Welcome back everyone. I am Cass PNC.
I'm joined as usual by my partner in crime, Mr. Bennett
Tomlin. How are you today?
I'm doing pretty well. How are you, Cass?
I'm good. We're joined by a special guest,
investigative journalist Vincent Wu, based out of the Bay Area.
How are you? I'm great, nice to finally be on
the pod I've tried for so long. I think it's really fun to have
you because we're talking about a topic that I am particularly
always angry about and you're here to at least a little bit
defend, and I appreciate that. I don't usually even plug any of
our guest stuff. I let them do the plugging for
their own work, but Vincent recently did a documentary
interview of a mayoral candidate in San Francisco, Honest
Charlie, who is just, I guess, honest.
I don't know what to call him. He's the future of San Francisco
politics is what I call. He's our future mayor.
He's the president of San Francisco politics.
Assuming he gets on the ballot. We're here to talk about a a
topic closer to my heart, which is effective altruism, which is
quite unpopular, I'll say nowadays in general, and
effective accelerationism, which is far more popular and which I
also not a huge fan of. I actually think it would be
great to start with you, Vincent, and let you kind of
give me an idea for why I shouldn't have this feeling
about EA or E accelerationism. I think your feelings.
About EAC are probably totally justified.
I sometimes describe myself as like the last centrist defender
of EA. There's actually probably a ton
of them. I don't know.
But like I like to say it because people, I think what's
striking to me is how deeply people have become negatively
polarized against EA coming from my world.
Like so one thing that I do is I attempt to convince people to
donate money to like A5O1C3, right?
Like we work on social issues around the Bay Area especially.
So I'm often trying to get people to donate money to
advance the cause of like building housing in the Bay
Area. And I try to, I have to use all
these tricks to, to engender like sympathy in the mind of a
potential donor. And it's usually only after like
a really long period of time, like a social campaign
effectively that people feel strongly enough about like any
individual cause to donate. And, and this is across the
entire domain of philanthropy, right?
Like, this isn't just just me. Like there are entire fleets of
people whose job it is to, like, try to keep the spirit of the
fight alive in the mind of a donor.
We'll send you 100 emails. We'll call you over and over
again. We'll get your friends to call
you. Like, we'll do whatever it
takes. And it's like pulling teeth, you
know what I mean? And I understand, right?
Like it. It's not like I begrudge the
people who aren't necessarily like, you know, leaping at the
opportunity to give us money. Like their skepticism may be
well earned. But I do have some admiration
for any social movement where the participants of that
movement self select to donating money to what they see as a
worthy cause, like in the case of EAI mean.
It's typically like what malaria Nets That's like to me, that's
completely. Sometimes it's malaria Nets.
Come on now. I mean.
Plenty of other ridiculous ideas
that they have that they think need to be defended and worked
on constantly. I think AGI was a big one for
them. And I also think that we've
discussed EAA couple times. A big part of my issue with it
is that it pushes back the idea that you're going to be giving,
that you don't give today, you give tomorrow or the next day
after your earning power has increased, like you've
accumulated wealth, right? I understand.
I, I think it builds more urgency for giving than the
alternative, the default, the default you have to understand
like 90 plus percent of people are giving nothing.
You know, like the idea, even the baby step of that you have
some social obligation to give to me is a step in the right
direction. Like to me it's like we have the
whole team of philanthropy, of which EA is just a tiny part,
right? And really the enemy is apathy
is the tendency of humans to ignore problems that don't
affect them right now and leave like a future generation to deal
with it. Like if we can get anyone on
board, I'm generally positive on on them unless they do something
like absolutely horrible, you know?
I'm certainly sympathetic to the idea that like, trying to do
good and trying to assess whether or not like what you're
doing is good is a reasonable frame for people to take.
And yeah, just flat out, I think that's a reasonable frame for
people to take. I think both Cass and I end up
having some frustrations Cass already mentioned, like the
tendency for certain members of EA groups to choose not to get
right or to choose to defer giving until some future point
when they've hit some arbitrarily large number or
those who tend to focus on like various existential risk to
avoid having to deal with certain risks to humanity.
And you even see this sometimes in and this is getting really
meta and way too deep into the rationalist weeds.
But you'll see like in their conversations about how they
want to present themselves in in public, you'll see like yuds
come out and say like we can't talk about animal welfare.
We can't talk about AGI. We need to focus on in the
specific example he he gave was malaria Nets in Africa.
He's like malaria Nets in Africa is something that's
understandable to people. And if we present effective
altruism is focused on things like distributing malaria Nets
in Africa rather than on dealing with the existential risk of
artificial general intelligence will be able to accumulate the
influence and stuff that is important for the broader EA
movement to deal with their like set of that seems.
Totally reasonable though, right?
Like the idea that you would present the intro level version
of your social movement to the public first.
I don't know. I actually have no beef with
that whatsoever. We do the same thing.
You know what I mean? Like in housing policy, we have
a lot of like really complicated in the weeds proposal.
Like for instance, like we want to, we want to repeal Prop 13 in
California ultimately, right? But that's not what I'm going to
tell someone who's never heard of the movement before because
it freaks them the fuck out. Like and understandably, right?
Like I I get that. It would freak out older voters,
but absolutely. Yeah.
But I but I will say that and and I understand that they're
the people. Voting voters, it's just the way
to say. Voters, I understand, I
understand, but I, but I am saying that as time passes, I do
think that, you know, listen, I'm in my 30s.
I will say I even like I am against Prop 13.
I think there's a lot of people my age and older who are against
Prop 13 already. So I don't think, I don't think
it actually is as controversial as you think to be like, I'm
going to push for this idea that we just get rid of Prop 13.
Like that isn't as extreme as you as, as I think you're making
it sound. And this is the idea where I go,
I, I don't like the idea that you're, you're presenting an
easily like an easy pill to swallow.
You're like, oh, malaria Nets, everyone likes malaria Nets.
And then you're like, anyway, now we're going to this 16 D
chess situation where we need to, we need to plan for that.
And that's super important right now.
Cass, I do think you should remember that perhaps your
friends are not among the moneyed and powerful interests,
like the ones who have money to give to causes or the ones who
have the ability to create new policies or make changes like
that. That and you know, even if we
frame this in the worst slide, I still like personally like from
a consequentialist perspective, right?
Like if we can trick people into giving more money to do good,
like I understand this is dangerous and I understand why
you dislike it. And I agree completely actually,
that it can be abused. And that arguably has been
abused by like, you know, you could call them EA leadership.
I don't I don't, I definitely don't condone the behavior of
the guys who want to buy the castle or whatever.
I guess like the thing I'm defending, I guess is the social
principle sort of at the heart of it, like in its original
conception by like a few like Oxford professors who are like,
hey, let's just think about how we can spend our money towards
philanthropy the best. And also sort of make a
framework around like why that's something you ought to do.
That's the thing I like about you.
That's the thing I admire and respect.
I agree that, you know, like, let's, I'm not a big fan of
Yadkowski's public communications.
Like, we have some common ground there.
But I also don't fault him necessarily for, like, wanting,
you know, to put your best foot forward when you're marketing a
social campaign. Like I can't fault someone for
that, you know? Cass, you and I both kind of had
this tension last time where I kept returning to Singer and Org
and like the philosophical roots of effective altruism and like
the way it grew out of utilitarianism and stuff like
that. And how it is possible to use
those philosophies to take those philosophies and live a good
life in which you help other people and do a lot of valuable
good things. And it would seem like that if
there exists this philosophy that makes it possible to do
that, that it is that the philosophy itself is not like
inherently going to lead to I'll, which means there's some
other factor, perhaps related to the types of people that are
attracted to this that leads to many of them doing this type of
ill. Like effective altruism itself
is kind of milquetoast, right? Try to do good where you can.
When you have the capacity to do good, you should go and do some
good. If you see someone drowning in a
pond and it's only going to make you 10 minutes late for work,
maybe you should try to save the person drowning in the pond.
I think most of that is actually largely unobjectionable, even to
people who are like somewhat poisoned against EA at this
point. And like, the bigger problem
seems to be the fact that many of them noticed that while they
were thinking about, they realized that money is the big
lever and just kept focusing on the money part to make their
lever bigger and bigger and bigger in the hopes of Aventi
doing some change. And the types of people who are
attracted to money as a form of power are not generally the
types who actually care about doing that much good.
I sort of agree. I think this is, I think another
way to talk about this debate is to try to identify what is it
about EAS that like really bother me or people in general
so much. I'm not an EAI feel like I
should say, but like I, I think what's interesting about them is
that like you put it in many ways, it's a completely
milquetoast philosophy. And yet, and yet it seems to
piss people off way more than it should.
And I think the, the money thing is a big part of it.
And I think this is like sort of downstream of the philosophy's
roots as like a fundamentally consequentialist framework of
thinking, right? Like if you need money to do
good, more money to do more good is better in, in certain.
You know, like, if you accept the framing like of
consequentialism as like a philosophical, like valid moral
framework, I think you are sort of forced to conclude that that
might be true. And it's sort of hard to argue
against. But I think people hate it
because not everyone's a consequentialist.
You know, I, I think that's really at the root of what
pisses people off about it. Obviously, I think the people
associated with it and what they've done under the guise of
EA has been to to blame for a lot of the bad traction here.
What we're discussing here is not the fact that like EA has
been tarnished by Sam Bankman Freed.
The idea is that Sam Bankman Freed was attracted to EA and
became an outspoken person for it for a reason.
Like there's a reason that this happened.
And I do think it has largely to do with this concept of two
things. One, I mean, greed is good has
been bred into America deeply since the 80s.
But two, I think that if you can justify greed is good and you
can play it out 32 steps in advance and you know, Oh, well,
then I'm going to have $30 billion to spend on whatever I
want, Then you've just now you've justified this as opposed
to when I think of what's best for giving, my framework is not
how much can I give, it's where can I give locally that will do
the most. I, I would say that makes you
pretty normal actually. I, I, I think most people think
that way, and I think that that is a perfectly valid moral
framework that feels intuitive to most people.
Here's my defensive EA again, like in a different way.
One thing that's striking about EA is that it's managed to
radicalize like a bunch of tech people basically like people.
Whom? Would otherwise never give have
managed to trick themselves into a like a greed is good justified
world where they actually do end up giving some.
I mean, I don't think the numbers lie like they have given
quite a fair amount. I would say it's not
insignificant like they have like EAS.
I think net have probably saved quite a lot of lives and I don't
think that's something that can be like dismissed so easily.
You know what I mean? Like I think your criticisms are
valid. I agree that the framework of
consequentialism leaves open the door to especially canny bad
actors who can sort of use the very sort of logical framework
of consequentialism to create an opportunity for for abuse.
And I think that is a weakness of this system that the
community that is the very nascent group we call EA, we'll
we'll have to learn to reckon with.
But I don't think that's actually so different than any
other nascent social movement. Like we all have problems.
A friend of mine recently said to me, like, there are so many
shitty guys and there are so few positions of power.
And we see this in like even progressive politics, you know,
like that people are actually really good at taking like a
rhetorical framework for doing good and using it to justify
their own bad behaviour. I think EA is exceptional in
that the demographic of people who are into EA are like
exceptionally like sort of online somewhat money that tech
people. I think that more than any of
the other of the rest of it made it this really fertile ground
for an SPF to appear sooner or later, you know, but I, I, I
think it's a demographic thing more than it really is like a,
because of the philosophical underpinnings of the framework
thing. There was an interesting thing I
thought of when you were mentioning that, though, about
how it's like convince tech people to give Because if you
take Sam Bankman Freed and some of his friends at their word,
which you shouldn't do, but assuming you did do that, they
claimed that like, like Sam Bankman Freed claimed that he
considered whether he should be a journalist or something like
that to have his impact in the world.
And it was only when he read earned a give.
But he also claimed he never read a book.
So it's hard to figure that out when you want when he read
earned a give that he realized that he should go and get a job
at Jane St. because then he'd be able to do so much good than if
he was a journalist or something like that.
And and so in Sam Bankman Freed's version of events, which
probably isn't true again, he wasn't, he wasn't a tech person
convinced to give. He was a person convinced to
follow that path so that he could later give, right.
He became that type of tech person so he could give.
He wasn't a tech person who was convinced to get.
What? Look, I don't think any of the
three of us believe a word of what you just said and.
You can't see Sam Bankman freed as an investigative journalist.
I would, you know, I would love to watch that biopic.
I don't think it's possible. I was just look from my own
personal experience meeting EAS, they're all already tech people.
You know, I haven't met a single EA who is like, well, I better
get into programming though that is a thing that they say you
might ought to do. I've seen a guide from EAS to
think about. Look, if you're not very wealthy
right now, it might not be a good idea for you to give very
much, but if you're good at math, like you might want to
consider one of these careers. I don't think that's horrible
advice. I don't, I haven't met anyone
who's followed it, you know, just like personally, but maybe,
you know, there probably are a few out there.
You know, I don't think it's the worst thing necessarily.
I don't think most people are going to be able to bootstrap
themselves to like SBF level fraud.
You know, I think for most people, earning to give actually
looks way more reasonable. Like try to get a corporate job
and like, don't worry so much about whether your your job is
creating moral good in the world.
That's mostly how I think about that line of reasoning.
Because I think it's it's going to be really.
Hard for most people to find a professional pursuit that can
keep them alive. That also is like, sort of
unambiguously altruistic, you know?
Now anyone can learn to code though if they go to Lambda
school I hear. That's true.
Anyone, everyone, actually, it's going to be $100 billion
company. That's why all three of us have
invested in Lambda school. I think CAS more than all
either. Yeah, all of my CAS coin is now
in Lambda school. That's correct, yeah.
So. That's gonna that's your
retirement fund, actually. I was a big believer in Lambda
for like 2 1/2 weeks before I researched it.
What about it made like, I mean, that's actually pretty cool if
they convinced you with just the marketing, you know?
When I learned how to program, I learned way more by studying on
my own than by listening to my teachers.
And so I was willing to swallow the premise that like, this was
a thing that could be learned outside of the traditional
structures. And I thought the economics of
it were intriguing. In terms of incentives, this is
before I learned about, you know, how some of the Isas were
being repackaged and sold off. And the incentive alignment that
was like the base of the entire concept didn't exist in the way
it was described. But like at its basic level of
this is a thing people can learn and this is a way we can teach
it in a way that potentially makes a bit more financial sense
for them was somewhat appealing. There's ways that we didn't have
to be predatory. I, I think we can even like
connect this silly in joke to like what we're talking about
too, right? Like.
And also sorry just before you say it to make this not an in
joke, people should go read Vincent's reporting about Lambda
school now Bloom tech. And listen to his listen to his
Jason Calacanis this Week in Startups interview because it's.
That was a great, that was a great time.
Now it's less of an. Now let me try right, like so I
would like like I think you know, Lambda School with regard
to like the wider educational space is akin in some ways, I
think to like the EA leadership within the broader movement of
like, you know, let let's think about our philanthropy before we
just give like insomuch as like Lambda School is just another
boot camp. Like there are a bunch of them.
Some of them are seemingly like decently effective, some of them
less so. It's really hard to actually say
what the magic sauce is, but they were able to use like canny
marketing, being really aggressive about proclaiming
their good in order to like dupe a large number of people to the
detriment of all. And that's what happened with
SPF, right? That's not to say that like post
secondary education. Isn't necessarily worthless or
that like the framework that maybe like you're better off
learning outside of the university system is just wrong.
Like a lot of my detractors accused me of being a shill for
universities or something, which, you know, far from it,
right? But the, the danger I think is
like, you know, they, they become sort of a toxic asset in
the space. Like now when, when people think
of boot camps, they are sort of polarized by like the news about
Lambda School to an extent. And I think this is, this is
shame actually, like I'm actually pro boot camp.
I, I think they're great. But as a result of my own
reporting, the industry has suffered a PR problem to some
extent. Likewise, I think that's what
happened with SPF and EA, right? Like, I, I think in five to 10
years we might have a version of EA where maybe they picked a
different name, maybe it's different people, but largely
the framework of like, Hey, you should, you know, and again,
like, this is something that Christianity does too, right?
Like you should devote like a certain percentage of your
earnings to some causes ranked roughly by, you know, what we
call like effectiveness. But really you can do whatever
you want. I think that that will come
back. Like I, I think that will
survive SPF and I think that will be to our betterment.
But I sort of acknowledge that we've got to live through this
dip where these words are just like so colored by what's
recently happened. And I'm OK with that too.
You know, like, what are you going to do?
The most I think for giving way that I perceive EA do you
remember the giving pledge? Yeah, the giving pledge is this
idea right that oh, I'm going to give away everything before I
die who's going to disagree with that promise right.
No one's going to say oh, I think that's terrible you
shouldn't you shouldn't say that I think the problem with these
pledges and these things that rich people say is that they
don't have to act on them when they're alive largely like they
don't they don't actually give very much in a lot of them a lot
of them. I'm not saying everyone, this
isn't some blanket statement or something.
I'm just saying like, you know, the powerful billionaires on the
top are people that we think about and aren't I, I, in my
humble opinion, don't don't give enough.
And I think the idea is making them give now as opposed to give
later. And that's the problem.
So I'd say like, one, I think your criticism is fair.
Two, I think people said that when the Giving Pledge came out.
I think that was, it wasn't like it was a unanimous, this is
good. There were a lot of detractors
then and now. And look, I think it's baby
steps, right? Like EA is less that it's like a
little more, let's give some now, right?
Like we're pushing it closer and closer to the present.
I don't think you're ever going to be able to convince
billionaires outside of straight up taxation to give the majority
of their profits to social causes.
And I, I don't hold out hope for that as a like salvation for our
society. But in the meantime, if some of
the ones that are on the fence can be peer pressured into
giving a bit, I'm going to shut up and take my checks wherever I
can get them. You know what I mean?
Like, like from my perspective, like we're in a war.
Every check I get now that lets me save a life, like, let me, I,
I don't care, right? Like I'm waiting for the
government to step in and dramatically increase cap gains
and inheritance tax. And I'm going to advocate for
that. But if I can convince any patron
to give me any, like, because a lot of, I think actually,
frankly, a lot of people who are wealthy are sort of torn between
the notion that like they ought to live a, a beautiful life and
that other people can't. I actually think that moral
dilemma is pretty common and where I can exploit it, I will,
you know, so I see it as less like I, I guess I don't care
whether they're good or bad people ultimately like the, the
morality of like their internal just like whatever they're
feeling like whether they should be truly motivated to give or
not. Like, I guess what I'm saying is
I'm a consequentialist too. Maybe that's why I sort of like
EA, right? Like I'm trying to do something
I think is good. I'm going to take every, like,
opportunity to do it that I can do reasonably.
And if this moral framework is convincing, you know, like
people with unearned wealth to give it to me, like, I'm going
to shut up. I know where my bread is
buttered. You know, that's how I feel.
One thing you mentioned just a couple minutes ago was the idea
of people from the EA community eventually rebranding, coming up
with some other name for much of the same beliefs and coming back
in public. And what's been interesting for
me over the last year has been watching the emergence from a
very similar space as EA, sharing many of the same kind of
rationalist roots, watching the effective accelerationism
movement start to grow out of San Francisco.
If you're a consequentialist like I think it's worth thinking
about EA giving birth to this monster.
Each movement disavows the other to a large extent, right?
Most effective altruists don't think that effective
acceleration is are handling these existential risks well.
And effective acceleration is think EA people are thinking
about the risks all wrong, but they both come out of and share
a like common cannon around like the same set of existential
risks. And what's been interesting to
me is we talked about the milquetoast version of EA, the
very unobjectionable version, which is there are people who
are suffering and dying and you should help them.
The more objectionable version of EA, which mostly exists
online and in like a few small places in San Francisco.
We should be clear. Which is where most of EA is.
Though to be clear, that's where most of EA exists.
Sure, sure. Sure.
But my point is, I want to be clear that there are many
effective ultras who would disavow some of the types of
things I'm going to describe because I think that's
important. But there was like, there was a
significant subset of effective ultras who like assembled and
created this Canon of beliefs around like the existential risk
of artificial general intelligence.
And when a set of consequentialists with a
slightly different view on what the like end consequence of
artificial general intelligence would be, two groups of
consequentialists sharing a significantly overlapping cannon
came up with like significantly, almost diametrically opposed
views about how to handle a single risk.
And that's that's stuck in my head.
Yeah, wow. I think that's a great point,
Bennett. Here's my view of EAC as it
exists in San Francisco. I don't believe it actually
exists. Like what I mean by that is like
a friend of mine is like a 25 year old woman and like avid
Twitter user. And for like a few weeks she had
EAC in her profile name. And I was very confused by this.
So when I saw her, I asked her why did you do that?
And she's like, oh, those guys are funny.
And I was like, do you like know what the beliefs?
Like what is what does it mean to be a EAC?
And she was like, I don't know, like AI stuff.
There is no like central Organism of like there's no,
there's no 5O1C3. They're not like recruiting.
They have no goals and no ability to achieve those goals.
I don't like who is it like based Beth Jazos or something.
And then there's that other guy. I I can't even remember the
other one. They're just really just,
they're just yapping. They're just yappers.
They're going to be gone in like a year or two.
They're not even trying to do anything besides like, I don't
know, some of them probably have some small time griffs, but I
think it's like actually pretty obvious to like most people who
like seriously follow the development of AI that these
guys are just they're just having fun posting.
It might be that there are some negative consequences, but I'm
not sure what they'd. Be Marc Andreessen though are
you suggesting Marc Andreessen like isn't following the
development of AI or? Yeah, but you know what?
You know why he did it, right? Like he was just trying to be on
the in joke. I don't think he thought that
yak is like in any way like a real movement or like a future.
Look, it might be look, maybe maybe I'm totally wrong.
It's just my impression talking to people who actually work on
AI that they're like, oh, I don't know who those guys are.
You know, like it seems like all the people who are actually
trying to develop AI and counter measures for AI don't really
know these people. Like most of them seem to be
just like Twitter accounts, like almost disembodied Twitter
accounts. Whereas with like EA or
whatever, like you could point to like these are the guys they
get, they go to events and they talk their book.
Like you could say who you ought to e-mail to discuss EA, whereas
like if you wanted to talk about yak, like who do you even talk
to? I mean, I guess it's that Beth
guy. Someone get Beth on the phone?
Yeah, it just seems way less serious.
I think it's stupid, don't get me wrong.
We should probably define it for the audience.
Yeah, let's. Try.
Effective accelerationists are people who looked at the people
who suggested that artificial general intelligence would be an
existential risk to humanity and our collective survival and
went, no, watch, we'll do it faster, and that's about it.
And a bunch of the writers they love to reference are very bad
people and stuff like that. But yeah, basically they were
like, what if instead of being careful, we did the opposite?
And so you're right that it's not as it's a less coherent
philosophy. It is harder as someone who
loves philosophy to do philosophical criticisms of EAC.
Because what are you looking at? 3 sub stack posts?
I agree. With you, but also when you
mentioned, for instance, instance, Marc Andreessen,
right, like I, I just, I had not read his Techno optimist piece,
but that's very E act to me like it is, it is everything they're
trying to express in their little cult in this way that a
venture capitalist would do it. And I and I do think that he
fully believes that stuff. I do think there's a lot of
powerful people, while it's like we can laugh about how there's
no cognitive like we can't cohesively even understand what
they're trying to do. A lot of people are just down
who are in power. To put a finer point of it, I
think what you're saying is that like to be an EAC is, is simply
to be like a kind of over the top cheerleader of techno
capital. Yeah, it's like that plus some
weird aesthetic. I think that's what makes an
EAC. And I think like, look, if you
want to like, expand the critique to that of like techno
capital itself, I think that's air game.
And, you know, it's also just somewhat like beyond the scope
of like, what, a few people. It's just so tough.
Like, yeah, fuck Marc Andreessen.
You know, like. OK, that's all I really needed
to hear. We're good.
Yeah. Totally.
I don't how do I express what I'm saying.
I would say in some ways Cass, you have some common ground with
EAC people in so much as they were people who were negatively
polarized by EA specifically. Like I think the the reason that
EA came into existence is that like EA people were a little too
neurotic about doomsaying about AI and 1st.
I think they just pissed them off like from the aesthetics and
tribalism point of view and that that like sort of congealed an
aesthetic counter response. I think if you take, I think
more Ben, it's maybe wider critique that like the the
people in E AC are roughly the people who would be like
proponents of techno capital itself anyway, without the
existence of the movement. I think that's fair and accurate
too. But I will say, I think there's
a lot of like, if you look at like EAC, the aesthetic
movement, I think there's like a shocking number of like 18 year
olds in there. You know, like compared to like
it's hard to divorce the like, it's a like cultural phenomenon,
belief system shared by the rich and powerful.
I think that's obviously true too.
And yet somehow when you specifically invoke the words
EAC instead of techno capital or whatever, like I think you're
trying to say, or one is often trying to identify a slightly
different group of people what you're talking about there.
Was honestly one of my biggest difficulties the first time I
started trying to look into EAC is because I went to the most
trustworthy people and looked like the people they've
referenced in as like their canonical pieces that like
defined this space. I like to the people they
reference and I'm like, wow, there's, there's some really
deeply troubling nihilistic beliefs they're referencing some
truly problematic belief systems and things like that as they
assemble this philosophy. And then I'd go on Twitter and
it was, it was it was the dumbest people who had never
once read a philosophy paper with EAC in their bio.
And so I didn't really know how to interpret it.
I'm like, I don't know what I'm supposed to criticize.
Am I supposed to criticize the idiot with EAC in the Bible or
the stupid philosophy paper that one person in the movement is
sighting? Here's how I put it.
You do. You ever spend a lot of time on
AIM, like as a teenager? Yeah.
You know how like, for like a good chunk of time, like the
thing to do on AIM was to like, set your away message to like a
specific song or something. Like.
Likewise, I think like the way you become a yak is like you put
yak in your profile on Twitter.com and like you do it
because like other people you think are kind of cool or
attractive are doing it. And like, like, I think that
specific phenomenon will vanish not long from now.
I, I think you're right to criticize like what some of the
philosophical underpinnings of it seem to be like we have to
extrapolate a little bit, which is just to say, I, it is, I
think it's another way of saying like the only way out is
through, right? Like the only way we can save
humanity is by accelerating like the progress of technology.
You know, I think you could spend a whole like 3 hours
discussing that. But like, the person you'd wanna
discuss that with was is like, not an EAC person, not Beth.
It's like it's someone else. Beth Jesus is a serious
philosopher, we all agree. He knows quantum.
I heard he's gonna put the AI. In the quantum and we're all
gonna be in trouble. The two names when I think of.
EAC are Marc Andreessen and Gary Tan, actually.
Oh, interesting. Yeah.
And I get what you're. Saying in that it's not fully
fleshed out and there's no 501C3 or whatever, but it's troubling
to me that the people who most believe in this are those with a
significant amount of power in one of the most important, in
one of the most important and wealthiest areas in America.
I'll give you that one. Yeah, I, I.
I I didn't like it when Gary Tan put Yak in his profile.
I didn't care about Mark, cause fuck Mark, but like, Gary's a
little more on the border, you know, like it seems like
sometimes he can be convinced of reason and sometimes he can't
be. And I felt like we lost that
one. Like someone should have talked
to him. Like, I don't know, like I don't
have his phone number, but like, you know, maybe I should and
maybe should have called him. Yeah, it's worrying, right?
Like, because like to a lot of us, the movement is so like
transparently trifling that when someone who is I guess important
like this decides to sign up, you're like, just like, what the
hell is going on in here? And I, I agree.
I don't have a good explanation for that besides that I think
these guys are trying to be 18 again.
And this is what you do when you're 18.
Like you edge Lord. You just think they're.
Being edge Lords, I don't know they're they're trying.
To have fun, I think. No, I really do think you're.
Onto something there that they're like the they want to be
a provocative 18 year old who still feels accepted and
included in a group of other provocative 18 year olds or
emotionally whatever provocative 16 year old.
And it really kind of clicked for me when you were talking
about the many people attracted to EACC because of the
aesthetics, because of the people they see in it, because
they want to go to the EAC meet up, because the the cute guy
they were talking to in class was going to the EACC meet up or
whatever. Is that like you saw that same
dynamic in certain EA circles and stuff where as it started to
gain a bit of prominence, as there was a bit more money going
into like EA type functions and stuff like that.
There was a certain cultural attractiveness that led to a
bunch of other people starting to identify themselves as long
termists or other kind of EA type words like that.
You might be. You might be.
Right, I might be in the wrong I guess.
I guess what I'm trying to say, I don't know how to put this
except indelicately. I was never enamored of the
aesthetics of EA and I'd never thought that their aesthetics or
their social like in an interpersonal sense, cachet was
very strong. Take that how you want.
I I was actually sort of surprised that so many people
were convinced to become EA's Despite that usually you
bootstrap a social movement with but like a certain amount of
charisma. Yes, exactly.
And that EA succeeded Despite that I thought was kind of cool.
I think it's probably because some of the early speakers are
on the topic were actually pretty eloquent.
You know, that you would you would talk to them for a while
and you actually find yourself sort of convinced.
And I think it was my impression, like the late Peter
Eckersley, for instance, right. Like, I guess he did have
charisma, you know, in his own way.
He was like, he did a lot of good.
He got around town. People liked his work.
I think that's how they did it, you know, somehow.
Do you guys want to join EAC? Like, we could do it right now.
Like, it would be really easy. Yeah.
We, we just log in. I'm good day this episode.
Comes. Out we all have EAC in our
Twitter usernames. Yeah, it would be fun.
Right. And then we could go to the
meetups. I kind of want I I think you
could. Already go to the meetups yeah I
don't know. I.
Invited, right? I don't know when they're
happening. I care.
There's no. Effective acceleration ISM
meetups in Western Illinois I promise you, you can start it
you. Can start in it.
Yeah. How's your chance?
It could. Be fun like.
Okay, I think look, I think that's part of the appeal too,
is that the barrier to entry is low.
Like if you want to have an EAC meet up, like any party you
throw at your house could be you just have to say that it is.
And there's something to that. Like I think it's, I think it's
akin to how crypto caught on. You know what I mean?
Like if we want to call back to a year earlier, the bulk of the
work of this podcast, like like there's something about
argument. At all.
I'm not going to. No, this is a.
My my here's my issue. That you're going to say it's
like it's like crypto in the sense and I'm already like yes
and because of the way that crypto is it's so pernicious now
like it is every it's everywhere.
So you're saying like EAC is kind of like throw away garbage,
but that's precisely why I'm scared.
Well, with crypto you can make money I.
Think that's what made it have staying power.
I think I'm I'm just trying to describe like a recruitment
method here. You didn't mean like the crypto
was good. Making it seem.
Like anyone could get on board, right?
Like that's yes, I agree. I think this was pernicious.
About it, I think my belief is that it will fade without some
sort of central motivating like ideology, like I, I don't, I
don't give them too many ideas, Vincent.
We're giving them way too many. They're just going to run with
this. You know they're going to run
with this. What's actually?
Especially interesting is when you said you were just comparing
recruiting techniques. All I kept thinking was, you
know it's funny. Both crypto and EA worked by
marketing a sense of like inclusion in some grand idea
that most people didn't understand and targeting
primarily a group of like disaffected antisocial weirdos.
Sure, you're convincing me. Actually.
Yeah, maybe I should rate that higher started you, you have
heard that? Comparison.
Not me. Well, I think of.
EAC is still like super local. Like I don't think it's really
broken. Oh sure, I was thinking more
EAC. EAC a dozen weirdos.
Yeah, I don't tell 100. Klingon.
Yeah. I don't know if EA is still
around from 10 years from now. I'm not going to be that upset,
you know, like I'm OK with that. EAC if it's around 10 years from
now, I'll be a little upset. Like, I think that's what I'm
saying. If I remember the name.
Beth Jazos 10 years from now. That's it.
I'm done. I got bad news for you bud after
I edit this. Pod, you said it too many pies.
It'll never you my brain. You're going to hear it like 50
more. Times like you're fucked, man,
and that's it for you, yeah. I hate it when I.
Realize I'm about to remember something stupid for the rest of
my life. Like it.
It feels like a curse. Like how come we can't just
close our mind? Like you can close your eyes,
but you can't close the thing in you that remembers stuff like
it's. This is why we need Neuralink.
Oh shit, you're right. Wait, can they do that
eventually you? Can just ask Elon.
If you I mean like that would genuinely.
Be kind of cool like Eternal Sunshine.
I'd be, I don't think, I don't think it'd be in the first
million people to sign up, but I might be in the second million
people to sign up. You're stoked for Eternal
Sunshine. You want to lose your memory?
That's dude, just get over now. Just get cold enough you're.
Fine. I've got brain true the the.
Memory loss is coming whether I like it or not.
Look, I'm a drugs. Guy, you know, like I think of
Neuralink as just like the next frontier of like recreational
drugs, you know, like I think that's a.
Therapeutic endpoint, that's a little bit harder to get FDA
approval for. Yeah.
I mean, we're just going to. Mod ship your neural link or
what? You know, like they'll be like
black market neural links. You'd be like hey man, you
download the newest mod pack like what is incredible.
Like like it exists in his popular that will absolutely
fall. I think, I think it's kind of
sad we'll. Probably die before that comes
around. You know, it's kind of looking
forward to that this this episode is.
Gonna get cancelled cause Elon is he We're giving away his
business. Business model.
Ohh Elon is. Actually the 2nd.
Person to get a neural link just to get off ketamine definitely
cutting that line that's not making the episode yeah totally
get rid of that I. Didn't know that Elon owned this
podcast was what I was going to say.
I was like, whoa, like Elon can cancel this pod Elon's going to
buy. Spotify and turn it into xx.com.
You know at this. Point like, who knows what he'll
do? You know, the magic of Elon, he
could do any action at any time. He's he's the only one of us
that's free. You know, the rest of us are
stuck in the matrix of being predictable humans.
But Elon, the rest of us have to worry about.
Getting checks and keeping jobs and kids are.
Free guys. Kids are free.
As Elon says, kids are free. No, he pays.
He says they're free. Kids are free.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure he's. Legally obligated to pay
thousands. Don't talk about the horse,
guys. We're not talking.
About the horse, he definitely paid 1.
Of his ex employees to have one of his children right he's
definitely. Paying a horse, some of his ex
wives and mothers of his children child support right
Yeah, I. Mean, hopefully they all just
get to live in a compound together or something.
Hopefully. Do you ever think they'll feel?
I don't think they'll like each. Other that, well, there should
be reality. Show with.
Like all of Elon's children like 18 years from now or something.
Like 18. Oh, eighteen on. 18 or
something? Yeah, it'll be all of them.
It'll be all 18. This was like the Mormons.
You know, like I feel like they should do it with just Elon.
Yeah, be sick. We can let, May must.
Coast it. Oh God.
Thanks for that. All right, Vincent, as we close
this episode out, is there anything you would like to, you
know, tell anyone about? Is there anything you're working
on or Yeah, any any stuff you want to?
Oh, should I plug? Should I?
Plug the honest Charlie thing. Sure.
So you say, hey, if you. Guys want to see a fun
documentary with a mayoral candidate in San Francisco who
has been banned from almost every bar in a particular
neighbourhood. You should go to my Twitter
page. It's it's on there.
My Twitter handle is FULLIGIN. This is a terrible pluck.
The video will also be. LinkedIn the description of this
video on YouTube. Cool.
You can do that, yeah. It's.
A it's it's a good video, I think.
I mean, I made so yeah, I watched it.
I gave. It a like you don't even live
here. I don't even live in San
Francisco. I can't even vote.