have.

689
01:09:01,904 --> 01:09:16,164
Then, you know, you and I born into world without the Internet, without computers, seeing it kind of avalanche into the world, knowing a world before, knowing a world after, able to use the former to judge the latter.

690
01:09:17,524 --> 01:09:23,964
But, you know, what is the first generation going to how are they going to answer that question, I guess, is germane.

691
01:09:23,964 --> 01:09:33,764
But I guess I'll pause there. Does that make sense, this idea of the first generation and then year zero as a further rupture that the first generation has with the past?

692
01:09:33,764 --> 01:10:03,744
Yeah.

693
01:10:03,764 --> 01:10:11,224
experience has become epistemological, which is to say that we know more than we've ever known.

694
01:10:11,224 --> 01:10:19,884
I know all these ridiculous things, right? Because all of the information is available.

695
01:10:20,864 --> 01:10:30,304
Yet, as a result of all of the information being available, I'm doing less. I'm spending less time

696
01:10:30,304 --> 01:10:37,304
staring at a tree. I'm spending less time building fence for 12 hours at a time.

697
01:10:38,304 --> 01:10:49,124
I'm spending less time simply being. And so my experience, my ontological experience is,

698
01:10:50,124 --> 01:10:57,364
I would say, yeah, so there's like, there's just a bandwidth of humanity, of the human experience,

699
01:10:57,364 --> 01:11:02,724
And it appears to be heavily tilted toward epistemological.

700
01:11:03,144 --> 01:11:05,044
Oh, did you watch this?

701
01:11:05,124 --> 01:11:05,344
Yeah.

702
01:11:05,424 --> 01:11:07,224
Did you watch this Netflix documentary?

703
01:11:07,664 --> 01:11:09,524
Did you see this podcast?

704
01:11:10,604 --> 01:11:12,744
Did you read this Substack piece?

705
01:11:14,064 --> 01:11:21,184
As opposed to I spent three hours trying to perfect skipping a rock across a pond.

706
01:11:21,184 --> 01:11:39,944
Or now I've taken an eight-hour hike or something like that with nothing connecting me to the world, yet I find that whenever I do something like that, I feel more connected to the world.

707
01:11:39,944 --> 01:11:52,104
That when I leave behind all of the things that connect me, that I become more connected to nature and to a feeling of humanity around me.

708
01:11:52,964 --> 01:11:59,044
So, yeah, so the epistemological is pervading at the cost of the ontological.

709
01:11:59,044 --> 01:12:17,424
Yeah, that is beautifully put and directly on point. And I was just thinking, as you were describing it that way, part of the kind of subordination of the ontological to the epistemological, the subordination of being to knowing is also the prevalence of communication now.

710
01:12:17,424 --> 01:12:29,024
Like social media wants us to communicate all of our experiences to others, to formulate them into a soundbite, you know, an articulable thing we can tell others about.

711
01:12:29,224 --> 01:12:36,124
But it may be that you can't tell others about how you were transformed on that eight-hour walk.

712
01:12:36,264 --> 01:12:39,304
It's not something that is a form of knowing.

713
01:12:39,504 --> 01:12:40,404
It's a form of being.

714
01:12:40,504 --> 01:12:43,664
You simply are a new person as a result of doing that.

715
01:12:43,664 --> 01:12:46,844
But it's not, I can't just tell you, oh, here's what I experienced.

716
01:12:47,004 --> 01:12:48,464
Now you are also a new person.

717
01:12:48,724 --> 01:12:58,984
There is no communication that can be had or epistemological structure that can be used to help somebody know what you are now that you became something through doing.

718
01:13:00,244 --> 01:13:02,404
Yeah, you can share knowing, but you can't share being.

719
01:13:02,444 --> 01:13:02,904
There we go.

720
01:13:03,164 --> 01:13:04,204
You put the, that's it.

721
01:13:04,204 --> 01:13:10,804
So that ontological, not epistemological crises, that's where we find ourselves.

722
01:13:10,804 --> 01:13:15,464
We need more than arguments and explanations, Polis says.

723
01:13:15,524 --> 01:13:17,164
We need to save our souls.

724
01:13:17,284 --> 01:13:18,404
That's what it comes down to.

725
01:13:18,844 --> 01:13:26,424
And there are two possibilities for Americans subjugated to what he kind of describes as like the repurposed weaponry of digital communications.

726
01:13:27,564 --> 01:13:39,028
He has a whole a lot of really good stuff in this book Obviously we just going to zoom over But he talks about how you know a lot of this digital technology is incubated in the manner of weaponry

727
01:13:39,148 --> 01:13:41,548
And it's actually now just used on us.

728
01:13:41,548 --> 01:13:48,348
But in any case, two possibilities subjected for we who are subject to the digital swarm.

729
01:13:48,528 --> 01:13:54,908
We can kind of retire inward into entertainment and sloth and just be entertained by it, right?

730
01:13:55,128 --> 01:13:56,648
Be hypnotized, entranced.

731
01:13:56,648 --> 01:14:01,048
or you can compete for market share and the provision of this entertainment.

732
01:14:01,268 --> 01:14:02,708
You can create your podcast.

733
01:14:02,708 --> 01:14:07,408
You can be a, you know, a content creator as we call, I suppose, ourselves, right?

734
01:14:07,468 --> 01:14:09,048
You can participate in the frenzy.

735
01:14:09,128 --> 01:14:10,408
So it's frenzy or sloth.

736
01:14:10,488 --> 01:14:13,928
Which one do you want as you are part of this circus?

737
01:14:13,928 --> 01:14:21,008
The alternative to this whole thing, though, to explanation and argument, to communication,

738
01:14:21,368 --> 01:14:25,808
to reason, to science is memory and biography.

739
01:14:25,808 --> 01:14:33,588
memory and biography do not explain a story nourishes by what it implies not by what it says

740
01:14:33,588 --> 01:14:37,088
i love that you said at the beginning the space between the notes is what makes the music

741
01:14:37,088 --> 01:14:46,968
the storyteller at your family christmas um the story is more than kind of the set pieces of the

742
01:14:46,968 --> 01:14:52,048
story it's the narrative structure and its extension over time and its development that

743
01:14:52,048 --> 01:14:58,988
says something more full than any of the individual words that are used. So memory and biography are

744
01:14:58,988 --> 01:15:05,048
incredibly important, Polis says, and they are what is being lost and what must be preserved.

745
01:15:05,848 --> 01:15:11,028
We look back at what he's described, the first generation has no pre-digital memory. They had

746
01:15:11,028 --> 01:15:17,688
also year zero that cut, snipped their biography so that it is different than our biographies,

747
01:15:17,688 --> 01:15:26,408
our being people who do have a pre-digital memory, pre-digital existence. COVID put an end to lots of rites of passage that were part of the American biography.

748
01:15:27,068 --> 01:15:40,988
So we need to now, Polis says, if you want to preserve, if you want to be in some sense human forever, we need to think about what is human memory and how do we perpetuate human biographies.

749
01:15:40,988 --> 01:15:48,248
it's not what the digital swarm promises is you don't need biography or memory we will be your

750
01:15:48,248 --> 01:15:53,788
memories we can perfectly preserve all of your photographs and videos and all of your bio you

751
01:15:53,788 --> 01:15:58,908
know your biological data the machine will hold all the memories you don't have to remember anything

752
01:15:58,908 --> 01:16:04,928
you don't need a biography you don't need history just make a wish and we will fulfill the wish

753
01:16:04,928 --> 01:16:11,068
Pure imagination in the form of pure will is what the digital swarm offers.

754
01:16:11,728 --> 01:16:19,648
And that's kind of one of the dangers of the way we're going is imagination over memory.

755
01:16:20,548 --> 01:16:21,868
Does that make sense?

756
01:16:22,868 --> 01:16:23,668
Yeah.

757
01:16:23,868 --> 01:16:34,028
I think about the story of the house is on fire and what do people go after as they go for the photo albums.

758
01:16:34,028 --> 01:16:34,468
Yeah.

759
01:16:34,928 --> 01:16:43,468
Um, but no one, everyone now has 20,000 pictures on their phone and they never look at any of them.

760
01:16:43,468 --> 01:16:43,828
Yeah.

761
01:16:44,188 --> 01:16:49,608
Um, and they, you know, they, they take the picture and they post the picture and they forget the thing.

762
01:16:49,608 --> 01:16:57,448
And I, I, I have pictures pop up, you know, when they do the memory thing on social media, I have pictures pop up and I'm like, I completely forgot about that.

763
01:16:57,528 --> 01:16:58,188
I had no idea.

764
01:16:58,368 --> 01:17:02,148
I, you know, it wasn't a part of my, it's not.

765
01:17:02,148 --> 01:17:26,528
Yes, yes, we've offloaded our memories and we've offloaded our biography. But as a result of that offloading, we don't have it anymore. I don't have that memory and I don't have that biography. And in order for me to tell you who I am now, I have to do digital forensics on myself in order to figure out who I am.

766
01:17:26,528 --> 01:17:34,188
Yeah. As opposed to to knowing like, you know, it's like you have to ask someone else.

767
01:17:34,388 --> 01:17:38,688
I hold on. I need to go access this information because I don't have it on hand.

768
01:17:40,828 --> 01:17:51,028
And what what is a human other than the, you know, the lived experience and the memories?

769
01:17:51,408 --> 01:17:55,808
And so if you've offloaded that, then are you still human?

770
01:17:55,808 --> 01:18:02,348
And there, you know, you're just, you know, maybe that's yourself.

771
01:18:02,448 --> 01:18:05,588
You're just the soulless meatbag walking around in a trance.

772
01:18:05,828 --> 01:18:06,048
Yeah.

773
01:18:06,608 --> 01:18:07,588
Save our souls.

774
01:18:07,688 --> 01:18:08,488
That's what we got to do.

775
01:18:08,748 --> 01:18:08,948
Yeah.

776
01:18:09,848 --> 01:18:12,228
It's that naked, man, that naked.

777
01:18:12,388 --> 01:18:14,108
We're trying to save our souls.

778
01:18:14,688 --> 01:18:19,308
And you don't have to have some sort of metaphysical explanation or belief in the soul as such.

779
01:18:19,308 --> 01:18:22,788
You just got to believe there is something more than meat there that's worth saving.

780
01:18:22,788 --> 01:18:30,748
you you've taken a hiatus from social or well from not social media entirely but from x and

781
01:18:30,748 --> 01:18:37,768
you seem to be happier is this like is this would you say that this is contributed to your experience

782
01:18:37,768 --> 01:18:47,948
as a human yes definitely when you back away from x after being enmeshed in it it is exiting a trance

783
01:18:47,948 --> 01:18:53,988
and entering back into the implicit after living in the wholly explicit.

784
01:18:54,368 --> 01:18:58,468
I mean, what X offers is a constant slew of tweets that explain everything,

785
01:18:58,708 --> 01:19:05,108
observe on everything, and try to make seemingly comprehensible the whole to you.

786
01:19:05,528 --> 01:19:08,388
But you realize when you step back into the real world, of course,

787
01:19:08,388 --> 01:19:12,308
nothing was made whole.

788
01:19:12,508 --> 01:19:14,928
There is no explanation for how we live.

789
01:19:15,008 --> 01:19:15,988
There only is living.

790
01:19:16,168 --> 01:19:17,188
There only is being.

791
01:19:17,188 --> 01:19:33,428
So the ontology is much more important than the knowing about the ontology in a sense. And so I haven't had some huge spiritual epiphany, but it is a feeling of cleanliness and purity and internal fullness for sure.

792
01:19:33,428 --> 01:19:36,988
when you step away from something like X for a period.

793
01:19:37,388 --> 01:19:39,368
It's a feeling of remembrance too,

794
01:19:39,488 --> 01:19:41,848
of remembering this is how I am,

795
01:19:41,988 --> 01:19:43,208
this is who I am,

796
01:19:43,708 --> 01:19:47,928
and I am not all of these voices that are not mine

797
01:19:47,928 --> 01:19:50,008
that constantly run through my feed,

798
01:19:50,228 --> 01:19:53,028
and I'm not actually talking with those people either.

799
01:19:53,208 --> 01:19:54,068
They're just occurring,

800
01:19:54,528 --> 01:19:57,508
and that's not a human thing

801
01:19:57,508 --> 01:20:00,848
if we define human as the way that humans have lived

802
01:20:00,848 --> 01:20:02,388
throughout our evolutionary history.

803
01:20:03,428 --> 01:20:07,768
It's also, this is a point I think you'll really appreciate, Lucas.

804
01:20:08,828 --> 01:20:18,968
If we're saying that the digital swarm privileges imagination over memory, just make a wish and we can fulfill it.

805
01:20:19,728 --> 01:20:22,228
AI can create an image of whatever you want.

806
01:20:22,968 --> 01:20:28,188
It's almost like we have this idea of memory as rote memorization, as not creative.

807
01:20:28,188 --> 01:20:32,588
and imagination as purely creative, as fantastic, right?

808
01:20:32,688 --> 01:20:35,028
And linked to all these beautiful things that we make.

809
01:20:35,408 --> 01:20:39,888
However, historically, the ancients took memory very seriously.

810
01:20:39,888 --> 01:20:43,868
They studied memorization techniques because they didn't have machines to do it for them.

811
01:20:43,968 --> 01:20:49,048
And they, in fact, linked memory, not imagination, to creativity.

812
01:20:49,248 --> 01:20:55,428
So creativity for the ancients was a result of having memorized a bunch of different things,

813
01:20:55,428 --> 01:21:01,508
taken in a bunch of different things and not pure imagination unmoored from memory so i guess do you

814
01:21:01,508 --> 01:21:07,808
as a creative yourself do you feel that that's the case is creativity linked to imagination in a sort

815
01:21:07,808 --> 01:21:14,348
of romantic sense or is creativity linked to memory to having lived and to storing those

816
01:21:14,348 --> 01:21:23,248
lived experiences and knowledge about the world well okay that's a great question and i think i

817
01:21:23,248 --> 01:21:29,348
would say it's the second because I think it's linked to memory because when I when I would write

818
01:21:29,348 --> 01:21:37,268
a song what usually triggers me writing a song is I'm in a conversation with somebody

819
01:21:37,268 --> 01:21:45,648
and we're talking about something and I in order to frame what they're saying in a way that sounds

820
01:21:45,648 --> 01:21:56,308
fun to me or that explains it artistically, I'll throw out a line. So I have this one song called

821
01:21:56,308 --> 01:22:01,668
Hotel Razor. And it was like I was trying to describe to somebody what it felt like to get

822
01:22:01,668 --> 01:22:07,008
broken up with. And I said, she cut me like a hotel razor. Like you're at a hotel and they,

823
01:22:07,008 --> 01:22:11,128
you know, if you forget your razor, you go down to the front desk or they bring it up to your room

824
01:22:11,128 --> 01:22:19,648
And they give you that, that one razor that's got two blades on it that is absolutely guaranteed to cut you no matter how careful you are with it.

825
01:22:19,668 --> 01:22:19,868
Right.

826
01:22:21,928 --> 01:22:26,428
And, and so then you're like, oh, well, that's, that's a good line.

827
01:22:26,428 --> 01:22:32,328
But it, I wouldn't have had that line had I not had the memory of like the pain of being broken up with.

828
01:22:32,328 --> 01:22:41,008
And so I don't necessarily, I mean, yes, it probably takes the imagination to, to lay on that.

829
01:22:41,008 --> 01:22:57,728
But I still have the wild imagination, right? I still have, as you talked about, you know, like I still have the millions of voices running through my head and all these crazy scenarios that are popping up. But the problem is that they're all influenced by that algorithm and they're all.

830
01:22:57,728 --> 01:22:58,148
Right.

831
01:22:58,148 --> 01:23:08,088
Right. Most of the time they're, you know, they're grotesque or they're like unpalatable and I don't like what's going through my head.

832
01:23:08,088 --> 01:23:13,868
Yeah. And and so that encourages you to try and step away from it.

833
01:23:13,868 --> 01:23:35,968
Um, but it's just so hard, right? Because you, when you take a step away from it, you immediately feel this sense of missing out. You immediately feel the sense of, oh, well, everything is moving so fast. And, and we know that it's not only is it moving so fast, it's moving faster at a fast, it's accelerating at an accelerating rate.

834
01:23:35,968 --> 01:23:48,088
and so it's not untrue it is absolutely the case that life is leaving you behind in some way

835
01:23:48,088 --> 01:23:53,788
yeah but is it in a way is it in is it leaving you behind in a good way right i guess that's

836
01:23:53,788 --> 01:23:59,528
maybe the question that yeah is worth asking yeah is it is it actually good to be left behind here

837
01:23:59,528 --> 01:24:18,988
Yeah, because behind is kind of in a sense where we need to go a return to memory and biography. And so to be left behind is to be saved in a sense from sensory overload to a totally obliteration of any sort of thinking and instead offering you pure wishing.

838
01:24:18,988 --> 01:24:35,428
And what you were saying is totally true. The imagination that we have when we think we're imagining is actually the voices that we're hearing telling us what we should imagine. So if the digital swarm offers to fulfill any wish that we might have, it also tells us what we should wish, but in a secret sort of way.

839
01:24:35,428 --> 01:24:42,228
So it says you can have whatever your heart might desire, but it's already fed those desires into our heart.

840
01:24:42,328 --> 01:24:52,608
And so it knows exactly what we're going to wish for because the digital landscape is circumscribed and finite in a sense in that it's like you can be a furry or not be a furry.

841
01:24:52,708 --> 01:24:53,368
Which do you wish?

842
01:24:53,388 --> 01:24:57,368
It's like, well, I don't wish anything in relation to that whole furry, non-furry framework.

843
01:24:57,788 --> 01:25:04,028
My wishes are way different and they involve real world space time encounters that actually digital swarm.

844
01:25:04,028 --> 01:25:10,148
you have nothing to give as far as concern the actual desires of my heart when i'm left in peace

845
01:25:10,148 --> 01:25:22,708
yeah i mean it may just be that thomas soul is correct and that there are no solutions there

846
01:25:22,708 --> 01:25:29,088
are only trade-offs and that the solution is that you trade off being constantly living in

847
01:25:29,088 --> 01:25:34,428
the epistemological constantly living in the knowing yeah and you trade that for the ontological

848
01:25:34,428 --> 01:25:43,528
because um it does appear to be that despite what lavar burton told us on reading rainbow

849
01:25:43,528 --> 01:25:53,388
the more you know as the rainbow went across um despite that there there is a point where

850
01:25:53,388 --> 01:25:59,088
knowing is not enough where, you know, like, uh, there's, there's knowledge and there's

851
01:25:59,088 --> 01:25:59,828
wisdom, right.

852
01:25:59,848 --> 01:26:05,108
And the knowledge is the epistemological and the wisdom is the ontological, the ontological

853
01:26:05,108 --> 01:26:10,248
being that you take the epistemological, you take the knowing and you put it into action.

854
01:26:10,248 --> 01:26:14,168
You take, you know, like that's wisdom is knowledge and action.

855
01:26:15,068 --> 01:26:22,248
Um, and so maybe, maybe the wisdom, um, is to.

856
01:26:23,388 --> 01:26:26,528
is to get off the train in a certain way.

857
01:26:26,808 --> 01:26:30,968
And I don't know what that means, you know, because I tell you what, man,

858
01:26:30,988 --> 01:26:34,408
I really like being able to walk into the house and say, you know,

859
01:26:34,468 --> 01:26:39,188
hey, Google, turn the lights down or, you know, play Jason Isbell

860
01:26:39,188 --> 01:26:45,068
or I really like being, you know, cooking and say, hey, you know,

861
01:26:45,068 --> 01:26:46,428
start a timer for 10 minutes.

862
01:26:46,508 --> 01:26:46,988
That's handy.

863
01:26:47,108 --> 01:26:47,688
I like that.

864
01:26:47,688 --> 01:27:05,008
Um, and I, I went through a period actually where I, I almost exclusively, like I did everything that I could not to type, um, be it with my, my hands or my thumbs.

865
01:27:05,008 --> 01:27:10,048
And so I was voice noting.

866
01:27:10,948 --> 01:27:13,148
Like if I sent you a text, it wasn't a text.

867
01:27:13,268 --> 01:27:15,768
It was a voice note or a voice recording.

868
01:27:16,168 --> 01:27:17,788
Or it was voice to text.

869
01:27:17,948 --> 01:27:21,888
And if I wrote email, I pressed the transcribe button.

870
01:27:21,888 --> 01:27:31,888
And what I found was that in doing so, I became such a fantastic conversationalist.

871
01:27:31,888 --> 01:27:46,188
And it really raised my ability to have a conversation because I was doing it all the time. I was doing it with myself. And it's just like any other skill, the more you practice it, the better you get.

872
01:27:46,188 --> 01:27:53,448
And so that would not have been possible without being on that technological train.

873
01:27:54,068 --> 01:28:09,228
But, you know, maybe there's certain cars on that train that we can decouple and we can let them just fall off and we can stay on a couple of the front ones.

874
01:28:10,148 --> 01:28:18,248
And that's exactly the right direction to be thinking in to think with James Pullis here, because he's not a return, go live in a forest.

875
01:28:18,368 --> 01:28:22,328
I mean, if you want to go live in a forest by yourself in a mountain, in a hut, go do that.

876
01:28:22,328 --> 01:28:28,528
But he's not about that. He's more so how do we accommodate the digital and yet stay human forever?

877
01:28:28,528 --> 01:28:37,788
You know, how do we have both and what are the limits on the digital we need to put in order to stay human while using perhaps the digital to do that?

878
01:28:37,788 --> 01:28:56,828
The way you were doing it, using technology to operate more humanely in the world by recording voice messages for someone so they hear the timbre of your voice so you can directly talk to them rather than them seeing kind of blue words in a text bubble.

879
01:28:56,948 --> 01:29:00,288
So you were using the digital but trying to use it in a way that was human.

880
01:29:00,288 --> 01:29:08,608
the next part of this I've got so I noted that James Polis is saying memory and biography and

881
01:29:08,608 --> 01:29:14,068
biography just to just just to get that on the table because that's a little bit different than

882
01:29:14,068 --> 01:29:20,068
memory as such like biography is a different thing so the first generation that is digital

883
01:29:20,068 --> 01:29:25,128
digital first they are going to be digital in some sense and so they're going to do things like

884
01:29:25,128 --> 01:29:30,528
you were doing, Lucas, maybe record voice messages in lieu of typing as a sort of humane

885
01:29:30,528 --> 01:29:38,288
resistance to being digitized. But what they're going to need as well, Polis thinks, is biographies

886
01:29:38,288 --> 01:29:45,548
that help them know the world as or know themselves as part of a world that is not wholly digital.

887
01:29:45,688 --> 01:29:51,988
So it needs our biographies in a sense. The first generation needs guidance about how to find value

888
01:29:51,988 --> 01:29:57,148
and digitized ruins, they're going to need stories, literal stories and narratives of

889
01:29:57,148 --> 01:29:58,608
humans who have lived.

890
01:29:59,268 --> 01:30:02,168
Digital memory doesn't suffice for that.

891
01:30:02,248 --> 01:30:09,308
It needs humans who are like your family member telling oral stories, imparting what a life

892
01:30:09,308 --> 01:30:16,968
lived has entailed, because those types of stories pull the implicit, return the implicit

893
01:30:16,968 --> 01:30:18,388
to an encounter.

894
01:30:18,608 --> 01:30:20,968
They, here's a story, now you interpret it.

895
01:30:20,968 --> 01:30:25,428
You got to take this story and then see what it means in relation to your life.

896
01:30:25,528 --> 01:30:29,688
That person's lived life is not my life, yet there's something I can learn from it.

897
01:30:29,768 --> 01:30:33,888
There's things implicit in it that speak to me and what I need to do in my life.

898
01:30:34,448 --> 01:30:41,428
And so one of the things Polis kind of calls for is millennials need to get their stories out of,

899
01:30:41,588 --> 01:30:47,108
and anybody who had a pre-digital existence needs to have a narrative of what that life was like

900
01:30:47,108 --> 01:30:52,368
as it leads into the digital to maybe try to integrate it and give guidance to the first

901
01:30:52,368 --> 01:30:55,908
generation who did not know that historic reality.

902
01:30:58,828 --> 01:31:07,548
No, I agree. I tell you, it's been so long since I heard somebody tell a story. Just tell a story.

903
01:31:07,548 --> 01:31:12,488
And he was telling a story about this kid that he was an instructor for in high school.

904
01:31:12,488 --> 01:31:17,028
and they knew that the kid was stealing candy from the candy machine.

905
01:31:17,728 --> 01:31:20,508
And he just pulled him aside and he said,

906
01:31:20,588 --> 01:31:23,388
look, I need you to tell me.

907
01:31:23,588 --> 01:31:25,888
I need you to show me how you're getting into this candy machine

908
01:31:25,888 --> 01:31:27,348
because nobody else can figure it out.

909
01:31:27,348 --> 01:31:27,588
Yeah.

910
01:31:27,988 --> 01:31:31,428
And so the kid shows him, you know, it was like shows him

911
01:31:31,428 --> 01:31:33,388
and then he goes into the shop and he builds something

912
01:31:33,388 --> 01:31:36,388
to keep the kid from being able to get into it, et cetera, et cetera.

913
01:31:36,488 --> 01:31:38,468
And it's so hilarious to hear somebody.

914
01:31:39,008 --> 01:31:42,368
It is such a treat to hear a good story.

915
01:31:42,488 --> 01:31:53,868
Um, and it, it makes you feel you're not, you're not gaining knowledge.

916
01:31:53,868 --> 01:32:03,368
You're, you're not, you know, you're not learning something about physics or economics or politics or, you know, anything like that.

917
01:32:03,368 --> 01:32:13,608
But what you are doing is just to be in a room with 15 other people who are all focused on one person who knows that they have the floor.

918
01:32:15,428 --> 01:32:17,568
It's a great experience.

919
01:32:17,568 --> 01:32:26,268
And that used to be the entirety, right, of every family gathering before 2007.

920
01:32:26,268 --> 01:32:55,128
It was sit around and play cards and maybe the most distracted thing you might do is have a football game on and somebody's watching that, but you're still engaged in it, talking about it, as opposed to, oh, you're watching the football game, but you're also what you're doing is you're tracking your fantasy football score to, you know, I don't really care who's winning or I don't really care if anything good happens other than I need Austin Eckler to get three catches.

921
01:32:55,128 --> 01:33:02,668
like that you know so yeah yeah yeah that's where it's where i land yeah and to pull this um

922
01:33:02,668 --> 01:33:07,188
biography and memory then back into the discussion we were having before

923
01:33:07,188 --> 01:33:13,928
so the regime then controlling elites whatever the people who want to terraform humanity who

924
01:33:13,928 --> 01:33:21,128
want a top-down control over the whole situation um it's they are against biography and memory in

925
01:33:21,128 --> 01:33:26,848
this deep sense there's really two sorts of priestly types that are jockeying for control

926
01:33:26,848 --> 01:33:33,648
in the cyborg theocracy they are ethicists and engineers the ethicists are the ones that want to

927
01:33:33,648 --> 01:33:39,808
use quote-unquote reason to try to control the bots they want to say the bots need to operate in

928
01:33:39,808 --> 01:33:45,908
this way according to our model of way the world should be it's like woke ai right the ethicists

929
01:33:45,908 --> 01:33:52,648
want to constrain technology through norms that the bots have to obey. They want to create a dream

930
01:33:52,648 --> 01:33:57,048
that's going to, the bots are going to use to control everybody, to make the virtual model.

931
01:33:57,168 --> 01:34:02,708
They can then force upon the bots who will then force upon us. That's the ethicist. The engineers

932
01:34:02,708 --> 01:34:09,108
are the Faustian folks, the folks who want to use their imagination to create whatever tech will

933
01:34:09,108 --> 01:34:15,228
give expression to our wishes. It's like maybe the Elon Musk's or the Brian Johnson's, he's not an

934
01:34:15,228 --> 01:34:22,008
engineer, but the people who are creating the tech or pushing it forward from a pure engineering

935
01:34:22,008 --> 01:34:28,248
perspective are those people who want to just give expression to our wishes by creating the

936
01:34:28,248 --> 01:34:33,048
technology that can do that. So those are the ethicists and the engineers. And the ethicists,

937
01:34:33,188 --> 01:34:38,128
just to, I mentioned there's a phrase, a meme, catechize the bots. You might see that floating

938
01:34:38,128 --> 01:34:46,448
around on certain corners of X. To catechize the bots means to instruct them in a foundational

939
01:34:46,448 --> 01:34:52,268
faith. It's like catechism. It's the knowledge of the faith. So to catechize the bots means

940
01:34:52,268 --> 01:34:57,328
we need to give bots religion, which is the religion of the controlling class, the religion

941
01:34:57,328 --> 01:35:05,188
of woke values in one type of ethicist might say. And so the ethicists want to catechize the bots.

942
01:35:05,188 --> 01:35:15,328
The engineers want to create and make better bots. And so those are the two priestly classes in the cyborg theocracy who are kind of mediating our connection to technology.

943
01:35:15,328 --> 01:35:33,068
They're both of those ethicists and engineers, reason and imagination, united against memory, against a way that things were, away from the memory of fathers to sons, from ascendance into maturity through rites of passage, through the conveying of biographies.

944
01:35:33,068 --> 01:35:37,448
the pure imagination.

945
01:35:38,228 --> 01:35:41,308
The ethicists and the engineers want us to be able to reimagine gender,

946
01:35:41,488 --> 01:35:45,928
to end misinformation, to reimagine maturity, reimagine manhood,

947
01:35:46,088 --> 01:35:49,868
reimagine all these things so that you can, as an act of pure will,

948
01:35:50,048 --> 01:35:52,868
choose anything about yourself.

949
01:35:52,868 --> 01:35:55,948
The body is contingent and unnecessary.

950
01:35:57,128 --> 01:35:59,988
Only memory preserves the body as something necessary

951
01:35:59,988 --> 01:36:02,008
in the face of ethicists and engineers.

952
01:36:02,008 --> 01:36:09,328
that's kind of the picture that we get um i have a tweet here there's a famous tweet from matthew

953
01:36:09,328 --> 01:36:16,388
iglesias um that i thought this was relevant i'll read it because it's funny so matthew iglesias is

954
01:36:16,388 --> 01:36:22,408
kind of a left-leaning political commentator he's got this famous tweet that's often retweeted

955
01:36:22,408 --> 01:36:29,988
from 2021 after trump was deplatformed and he says it's kind of weird that deplatforming trump

956
01:36:29,988 --> 01:36:33,208
just completely worked with no visible downside whatsoever.

957
01:36:33,968 --> 01:36:38,028
And then, of course, that's the cascade that leads to its reelection.

958
01:36:38,968 --> 01:36:46,128
And so that for me is just like the blindness of the ethicists who think that they can control the future

959
01:36:46,128 --> 01:36:53,068
and think that all of their actions in trying to ban misinformation will have no consequence.

960
01:36:53,068 --> 01:36:59,788
Whereas people with memory know that you can't just fiddle with the parameter and expect nothing else to happen.

961
01:36:59,988 --> 01:37:03,188
The future is not based on your virtual model of the future.

962
01:37:03,308 --> 01:37:08,908
The future is based on this real world where things happen, where actions have consequences, right?

963
01:37:09,008 --> 01:37:13,528
And banning an influential political figure is not a wise move.

964
01:37:13,628 --> 01:37:15,208
So I thought that was funny.

965
01:37:16,768 --> 01:37:18,688
Yeah, I've seen that before.

966
01:37:19,588 --> 01:37:21,708
Yeah, I didn't realize who that guy was.

967
01:37:21,708 --> 01:37:25,288
But ethicists and engineers, I don't know.

968
01:37:26,768 --> 01:37:27,348
Go ahead.

969
01:37:27,428 --> 01:37:29,568
I mean, what did happen as a result of that?

970
01:37:29,568 --> 01:37:58,288
That's right. Exactly the opposite. Yeah. Elon Musk never would have bought X. Donald Trump never would have started Truth Social, which I don't know what it's worth, but it's worth a lot of money. He never. It's very doubtful he ever would have gotten reelected. Yeah. You know, so I. Gosh. Yeah. Who knows? You know, you just like that's just the blindness. Everybody. Everybody loads the gun with the biggest bullet. Yeah.

971
01:37:58,288 --> 01:37:59,528
And they end up shooting themselves in the foot.

972
01:37:59,528 --> 01:38:05,828
But it's also, that's just the inherent blindness of our ethicists who are terraformers, who want to change reality from a top-down perspective.

973
01:38:06,108 --> 01:38:11,388
Because reality is always more abundant than any virtual model we can create of reality.

974
01:38:11,588 --> 01:38:14,168
And it's always going to have some unintended consequence.

975
01:38:14,168 --> 01:38:15,948
I think Sol talks about that.

976
01:38:16,028 --> 01:38:27,748
All the Austrian economists, any economist worth their salt, talks about all of the unintended, unknowable consequences that will happen from any beautiful socialist scheme or other economic scheme you try to force onto the world.

977
01:38:28,288 --> 01:38:34,888
yeah yeah you just never i mean there's there's no way there's no way to um

978
01:38:34,888 --> 01:38:40,668
there's no way to predict everything i'm sure maybe there is maybe there's some computer model

979
01:38:40,668 --> 01:38:47,428
now that can predict every single blah blah blah but you don't know when it's going to happen you

980
01:38:47,428 --> 01:38:51,228
don't know when the cow's going to kick over the lantern and burn chicago to the ground you don't

981
01:38:51,228 --> 01:39:08,648
You don't know when the two guys that you stuff into a nuclear missile silo for three days at a time that are junior employees that are meant to determine whether or not we launch or, you know, making their own little romantic tryst.

982
01:39:08,728 --> 01:39:12,468
And all of a sudden somebody sits on the launch keys and away we go off to war.

983
01:39:12,628 --> 01:39:13,208
Who knows?

984
01:39:13,268 --> 01:39:14,768
Like there's all kinds of stuff that happens.

985
01:39:16,148 --> 01:39:18,268
So, Lucas, I'd say we're about halfway.

986
01:39:18,288 --> 01:39:19,648
That was my imagination at work.

987
01:39:19,648 --> 01:39:21,088
Yeah, I'd say we're about halfway done.

988
01:39:21,228 --> 01:39:25,628
based on my notes or a little bit over you got a flight this afternoon can we keep going or do you

989
01:39:25,628 --> 01:39:32,128
need to wrap up for your flight i'm good you're good i'm good so the so it's just talking about

990
01:39:32,128 --> 01:39:40,748
biography and polos says that we need like memory and biography to rein in the ethicists and

991
01:39:40,748 --> 01:39:46,728
engineers who only have reason or use reason and imagination to try to create a future unconstrained

992
01:39:46,728 --> 01:39:48,568
by anything that has occurred, right?

993
01:39:48,908 --> 01:39:52,528
And so Pullis also in this book gives us his biography.

994
01:39:52,728 --> 01:39:54,228
He talks about his life.

995
01:39:54,768 --> 01:39:56,428
And it's really well-written.

996
01:39:56,868 --> 01:39:59,908
He's a great writer and he's done so many things.

997
01:40:00,008 --> 01:40:01,128
He was a musician.

998
01:40:01,608 --> 01:40:02,968
He's a published novelist.

999
01:40:03,248 --> 01:40:06,528
He went to Georgetown, wrote a successful blog

1000
01:40:06,528 --> 01:40:10,508
and then moved laterally into kind of independent think tanks.

1001
01:40:10,588 --> 01:40:11,728
He's done a ton of stuff.

1002
01:40:12,348 --> 01:40:15,528
And in his biography, as he recounts it,

1003
01:40:15,528 --> 01:40:19,648
Like you remember the power of biography, the power of stories.

1004
01:40:19,648 --> 01:40:28,928
You can feel an energy pulsing through it as you read it because you're always weighing your own experience against his and saying, what does his life mean in relation to mine?

1005
01:40:29,028 --> 01:40:30,308
Like, I didn't do that.

1006
01:40:30,388 --> 01:40:31,608
Did I do something similar to that?

1007
01:40:31,708 --> 01:40:35,248
What does that mean in the narrative arc of his life as opposed to my life?

1008
01:40:35,608 --> 01:40:37,928
Does it say something about how I should live?

1009
01:40:38,028 --> 01:40:41,408
And you kind of always are weighing these stories in that way.

1010
01:40:41,408 --> 01:40:50,268
And he talks about how his father imparted kind of an awareness of power, the independence and authority of his father, the way that he acted.

1011
01:40:50,668 --> 01:40:56,308
And Polos always felt he had, and he does, he had verbal and artistic gifts that he needed to express.

1012
01:40:56,588 --> 01:41:05,028
And so there was always that tension the artist feels between kind of selling out, getting that stable job or trying to write the novel or do the thing.

1013
01:41:05,028 --> 01:41:07,908
And he talks about it as like he had this X factor.

1014
01:41:08,028 --> 01:41:12,028
He had this X factor about himself that he always felt he needed to give expression to.

1015
01:41:12,228 --> 01:41:15,948
And then at one point he says that that X factor was his soul, right?

1016
01:41:16,028 --> 01:41:29,188
That living his life was not just about making money or anything, one thing like that, considered in isolation, but about a full utilization of everything that he is or was.

1017
01:41:29,268 --> 01:41:30,628
And here's a paragraph I had.

1018
01:41:30,908 --> 01:41:31,348
I'll read.

1019
01:41:31,428 --> 01:41:33,308
I think it says something interesting.

1020
01:41:33,308 --> 01:42:03,288
quote,

1021
01:42:03,308 --> 01:42:08,928
find everyone just like them. So he's describing a reality where people don't have an X factor.

1022
01:42:09,068 --> 01:42:14,968
There's nothing that you need to try to express. Instead, you need to try to fit yourself into

1023
01:42:14,968 --> 01:42:20,068
the ways that exist for gaining prestige as defined by the elite faction, which is having

1024
01:42:20,068 --> 01:42:26,608
the white collar job or something like that. But he always felt that like, as he expresses it through

1025
01:42:26,608 --> 01:42:32,348
his own biography, that his father gave him this idea that this was kind of unmanly, that it was

1026
01:42:32,348 --> 01:42:39,288
the success of a people who didn't have a past and had no evident need of a future they just kind of

1027
01:42:39,288 --> 01:42:47,608
wanted to netflix and chill or whatever to be in the moment get the uber eats you know get to get

1028
01:42:47,608 --> 01:42:52,948
the things needed for middle or upper middle class existence and he kind of says you know he feels bad

1029
01:42:52,948 --> 01:42:59,988
looking down on people and yet he knows still that you need to find a place he needed to find a place

1030
01:42:59,988 --> 01:43:04,888
where he could live the memory of the past in his own life

1031
01:43:04,888 --> 01:43:08,328
and kind of the biography as he understood it of his father's life

1032
01:43:08,328 --> 01:43:11,228
and his father's father's life.

1033
01:43:11,408 --> 01:43:15,968
He's Greek in his roots and he talks about, you know, how Greeks lived.

1034
01:43:16,968 --> 01:43:20,308
And all of these things are relevant, he thinks still,

1035
01:43:20,408 --> 01:43:25,888
to how he should live his life in the face of what society kind of tells us is important.

1036
01:43:26,048 --> 01:43:27,568
And that's kind of the importance of biography.

1037
01:43:27,568 --> 01:43:28,988
if you go far enough

1038
01:43:28,988 --> 01:43:29,968
far enough back

1039
01:43:29,968 --> 01:43:31,068
in biographies

1040
01:43:31,068 --> 01:43:31,928
you see

1041
01:43:31,928 --> 01:43:33,908
a kind of braided chain

1042
01:43:33,908 --> 01:43:35,528
of fathers to sons

1043
01:43:35,528 --> 01:43:36,448
mothers to daughters

1044
01:43:36,448 --> 01:43:36,928
etc.

1045
01:43:37,228 --> 01:43:38,488
of imparting

1046
01:43:38,488 --> 01:43:39,768
a way to live

1047
01:43:39,768 --> 01:43:40,988
and we've yet

1048
01:43:40,988 --> 01:43:41,848
and we've had now

1049
01:43:41,848 --> 01:43:42,548
a year zero

1050
01:43:42,548 --> 01:43:43,608
and so we need to be

1051
01:43:43,608 --> 01:43:44,488
conscious about

1052
01:43:44,488 --> 01:43:45,428
still imparting

1053
01:43:45,428 --> 01:43:46,308
those biographies

1054
01:43:46,308 --> 01:43:47,348
and still helping people

1055
01:43:47,348 --> 01:43:49,008
to live full lives

1056
01:43:49,008 --> 01:43:50,008
according to that

1057
01:43:50,008 --> 01:43:51,468
kind of narrative

1058
01:43:51,468 --> 01:43:52,188
structures maybe.

1059
01:43:52,328 --> 01:43:52,468
Are there

1060
01:43:52,468 --> 01:43:54,228
are there like

1061
01:43:54,228 --> 01:43:54,968
specific things

1062
01:43:54,968 --> 01:43:55,708
he talks about

1063
01:43:55,708 --> 01:43:56,788
in terms of

1064
01:43:57,568 --> 01:44:07,388
You know, just how he lives this life and, you know, boundaries and things that he excludes and stuff like that.

1065
01:44:08,708 --> 01:44:10,108
That's a great question.

1066
01:44:11,248 --> 01:44:16,208
So, there's two questions that kind of could be in there.

1067
01:44:16,288 --> 01:44:21,388
One is like, what should we do to live after the digital apocalypse ourselves?

1068
01:44:22,288 --> 01:44:27,308
And then the other question is, what does James Polis do in his own life as he currently lives it?

1069
01:44:27,568 --> 01:44:34,548
And he talks about, I mean, he has a son and he raises his son with a memory of the past.

1070
01:44:35,008 --> 01:44:37,728
And he does talk about, he gives his own biography.

1071
01:44:37,728 --> 01:44:41,088
He says it's important that we tell our stories and he does tell the story.

1072
01:44:41,188 --> 01:44:44,228
So that's a, you know, he's doing what he says we should do.

1073
01:44:44,428 --> 01:44:51,588
And he does say my story is important because I have one leg pre-digital and one leg post-digital.

1074
01:44:51,848 --> 01:44:53,748
And so I have an important story to tell.

1075
01:44:53,748 --> 01:45:13,528
So I think that's one thing we can take from it practically that he does do in light of the digital apocalypse is tell of a world before the apocalypse, tell of when the apocalypse happened and what it means, and try to unite all of them so that people can live a human life as they go forward and remember the past.

1076
01:45:13,528 --> 01:45:16,808
so that they're not completely memoryless

1077
01:45:16,808 --> 01:45:20,128
and subject only to their untethered desires

1078
01:45:20,128 --> 01:45:22,808
that they then, you know,

1079
01:45:22,868 --> 01:45:26,788
use to make wishes from the digital bots.

1080
01:45:27,968 --> 01:45:29,668
So telling stories, I think, is one thing

1081
01:45:29,668 --> 01:45:33,148
and having a son and passing on one's heritage,

1082
01:45:33,288 --> 01:45:33,848
stuff like that.

1083
01:45:37,628 --> 01:45:38,108
Yeah.

1084
01:45:38,228 --> 01:45:38,608
Can you hear me?

1085
01:45:41,088 --> 01:45:41,568
Yeah.

1086
01:45:41,628 --> 01:45:41,828
Okay.

1087
01:45:41,828 --> 01:46:07,068
Yeah. Yeah. It clicked out for it. It spazzed out. But we're yeah. I mean, we're talking about just like. The things that the things that made our fathers fathers, you know, having having children, having having a wife and a family and putting your stake in the ground and saying this is where I'll be. Yeah.

1088
01:46:07,068 --> 01:46:22,568
And also you telling your story to Lucas, like that's what he's saying is important. Your father's story is important for you. But then you considering your own life as a story and the narrative of your life and being able to impart that on the first generation who needs guidance.

1089
01:46:22,568 --> 01:46:28,408
kids nowadays need guidance right we all do and the first generation is going to do something

1090
01:46:28,408 --> 01:46:33,888
important because there's been a rupture and they're going to be the baseline to answer those

1091
01:46:33,888 --> 01:46:39,988
questions they're going to be those who say where the line is between human and post-human and

1092
01:46:39,988 --> 01:46:50,668
whether it's important or not yeah yeah i i get encouraged um at times uh you know there's times

1093
01:46:50,668 --> 01:47:00,588
that you see young kids that are still engaging in the things that young kids do. And it does give

1094
01:47:00,588 --> 01:47:03,848
you a lot of hope. And then, of course, there's other times when they've got their face stuck to

1095
01:47:03,848 --> 01:47:10,028
an iPad. And it just looks sad, generally speaking, I think, and especially from the

1096
01:47:10,028 --> 01:47:19,748
parental perspective. And again, we can tie this back to bad money. We debased the money so poorly

1097
01:47:19,748 --> 01:47:26,768
in World War I after the creation of the Fed in 1913, printed a shitload of money in order to

1098
01:47:26,768 --> 01:47:30,348
come out on top in World War I or at least be part of the winning side.

1099
01:47:31,988 --> 01:47:40,068
And what did that lead to? That led to this idea that we need to put women in the workforce, which

1100
01:47:40,068 --> 01:47:47,508
I'm not saying it's right or it's wrong. But what I am saying is that there is a direct link to,

1101
01:47:47,508 --> 01:47:52,988
you know, if you have two parents and both parents have to work, then you have left time to take care

1102
01:47:52,988 --> 01:47:58,868
to take care of children. And so then, you know, the standard today is just is a two parent,

1103
01:47:59,088 --> 01:48:06,868
two job house or it's a two job parent parenting situation. And so what do you do is you just stick

1104
01:48:06,868 --> 01:48:13,348
a screen in front of a child because otherwise you've got to supervise them. And and, you know,

1105
01:48:13,348 --> 01:48:18,348
there is danger in the world and we've, we've developed these helicopters, especially since

1106
01:48:18,348 --> 01:48:23,808
everybody has access to all the worst stories that have ever happened with, this is how this

1107
01:48:23,808 --> 01:48:29,488
child died in this horrific way and this one. And so, um, I'm going to keep my children from that.

1108
01:48:29,548 --> 01:48:35,848
I'm not going to let them be exposed to harm. Um, when in fact, I mean, if you look at like

1109
01:48:35,848 --> 01:48:42,128
Jonathan Haidt's work with the anxious generation and the coddling of the American mind, um, it,

1110
01:48:42,128 --> 01:48:53,328
It may be the case, and it seems that there's some scientific evidence that it is the case that we are exposing them to even greater dangers by putting them in front of that screen.

1111
01:48:54,148 --> 01:48:58,728
Not just physical, but emotional, mental, spiritual, psychological.

1112
01:48:58,728 --> 01:49:11,108
Yeah, no, and it's fun having, you know, when you see the next generation, so to speak, excuse me, and see them still participating in those traditions that have been carried on.

1113
01:49:11,108 --> 01:49:24,028
Even the smallest thing, like watching a nephew's homecoming football game and then reflecting on the homecoming football game as like, I think it's a uniquely American phenomena, like the idea of homecoming, coming home.

1114
01:49:25,068 --> 01:49:26,828
The Americans move around.

1115
01:49:27,368 --> 01:49:29,108
We go to the city to get jobs.

1116
01:49:29,348 --> 01:49:33,188
We, you know, do things to make money, start your own family.

1117
01:49:33,188 --> 01:49:34,788
But there's always the idea of the homecoming.

1118
01:49:35,148 --> 01:49:39,468
And the homecoming football game as kind of like a symbolic representation of that.

1119
01:49:39,548 --> 01:49:43,108
No matter where you go in life, there will always be a homecoming.

1120
01:49:43,248 --> 01:49:47,948
There will always be family to come back to in a community that calls you one of theirs.

1121
01:49:48,508 --> 01:49:53,168
And to see kids participating in the homecoming football game is a really beautiful thing.

1122
01:49:53,168 --> 01:50:01,448
You can always have this kind of cynical look at the situation that, oh, yeah, high school football, jocks versus nerds, something like that.

1123
01:50:01,588 --> 01:50:09,288
But no, it's like the whole community is celebrating and uniting against another community in a kind of ritualized combat or whatever.

1124
01:50:09,508 --> 01:50:29,052
But both the communities then also come together through that tension and opposition because they participating in the same greater tradition And it just fun to see and realize you participating in an American tradition because as Americans we a new nation and we maybe look down on our own traditions unnecessarily

1125
01:50:30,632 --> 01:50:31,152
Yeah.

1126
01:50:31,672 --> 01:50:32,152
Yeah.

1127
01:50:32,292 --> 01:50:32,612
And they,

1128
01:50:33,612 --> 01:50:34,492
it,

1129
01:50:34,632 --> 01:50:37,273
it always has that little something extra,

1130
01:50:37,532 --> 01:50:37,752
right.

1131
01:50:37,892 --> 01:50:38,312
Um,

1132
01:50:38,312 --> 01:50:38,632
you know,

1133
01:50:38,672 --> 01:50:39,372
where it's like,

1134
01:50:39,452 --> 01:50:40,392
this is our holiday.

1135
01:50:40,832 --> 01:50:41,312
Um,

1136
01:50:41,312 --> 01:50:41,692
this is our,

1137
01:50:41,832 --> 01:50:43,452
this is our community Christmas.

1138
01:50:43,892 --> 01:50:44,012
Yes.

1139
01:50:44,252 --> 01:50:44,432
Yeah.

1140
01:50:44,472 --> 01:50:44,792
Um,

1141
01:50:44,792 --> 01:50:45,112
so.

1142
01:50:45,532 --> 01:50:47,492
Yeah, that homecoming is a very cool thing.

1143
01:50:47,592 --> 01:50:52,072
Even now, like if I'm fortunate enough to go back to my hometown,

1144
01:50:52,712 --> 01:50:56,532
and it's probably not near as big of a deal if you're in a big city

1145
01:50:56,532 --> 01:50:58,452
or if you're a big inner city school.

1146
01:50:58,632 --> 01:51:00,392
I suppose maybe it's not as big of a deal.

1147
01:51:00,392 --> 01:51:04,152
But, you know, if you're in a small town in the Midwest,

1148
01:51:04,572 --> 01:51:08,732
then all the storefronts have artwork in them.

1149
01:51:09,112 --> 01:51:14,452
And, you know, there's posters and there's a parade

1150
01:51:14,452 --> 01:51:29,612
And then there's the pep rally. Like for us, the pep rally was on the steps of the courthouse and the community would come out to support. And there's the game and there's the homecoming dance. You know, there's just these layered traditions on top of that that make it.

1151
01:51:29,612 --> 01:51:36,972
But, you know, when I was at the network school, one of the things that we talked about was like, how do you build a community?

1152
01:51:37,252 --> 01:51:40,852
Like you can put all the you can put all the infrastructure in place.

1153
01:51:40,852 --> 01:51:49,252
You can have the gym and you can have the meal plan and you can have a nice place to live and, you know, have access to all these amenities.

1154
01:51:49,532 --> 01:51:52,812
But how do you build a community?

1155
01:51:52,812 --> 01:52:11,212
And the model that we always turned to or that I always looked at was like the collegial atmosphere of, you know, like this is where we all come together in that homecoming way.

1156
01:52:11,412 --> 01:52:11,572
Yeah.

1157
01:52:12,273 --> 01:52:17,612
You know, homecoming is not as big of a deal in college as it is in high school, but it's still a big deal.

1158
01:52:17,612 --> 01:52:26,572
And it does appear like in my college experience, it was like there was like a homecoming type event all the time.

1159
01:52:26,692 --> 01:52:33,092
There was all of these big things that meant a lot to a large portion of the people.

1160
01:52:33,273 --> 01:52:43,112
And there's always the Venn overlap of the people that are involved in these different activities that makes it feel as though like every week is a homecoming.

1161
01:52:43,112 --> 01:53:07,932
Yeah. And that Venn diagram overlap is what struck me about Homecoming, too, because it's not as our entertainment would have us believe that it is nerds versus jocks. It's, you know, the band came out and did their thing. Different groups are recognized. They have the older people in the audience. They recognize maybe an old fan or a past class or something like that. The past classes also come back and have their own reunions at that time.

1162
01:53:07,932 --> 01:53:10,432
And so maybe I guess that was at a different time.

1163
01:53:10,472 --> 01:53:15,552
But in any case, there was this recognition that it wasn't just the football team.

1164
01:53:15,692 --> 01:53:17,792
That was kind of the pointed expression of it.

1165
01:53:17,792 --> 01:53:29,612
But it was the whole community and what they represented when they have a singular identity centered on the upcoming generation, essentially, and the importance of the youth.

1166
01:53:29,612 --> 01:53:37,792
And that's kind of what I think Polis is talking about, that we always need to be imparting the wisdom of tradition onto the next generation.

1167
01:53:37,792 --> 01:53:47,052
So if they carry the torch and do not simply throw the torch to the ground and light a new torch because they think they know how to do it, because they think knowing is more important than being.

1168
01:53:47,192 --> 01:53:52,312
Right. And so they need to respect for elders, wisdom, like old fashioned stuff like that.

1169
01:53:52,312 --> 01:53:56,752
Yeah. Yeah. So. All right. What's next?

1170
01:53:56,752 --> 01:54:02,092
Yeah, so I'll see if I can explain this so that makes sense.

1171
01:54:03,152 --> 01:54:08,972
Human Forever is a very interesting book, and I'm trying to hit some of the highlights and trying to weave it together in a way.

1172
01:54:09,692 --> 01:54:14,652
I don't know that I'm succeeding, and to the extent that it doesn't make sense, that's my failing, not Polis's.

1173
01:54:14,752 --> 01:54:16,773
I definitely invite everybody to read this book.

1174
01:54:16,832 --> 01:54:17,552
It's very well written.

1175
01:54:17,552 --> 01:54:45,952
But in one part, he talks about the importance of memory and biography. We need to have these things because if we don't have memory of our traditions, biographies that show how those traditions operate in human lives, if we don't have the religion that is part of those traditions, new religions are going to always arise because that's how humans think. That's how we interact with the world.

1176
01:54:45,952 --> 01:55:05,532
So there is a digital mystique that is arising. So we have, of course, traditional religions like Christianity, etc. But we also have a digital mystique. And he traces this digital mystique back to like the nation electrifying, electrification, electricity.

1177
01:55:05,532 --> 01:55:34,832
So imagine, you know, when electricity, when we begin to explore and utilize that technology, we have these great gains technologically, but we also have a new way of looking at how the world operates on a fundamental level where, you know, light is something we can harness and electricity spooky action at a distance in a way that our ape minds are kind of not evolved to comprehend the cause and effect of picking up a stone, moving it, setting it down.

1178
01:55:34,832 --> 01:55:38,892
now we have electricity so we can flip on a switch and light comes on things like that so

1179
01:55:38,892 --> 01:55:46,052
when we do that um mystiques arise new ways of looking at the world there's the rise along with

1180
01:55:46,052 --> 01:55:50,992
electrification and the science that that entails there's also the rise of the occult

1181
01:55:50,992 --> 01:55:57,852
and like like new age ways of thinking and one strand of that that he traces out is this idea

1182
01:55:57,852 --> 01:56:03,212
of consciousness on an as an analogy with electricity that we people begin to think

1183
01:56:03,212 --> 01:56:10,432
of consciousness as this kind of universal structure and that we can move towards the

1184
01:56:10,432 --> 01:56:16,212
purity of consciousness away from the soiled and tainted matter of our human bodies to kind of

1185
01:56:16,212 --> 01:56:24,252
realize a new birth, a new becoming. It's in one sense, he talks about it as like a move away from

1186
01:56:24,252 --> 01:56:29,192
the biographical, describe it in the terms of Christianity, a move away from the biographical

1187
01:56:29,192 --> 01:56:38,432
incarnate Jesus, who is matter, a body, a real person, towards the abstract ethical principles

1188
01:56:38,432 --> 01:56:45,952
that people kind of extract from Jesus. Love thy neighbor becomes the only important thing. And we

1189
01:56:45,952 --> 01:56:50,892
forget the historic lived reality of a person named Jesus who maybe returned and died for our

1190
01:56:50,892 --> 01:56:58,332
sins, something like that. And instead, we have just these universal ideas that are part of this

1191
01:56:58,332 --> 01:57:05,332
theme of homogenizing and universalizing even terraforming in the name of universal principles

1192
01:57:05,332 --> 01:57:11,952
instead of historical lived realities and i mentioned this before but he sees kind of at

1193
01:57:11,952 --> 01:57:17,332
the extreme end of it nowadays the development of what he calls the creed of the spark or sparkism

1194
01:57:17,332 --> 01:57:24,132
it's a certain type of consciousness thinking that sees consciousness as infinite and wants to tie

1195
01:57:24,132 --> 01:57:31,312
consciousness to science. So the spark we're going to humans, we, through our scientific

1196
01:57:31,312 --> 01:57:35,892
technology and development progress, are going to, in some sense, unite a second Big Bang,

1197
01:57:35,952 --> 01:57:41,812
a second coming, which will be man ourselves as infinite consciousness, using science to realize

1198
01:57:41,812 --> 01:57:48,112
and expand that consciousness, moving away from incarnate historical Jesus, moving away from the

1199
01:57:48,112 --> 01:57:54,412
body as such, moving away from matter towards the purity of consciousness so that we can

1200
01:57:54,412 --> 01:58:00,792
leave behind things like death and dying and disease and incapacity and instead inhabit

1201
01:58:00,792 --> 01:58:06,912
the purity of electricity, move like currents through circuits at the speed of light instead

1202
01:58:06,912 --> 01:58:09,592
of having bodies that are bound in space and time.

1203
01:58:11,092 --> 01:58:17,392
And so, yeah, I do see that type of new age consciousness thinking is pretty prevalent,

1204
01:58:17,392 --> 01:58:22,912
even among people who purport to be scientists you see that at base they're really motivated by

1205
01:58:22,912 --> 01:58:30,652
a type of religious thinking about the expansion of consciousness yeah well if consciousness is

1206
01:58:30,652 --> 01:58:39,472
outside the body or not contained within the body or if it's this field of connection throughout the

1207
01:58:39,472 --> 01:58:49,432
universe, then to experience consciousness is to be human and therefore to continue to

1208
01:58:49,432 --> 01:58:58,832
experience that consciousness outside of a body or without a body, maybe that's still

1209
01:58:58,832 --> 01:58:59,172
human.

1210
01:58:59,392 --> 01:59:01,932
So maybe the transhumanists have a point.

1211
01:59:02,432 --> 01:59:07,332
You know, maybe there is, you know, maybe there is something to be said for expanding

1212
01:59:07,332 --> 01:59:08,912
your consciousness beyond your body.

1213
01:59:09,032 --> 01:59:09,232
Yeah.

1214
01:59:09,472 --> 01:59:16,452
um, and, and prolonging that, or we don't even know if we're prolonging it. Right. Like we don't

1215
01:59:16,452 --> 01:59:21,432
know. No one can definitively tell you what happens when you die because no one's done it

1216
01:59:21,432 --> 01:59:27,813
and came back and talked to us except perhaps Jesus. And, um, at the time the press conference

1217
01:59:27,813 --> 01:59:32,773
just wasn't asking the right questions about consciousness. Um, they were more interested

1218
01:59:32,773 --> 01:59:37,652
in other things. Yeah. Do you think, I mean, do you find that the creed of the spark or the idea

1219
01:59:37,652 --> 01:59:40,132
You've had a bunch of ifs, this, if this, then that.

1220
01:59:40,232 --> 01:59:54,852
Do you believe consciousness is more expansive than the body and that consciousness is substrate neutral such that human biology is not necessary for human consciousness?

1221
01:59:54,852 --> 02:00:05,112
We can have human consciousness without human biology, move forward into machinic existence, not worry about losing any sort of thing once we lose the human body.

1222
02:00:05,112 --> 02:00:13,152
I just I always think about like the first psychedelic experience I ever had was

1223
02:00:13,152 --> 02:00:23,012
I was like hanging out in a hammock and I was in the the courtyard of the college that I went to

1224
02:00:23,012 --> 02:00:34,012
and I remember looking around and I could see this radiant glow of of light surrounding the

1225
02:00:34,012 --> 02:00:43,072
building. And I knew, I just knew, I don't know how I knew, but I knew that that radiant glow of

1226
02:00:43,072 --> 02:00:51,132
light was the love of the architect that designed that building. And I looked at the tree and there

1227
02:00:51,132 --> 02:00:56,292
was this, there was this golden, or sorry, this, this green hue off of that. And I knew that that

1228
02:00:56,292 --> 02:01:01,552
was the, you know, the life force of the tree. And I looked at the, my girlfriend at the time,

1229
02:01:01,552 --> 02:01:22,652
And there was this glow around her. And I knew, though I don't know how I knew, that that was her love for me. And so that is the experience that I point to in order to say that I do believe that consciousness is not contained within the body.

1230
02:01:22,652 --> 02:01:31,292
Um, and then also to, um, you know, to note that we don't know everything about the human

1231
02:01:31,292 --> 02:01:31,632
body.

1232
02:01:31,792 --> 02:01:38,012
We certainly don't know maybe, maybe even, maybe even a 10th, but, um, we've looked really

1233
02:01:38,012 --> 02:01:41,092
hard, I feel like for consciousness and we haven't found it.

1234
02:01:41,732 --> 02:01:46,632
Um, and so maybe it just remains elusive or maybe it just can't be found.

1235
02:01:46,632 --> 02:02:01,932
And I think that would be a question that we would struggle to grasp, is that the idea of the ineffable, the idea of something that cannot be known to a people who have throughout.

1236
02:02:01,932 --> 02:02:25,832
I think maybe this is something that you could think about for humanity is that we have trended more towards the epistemological throughout our historical existence and less to the ontological because there is such this great value in knowing.

1237
02:02:25,832 --> 02:02:41,872
Um, but could it be the case that the most important or the, the most, the biggest, the biggest thing of all to know is unknowable, that it is ineffable, that we can't know.

1238
02:02:41,872 --> 02:03:06,072
Um, so I, I don't know. I, I believe that, um, I believe, and I, I feel like I have some lived experience, um, that would tell me that, um, and I've had experiences that not on psychedelics where you're just with a group of people and you are all to use the, to use the, the new age explanation.

1239
02:03:06,072 --> 02:03:08,813
You're all operating at the same frequency.

1240
02:03:08,813 --> 02:03:09,452
Yes. Yeah.

1241
02:03:09,452 --> 02:03:12,492
Um, you know, I've had that experience as well.

1242
02:03:12,612 --> 02:03:12,792
Yeah.

1243
02:03:13,313 --> 02:03:16,932
So in the, in the yoga studio, that's a great example, by the way.

1244
02:03:16,972 --> 02:03:17,292
Right.

1245
02:03:17,352 --> 02:03:22,672
Cause we would go do yoga and there would be days where people are falling and people are

1246
02:03:22,672 --> 02:03:23,352
shaken out.

1247
02:03:23,392 --> 02:03:27,652
And then there would be days where there's like 19 people that are in perfect sync with

1248
02:03:27,652 --> 02:03:28,112
each other.

1249
02:03:28,492 --> 02:03:31,592
And it feels like everyone's breathing at the same time.

1250
02:03:31,592 --> 02:03:35,532
And it feels like everyone is connected to each other.

1251
02:03:35,532 --> 02:03:35,572
Yeah.

1252
02:03:35,572 --> 02:03:59,192
So when you tell me that, though, when you describe the experience you had in that hammock of seeing the world interconnected in a new sort of way, I see that as biological in the sense that this is Lucas having a true experience of the world aided through plant biology interacting with human biology.

1253
02:03:59,192 --> 02:04:07,273
but if you put that plant into a machine it's not going to have that perception of that you had of

1254
02:04:07,273 --> 02:04:12,332
the world i don't see that as like consciousness being in the world i see it as the beautiful way

1255
02:04:12,332 --> 02:04:17,972
in which humans once they can get rid of the idea of self that narrowing mechanism of consciousness

1256
02:04:17,972 --> 02:04:25,052
they begin to see all as interconnected profoundly and the consciousness whatever we see in the world

1257
02:04:25,052 --> 02:04:31,152
these auras of love is maybe a more direct, is a connection to the world as we should have it.

1258
02:04:31,472 --> 02:04:36,372
And as we do think, I do think we tend to have more of it when we're not mediated by machines

1259
02:04:36,372 --> 02:04:44,152
and when we are solely our biology in the world. I think our biology is a profoundly psychoactive

1260
02:04:44,152 --> 02:04:49,412
structure. And that I think people, Neanderthals were like tripping balls when they were just

1261
02:04:49,412 --> 02:04:54,692
walking through the forest and looking up at the stars. And like their experience of the world was

1262
02:04:54,692 --> 02:05:04,132
that um one where they were operating as a unit of people without the narrowing mechanism of self

1263
02:05:04,132 --> 02:05:12,252
interfering and that narrowing mechanism of self is really dialed into us by the digital swarm that

1264
02:05:12,252 --> 02:05:19,273
gives us an identity and encourages the adoption of identities of being a trad or a furry or a

1265
02:05:19,273 --> 02:05:25,813
socialist or an anarchist it says these are who you are you are not that silly body that you have

1266
02:05:25,813 --> 02:05:31,212
whereas when you were on the psychedelic you were that silly body in the world and so i think that

1267
02:05:31,212 --> 02:05:37,932
like the truly human thing is to have that psychedelic perception and to realize this is

1268
02:05:37,932 --> 02:05:44,152
me being human this is not something else and so i think that like psychoactivity is biological

1269
02:05:44,152 --> 02:05:50,752
and consciousness funnels through that or is in that in a very essential way, I guess.

1270
02:05:51,932 --> 02:05:58,752
Yeah. I mean, the common phrase from anyone who has experienced psychedelics,

1271
02:05:59,752 --> 02:06:06,252
be it, you know, Ibogaine or ayahuasca or magic mushrooms,

1272
02:06:06,372 --> 02:06:10,572
is that whatever they experienced was realer than real.

1273
02:06:10,572 --> 02:06:17,712
and you come back with this you know we you you have this feeling that whatever i just went through

1274
02:06:17,712 --> 02:06:24,852
was the most real thing that i have ever experienced and yes um so you're right so

1275
02:06:24,852 --> 02:06:33,792
this is like to be truly human um maybe that's it could be the most maybe it is the most human

1276
02:06:33,792 --> 02:06:39,352
we live lives of startling falsity because we are cyborgs the more cyborg we become the more

1277
02:06:39,352 --> 02:06:44,273
false things become. And I think those psychedelics make us naked again, or things that make us

1278
02:06:44,273 --> 02:06:49,952
conscious, make us experience conscious, make us naked. They strip our tools from us and return us

1279
02:06:49,952 --> 02:06:55,773
to our biology. We're just, it is our brains operating on a different level as purely our

1280
02:06:55,773 --> 02:07:03,773
brains. You know, it's not, we're not thinking about job or all of the circus that's happening

1281
02:07:03,773 --> 02:07:08,432
online and all of the false prestige that it confers and stuff like that. We're just being

1282
02:07:08,432 --> 02:07:16,392
human in the world which were purely ontological in that moment i think yeah yeah yeah that's that's

1283
02:07:16,392 --> 02:07:22,732
the most that's the most ontological yeah this is the most being that you can be and so how so this

1284
02:07:22,732 --> 02:07:27,072
kind of brings us towards the end here um we're going to move towards bitcoin at the very last

1285
02:07:27,072 --> 02:07:33,832
point before we get to that though how do we stay human forever then um and i don't think polis gives

1286
02:07:33,832 --> 02:07:39,452
us a neat answer to that. He maybe talks about tools, memory, and biography, and the things

1287
02:07:39,452 --> 02:07:45,212
intertwined with those, like religion. But we need to be conscious that the digital age is reforming

1288
02:07:45,212 --> 02:07:49,972
the life and consciousness of people. That consciousness of the question is prerequisite

1289
02:07:49,972 --> 02:07:55,912
to answering the question. You need to realize you are an ontological crisis that has no

1290
02:07:55,912 --> 02:08:01,672
epistemological solution before you are able to answer the question in the correct way.

1291
02:08:01,672 --> 02:08:03,732
it's not

1292
02:08:03,732 --> 02:08:06,952
it's about also

1293
02:08:06,952 --> 02:08:09,352
I think staying human forever is about

1294
02:08:09,352 --> 02:08:11,672
preserving space and time

1295
02:08:11,672 --> 02:08:13,472
space time which is the

1296
02:08:13,472 --> 02:08:15,372
human experience of reality

1297
02:08:15,372 --> 02:08:17,412
again the digital collapses space

1298
02:08:17,412 --> 02:08:19,332
and time into like

1299
02:08:19,332 --> 02:08:20,892
zero or infinity right

1300
02:08:20,892 --> 02:08:23,472
whereas humans throughout

1301
02:08:23,472 --> 02:08:25,712
our history and still currently are bound

1302
02:08:25,712 --> 02:08:27,632
in space and time in a way that the digital

1303
02:08:27,632 --> 02:08:29,472
swarm is not it is our particular

1304
02:08:29,472 --> 02:08:31,292
mode of existence that

1305
02:08:31,292 --> 02:08:33,452
in a sort of interesting way,

1306
02:08:33,912 --> 02:08:36,273
you know, God had to become man,

1307
02:08:36,352 --> 02:08:36,992
you might say,

1308
02:08:37,052 --> 02:08:39,612
before he could truly experience space and time.

1309
02:08:39,813 --> 02:08:42,012
Our mortality conveys upon us

1310
02:08:42,012 --> 02:08:44,392
through our lived experience,

1311
02:08:44,773 --> 02:08:45,472
our ontology,

1312
02:08:45,652 --> 02:08:47,552
a sort of wisdom that we otherwise do not have.

1313
02:08:47,612 --> 02:08:48,572
So space and time,

1314
02:08:49,012 --> 02:08:50,692
operating in space and time,

1315
02:08:51,132 --> 02:08:54,912
will help us recover our essential humanity

1316
02:08:54,912 --> 02:08:56,313
and preserve it.

1317
02:08:56,632 --> 02:08:58,992
To be finite is to be created

1318
02:08:58,992 --> 02:09:00,592
and to be human then

1319
02:09:00,592 --> 02:09:04,313
is to return us, I think, back to an appreciation of our created essence

1320
02:09:04,313 --> 02:09:08,652
as finite things, not infinite, not digital, not living forever,

1321
02:09:08,932 --> 02:09:10,932
but living a narrative.

1322
02:09:11,032 --> 02:09:13,552
Like a story is only a story if it has an end, I guess.

1323
02:09:14,313 --> 02:09:20,212
And human memory is human memory to the extent that it's on a human substrate,

1324
02:09:20,552 --> 02:09:26,012
which is different than the digital substrate because it does end at some point.

1325
02:09:26,012 --> 02:09:30,572
So resist cyborg ethics is what I think Polis is saying.

1326
02:09:30,592 --> 02:09:32,372
where the human drops out entirely,

1327
02:09:33,412 --> 02:09:36,252
where we simply manage databases

1328
02:09:36,252 --> 02:09:38,612
instead of innovate through new experience.

1329
02:09:39,092 --> 02:09:41,273
We simply innovate upon the archive

1330
02:09:41,273 --> 02:09:43,192
instead of adding to the archive.

1331
02:09:43,192 --> 02:09:46,832
The database model is digital memory, machine memory,

1332
02:09:46,952 --> 02:09:48,773
as opposed to the human model of memory,

1333
02:09:48,892 --> 02:09:50,592
which is living experience.

1334
02:09:52,192 --> 02:09:57,032
And Cyborg Ethics advocates the erasure of human memory

1335
02:09:57,032 --> 02:10:02,313
because it's uncontrollable and tied to a dying and mortal substrate.

1336
02:10:04,372 --> 02:10:10,432
Yeah, if we allow posthumanness, I think Polis is saying,

1337
02:10:10,672 --> 02:10:13,572
to leverage our fear of nature against us,

1338
02:10:13,652 --> 02:10:18,252
our fear of death, frailty, even birth, the messiness of birth,

1339
02:10:18,332 --> 02:10:19,052
all these things.

1340
02:10:19,052 --> 02:10:22,472
If we let posthumanness say, you sure you want to die?

1341
02:10:22,552 --> 02:10:23,512
You sure you want this, that?

1342
02:10:23,512 --> 02:10:27,813
that we're going to fall into an endless cycle of vaccines and boosters and other forms of

1343
02:10:27,813 --> 02:10:35,172
biotechnological governance. So that's maybe one inadequate summation of how we can stay human

1344
02:10:35,172 --> 02:10:41,112
forever through space-time, through preservation of human memory, through resisting cyborg ethics of

1345
02:10:41,112 --> 02:10:52,152
ending human nature. How do we resist, to quote Jason Lowry, technology does not negotiate?

1346
02:10:52,152 --> 02:10:59,452
yeah so how do you resist yeah the digital swarm will always be there it's something we created and

1347
02:10:59,452 --> 02:11:03,952
it's a tool that's been unleashed and so it's going to be living in light of that resistance

1348
02:11:03,952 --> 02:11:12,952
is not going to be a final overcoming but a conscious choice to live in a certain way

1349
02:11:12,952 --> 02:11:19,813
that is motivated by memory and biography and bitcoin as we'll talk about just in the next

1350
02:11:19,813 --> 02:11:23,532
that's the next thing i have but before we get there if you have anything on that i mean that's

1351
02:11:23,532 --> 02:11:31,332
staying human forever means no human memory like i mean yeah to be to be human to be human is to

1352
02:11:31,332 --> 02:11:38,512
define a set of principles that um come from a lived experience and though um the author is

1353
02:11:38,512 --> 02:11:46,872
encouraging us to stay true to those principles in the face of um a change a changing landscape

1354
02:11:46,872 --> 02:11:59,872
Yeah. Yes. And one part of that changing technological landscape are those more humane technologies. And so perhaps we can count Bitcoin as one of those. Brady Swenson did in his talk that we discussed.

1355
02:11:59,872 --> 02:12:07,352
so as I was reading this I was talking with you and we were reading this to talk about it

1356
02:12:07,352 --> 02:12:14,592
on our podcast called Bitcoin Study Sessions and I was at page like 251 and hadn't heard the word

1357
02:12:14,592 --> 02:12:19,813
Bitcoin mentioned once yet and I was like are we studying Bitcoin or are we studying human life

1358
02:12:19,813 --> 02:12:27,712
what are we doing here but he does get to Bitcoin at the end so it's kind of funny this is a book

1359
02:12:27,712 --> 02:12:30,132
of really abstract thinking,

1360
02:12:30,852 --> 02:12:34,552
but fleshed out with good anecdote and example,

1361
02:12:34,872 --> 02:12:36,252
but also very philosophical.

1362
02:12:37,692 --> 02:12:39,773
And so here's how he brings up Bitcoin.

1363
02:12:39,872 --> 02:12:40,512
It's really interesting.

1364
02:12:40,672 --> 02:12:41,792
So he's kind of talking about,

1365
02:12:43,392 --> 02:12:45,652
we generate our notion of the self.

1366
02:12:46,232 --> 02:12:47,152
This is my interpretation.

1367
02:12:47,472 --> 02:12:49,672
Again, if a James Polis is listening

1368
02:12:49,672 --> 02:12:50,532
or someone like that,

1369
02:12:51,072 --> 02:12:52,492
maybe I'm mistaking this,

1370
02:12:52,572 --> 02:12:55,712
but we generate our notion of ourself

1371
02:12:55,712 --> 02:12:57,752
in distinction to others that we encounter.

1372
02:12:58,472 --> 02:13:00,432
We depend on knowing others

1373
02:13:00,432 --> 02:13:02,273
in order to know truly who we are.

1374
02:13:02,592 --> 02:13:05,672
But technology is eroding that distinction

1375
02:13:05,672 --> 02:13:06,852
between self and other.

1376
02:13:06,992 --> 02:13:09,532
It's trying to say you can universalize yourself

1377
02:13:09,532 --> 02:13:11,472
as a universal human consciousness, right?

1378
02:13:11,472 --> 02:13:14,292
You can become electricity and you can become digital

1379
02:13:14,292 --> 02:13:16,832
and not be bound and finite.

1380
02:13:17,472 --> 02:13:20,972
And so what that's really doing is eradicating the other,

1381
02:13:21,112 --> 02:13:23,992
but then also eradicating and annihilating the self.

1382
02:13:23,992 --> 02:13:30,332
and here's how bitcoin is first enigmatically brought up i'll just read the quote the most

1383
02:13:30,332 --> 02:13:36,672
powerful question that generates both the self and the other today says tola he's quoting a

1384
02:13:36,672 --> 02:13:43,692
ardian tola is what is a bitcoin data center and that's it's a really enigmatic way to bring it up

1385
02:13:43,692 --> 02:13:49,412
like a bitcoin data center what what does that have to do with preserving self and other in the

1386
02:13:49,412 --> 02:13:54,632
face of its annihilation through the digital swarm, making us all abstract and universal.

1387
02:13:55,332 --> 02:13:59,773
I'll read another quote because I'm still trying myself to unpack this, and maybe you can help

1388
02:13:59,773 --> 02:14:07,472
think this through. Well-structured and understood, Bitcoin-built data centers are simply the active

1389
02:14:07,472 --> 02:14:15,773
archives of culture created and valued, thrown together by particular communities. So that's the

1390
02:14:15,773 --> 02:14:23,273
quote. And the meme that people use, they talk about Bitcoin, excuse me, Bitcoin monasteries.

1391
02:14:23,332 --> 02:14:28,612
That's another meme you'll see floating around. People will say Bitcoin monasteries are needed.

1392
02:14:28,612 --> 02:14:35,732
Bitcoin monasteries will return us to silence. And so here we have an idea that Bitcoin is a type

1393
02:14:35,732 --> 02:14:42,692
of data center that will preserve culture and value, that will serve as a sort of monastery

1394
02:14:42,692 --> 02:14:51,152
in digital time that also he kind of mentions bitcoin data centers will be a weapon against

1395
02:14:51,152 --> 02:14:57,692
the world becoming a single world computer that it will help preserve human life in the digital age

1396
02:14:57,692 --> 02:15:04,292
uniting us under a new symbol of digital humility um

1397
02:15:04,292 --> 02:15:11,912
so does as i describe this in this way is this making sense in the context of

1398
02:15:11,912 --> 02:15:18,152
Bitcoin as making us human forever, as preserving our humanity in the face of the digital swarm?

1399
02:15:19,652 --> 02:15:34,752
It is unchanging in relevant ways. And so it is a constant. And I think kind of the theme of what

1400
02:15:34,752 --> 02:15:41,972
we've been talking about here is that we are losing what we understand to be human because

1401
02:15:41,972 --> 02:15:53,452
the landscape continually changes underneath our feet. And Bitcoin introduces a constant that

1402
02:15:53,452 --> 02:16:01,852
offers the opportunity for other things to be more constant. So constant money,

1403
02:16:01,852 --> 02:16:04,852
that's unchanging.

1404
02:16:06,752 --> 02:16:08,572
We, as a result of that,

1405
02:16:08,632 --> 02:16:11,432
like we talked about with pay factor authentication

1406
02:16:11,432 --> 02:16:16,372
is that we may have more constant relationships

1407
02:16:16,372 --> 02:16:18,432
with the economy

1408
02:16:18,432 --> 02:16:21,192
and we may have deeper relationships.

1409
02:16:21,192 --> 02:16:25,692
So yeah, I think it makes sense as like being,

1410
02:16:25,692 --> 02:16:40,192
And it's like technology has been the winds of change that are blowing us about here, there, and hitherto.

1411
02:16:41,412 --> 02:16:54,132
And Bitcoin perhaps represents an anchor that we can drop, that we can then, you know, it's an anchor in a cove.

1412
02:16:54,232 --> 02:16:54,412
Yeah.

1413
02:16:54,412 --> 02:17:00,372
where we can then build from yeah and i like that the cove analogy it's kind of

1414
02:17:01,012 --> 02:17:07,532
preserving us from like these winds that buffered us about that come from unknown sources and

1415
02:17:07,532 --> 02:17:13,332
directions so bitcoin open source technology anybody can verify it it's not like the digital

1416
02:17:13,332 --> 02:17:19,592
swarm these swarming insect bots that have that are operated by algorithms we do not know and

1417
02:17:19,592 --> 02:17:26,893
cannot know and who's even their creators even like an ai no one merely kind of knows exactly

1418
02:17:26,893 --> 02:17:34,192
how it works i would say and it generates results that no one can predict and bitcoin is different

1419
02:17:34,192 --> 02:17:48,692
right it's it's built to operate in recognition of human space time um to have a notion of time

1420
02:17:48,692 --> 02:17:56,292
again the the 10 minute processing of blocks of transactions um to incorporate space by

1421
02:17:56,292 --> 02:18:08,192
incorporating real world energy usage um and yeah it does seem more humane and more subordinate

1422
02:18:08,192 --> 02:18:16,132
to human to humanity than the digital swarm in which we are in some sense subordinate to

1423
02:18:16,132 --> 02:18:18,393
as a Bitcoin monastery.

1424
02:18:18,532 --> 02:18:19,772
That's a very suggestive phrase.

1425
02:18:19,853 --> 02:18:20,952
It always has been for me.

1426
02:18:21,012 --> 02:18:22,452
That's one of the reasons I read this book

1427
02:18:22,452 --> 02:18:24,232
is I see that phrase tossed about

1428
02:18:24,232 --> 02:18:26,853
and something strikes me about that.

1429
02:18:27,012 --> 02:18:29,433
I just think monastic life has something to teach us.

1430
02:18:29,433 --> 02:18:32,192
A life of silence in the face of so much noise.

1431
02:18:32,652 --> 02:18:36,053
A life of contemplation and meditation.

1432
02:18:36,973 --> 02:18:41,553
And connecting Bitcoin to that is profound, I think.

1433
02:18:42,832 --> 02:18:44,572
And I think it does say something that,

1434
02:18:44,572 --> 02:18:46,813
I can't fully articulate, but it seems true.

1435
02:18:48,672 --> 02:18:48,872
Yeah.

1436
02:18:49,652 --> 02:18:50,172
Yeah.

1437
02:18:50,572 --> 02:18:53,532
Maybe that's where I have to leave it too.

1438
02:18:53,532 --> 02:19:06,092
Well, just like we know that we can't centrally plan everything because there's things that we don't understand that are going to pop up.

1439
02:19:06,172 --> 02:19:12,672
We also can't just throw Bitcoin into the world and say that we know what's going to happen.

1440
02:19:12,672 --> 02:19:20,473
because there are, I mean, not only is it this new thing,

1441
02:19:20,473 --> 02:19:29,032
it's a new thing in a way that is unique, right?

1442
02:19:29,172 --> 02:19:31,813
There's never been anything that was digitally scarce.

1443
02:19:32,072 --> 02:19:33,832
So what does digital scarcity mean?

1444
02:19:35,012 --> 02:19:39,053
What does sovereignty mean when it comes to money?

1445
02:19:40,053 --> 02:19:41,893
We've never really had that.

1446
02:19:42,672 --> 02:19:44,652
Um, yeah.

1447
02:19:44,952 --> 02:19:47,332
So who knows where we go?

1448
02:19:47,332 --> 02:19:57,572
Although I think it's just, yeah, it's, it's hard for me to understand.

1449
02:19:57,992 --> 02:19:59,632
It's hard for me to see negatives.

1450
02:19:59,893 --> 02:20:01,952
Like I, I, I look for negatives.

1451
02:20:02,652 --> 02:20:09,212
Um, but you know, um, there's always the, oh, well criminals use it.

1452
02:20:09,212 --> 02:20:12,732
It's not really like criminals would much rather use cash than Bitcoin.

1453
02:20:13,152 --> 02:20:16,132
Like it's way more suited for that purpose.

1454
02:20:19,512 --> 02:20:22,313
Granted, there's other like cryptos that could be switched out.

1455
02:20:23,313 --> 02:20:25,272
And then there's like the quantum thing.

1456
02:20:26,232 --> 02:20:27,973
Quantum, I thought about that.

1457
02:20:28,132 --> 02:20:32,192
You know, it's like, well, if you invent a computer that's more powerful than every other computer in the world,

1458
02:20:32,192 --> 02:20:43,433
And A, you probably didn't do that without the type of deep funding that's going to be provided by Bitcoin to be able to have the type of wealth to create that.

1459
02:20:43,433 --> 02:21:03,832
And B, what would be, so let's assume that that's the case. I think it's probably fair to say that there's going to be some, at least part of it. What would be the most useful purpose of that? Would it be to then hack the Bitcoin blockchain, which would immediately render it valueless, right?

1460
02:21:03,832 --> 02:21:15,532
It would immediately, like, that's the interesting thing about, like, if you were able to hack Bitcoin, all you would succeed in doing is making it worth nothing.

1461
02:21:15,912 --> 02:21:19,192
You wouldn't be able to go and steal all the wealth.

1462
02:21:19,832 --> 02:21:24,772
What you would do is you would break it and then everyone would no longer use it.

1463
02:21:24,772 --> 02:21:33,353
And so it would be worth nothing and you would have spent billions, trillions of dollars, whatever, in order to make something that was worth trillions of dollars worth nothing.

1464
02:21:33,832 --> 02:21:38,712
maybe the best use case is that you mine Bitcoin with it.

1465
02:21:38,772 --> 02:21:40,053
That makes a lot more sense.

1466
02:21:41,252 --> 02:21:42,473
So I don't know.

1467
02:21:43,853 --> 02:21:47,092
Yeah, I just, I struggle to find the negatives.

1468
02:21:48,412 --> 02:21:52,572
And so it maybe is encouraging to think about

1469
02:21:52,572 --> 02:21:55,332
that there are unforeseen positives.

1470
02:21:55,332 --> 02:21:55,652
Yeah.

1471
02:21:56,172 --> 02:21:58,332
Because we typically struggle

1472
02:21:58,332 --> 02:22:00,313
under the unforeseen negative consequences.

1473
02:22:00,912 --> 02:22:03,692
But I think there's going to be unforeseen positives.

1474
02:22:03,692 --> 02:22:11,893
Very, very good. So the final piece, this book, Cuban Forever, was published on Canonic.xyz.

1475
02:22:12,272 --> 02:22:19,132
Canonic, a creation of Artie and Tola, an Albanian entrepreneur working in Bitcoin.

1476
02:22:20,512 --> 02:22:23,832
Just looking at the FAQ, just if you're wondering what does it mean to publish on Bitcoin,

1477
02:22:24,492 --> 02:22:28,393
on the FAQ for Canonic, it says, why publish with Canonic?

1478
02:22:28,393 --> 02:22:34,272
Content published with Canonic is directly stored on BTC ordinals and on the Bitcoin SV chain.

1479
02:22:34,752 --> 02:22:44,532
This allows you to reach your audience with a global and stable censorship resistant proof of work network, earn income with Bitcoin and build on top of an interoperable and decentralized layer.

1480
02:22:45,112 --> 02:22:55,813
In the age where AI algorithms have the power to tamper with data at scale, Bitcoin allows you to cryptographically prove the existence of a piece of work at a particular moment in time.

1481
02:22:56,072 --> 02:22:58,092
And then he says, why do we store on chain?

1482
02:22:58,393 --> 02:23:16,053
So breaks these two apart. B2C chain ordinals. One, an image of your work's cover or what do we store on chain rather? So with the ordinals, it stores an image of your work's cover so you can prove authorship with your wallet keys and to the hash of your work so you can protect it from future tampering.

1483
02:23:16,053 --> 02:23:21,132
The BSV chain, Bitcoin Satoshi Vision, a hard fork.

1484
02:23:21,853 --> 02:23:26,512
He says, this encrypts your work so you can prove authorship with your wallet keys.

1485
02:23:26,652 --> 02:23:31,192
An on-chain unique identifier of your work that is the Bitcoin standard book number is given.

1486
02:23:31,672 --> 02:23:35,372
The title, author, description, cover, and price of the book are on-chain.

1487
02:23:35,572 --> 02:23:38,792
The pay mail of the entity that published the work.

1488
02:23:39,232 --> 02:23:43,772
Also reviews from users who can prove on-chain their book purchase.

1489
02:23:43,772 --> 02:23:48,632
and users encrypted purchase receipts.

1490
02:23:49,332 --> 02:23:51,473
So the BSV chain, we're talking about Lucas,

1491
02:23:51,712 --> 02:23:53,252
we're talking about this before, of course,

1492
02:23:53,452 --> 02:23:55,372
you know, Bitcoin maxis kind of shiver at anything

1493
02:23:55,372 --> 02:23:58,772
that's not canonical Bitcoin, the protocol.

1494
02:23:59,152 --> 02:24:01,532
What the BSV chain though does, I guess,

1495
02:24:01,572 --> 02:24:04,692
with bigger block space is allow a lot more data

1496
02:24:04,692 --> 02:24:05,832
to be put on chain.

1497
02:24:05,832 --> 02:24:10,872
So Canonic does use both BTC in the ordinals,

1498
02:24:10,872 --> 02:24:16,192
but then puts the whole work onto the other chain so that, you know,

1499
02:24:16,372 --> 02:24:20,212
if the other chain continues to exist, you have the whole work up on chain.

1500
02:24:20,212 --> 02:24:23,633
If that goes down, you know, if only Bitcoin remains,

1501
02:24:23,732 --> 02:24:29,152
you would still at least have the hash of the entire work so that somebody,

1502
02:24:29,393 --> 02:24:34,192
if they even modify one I to a T in the work,

1503
02:24:34,313 --> 02:24:38,932
you could do the hashing to show that it's not, that it's been modified or whatever.

1504
02:24:38,932 --> 02:24:49,652
So you can at least have a show that hasn't been tampered with on the regular chain, but then also have the full work on the other chain, I think is how it's contemplated.

1505
02:24:52,112 --> 02:24:53,932
Well done beyond me.

1506
02:24:54,952 --> 02:24:57,832
But yeah, yeah.

1507
02:24:58,532 --> 02:25:06,452
No, that's I mean, so the thing is that if you want to put something out, it's going to be in some database.

1508
02:25:06,452 --> 02:25:10,512
And it would make sense for it to be in one that's decentralized as opposed to centralized.

1509
02:25:10,952 --> 02:25:12,412
So it's great.

1510
02:25:12,553 --> 02:25:13,672
I think it's really cool.

1511
02:25:13,672 --> 02:25:40,353
So it was like the first 500, I think, copies of Human Forever were like these beautiful, ornate bound that went for a higher price that helped to, you know, kind of a collector's edition that helped to push not only the awareness of it, but also obviously bring costs down for other people.

1512
02:25:40,353 --> 02:25:41,973
I think it's a great business model.

1513
02:25:42,092 --> 02:25:42,592
It's kind of cool.

1514
02:25:42,592 --> 02:25:54,672
Like this is what Elon did with Tesla, which is he built the Roadster first, which was the high price thing that's flashy, that it's kind of a collector's thing that you might want if you're just a huge fan of him.

1515
02:25:55,712 --> 02:26:04,133
And then he goes and builds all the other little cars that are just like the modern day Volkswagen Beetles and her bugs or whatever they are.

1516
02:26:04,232 --> 02:26:05,353
Beetle bug, Beetle.

1517
02:26:07,072 --> 02:26:08,032
Ganonix cool, man.

1518
02:26:09,172 --> 02:26:09,313
Yeah.

1519
02:26:09,313 --> 02:26:09,372
Yeah.

1520
02:26:09,372 --> 02:26:10,032
Let's build.

1521
02:26:10,252 --> 02:26:11,313
Let's let's.

1522
02:26:11,313 --> 02:26:17,452
I'm tired of walking into a bookstore and seeing the same eight authors.

1523
02:26:17,592 --> 02:26:17,772
Yeah.

1524
02:26:18,452 --> 02:26:19,252
Every time.

1525
02:26:19,932 --> 02:26:22,133
Alternative independent publishing models.

1526
02:26:22,572 --> 02:26:26,232
A book like Human Forever, you just wouldn't imagine seeing it just anywhere.

1527
02:26:27,292 --> 02:26:30,952
The same with the other books and also podcasts and other media on Canonic.

1528
02:26:30,952 --> 02:26:34,133
It has an independent slant, independent in a good way.

1529
02:26:34,232 --> 02:26:38,012
People thinking outside current thought matrices, one might say.

1530
02:26:38,532 --> 02:26:40,133
Check all the works out there.

1531
02:26:41,313 --> 02:26:43,032
Yeah, Lucas, I know you got to run for a flight.

1532
02:26:43,353 --> 02:26:45,032
Thank you so much for discussing this.

1533
02:26:45,252 --> 02:26:47,672
It's a complex work, but man, you were right.

1534
02:26:47,952 --> 02:26:50,912
All of the questions and responses you had,

1535
02:26:51,053 --> 02:26:54,252
they were directly in line with how Polis was thinking.

1536
02:26:54,353 --> 02:26:55,692
So that was a lot of fun to discuss.

1537
02:26:57,532 --> 02:26:58,232
I like him.

1538
02:26:58,412 --> 02:26:58,992
I think he's great.

1539
02:26:59,952 --> 02:27:03,292
Like I said, I enjoyed him on the podcast that I listened to

1540
02:27:03,292 --> 02:27:05,853
and look forward to the next one.

1541
02:27:05,853 --> 02:27:07,133
Merry Christmas, man.