How to Prevent Civilizational Collapse | Samo Burja | Win-Win Podcast

[@LivBoeree]

Thanks for joining the premiere Win-winners! Huge apologies but I can’t join the livestream chat with you this week as I’m at an offline event today but I will be live with you in two weeks for the next one. That said, Samo is amazing & I loved picking his brains so I hope you find it insightful.

[@NicholasWilliams-uk9xu]

We need more surveillance, A.I, and data bases to control the thoughts of people. This is the only way to compete with China during US decline, you have to control the hidden variables, and instantiate a permanent market around that factor to perpetuate it indefinitely.

[@packardsonic]

That doesn't work for multiple reasons 1. Humans fundamentally need freedom and privacy or we develop pathologies, get sick and don't reproduce like animals at the zoo 2. Whoever has that poeer to surveil will become corrupt and no longer serve humanity 3. Whoever has the power to surveil cannot have the intelligence and flexibility to take the right decisions for every situation that will come. We need decentralized and divers intelligence of billions people taking their own decisions​@@NicholasWilliams-uk9xu

[@DaveShap]

Missed you! Hope your event was grand, whatever it was

[@LivBoeree]

@@DaveShap Thanks! It really really was, will tell you about it offline

[@packardsonic]

​@@NicholasWilliams-uk9xuthat will not work for multiple reasons 1. Humans fundamentally need freedom and privacy or we develop pathologies 2. The people with the surveillance power will become corrupt and no longer align with the rest of humanity 3. The people with the power of surveillance will never have enough intelligence or flexibility to take appropriate decisions. Humanity needs the decentralized intelligence of 8 billion people. It seems like you didn't listen to the show till the end

[@michaeljmcguffin]

Most interesting online conversation I've heard in months. Better than most Lex Fridman podcasts. Deserves 20 times more views!

[@Tripple_Threatt92]

Conversations with samo are at the very least 2 standard deviations lex Friedman. I’m a fan of lex but they aren’t in the same class

[@rafalrocks]

What we deem as almost esoteric and deeply intellectual today, around 100 years ago was considered to be normal, almost required. To wit, my father had me very late (I’m not young myself) He was born in present-day Poland in what was then Austria Hungary. By the time he graduated from the gymnasium, he had more than a working knowledge of Greek and Latin. He also knew German fluently and had a cursory knowledge of Yiddish, besides ofc being fluent in his native Polish. He was required to read Homer in Greek and Cicero in Latin. He grew up in a small, provincial town, one of thousands of that kind.

[@2021philyou]

An excellent fireside chat with Samo Burja. One of the few content full and thought provoking video on youtube!

[@LivBoeree]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@alexbarnett1461]

Let’s get Liv on the win win algorithm! 😊 Under appreciated podcast! Love it thanks

[@davidholy8790]

One of the greatest conversations I've heard in a long long time. The amount of integrated wisdom from all parts of human inquiry is astounding.

[@Tripple_Threatt92]

Lots of people say samo is interesting & thought provoking but let’s be honest. This man is in the running for most intelligent person any of us have come across. His deep knowledge about an extremely wide range of topics is unparalleled. The is antithetical to the university specialist. He proves the trope functional at many & master line is not universal

[@angelotuteao6758]

Sami is a genuinely interesting analyst- thought provoking issues that our governments aren’t grappling with

[@scrappy1859]

Samo is always interesting, whether you agree with him or not. Thanks for this interview

[@etfacetimehome]

Here are the key insights from the conversation with Sam Buer: 1. Civilizational collapses often occur due to the loss of tacit knowledge and the inability to pass down specialized expertise from one generation to the next. 2. Institutions and social technologies like legal systems, religions, and economic models are typically founded by individuals or small groups, and their impact can last thousands of years. 3. Signs of institutional rot in modern Western societies include the breakdown of collaborative sense-making, the decline of meritocratic bodies that can change people's minds, and the ossification of zombie institutions that persist without purpose. 4. "Great Founders" who can revitalize societies tend to have traits like the ability to productively disagree, high stress tolerance, and the capacity to maintain long-term alliances. 5. Creating new cities or industries separate from decaying institutions may be necessary to reset incentives and foster positive-sum games again. 6. There is a lack of intellectual risk tolerance in modern societies, with people discouraged from challenging orthodoxies or developing radically new ideas. 7. The democratization of power through technology has been overstated, as individuals are increasingly transparent to bureaucracies while bureaucracies remain opaque. 8. Promoting new "stem cells" of society - agentic individuals pursuing reform - may be vital to societal renewal, perhaps by assisting potential Great Founders. 9. Many jobs today are essentially performative make-work to maintain the appearance of productivity, suggesting our political need for jobs exceeds the economic need. 10. Disruptive technologies that lift the veil on credentialism and accurately account for real economic value could be revolutionary acts.

[@zeuschronos446]

Wow ! You took a lot of words, and squeezed its essence, without this skill we will get nowhere in this age of information overload. I have watched at least a hundred hours of Daniel Schmachtenberger and you could turn it all into a short and very actionable manifesto on how to define and solve the metacrisis! Otherwise all I get from watching Daniel, is the head spins!!

[@DinaIgl]

@@zeuschronos446that’s chat gpt most likely))

[@dg-ov4cf]

@@zeuschronos446 u realize this was chatGPT right

[@rearsetsrezboadoz8700]

This is well deserving of a good review for anyone with more than a passing interest in geopolitics.

[@MyMatthies]

It’s soooo easy to listen to Samo 😊

[@pbkobold]

Absolute banger of an interview. Intellectually chewy.

[@pbkobold]

Love the Gwern shoutout. Cheers to the deep internet OGs!

[@n8works]

This was one of the most interesting conversations I've listened to all week

[@davidhoracek6758]

I see Samo and I auto-like. Every time, I learn something interesting.

[@NP1066]

So amazing. I've learned so much from him through this conversation. Funnily I actually knew this guy through obscure internet searching since years ago. But I never found his content very readily digestible and integrated. But through this conversation I was able get a hold of his insights much more easily. You were a great interviewer for him.

[@scottanderson7285]

Best interview I've watched all year. Not just from you, all of KZbin.

[@LivBoeree]

Thank you!!!

[@davwunderbrrd6944]

Just watched the whole thing obsessively, absolutely loved it. Pure gold. Thank you so much for your networking and sensemaking and providing us with content of such high nutritional value.

[@StudioGREGORIO]

~~~ Wow. 2 hours flew by. Well done Liv. Please keep bringing these BIG PICTURE thinkers on. CHEERS !!! )))))))))))))))))

[@LivBoeree]

More to come!

[@riazr88]

I’m going to have to rewatch this one a few times. What profound and novel solutions he is proposing. Samo is moloch’s worst nightmare.

[@thomascummings7589]

Wow, a pleasure of listening to smart people having a healthy discussion.

[@cryptomusician4039]

It is so refreshing to see and hear people who know what they are talking about!😉

[@foswa6335]

Samo is such a gifted speaker. His point at 1:38:53 is amazingly put.

[@ip6289]

Good questions, really. And very interesting guest! Thank you both.

[@kramarNP]

Loved this conversation, thank you

[@this-already-takes-to-long]

Very interesting, thank you both.

[@davidwilliamwhite]

Every other minute, Burja said something that made me hit the pause button...to think.

[@stefaneekenulv419]

Wow! Great Great interview with my fav thinker Samo

[@jacknaneek1681]

Fascinating! Well done!

[@416dl]

Very interesting interview. I'm always listen with great interest to Samo's perspectives which are always so well grounded in his deep and broad grasp of history and the implications. He'd make a great guest for Lex. Cheers.

[@eugeniocg3079]

samo is my hero

[@razahasanovic3723]

Awesome podcast. Thank you both 🙏🙏

[@davwunderbrrd6944]

aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh omg you did it!!!!! so freaking excited for this. immense love and respect for you both

[@i_want_youtube_anonymity7099]

OMG I love the intro/outro vibe/music! Also Samo is so inspiring!

[@thoughtscanbedisease4495]

Wow, that was an amazing interview. Keep it up!

[@BarbraBond]

This was a great episode, Liv!!! very insightful!! Thanks so much to both of you for all that you do!!!!

[@LivBoeree]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@toki_doki]

What a remarkable guest. I want to hear more from him.

[@adrianr909]

Congrats on 100k subs! Another great Win-Win episode!

[@OmShivaSoham]

Thanks for a very thought provoking interview. Samo has a good overview of how society functions. As far as the 'great founder ' concept goes, there is some truth there, unfortunately in these times our choices in great leaders has been dismal! Maybe we will have a miracle and RFK Jr. will pull off a presidential win!

[@ziyahasan4952]

Liv, you are simply amazing!

[@LivBoeree]

thank you!

[@akuno_]

Back in my university days, a biochemical engineer invited programmers to help him write software for his PhD. He was focused on improving the small details of an anesthetic drug. The impact of his research was so minimal that it was clear he was just trying to publish papers and climb the academic ladder. Our institutions have become absurd.

[@aaroninternet4159]

Amazing interview! Thanks :)

[@lukegallivan-smith3399]

Loved his hot take of us already living in a pseudo UBI system! Had me picturing hamster wheels as far as the eye could see :)

[@srikanthremani]

Excellent presentation.

[@emmanueldiechristengemeins9271]

enjoyed it, thank you both!

[@dljnobile]

Brilliant

[@Pachacu-Tech]

Thanks for asking an being interested in the ancient wisdom of tribes and cultures in latam. I wish we knew more about them. I hope we can use AI to analize their languages and try to articulate the way the saw the world through their lens

[@mat4701]

This is so good

[@lurkern]

I love samo, great episode 🎉

[@Pikkiwoki]

YES You made a podcast!!!!!

[@panstromek]

This was very interesting interview. Lot of ideas to think about.

[@akichler]

Great interview! 👍

[@CharlesBrown-xq5ug]

Your intro attracted me. 《 Arrays of nanodiodes promise full conservation of energy》 A simple rectifier crystal can, iust short of a replicatable long term demonstration of a powerful prototype, almost certainly filter the random thermal motion of electrons or discrete positiive charged voids called holes so the electric current flowing in one direction predominates. At low system voltage a filtrate of one polarity predominates only a little but there is always usable electrical power derived from the source Johnson Nyquest thermal electrical noise. This net electrical filtrate can be aggregated in a group of separate diodes in consistent alignment parallel creating widely scalable electrical power. As the polarity filtered electrical energy is exported, the amount of thermal energy in the group of diodes decreases. This group cooling will draw heat in from the surrounding ambient heat at a rate depending on the filtering rate and thermal resistance between the group and ambient gas liquid or solid warmer than absolute zero. There is a lot of ambient heat on our planet, more in equatorial dry desert summer days and less in polar desert winter nights. Refrigeration by the principle that energy is conserved should produce electricity instead of consuming it. Focusing on explaining the electronic behavior of one composition of simple diode, a near flawless crystal of silicon is modified by implanting a small amount of phosphorus on one side from a ohmic contact end to a junction where the additive is suddenly and completely changed to boron with minimal disturbance of the crystal pattern. The crystal then continues to another ohmic contact. A region of high electrical resistance forms at the junction in this type of diode when the phosphorous near the ĵunction donates electrons that are free to move elsewhere while leaving phosphorus ions held in the crystal while the boron donates a hole which is similalarly free to move. The two types of mobile charges mutually clear each other away near the junction leaving little electrical conductivity. An equlibrium width of this region is settled between the phosphorus, boron, electrons, and holes. Thermal noise is beyond steady state equlibrium. Thermal transients where mobbile electrons move from the phosphorus added side to the boron added side ride transient extra conductivity so they are filtered into the external circuit. Electrons are units of electric current. They lose their thermal energy of motion and gain electromotive force, another name for voltage, as they transition between the junction and the array electrical tap. Aloha

[@jaumemoletibrun]

I'm going to use the 'social resilient' concept next time someone finds me too much of a contrarian. Thanks Samo!❤

[@richardkut3976]

Good stuff, thanks.

[@gavinhillick]

I'm nine minutes in. About an hour, I read an article on two recent incidents of major turbulence on Boeing airliners that made climate change the culprit without ever mentioning the deteriorating safety and quality standards following its merger with a weapons manufacturer. I bet we'll be hearing a lot more of this in the near future and may see this world without (commercial) air travel before very long.

[@stefaneekenulv419]

Wonderful

[@ViolosD2I]

Definitely seen the part of writing papers in quantity being the objective rather than advancing the science, including people scheming how many separate papers they could squeeze out of one topic rather than writing one concise report of all its aspects.

[@Celadrin]

A++

[@raphaels2103]

That was really good

[@askmartin6500]

Great founders or great villains!!!

[@thomasoneill880]

great content in essence, I must say I dislike whatever efficiency algorithm is being run to skip through the space though... big fan of natural spacing...

[@Tripple_Threatt92]

This man is shockingly smart

[@micsolana]

brilliant

[@puck_nz]

Epic.

[@chipcook5346]

Got any links to Samo's books?

[@mikecane]

Could have been twice the length. Maybe it was? Good talk.

[@jpb10]

Does anyone know what are Burja's credentials? He's obviously smart, but I can't find anything about his education

[@GlennGaasland]

This was great :) Could you interview someone who is doing something really interesting in the field of collaborative sensemaking and collective intelligence? For example genAI systems in creative dialogue, with many human curators in the loop, to gradually build new ideas, concepts and insights as an open source research project? Surely someone must be working on something like that, since this would seem like the most realistic path towards keeping alive at least some cultural intelligence and creativity within the commons. If a technology like LLMs, so clearly a child of the intellectual commons, where not also used creatively by the commons, this would seem like an unbelievable tragedy. I am sure someone is working on this, and if you know anyone, please help bring some more attention to it!

[@LivBoeree]

Yes I have the meaning alignment folks in mind!

[@dg-ov4cf]

all this hootin and hollerin later and we still never found out why rome fell

[@RomaTomassi]

He's a Georgist who never admits it, but takes all the relevant insights from George, gussies it up with intellectual sounding language, and delivers it without the central insight of economic rentseeking. What a sham.

[@hyperTorless]

Based Samo!

[@vga-t7m]

we live in a very large planet. it was built to that size just to ensure we special animals cannot do any real harm to it, no matter how much we like to think we can. like the belief that humans can fix climate and even traverse the galaxies.

[@maxclark5496]

found it super interesting how he descibred our elites as senescent, parasitical, and non agentive. this is very similar how henry george describes late empires when the lower class are unambitious, because they do not have fair access to land and the upper class is only concerned with maintaining their land monopoly and not actually producing.

[@MatT3431433]

++Good ! 👍 Who is this guy ? Why hadnt i heard of him ? Just a few minutes in and already intend to "Follow" etc To me, at moment, seems preferable alternative / antidote to Hariri 👍👍

[@MatT3431433]

Edit - too faint praise ... Let me better compare him to a modern Ibn Khaldun IE ++Good 😁

[@zacboyles1396]

My criticism is coming first, don’t let it discourage… Reciprocity is an excuse children make before they understand how weak and feeble it is. Its reflexive use, to defend yet another argument for authoritarian censorship, is embarrassing and doesn’t stand up to all but the most shallow consideration. We seem to be embracing the hypocrisy and egotistical behavior previously left to the shadows of Western foreign policy. I suppose it’s rather on point for this interview, highlighting the degradation of reason but also the kind of Moloch mentality Liv often exposes. That out of the way, great guest, I appreciate his ability to cut through all the power center narratives to construct a more meaningful understanding of the past and present.

[@zeuschronos446]

Thanx Liv, this guy is pretty smart, he's like a Daniel Schmactenberg minus the ADHD !! going to check him out, he's got some interesting papers on his personal website.

[@packardsonic]

The only way to end rivalrous dynamics is to share a common goal. All of humanity will only rally around a shared goal if it benefits us all equally. The only goal that benefits us all equally is the goal of meeting EVERYONE'S emotional and physical needs unconditionally. If we set conditions, we are going to continue to fight over who sets the conditions. Needs can be determined scientifically if we define a need as that which the lack of will cause anybody to develop pathologies. The key to aligning humanity is to raise awareness about the fact that practically everyone will become a benefit to society if their psychological and physical needs are met, but absolutely everyone will become a burden or danger to society if their needs are not met. Then if you want to catalyze a paradigm shift by fostering the practice of peer to peer altruism to meet everyone's needs UNCONDITIONALLY in a decentralized way, all you have to do is get 100 people in your area to join an altruistic network that facilitates sharing, gifting and volunteering among citizens.

[@lordkelvin441]

You basically propose purportedly scientifically justified race to the bottom with regard to 'needs' defined in such manner. Some historical social phenomena come to mind.

[@packardsonic]

​​What else is our goal if it isn't to meet people's needs? Meet some people's desires? How is it beneficial to you or anybody for other human beings to develop mental and physical pathologies? It is clearly not I believe you are concerned with the weaponization of compassion, in this case rational compassion. If you knew that freedom and privacy are fundamental human needs without which everybody will develop pathologies, and this can be demonstrated scientifically so that we no longer need to philosophise about "rights" and instead scientifically justify the importance of freedom and privacy, would your concern be resolved? Be serious please​ @@lordkelvin441

[@packardsonic]

​​@@lordkelvin441 I made a reply and it got erased it seems. Can you give humanity a better goal than striving for all humans to develop and become the best versions of themselves? Can you suggest a more rigorous method for doing that than science?

[@lordkelvin441]

That's most unfortunate, I however sincerely hope that before responding to my point below - you'll critically examine your method of thought because it shows concerning similarity to methods engaged by those responsible for these Ponzi Schemes as defined by Guest. Word 'rigorous' is derivative of Latin 'rigor' meaning 'inflexible'. Inflexibility is not a feature of living organisms. That means for instance, that by engaging - for inherently non-normative reasons - rigorousness in scientific process you can't make universal claims within all areas of scientific research. On the other hand inflexibility might be a feature of material objects we create in recognition of non-universal utility of that attribute, just as it has non-universal utility in science.

[@packardsonic]

​@@lordkelvin441can you answer my questions?

[@goldenphoenixpublish]

Experiential->Experimental-||>Sustainable->Abstractionary-||>Boddhisattvic->Revelatory-||>Divine...

[@philipsankot8003]

38:20... the hyper production of low quantity

[@KilgoreTroutAsf]

Interesting to hear what things he is spot-on and what others he is almost demonstrably wrong.

[@knowahnosenothing4862]

A purge may come when our disgust reaches a climax.

[@Dystisis]

"Maybe in our quest to make knowledge legible too early, we sometimes destroy what makes it viable." Holy fuck why did no one tell me advisors this.

[@Stoddardian]

Mass urbanization leads to population collapse. We're seeing this now in real time all over the "advanced countries". The only country I can think of that was able to seriously increase its birth rate in a short time was 1930s Germany. Today it's even worse than ever because of an increasing number of women spending their most fertile years pursuing degrees and careers. It's extremely politically incorrect to say it, but it's an undeniable fact. This whole "progressive" model of civilization is doomed. Something more traditional will eventually replace it.

[@GabrielMatusevich]

I'm not sure is true that if you just fire 50% of any team it would keep functioning correctly... perhaps this is different in some companies.... but I've never met a team of engineers that were not asked to do more than they actual can... perhaps this is not a problem of the engineering per se but a mistake on the business expectations of their teams and of their product. I think the Twitter example might be very particular ... like many tech companies and start ups.... most of them don't work to make profits... they work to get access to greater investments based on some future promise that may never come

[@DJWESG1]

Flexibility.. sounds great when ur the boss.

[@fulowa]

"I predict in 5 years most of us will still have a job and AI will not have five us maybe it'll make our job much more boring, kind of lame and rote. But, you know, I have a quip that says, 'You know it's impossible to out-automate fake jobs.' I think our society has a high degree of jobs that only exist because of sort of regulatory and social needs and that actually we have secretly already implemented UBI-it's called having a middle-class job, and it's just sort of janky through all of these like hyper-regulated types of ways in which we redistribute wealth unofficially."

[@kungfujoe2136]

you cant stop it once it started and it's stated you can only prevent it for instance printing money is never a sollution and will allways be bad in the long run once you do something like that it will have a negative outcome things like that will keep on stacking the rich will get richer the rest will get poor recovery can only happen after the crash

[@piccalillipit9211]

Its called "interconnected cascading systems failure" when you try to mend one thing that breaks another thing and on and on and on. Its what causes the end of every civilisation - they get there in different ways, but once you have passed the "collapse event horizon" it is, as you say, unstoppable

[@piccalillipit9211]

@@richard520 Ive not watched this yet - but its on my list 😀

[@wisnoskij]

I dont really understand OpenAI the point here. People being mad that a board acted against a CEO succeeding in all metrics is not the same thing as people being unable to comprehend a board doing anything. You can be mad when a good employee gets fired and still think that an important part of a bosses job is firing the under performers. Unless I am missing something, you would want to find evidence of people getting mad at a board doing a good job and ousting a under performing CEO for evidence to backup the idea that boards are not capable of governing CEOs any longer.

[@rathelmmc3194]

Totally agree with the make work problem within organizations and it being kind of like UBI. Especially when you think about tech and how its almost like a millennial jobs program. The Boomers wouldn't vacate their good jobs so the millennials had to make Project Manager positions in tech to pay themselves well.

[@stevem815]

The next generation of young people stumbling on conservatism.

[@yannickboussemart43]

Is the system itself not already an AI ?

[@radman1136]

Death is part of life. Entropy is not a "bug", it is a feature.

[@mgetommy]

pog

[@blythebea808]

Can't we innovate new social technologies? 4:30

[@ortforshort7652]

It already has collapsed. We're currently in the post-collapse apocalyptic phase

[@niveajones6400]

Albino Spock. A rational Peter Zeihan. I 👍

[@collie8]

1:07:00

[@lordkelvin441]

Christianization of former Norse migrants turned invaders of Rome went later very poorly, failing to eradicate their drive toward imperialism. You can't separate warrior and priesthood classes if someone equates acts and arts of combat with religious practices. This of course was hardly exclusive to Norse civilization, this model lasts and evolves in southeastern Asia for millenia.

[@gingerhipster]

I sure wish I could make a career out of being both unusual and interested in knowledge while doing unexplainable things for unexplainable reasons.

[@gingerhipster]

The creation of a new social technology is way more costly in a much more varied spectrum of expenses than anyone can understand unless they've done it.

[@gingerhipster]

Per Samos last comment in the interview: The Hipster Energy Team of Non-Materialist GPTs is going to look into putting together an effective accounting of our politics and economy. Stay tuned.

[@gingerhipster]

Actually I don't know if we will. That sounds like a lot of work and we've got a lot on our plate. It's exhausting being an unfunded eccentric person focused on big picture stuff at the expense of all my personal relationships and viability as a member of society.