Portal:27: Daniel Schmachtenberger - On Avoiding Apocalypses

In this second episode of the Portal to be released during shelter-in-place restrictions during the Corona Virus Pandemic, we release an older discussion with Daniel Schmachtenberger on whether there is any plausible long term scenario for human flourishing confined to a single shared planet.

Daniel is seen as a leader of the growing Game B subculture of the human potential movement. This group bets that there is a second evolutionary stable strategy for cohabiting not based on conflict or rivalry, even for life raised in Game A (i.e. standard evolutionary and economic environments based on scarcity and rivalrous goods. Eric asks Daniel about where the bright spots and progress might be in this movement which refuses to accept the fate that that Eric has elsewhere put forward as the Twin Nuclei Problem of having unlocked the power of both Cell and Atom in the early 1950s without the wisdom to use it.

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Table of contents
00:00:20 - Covid and DISC 00:14:00 - Daniel Schmachtenberger 00:18:27 - System validity gain vs. loss as a distributed local criteria for response. 00:23:50 - Source code of psychology 00:35:20 - Exponential tech (CRISPR, Mores Law, Genetic engineering ) 00:38:10 - Solving problems with violence 00:41:00 - Inverse correlation between rational and emotional function 00:45:00 - Motivation for misinformation 00:46:50 - Russel conjugation (limbic stimulation) 00:56:15 - Short term behavior 00:58:00 - Solving for multipolar traps 01:15:10 - Magical thinking, the false safety experience and group think 01:17:11 - The importance of life experience 01:19:06 - The EU is a trap 01:21:16 - Sharp minds vs. sharp elbows 01:22:35 - The loss of the generator function and corruption 01:24:12 - The danger of knowledge 01:26:40 - The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) as training wheels for the cultural elite. 01:30:30 - The urge towards penetration 01:34:07 - How sound thinking is derailed: Profits vs. gating 01:37:42 - An economy of shame and terror 01:40:39 - The Looting Party origins of FUD (fear, uncertainty and distortion) 01:46:40 - No living heroes 01:49:33 - A little bit of gas 01:50:10 - Penetration options: Scaling beyond the Dunbar size 01:56:52 - The End of  Capitalism 02:00:22 - Tech as a gamechanger in evolution 02:02:55 - Abstraction as crucial for evolution in hoomans 02:04:00 - Reputation tech for scaling 02:05:30 - Selection pressures as an eualizer between species 02:08:45 - Abstraction and toolmaking breaks the even distribution 02:16:00 - Hoomans maximally k-selected 02:10:00 - Orange man bad 02:13:00 - Solutions: Abstract pattern replicators (software updates) 02:14:48 - Neoteny [retarding maturation] and nurture capacity in hoomans 02:16:00 - Hoomans maximally k-selected 02:17:00 - Buddhism and the lack of violence 02:18:40 - Planned parenthood as an alternatives to violence? 02:21:00 - Population decline and steady state population and green energy 02:22:00 - Embracing population decline and selection for non-agressive traits 02:23:50 - Can women be lured away from the call of motherhood? 02:24:30 - Education of women makes children an opportunity cost 02:25:00 - Renewable hoomans and steady state ressources 02:26:00 - An economy of abundance makes it hard to get paid for your labor 02:27:40 - Alternatives to markets 02:28:00 - Back to Buddhism without getting killed 02:29:30 - Hacking ourselves a transition 02:30:30 - Sex and rivalry and weirdness 02:32:00 - Abstract emphathy + coordination closing the loop 02:33:40 - Private balance sheets 02:34:40 - Ownership, access, mutual exclusion 02:35:20 - Sharing is caring - commons 02:36:30 - Anti-rivalry 02:37:30 - Prostitution, commitment and status 02:40:00 - Relationships as a replacement for status 02:42:00 - Power vs. wisdom 02:43:30 - Religion + education = Cognitive ability and social harmony 02:44:00 - Eric not trying to be negative 02:44:30 - That's just crazy-talk, but....  02:46:10 -  Scaling collective consciousness 02:48:00 - Motivating social engineering 02:50:10 - Bribing away military conflict 02:50:30 - Summarizing for test and avoiding group selection as subject 02:54:30 - Reservations and questions: Violence and ownership 02:55:50 - Abundance and maturity 02:58:00 - Development hacking towards maturity? 02:59:00 - Sex is sexy 03:02:00 - Sexual selection 03:05:00 - Blind evolution: Short term benefits - long term problems 03:06:00 - Status and feeling uncomfy 03:08:00 - Diminishing returns on enhanced status 03:11:00 - Hypernormal stimuli in modern social networks 03:14:20 - Eric on being famous 03:17:40 - Pleasure and the deathbed mindset 03:20:00 - Spiritual growth as an alternative to social life 03:22:50 - Tradeoffs in social connection 03:24:00 - Money vs. ideas 03:25:00 - Empathy as psychological health 03:26:00 - When friends fail 03:28:00 - Escaping the prisoners dilemma

Annotations
The DISC

New York mayor tweet

gated institutional narrative

Embedded Growth Obligation

-

negative externalities

von Neuman-Morgenstern

[sub-utility functions]

principal agent problems

moral hazard

-

Mechanical Ventilation in an Airborne Epidemic

Preparing intensive care for the next pandemic influenza

stockpiling ventilators for influenza, pandemics

estimates of the demand for mechanical ventilation in the United States during an influenza pandemic

Triage is the process of determining the priority of patients' treatments based on the severity of their condition or likelihood of recovery with and without treatment.

Daniel Schmachtenberger website

The Twin Nuclei Problem

Game B

A gene drive is a genetic engineering technology that propagates a particular suite of genes throughout a population by altering the probability that a specific allele will be transmitted to offspring from the natural 50% probability.

Kalynivka ammunition depot explosion

Mujahideen

James Damore

The Personal Responsibility Votex

Tristan Harris, founder of time well spent and the center for humane technology

COINTELPRO

Charles Lindbergh

Dunbar's number/limit

Peter Kropotkin

Lotka–Volterra equations

Sex at Dawn