Leo's Blog Discussion Mega-Thread

[vinc3nc]

If psychedelics had protein

[gengar]

12 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Correct. But lefitsts don't understand that. Leftists believe all people are created equal and there is nothing special about Elon Musk other than that his daddy owned an emerald mine.

If leftists understood how rare an Elon Musk is they wouldn't be so stupid.

Also, my post was not against political activism, it was advice to capable, serious, ambitious individuals who want to change the world with their own two hands.

So how would you articulate what qualities Elon Musk in particular had to be successful in the businesses that he ran, and which few others also have?

What kind of intelligence does he have which made him succeed? Organizational, Innovative? 

What was the bottleneck that made his businesses so hard to have done by others?

I suspect he was very good at handling logistics and organizing teams of people. The actual technology he's not an expert in, he doesn't go into technical details. But he's like an overseer handling the business from above and somehow puzzles it together in a way few others can. Big-picture insight.
 

[gengar]

21 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Yes. Social change requires wealth and resources.

Wealth is power. Power is the ability to effect change within society.

The reason political activism is so ineffective is that it gets counter-pushback and lack of consensus. You have to spend 50 years just to convince people to all row in the same direction. And even then you have half the country rowing against you. It's like a 50 year tug of war where neither side gets much traction, ending in a stalemate.

The beauty of business is that you can create good things without being locked in a 50 year stalemate.

You can spend the next 50 years shouting about climate change or you can build a $100 billion dollar green energy company. Which will help climate more?

Who helped the climate more? Elon Musk or 100,000 screaming college protestors?

You're being childishly individualistic, a characteristic I'm accusing you of that you have yet to formulate a response to.

This is classic economic liberalism a la Adam Smith, and it is not the solution but the reason we're held hostage by big polluters in the first place.

You're taking for granted that we're being held hostage in a capitalist system whose owners have no real desire to fix the issues that are coming because they are only focused on the bottom line. 

The idea that an individual can just build a 100 billion dollar green energy company and not have the cartels come after him is laughable. The people making money now on dirty energy will be the same ones making money on green energy, if they have their will.

And yes, I want the government to step up for me and the people by taking it to the big dirty energy companies. And yes, I will try to get them to do this by voting and protesting. Giving me the individual responsibility to take it out is laughable.

Yes, there will be Elon Musks who will have immense impact. But comparing that with mobilizing 20% of the people is nothing.

You're strawmanning social action and protest by saying "muh 100,000 college protestors." I gave you numerous examples to show that social action has been a major thing, especially in the 20th century. It's just factually incorrect the way you're stating it. The idea that all these big issues "ended in a stalemate"? what are you smoking?

We are moving from orange into green so of course it will be done in a collective way. This myth of having a few knights who battle their way through the business jungle to come out on top with their green businesses and save the world with it is nothing more than that; a myth. Elon Musk is one of the few who made it. comparing him to 100k protestors is a nonsensical comparison.

We're being ruined by big capital and fascists and here you go defending putting the responsibility on individual people. What's next, you're going to blame me for taking a plane and contributing to climate change? No! The collective aka the government has to do these things for me. This whole meme of individual responsibility, including stuff like "carbon footprint" is invented by big capital to obfuscate the fact they are responsible and that collective action is the only thing that can stop them. And you're peddling those ideas now.

Climate change, as well as other problems will be solved collectively as we move from orange into stage green. And of course there will be a handful of exceptional individuals and businesses to guide and facilitate this growth and change. This is the proper way and the way you're peddling goes against this transition into green. I don't care you're already on yellow, this is about societies growth. 

And please stop taking only one sentence out of my response and only responding to that, evading the broader point I made with my entire paragraph. It comes across as extremely belittling. It's no way to have an intellectual discussion. You didn't go into the deep point I made about that social action is not only about physical outcomes but also about raising collective consciousness and collective healing, as in the example of the black radical thought video I gave. I have you backed into a corner on that one and you just don't respond to it, but only vaguely to a strawman of one of my arguments. This is no fun.

[gengar]

23 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

One man can build more than every Marxist in the country combined. Which is why Marxism fails.

Nice self-deception to come with the term leftsplaining, just in time so you can defend obvious, objectively untrue drivel like this with no argument.

So intelligent, yet still poisoned to the core with American individualism. It's off putting to be honest.

A clear contradiction of spiral dynamics as well. You're truly lost in the sauce on this one; infected by your feelings of superiority over whiny college leftists. The future is green and the future is collective. You're just self-biased against that.

 

[Davino]

The blog is on fire lately!🔥

[Husseinisdoingfine]

I do think you're giving a bit too much credit to private business, and not enough credit towards collective action and public works, and here is why I think this...

 

First and foremost, you're giving Elon too much credit. Did you know that California wanted to build high speed rail so people could traverse between long distances without using a car? Musk stepped in and told the city planners to not continue with the project, saying that he would instead built a much better hyperloop system. No hyperloop was created, and Musk would later admit that the hyperloop was about getting legislatures to stop building the high speed rail, and he had no intentions of creating a hyperloop system.

https://www.reddit.com/r/urbanplanning/comments/wlsdlo/musk_admitted_hyperloop_was_about_getting/

And speaking of cars, have you ever wondered why America is so reliant on cars? I mean think of it, America, especially in rural areas, public transportation and walkable cities are not really a thing. America doesn't have high speed rail, nor do we have trolleys anymore. The reason for this is because auto and oil industrialists bribed American city planners intentionally to make city planning spread out and less dense as possible, intentionally so that everyone would have to be reliant on a car. 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/7d530/the_great_american_streetcar_scandal_how_gm/

This is why German rural areas look like this:

So how nice and dense everything is? It looks like an actually community where someone can trek on foot to places where they need to be.

Skip to 22:15

 

Meanwhile in China, they are currently building the world's largest hydroelectric plant in Tibet, which is supposed to account for ten percent of their energy needs. 

[integral]

@Leo Gura Most people are doing jobs they hate, a very small percentage of people <0.01% are doing meaningful fulfilling work, So I don't think unemployment is the problem for an AI take over.

There is still plenty of things to enjoy and have fun in life, competition like chess is still fun even after AI solved it. The dream is fun... for people who don't have health problems.

The real problem I think will be corruption as usual, People like Trump and Putin couldn't care less about a Utopia of abundance, they will corrupt and climb whatever ladder they can.

There will be no Utopia. 

The only reason the government supports the quality of life of the average person is because those people are necessary to help support the power structure, the moment the average person is useless the people in power do not need them anymore.

I think the biggest risk is the massive power imbalance.

The government will not give companies less power.

Edited 23 hours ago by integral

[LoneWonderer]

9 minutes ago, integral said:

@Leo Gura Most people are doing jobs they hate, a very small percentage of people <0.01% are doing meaningful fulfilling work, So I don't think unemployment is the problem for an AI take over.

There is still plenty of things to enjoy and have fun in life, competition like chess is still fun even after AI solved it. The dream is fun... for people who don't have health problems.

The real problem I think will be corruption as usual, People like Trump and Putin couldn't care less about a Utopia of abundance, they will corrupt and climb whatever ladder they can.

There will be no Utopia. 

The only reason the government supports the quality of life of the average person is because those people are necessary to help support the power structure, the moment the average person is useless the people in power do not need them anymore.

I think the biggest risk is the massive power imbalance.

The government will not give companies less power.

Good take

[Eskilon]

10 minutes ago, integral said:

Most people are doing jobs they hate, a very small percentage of people <0.01% are doing meaningful fulfilling work, So I don't think unemployment is the problem for an AI take over.

There is still plenty of things to enjoy and have fun in life, competition like chess is still fun even after AI solved it. The dream is fun... for people who don't have health problems.

Yeah, even if the usual challenge and struggles of the human life is over, there's still the whole universe to explore. Space exploration will never cease. We will go meta on this planet.

Humans will never stop being curious, so there will be no shortage of meaning and purpose as we eventually go meta on the worlds we will explore. 

Edited 23 hours ago by Eskilon

[Leo Gura]

30 minutes ago, integral said:

There is still plenty of things to enjoy and have fun in life, competition like chess is still fun even after AI solved it. The dream is fun... for people who don't have health problems.

My point is much deeper than that.

Unemployed people have no way to pay for food, rent, and things.

A society with 95% unemployment will not be a utopia of abundance. It will be 5% of people with money to buy stuff and 95% of people are broke.

No one is going to just had out trillions of dollars to unemployed people. The UBI thing is a fantasy.

People will just slowly lose their jobs and fall into poverty and meaninglessness while the rich get richer.

Edited 23 hours ago by Leo Gura

[Leo Gura]

22 minutes ago, Eskilon said:

Humans will never stop being curious

There is no point in being curious if AI can tell you the answer to any curiosity.

It's like doing PhD research on a problem that has already been solved.

Edited 23 hours ago by Leo Gura

[shenanigans]

Sure, it's unideal in the short term, but in the long term--like a few hundred years down the road--would it not create a perfect mystic society?

I mean think about it

All of human civilization becomes one giant, superpowered Ashram

We have ultra-psychedelics, uber supplements, gene modding, and every kind of technology working with you to make you and every human a Godly hyperintelligent Mega-Yogi

All Food becomes high-quality with perfectly breed animals for optimal health and taste, which get to live out great lives from ultra-lush farms --  You can even give the animals a beautiful virtual matrix, and the same resources as humans for awesome quality of life

If you're extroverted, everyone has the free time to party and socialize till the sun comes up, and gets to travel to super cities designed to be even more expressive than Vegas, and you then get to go to a group meditation retreat afterwards

All in all, with good consciousness, and natural social development and global understanding, the human world is going to become a pretty awesome place to be

[koops]

14 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

There is no point in being curious if AI can tell you the answer to any curiosity.

It's like doing PhD research on a problem that has already been solved.

Meditation.

Shadow work.

Psychedelics.

Awakening.

Yoga.

Building a great body.

Learning how to fight.

Having deep intimate relationships.

Art.

Learning an instrument.

Travel.

Hobbys.

Raising a family.

...

...

No AI can do this for you. 

Tons of stuff to be curious about.

The problem of course is unemployment.

UBI seems utopia, but who knows in a few decades. Even Musk said that it seems inevitable, and he is no hippy woo woo leftist.

 

[Daniel Balan]

@Leo Gura What can I do today as an individual so I can be prepared when I lose my job because of AI? How can I prepare starting from today to face the 95% unemployment rate? Btw I lost my job 2 weeks ago! The boss fired 3 employees from our team of 8! It is hard AF to find a job now!

Edited 22 hours ago by Daniel Balan

[Leo Gura]

3 hours ago, koops said:

Meditation.

Shadow work.

Psychedelics.

Awakening.

Yoga.

Building a great body.

Learning how to fight.

Having deep intimate relationships.

Art.

Learning an instrument.

Travel.

Hobbys.

Raising a family.

Good luck doing all that when you are unemployed, broke, and useless. And so are 95% of people.

[Leo Gura]

2 hours ago, Daniel Balan said:

What can I do today as an individual so I can be prepared when I lose my job because of AI? How can I prepare starting from today to face the 95% unemployment rate?

This is a deep systemic problem to which mankind does not yet have a solution.

Quote

Btw I lost my job 2 weeks ago! The boss fired 3 employees from our team of 8! It is hard AF to find a job now!

Sorry to hear that.

Edited 19 hours ago by Leo Gura

[Joshe]

@Leo Gura

In your blog about AI and 95% unemployment, how do you see that playing out? 

If 95% of people are unemployed, then 95% of people have no purchasing power, so who’s buying all the stuff the machines are making? Capitalism only functions if people consume. Wouldn't society collapse before we got to even 50% unemployment? 

Robotic or AI production would be meaningless without a population to consume it. 

I guess there'd have to be some sort of UBI or something. All the more reason to get good politicians in now because we're going to need them before tech advances too far in the next few years. 

 

 

[Leo Gura]

32 minutes ago, Joshe said:

If 95% of people are unemployed, then 95% of people have no purchasing power, so who’s buying all the stuff the machines are making?

Dude, if we ever reach 95% unemployment, that's WW3.

95% unemployment is the end times. That is a doomsday scenario.

It was a post about AI doomerism. Not some hippie UBI pipedream. AI doom means we all dead.

I am not saying it's going to happen, I am imagining worst case scenarios if super AGI.

You should think through what super AGI means for employment.

Edited 18 hours ago by Leo Gura

[JTL]

@Leo Gura dont know if this has been posted, I found it interesting and bit scary : https://qz.com/ai-anthropic-unemployment-jobs-white-collar-claude-1851782923 

Edited 18 hours ago by JTL

[PenguinPablo]

@Leo Gura The other problem is the people smart enough to see how this technology will impact society are the builders of AI. 

The general populations, politicians and so forth go on about there day as if it's business as usual.

How should one prepare?

On the one hand I feel pressured to live my life like normal.

But I'm afraid the outcome of that could be catastrophic.

More serious planning may be required.

 

Edited 18 hours ago by PenguinPablo