https://anchor.fm/s/4fa795b4/podcast/rss?nocache
Cas Piancey and Bennett Tomlin are joined by Vincent Woo to discuss effective altruism and effective accelerationism.
This podcast was recorded on May 1st, 2024.
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English Transcript:
00:00:05:17 - 00:00:12:03
Cas Piancey
welcome back everyone. I am Cas Piancey. I'm joined, as usual, by my partner in crime, Mr. Bennet Tomlin. How are you today?
00:00:12:03 - 00:00:13:15
Bennett Tomlin
I'm doing pretty well. How are you, Cas?
00:00:13:15 - 00:00:21:15
Cas Piancey
I'm good. We're joined by a special guest, investigative journalist Vincent Woo, based out of the Bay area. How are you,
00:00:21:15 - 00:00:26:08
Vincent Woo
I'm great. Nice to finally be on the pod. I've tried for so long.
00:00:26:08 - 00:00:29:17
Cas Piancey
I think it's really fun to have you, because we're talking about
00:00:29:17 - 00:00:30:17
Cas Piancey
a topic that
00:00:30:17 - 00:00:33:23
Cas Piancey
I am particularly always angry about.
00:00:33:23 - 00:00:37:17
Cas Piancey
And you're here to at least a little bit defend, and I appreciate that.
00:00:37:17 - 00:00:51:15
Cas Piancey
I don't usually even plug any of our guests 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.
00:00:51:15 - 00:00:53:16
Cas Piancey
Honest Charlie, who is just,
00:00:53:16 - 00:01:02:12
Cas Piancey
I guess, honest. I don't know what to call him. He's some. He's something, he's the president of the San Francisco politics.
00:01:02:12 - 00:01:04:00
Bennett Tomlin
Assuming he gets on the ballot.
00:01:04:05 - 00:01:09:20
Cas Piancey
Yeah, we're here to talk about, a topic closer to my heart, which is
00:01:09:20 - 00:01:20:20
Cas Piancey
effective altruism, which is quite unpopular. I'll say nowadays, in general and effective acceleration ism, which is far more popular,
00:01:20:20 - 00:01:21:23
Cas Piancey
and which I also
00:01:21:23 - 00:01:23:08
Cas Piancey
I'm not a huge fan of.
00:01:23:08 - 00:01:31:19
Cas Piancey
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
00:01:31:19 - 00:01:32:21
Cas Piancey
e or,
00:01:32:21 - 00:01:35:23
Cas Piancey
e acceleration ism.
00:01:35:23 - 00:01:49:06
Vincent Woo
feelings about e/accc are probably totally justified. I sometimes describe myself as, like, the last centrist defender. yeah, there's actually probably a ton of them. I don't know, but, like, I like to say it because people.
00:01:49:06 - 00:01:56:11
Vincent Woo
I think what's striking to me is how deeply people, have become negatively polarized against e
00:01:56:11 - 00:02:04:17
Vincent Woo
Coming from my world, like, so one thing that I do is I attempt to convince people to donate money to like a 501 C3,
00:02:04:17 - 00:02:05:00
Vincent Woo
right?
00:02:05:00 - 00:02:31:17
Vincent Woo
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 and 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
00:02:31:17 - 00:02:32:07
Vincent Woo
to donate.
00:02:32:08 - 00:02:40:07
Vincent Woo
And this is across the entire domain of philanthropy, right? Like this isn't just just me. Like they're entire fleets of people
00:02:40:07 - 00:02:46:14
Vincent Woo
whose job it is to, like, try to keep the spirit of the fight alive in the mind of a donor will send you
00:02:46:14 - 00:02:50:19
Vincent Woo
100 emails. We'll call you over and over again. We'll get your friends to call you.
00:02:50:19 - 00:03:07:21
Vincent Woo
Like we'll do whatever it takes. And it's like pulling teeth. You know what I mean? And I understand right? Like, 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,
00:03:07:21 - 00:03:14:19
Vincent Woo
but I do have some admiration for any social movement where the participants of that movement
00:03:14:19 - 00:03:16:12
Vincent Woo
self-select to
00:03:16:12 - 00:03:20:01
Vincent Woo
donating money to what they see as a worthy cause.
00:03:20:01 - 00:03:23:15
Vincent Woo
Like in the case of yeah, I mean, it's typically like what malaria nets.
00:03:25:16 - 00:03:40:05
Cas Piancey
Sometimes it's malaria, and that's. 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.
00:03:40:05 - 00:03:41:08
Cas Piancey
and I also think
00:03:41:08 - 00:03:42:01
Cas Piancey
that
00:03:42:01 - 00:03:45:07
Cas Piancey
we've discussed here a couple of times, a big part of my issue with it
00:03:45:07 - 00:03:46:00
Cas Piancey
is that it
00:03:46:00 - 00:03:48:17
Cas Piancey
pushes back the idea that you're going to be giving,
00:03:48:17 - 00:03:54:20
Cas Piancey
that you don't give today, you give tomorrow or the next day after your earning power has
00:03:54:20 - 00:03:55:18
Cas Piancey
increased.
00:03:55:18 - 00:03:58:14
Cas Piancey
A like you've accumulated wealth, right.
00:03:58:15 - 00:04:07:15
Vincent Woo
I understand I think it builds more urgency for giving than the alternative. The default. The default is to understand, like, 90 plus percent of people are giving nothing.
00:04:07:15 - 00:04:15:01
Vincent Woo
You know, like the idea, even the baby step of that you have some social obligation to give
00:04:15:01 - 00:04:18:08
Vincent Woo
to me is a step in the right direction. Like, to me, it's like
00:04:18:08 - 00:04:23:19
Vincent Woo
we have the whole team of philanthropy, of which is just a tiny part, right?
00:04:23:19 - 00:04:26:22
Vincent Woo
And really, the enemy is apathy
00:04:26:22 - 00:04:40:19
Vincent Woo
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 them unless they do something like absolutely horrible, you know?
00:04:40:19 - 00:04:44:04
Bennett Tomlin
I'm certainly sympathetic to the idea that, like,
00:04:44:04 - 00:04:52:04
Bennett Tomlin
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.
00:04:52:04 - 00:04:52:16
Bennett Tomlin
And
00:04:52:16 - 00:04:59:09
Bennett Tomlin
yeah, just flat out, I think that's a reasonable frame for people to take. I think both Cas and I end up having some
00:04:59:09 - 00:05:04:13
Bennett Tomlin
frustrations. Cas already mentioned, like the tendency for certain
00:05:04:13 - 00:05:08:23
Bennett Tomlin
members of their groups to choose not to get right.
00:05:09:02 - 00:05:13:14
Bennett Tomlin
or to choose to defer giving until some future point when they've hit some
00:05:13:14 - 00:05:36:04
Bennett Tomlin
arbitrarily large number, or those who tend to focus on, like various existential risks to avoid having to deal with certain risks to humanity. And you even see this sometimes, and this is getting really meta and way too deep into the rationalists wheat. But you'll see, like in their conversations about how they want to present themselves in, in public.
00:05:36:09 - 00:06:12:10
Bennett Tomlin
You'll see like, yields come out and say, like, we can't talk about animal welfare. We can't talk about, AGI. We need to focus on. And the specific example 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, we'll be able to accumulate the influence and stuff that is important for the broader movement to deal with their, like, set of existential risks.
00:06:12:10 - 00:06:15:09
Vincent Woo
though, right? Like the idea that you would present the
00:06:15:09 - 00:06:19:14
Vincent Woo
intro level version of your social movement to the public. First.
00:06:19:14 - 00:06:28:13
Vincent Woo
I don't know, I actually have no beef with that whatsoever. We do the same thing, you know? I mean, like in housing policy, we have a lot of like really complicated in the weeds proposal.
00:06:28:13 - 00:06:43:05
Vincent Woo
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 get that.
00:06:43:05 - 00:06:57:16
Cas Piancey
it would freak out older voters, but, but, but I will say that. And and I understand that they're the people voting. Yeah. Voters. Voters I understand. I understand, but but I am saying that as time passes, I do think that,
00:06:57:16 - 00:07:01:19
Cas Piancey
you know, I listen, I'm in my 30s. I will say I even
00:07:01:19 - 00:07:05:06
Cas Piancey
like I am against prop 13,
00:07:05:06 - 00:07:07:20
Cas Piancey
I think there's a lot of people my age and older
00:07:07:20 - 00:07:09:01
Cas Piancey
who are
00:07:09:01 - 00:07:09:22
Cas Piancey
against
00:07:09:22 - 00:07:11:05
Cas Piancey
prop 13 already,
00:07:11:05 - 00:07:15:22
Cas Piancey
so I don't think I don't think it actually is as controversial as you think to be like,
00:07:15:22 - 00:07:16:17
Cas Piancey
I'm gonna
00:07:16:17 - 00:07:24:01
Cas Piancey
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.
00:07:24:01 - 00:07:25:18
Cas Piancey
And this is the idea where I go,
00:07:25:18 - 00:07:27:18
Cas Piancey
I don't like the idea that you're,
00:07:27:18 - 00:07:29:02
Cas Piancey
you're presenting
00:07:29:02 - 00:07:43:07
Cas Piancey
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.
00:07:43:07 - 00:07:45:04
Cas Piancey
And that's super important, right now.
00:07:45:12 - 00:07:52:09
Bennett Tomlin
Cas, I do think you should remember that perhaps your friends are not among the moneyed and powerful interests.
00:07:52:09 - 00:07:58:11
Bennett Tomlin
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.
00:07:58:11 - 00:08:03:07
Vincent Woo
That in. You know, even if we frame this in the worst light, I still like, personally.
00:08:03:07 - 00:08:12:05
Vincent Woo
Like, from a consequentialist perspective. Right? Like, if we can trick people into giving more money to do good, like.
00:08:12:05 - 00:08:22:02
Vincent Woo
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 it.
00:08:22:02 - 00:08:23:03
Vincent Woo
Like, you know,
00:08:23:03 - 00:08:30:17
Vincent Woo
you could call them e leadership. I don't I don't I definitely don't condone the behavior of the guys who want to buy the castle
00:08:30:17 - 00:08:43:17
Vincent Woo
or whatever. I guess, like the thing I'm defending, I guess, is the social principles, sort of at the heart of it, like in its original conception by like a few like Oxford professors who are like, hey,
00:08:43:17 - 00:08:45:06
Vincent Woo
let's just think about,
00:08:45:06 - 00:08:50:16
Vincent Woo
how we can spend our money towards philanthropy the best and also sort of make a framework around like, why?
00:08:50:16 - 00:08:56:04
Vincent Woo
That's something you ought to do. That's the thing I like about you. That's the thing I admire and respect.
00:08:56:04 - 00:08:57:09
Vincent Woo
I agree that,
00:08:57:09 - 00:09:15:15
Vincent Woo
you know, like, I'm not a big fan of yudkowsky 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, I can't fault someone for that.
00:09:15:17 - 00:09:16:07
Vincent Woo
You know?
00:09:16:07 - 00:09:18:02
Bennett Tomlin
guess you and I both kind of,
00:09:18:02 - 00:09:21:09
Bennett Tomlin
had this tension last time where I kept returning
00:09:21:09 - 00:09:23:06
Bennett Tomlin
singer and Ward and, like, the
00:09:23:06 - 00:09:41:01
Bennett Tomlin
philosophical roots of effective altruism in, 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.
00:09:41:03 - 00:09:41:13
Bennett Tomlin
And
00:09:41:13 - 00:09:46:11
Bennett Tomlin
it would seem like that if there exists this, philosophy that makes it possible
00:09:46:11 - 00:09:48:13
Bennett Tomlin
to do that, that it is
00:09:48:13 - 00:09:57:01
Bennett Tomlin
that the philosophy itself is not, like inherently going to lead to ill, which means there's some other factor,
00:09:57:01 - 00:10:03:22
Bennett Tomlin
perhaps related to the types of people that are attracted to this, that leads to many of them doing this type of ill.
00:10:04:02 - 00:10:09:08
Bennett Tomlin
Like effective altruism itself is kind of milquetoast, right?
00:10:09:08 - 00:10:21:12
Bennett Tomlin
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 ten minutes late for work, maybe you should try to save the person drowning in the pond,
00:10:21:12 - 00:10:29:16
Bennett Tomlin
think most of that is actually largely unobjectionable, even to people who are, like, somewhat poisoned against you at this point. And like
00:10:29:16 - 00:10:34:14
Bennett Tomlin
the bigger problem seems to be the fact that many of them noticed that
00:10:34:14 - 00:10:37:19
Bennett Tomlin
while they were thinking about it, they realized that money is the big lever
00:10:37:19 - 00:10:44:07
Bennett Tomlin
and just kept focusing on the money part to make their lever bigger and bigger and bigger in the hopes of eventually doing some change.
00:10:44:13 - 00:10:52:00
Bennett Tomlin
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.
00:10:52:00 - 00:11:03:17
Vincent Woo
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? Is that, like, really bother me or people in general so much
00:11:03:17 - 00:11:09:05
Vincent Woo
I'm not. Yeah, I feel like I should say, but like, I think what's interesting about them is that,
00:11:09:05 - 00:11:13:10
Vincent Woo
like, you put it in many ways, it's a completely milquetoast philosophy.
00:11:13:12 - 00:11:28:20
Vincent Woo
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
00:11:28:20 - 00:11:32:08
Vincent Woo
a fundamentally consequentialist framework of thinking.
00:11:32:08 - 00:11:36:10
Vincent Woo
Right? Like if you need money to do good, more money to do more good is better
00:11:36:10 - 00:11:37:12
Vincent Woo
in certain.
00:11:37:12 - 00:11:56:08
Vincent Woo
You know, like if you accept the framing like of consequential theism 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 is that consequentialist, you know? And I think that's really at the root of
00:11:56:08 - 00:11:57:19
Vincent Woo
what this is.
00:11:57:19 - 00:11:59:02
Vincent Woo
People off about it.
00:11:59:02 - 00:12:08:00
Cas Piancey
obviously, I think the people associated with it and what they've done under the guise of E has been to to blame for a lot of the bad traction here.
00:12:08:00 - 00:12:20:22
Cas Piancey
what we're discussing here is not the fact that, like, e has been tarnished by Sam Bankman-Fried, the idea is that Sam Bankman-Fried was attracted to EA and became an outspoken
00:12:20:22 - 00:12:23:10
Cas Piancey
person for it for a reason.
00:12:23:10 - 00:12:25:15
Cas Piancey
Like there's a reason that this happened
00:12:25:15 - 00:12:37:22
Cas Piancey
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
00:12:37:22 - 00:12:38:12
Cas Piancey
that
00:12:38:12 - 00:12:41:19
Cas Piancey
if you can justify greed is good and you can
00:12:41:19 - 00:12:42:19
Cas Piancey
play it out
00:12:42:19 - 00:12:45:02
Cas Piancey
32 steps in advance
00:12:45:02 - 00:12:50:01
Cas Piancey
and you know, oh, well, then I'm going to have $30 billion to spend on whatever I want.
00:12:50:07 - 00:12:55:19
Cas Piancey
Then you've just now you've justified this, as opposed to when I think of what's best for giving
00:12:55:19 - 00:12:57:09
Cas Piancey
my framework is not
00:12:57:09 - 00:12:59:06
Cas Piancey
how much can I give, it's
00:12:59:06 - 00:13:01:18
Cas Piancey
where can I give locally that will do the most.
00:13:01:18 - 00:13:12:21
Vincent Woo
I would say that makes you pretty normal. Actually, I think most people think that way. And I think that that is a perfectly valid moral framework that feels intuitive to most people.
00:13:12:21 - 00:13:36:18
Vincent Woo
Here's my defensive here 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 who would otherwise never give, have managed to trick themselves into a like a Greta's good, justified world where they actually do end up giving
00:13:36:18 - 00:13:37:12
Cas Piancey
But do they.
00:13:37:12 - 00:13:38:06
Cas Piancey
But do they?
00:13:38:06 - 00:13:47:20
Vincent Woo
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, yes, I think Net have probably saved
00:13:47:20 - 00:13:49:05
Vincent Woo
quite a lot of lives,
00:13:49:05 - 00:13:51:02
Vincent Woo
and I don't think that's something that can be
00:13:51:02 - 00:13:55:19
Vincent Woo
like dismissed so easily. You know what I mean? Like I think you're criticisms are valid.
00:13:55:21 - 00:14:05:04
Vincent Woo
I agree that, the framework of consequentialism leaves open the door to especially canny bad actors
00:14:05:04 - 00:14:09:13
Vincent Woo
who can sort of use the very sort of logical framework of consequentialism
00:14:09:13 - 00:14:12:09
Vincent Woo
to create an opportunity for, for abuse.
00:14:12:09 - 00:14:21:09
Vincent Woo
And I think that is a weakness of this system, that the community that is the very nascent group we call E will have to learn to reckon with.
00:14:21:10 - 00:14:24:11
Vincent Woo
But I don't think that's actually so different
00:14:24:11 - 00:14:29:09
Vincent Woo
than any other nascent social movement. Like we all have problems.
00:14:29:09 - 00:14:35:02
Vincent Woo
A friend of mine recently said to me, like, there are so many shitty guys and there are so few positions of power.
00:14:35:02 - 00:14:44:06
Vincent Woo
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
00:14:44:06 - 00:14:48:01
Vincent Woo
and using it to justify their own bad behavior,
00:14:48:01 - 00:14:55:11
Vincent Woo
I think is exceptional in that the demographic of people who are into E are like exceptionally like sort of online,
00:14:55:11 - 00:14:57:12
Vincent Woo
somewhat money that tech people.
00:14:57:12 - 00:15:14:03
Vincent Woo
I think that more than any of the other of the rest of it made it this really fertile ground for SBF to appear sooner or later, you know. But I think it's a demographic thing more than it really is. Like a because of the philosophy underpinnings of the framework thing.
00:15:14:03 - 00:15:19:02
Bennett Tomlin
was an interesting thing I thought of when you were mentioning that, though. About how it's, like, convince tech people to give.
00:15:19:02 - 00:15:33:12
Bennett Tomlin
Because if you take, Sam Bankman-Fried 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-Fried claimed that he considered whether he should be a journalist or something like that to have his impact in the world.
00:15:33:16 - 00:15:38:21
Bennett Tomlin
And it was only when he read earned to give. But he also claimed he never read a book. So
00:15:38:21 - 00:15:50:00
Bennett Tomlin
figure that out when you weren't, when you read earned a gift that he realized that he should go and get a job at Jane Street, because then he'd be able to do so much good than if he was a journalist or something like that.
00:15:50:04 - 00:15:51:05
Bennett Tomlin
and so,
00:15:51:05 - 00:15:54:22
Bennett Tomlin
in Sam Bankman-Fried version of events, which probably isn't true. Again,
00:15:54:22 - 00:16:01:05
Bennett Tomlin
he wasn't he wasn't a tech person convinced to give. He was a person convinced to follow that path
00:16:01:05 - 00:16:14:05
Bennett Tomlin
so that he could later give. But he became that type of tech person so he could give. He wasn't a tech person who was convinced to get.
00:16:14:06 - 00:16:23:00
Bennett Tomlin
You can't see Sam Bankman-Fried as an investigative journalist.
00:16:23:00 - 00:16:33:14
Vincent Woo
I was just looking from my own personal experience meeting EA's. They're all already tech people. You know, I haven't met a single EA who is like, well, I better get into programing,
00:16:33:14 - 00:16:33:20
Vincent Woo
though.
00:16:33:20 - 00:16:41:04
Vincent Woo
That is a thing that they say you might ought to do. I've seen a guide from EA's to think about, look, if you're not very wealthy right now,
00:16:41:04 - 00:16:43:19
Vincent Woo
it might not be a good idea for you to give very much.
00:16:43:19 - 00:16:49:00
Vincent Woo
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.
00:16:49:02 - 00:16:55:02
Vincent Woo
I don't I haven't met anyone who's followed it, you know, just like personally. But, you know, there probably are a few out there.
00:16:55:02 - 00:16:57:10
Vincent Woo
You know, I don't think it's the worst thing necessarily.
00:16:57:10 - 00:17:00:17
Vincent Woo
I don't think most people are gonna be able to bootstrap themselves to like,
00:17:00:17 - 00:17:06:00
Vincent Woo
SBF level fraud. You know, I think for most people, earning to give actually looks way more reasonable.
00:17:06:00 - 00:17:06:09
Vincent Woo
Like
00:17:06:09 - 00:17:21:23
Vincent Woo
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 gonna be really hard for most people to find a professional pursuit that can keep them alive. That also is like, sort of
00:17:21:23 - 00:17:25:00
Vincent Woo
unambiguously altruistic, you know?
00:17:25:00 - 00:17:28:07
Bennett Tomlin
Now, anyone can learn to code, though. If they go to Lamda school. I hear.
00:17:28:07 - 00:17:34:12
Vincent Woo
that's true. Anyone? Everyone, actually, it's going to be a $100 billion company.
00:17:34:12 - 00:17:38:13
Vincent Woo
That's why all three of us have invested in Lambda School.
00:17:39:23 - 00:17:48:08
Cas Piancey
All. Yeah. All of my cast coin is now in Lamda school. so,
00:17:59:05 - 00:18:14:18
Bennett Tomlin
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
00:18:14:18 - 00:18:19:03
Bennett Tomlin
economics of it were intriguing in terms of incentives.
00:18:19:05 - 00:18:26:15
Bennett Tomlin
This is before I learned about, you know, how some of the AI essays were being repackaged and sold off in
00:18:26:15 - 00:18:44:12
Bennett Tomlin
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.
00:18:44:12 - 00:18:53:07
Cas Piancey
There's ways. It didn't have to be predatory. Think.
00:18:53:07 - 00:18:59:16
Bennett Tomlin
And also, so just before you said to make this not an injured people should go read for instance reporting about Lamda school. Now bloom Tech.
00:18:59:16 - 00:19:16:15
Cas Piancey
And listen to his. Listen to his, Jason Calacanis. This Week in Startups interview. Because it's beautiful. It was good.
00:19:16:15 - 00:19:30:09
Vincent Woo
I think, you know, Lambda School with regard to, like the wider educational space is a can in some ways I think to like the leadership within the broader movement of like, you know, let let's think about our philanthropy before we just give
00:19:30:09 - 00:19:34:08
Vincent Woo
like insomuch as like Lambda School is just another boot camp.
00:19:34:10 - 00:19:43:17
Vincent Woo
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,
00:19:43:17 - 00:19:56:19
Vincent Woo
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.
00:19:56:21 - 00:20:00:03
Vincent Woo
And that's what happened with SBF, right?
00:20:00:03 - 00:20:07:20
Vincent Woo
That's not to say that like post-secondary education is necessarily worthless or that like the framework that
00:20:07:20 - 00:20:12:15
Vincent Woo
maybe like you're better off learning outside of the universities system
00:20:12:15 - 00:20:20:15
Vincent Woo
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?
00:20:20:15 - 00:20:21:01
Vincent Woo
But
00:20:21:01 - 00:20:33:04
Vincent Woo
the danger, I think, is like, you know, 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.
00:20:33:04 - 00:20:36:06
Vincent Woo
And I think this is shame, actually. Like I'm actually
00:20:36:06 - 00:20:38:02
Vincent Woo
Pro Boot camp. I think they're great.
00:20:38:02 - 00:20:38:13
Vincent Woo
But
00:20:38:13 - 00:20:43:13
Vincent Woo
as a result of my own reporting, the industry has suffered a PR problem to some extent.
00:20:43:13 - 00:20:53:23
Vincent Woo
Likewise, I think that's what happened with SBF and EA, right? Like I think in 5 to 10 years we might have a version of EA where maybe they picked a different name, maybe it's different people,
00:20:53:23 - 00:20:59:14
Vincent Woo
but largely the framework of like, hey, you should, you know, and again, like this is something that Christianity does too, right?
00:20:59:14 - 00:21:04:13
Vincent Woo
Like you should devote like a certain percentage of your earnings to some causes,
00:21:04:13 - 00:21:10:05
Vincent Woo
ranked roughly by, you know, what we call like effectiveness. But really you can do whatever you want.
00:21:10:05 - 00:21:24:13
Vincent Woo
think that that will come back. Like I think that will survive SBF 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.
00:21:24:13 - 00:21:26:22
Vincent Woo
And I'm okay with that too, you know, like, what are you going to do?
00:21:26:22 - 00:21:27:15
Cas Piancey
The most.
00:21:27:15 - 00:21:32:03
Cas Piancey
I think for giving way that I perceive here. do you remember the Giving Pledge?
00:21:32:03 - 00:21:32:10
Vincent Woo
Yeah.
00:21:32:10 - 00:21:36:14
Cas Piancey
the Giving Pledge is this idea, right? That. Oh, I'm going to give away everything before I die.
00:21:36:14 - 00:21:42:15
Cas Piancey
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.
00:21:42:15 - 00:21:46:08
Cas Piancey
I think the problem with these pledges and these things that rich
00:21:46:08 - 00:21:47:08
Cas Piancey
people say
00:21:47:08 - 00:21:50:12
Cas Piancey
is that they don't have to act on them when they're alive,
00:21:50:12 - 00:22:01:14
Cas Piancey
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
00:22:01:14 - 00:22:03:16
Cas Piancey
billionaires on the top
00:22:03:16 - 00:22:06:09
Cas Piancey
are people that we think about and aren't.
00:22:06:09 - 00:22:17:20
Cas Piancey
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.
00:22:17:20 - 00:22:20:07
Vincent Woo
so I'd say like one.
00:22:20:07 - 00:22:34:12
Vincent Woo
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.
00:22:34:12 - 00:22:37:05
Vincent Woo
And look, I think it's baby steps, right? Like E.A.
00:22:37:05 - 00:22:39:05
Vincent Woo
is less that.
00:22:39:05 - 00:22:45:08
Vincent Woo
It's like a little more. Let's give some now. Right. Like we're pushing it closer and closer to the present.
00:22:45:08 - 00:22:56:03
Vincent Woo
I don't think you're ever going to be able to convince billionaires outside of straight up taxation to give them a majority of their profits to social causes,
00:22:56:03 - 00:23:02:13
Vincent Woo
and I don't hold out hope for that as a like salvation for our society.
00:23:02:13 - 00:23:09:13
Vincent Woo
But in the meantime, if some of the ones that are on the fence can be pure pressured into giving a bit,
00:23:09:13 - 00:23:17:03
Vincent Woo
I'm going to shut up and take my checks wherever I can get up, you know what I mean? Like like from my perspective, like we're in a war.
00:23:17:03 - 00:23:19:12
Vincent Woo
every check I get now that lets me save a life.
00:23:19:18 - 00:23:21:20
Vincent Woo
Like, let me. I don't care,
00:23:21:20 - 00:23:22:20
Vincent Woo
right? Like
00:23:22:20 - 00:23:25:01
Vincent Woo
I'm waiting for the government to step in
00:23:25:01 - 00:23:30:11
Vincent Woo
and dramatically increase cap gains and inheritance tax. And I'm going to advocate for that.
00:23:30:11 - 00:23:44:02
Vincent Woo
But if I can convince any patron to give me any like because a lot of them 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 beautiful life and that other people can't.
00:23:44:02 - 00:23:57:02
Vincent Woo
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 guess I don't care
00:23:57:02 - 00:24:04:10
Vincent Woo
whether they're good or bad people ultimately, like the, the morality of like their internal
00:24:04:10 - 00:24:09:16
Vincent Woo
just like whatever they're feeling like whether they should be truly motivated to give or not.
00:24:09:22 - 00:24:16:00
Vincent Woo
Like, I guess what I'm saying is I'm a consequentialist too. Maybe that's why I sort of like I. Right? Like
00:24:16:00 - 00:24:26:17
Vincent Woo
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 it reasonably. And if this moral framework is convincing,
00:24:26:17 - 00:24:32:15
Vincent Woo
you know, like people with unearned wealth to give it to me, like, yeah, I'm going to shut up.
00:24:32:15 - 00:24:35:20
Vincent Woo
I know where my bread is buttered, you know, like that's how I feel.
00:24:35:20 - 00:24:40:09
Bennett Tomlin
One thing you mentioned just a couple minutes ago was the idea of
00:24:40:09 - 00:24:43:11
Bennett Tomlin
people from the community eventually
00:24:43:11 - 00:24:48:11
Bennett Tomlin
rebranding, coming up with some other name for much of the same beliefs in coming back in public.
00:24:48:11 - 00:24:53:16
Bennett Tomlin
And what's been interesting for me over the last year has been watching the emergence from
00:24:53:16 - 00:25:05:17
Bennett Tomlin
a very similar space as E, sharing many of the same kind of rationalist roots, watching the effective acceleration ISM movement start to grow out of San Francisco
00:25:05:17 - 00:25:13:05
Cas Piancey
If you're a consequentialist like, I think it's worth thinking about. Yeah, giving birth to this monster.
00:25:13:05 - 00:25:20:02
Bennett Tomlin
each movement disavows the other to a large extent. Right. most effective altruists don't think that,
00:25:20:02 - 00:25:39:00
Bennett Tomlin
effective acceleration is, handling these existential risks well and effective acceleration is think people are thinking about the risks of wrong, but they both come out of and share a like common canon around like the same set of existential risks.
00:25:39:02 - 00:25:41:00
Bennett Tomlin
And what's been interesting to me is
00:25:41:00 - 00:25:49:00
Bennett Tomlin
We talked about the milquetoast version of VA, the very unobjectionable version, which is there are people who are suffering and dying, and you should help them.
00:25:49:00 - 00:25:56:14
Bennett Tomlin
The more objectionable version of VA, which mostly exists online and in like a few small places in San Francisco, we should be clear,
00:25:56:14 - 00:26:02:23
Cas Piancey
Which is where most of VA is. Though to be clear, that's where most of you exist. So I just want to make that clear.
00:26:02:23 - 00:26:23:03
Bennett Tomlin
I want to be clear that there are many effective altruists who disavowed 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 altruists who, like, assembled and created this canon of beliefs around like the existential risk of artificial general intelligence.
00:26:23:05 - 00:26:26:12
Bennett Tomlin
And when a set of consequentialist with a slightly
00:26:26:12 - 00:26:39:07
Bennett Tomlin
different view and with the like end consequence of artificial general intelligence would be two groups of consequentialist sharing, a significantly overlapping canon came up with like
00:26:39:07 - 00:26:46:04
Bennett Tomlin
significantly, almost diametrically opposed views about how to handle a single risk. And
00:26:46:04 - 00:26:48:09
Bennett Tomlin
that's that stuck in my head
00:26:48:09 - 00:26:50:07
Vincent Woo
yeah. Well, I think that's a great point, Bennett.
00:26:50:07 - 00:26:53:18
Vincent Woo
here's my view of e/acc as it exists in San Francisco.
00:26:53:18 - 00:27:05:17
Vincent Woo
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
00:27:05:17 - 00:27:10:11
Vincent Woo
and for like a few weeks, she had e/acc in her profile name.
00:27:10:13 - 00:27:15:08
Vincent Woo
And I was very confused by this. So when I saw her, I asked her, why did you do that?
00:27:15:08 - 00:27:17:10
Vincent Woo
And she's like, oh, those guys are funny.
00:27:17:10 - 00:27:18:10
Vincent Woo
And I was like,
00:27:18:10 - 00:27:25:17
Vincent Woo
do you like, know what the beliefs like, what does what does it mean to be a e/acc? And she was like, I don't know, like I stuff
00:27:25:17 - 00:27:36:08
Vincent Woo
there is no like central organizing of like there's no, there's no 501(c)3. They're not like recruiting. They have no goals and no ability to achieve those goals.
00:27:36:08 - 00:27:39:19
Vincent Woo
I don't like who is it like based Beff Jezos or something.
00:27:39:19 - 00:27:43:08
Vincent Woo
And then there's that other guy. I can't even remember the other one.
00:27:43:08 - 00:27:44:08
Cas Piancey
Martin. Shkreli.
00:27:44:08 - 00:27:46:00
Vincent Woo
they're just yapping.
00:27:46:02 - 00:27:58:01
Vincent Woo
They're just gaffers. 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 grifts. But I think it's like actually pretty obvious
00:27:58:01 - 00:28:07:06
Vincent Woo
to, like most people who, like, seriously follow the development of AI, that these guys that are just they're just having fun posting.
00:28:07:08 - 00:28:07:23
Vincent Woo
It might
00:28:07:23 - 00:28:11:02
Bennett Tomlin
So.
00:28:11:04 - 00:28:12:16
Bennett Tomlin
Mark Andreasen, though.
00:28:12:16 - 00:28:17:08
Bennett Tomlin
Are you suggesting Mark Andreasen, like, isn't following the development of AI or.
00:28:17:08 - 00:28:24:15
Vincent Woo
Yeah, but you know what? You know why he did it, right? Like he was just trying to be on the in-joke,
00:28:24:15 - 00:28:28:06
Vincent Woo
I don't think he thought that e/acc is, like, in any way
00:28:28:06 - 00:28:36:08
Vincent Woo
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
00:28:36:08 - 00:28:40:15
Vincent Woo
who actually work on AI, that they're like, oh, I don't know who those guys are.
00:28:40:17 - 00:28:46:15
Vincent Woo
You know, like, it seems like all the people who are actually trying to develop AI and countermeasures for AI
00:28:46:15 - 00:28:51:11
Vincent Woo
don't really know these people, like most of them, seem to be
00:28:51:11 - 00:29:03:01
Vincent Woo
just like Twitter accounts, like almost disembodied Twitter accounts. Whereas with like, yeah, whatever. Like you can point to like, these are the guys that go to events and they talk their book like, you could say
00:29:03:01 - 00:29:04:22
Vincent Woo
who you are to email to discuss.
00:29:04:22 - 00:29:05:16
Vincent Woo
Yeah.
00:29:05:16 - 00:29:06:11
Vincent Woo
Whereas like
00:29:06:11 - 00:29:12:00
Vincent Woo
if you wanted to talk about e/acc like, who do you even talk to? I mean, I guess it's that Beff guy.
00:29:12:00 - 00:29:13:19
Bennett Tomlin
Someone get Beff on the phone.
00:29:13:19 - 00:29:18:01
Vincent Woo
yeah, it just seems way less serious. I think it's stupid. Don't get me wrong.
00:29:18:01 - 00:29:20:06
Bennett Tomlin
We should probably define it for the audience.
00:29:20:06 - 00:29:21:00
Vincent Woo
Yeah. Let's try,
00:29:21:00 - 00:29:23:21
Bennett Tomlin
effective acceleration is. Are people
00:29:23:21 - 00:29:32:04
Bennett Tomlin
who looked at the people who suggested that artificial general intelligence would be an existential risk to humanity in our collective,
00:29:32:04 - 00:29:34:23
Bennett Tomlin
survival and went, nuh
00:29:34:23 - 00:29:36:13
Bennett Tomlin
Watch. We'll do it faster.
00:29:36:13 - 00:29:38:05
Bennett Tomlin
and that's about it.
00:29:38:07 - 00:29:45:13
Bennett Tomlin
And a bunch of the writers they love to reference are very bad people and stuff like that. But,
00:29:45:13 - 00:29:50:03
Bennett Tomlin
yeah, basically they were like, what if instead of being careful, we did the opposite.
00:29:50:03 - 00:30:02:07
Bennett Tomlin
And so you're right that it's not as it's a less coherent philosophy, it is harder for someone who loves philosophy to do philosophical criticisms of e/acc, because what are you looking at?
00:30:02:07 - 00:30:03:11
Bennett Tomlin
Three Substack posts
00:30:03:11 - 00:30:13:02
Cas Piancey
I agree with you. But also when you mentioned, for instance, instance Marc Andreessen. Right. Like I just I had not read his techno optimist piece, but
00:30:13:02 - 00:30:20:04
Cas Piancey
that's very e/acc to me. Like it is. It is everything they're trying to express in their little
00:30:20:04 - 00:30:20:21
Cas Piancey
cult,
00:30:20:21 - 00:30:24:02
Cas Piancey
in this way that a venture capitalist would do it.
00:30:24:02 - 00:30:26:04
Cas Piancey
and I and I do think that he
00:30:26:04 - 00:30:34:02
Cas Piancey
fully believes that stuff. I do think there's a lot of powerful people. Well, it's like we can laugh about how there's no
00:30:34:02 - 00:30:39:06
Cas Piancey
cognitive, like we can't cohesively even understand what they're trying to do.
00:30:39:06 - 00:30:42:06
Cas Piancey
a lot of people are just down who are in power,
00:30:42:06 - 00:30:47:13
Vincent Woo
to put a finer point of it. I think what you're saying is that, like, to be an e/acc is is simply to be
00:30:47:13 - 00:30:50:23
Vincent Woo
like, a kind of over the top cheerleader of techno capital,
00:30:50:23 - 00:30:54:20
Vincent Woo
yeah, it's like that plus some weird esthetic. I think that's what makes an e/acc.
00:30:54:20 - 00:31:02:13
Vincent Woo
And I think like, look, if you want to like expand the critique to that of like techno capital itself, I think that's fair game.
00:31:02:15 - 00:31:09:13
Vincent Woo
And, you know, it's also just somewhat like beyond the scope of like what a few people. This is so tough. Like, yeah, fuck Mark Andresen, you know,
00:31:10:11 - 00:31:12:15
Cas Piancey
Okay. That's all I really needed to hear. We're good.
00:31:12:15 - 00:31:15:22
Vincent Woo
yeah, I totally I don't know, how do I express what I'm saying.
00:31:15:22 - 00:31:26:17
Vincent Woo
I would say in some ways, Cas, you have some common ground with people, insomuch as they were people who were negatively polarized by EA specifically.
00:31:26:21 - 00:31:33:00
Vincent Woo
Like, I think the reason that e/acc came into existence is that, like EA, people were a little too neurotic
00:31:33:00 - 00:31:45:15
Vincent Woo
about doom saying about AI, and I think that just pissed them off. Like from a esthetics and tribalism point of view and that like sort of congealed an esthetic counter response.
00:31:45:15 - 00:31:50:22
Vincent Woo
I think if you take I think more Bennett's maybe wider critique that like the people
00:31:50:22 - 00:31:59:01
Vincent Woo
in e/acc are roughly the people who would be like proponents of techno capital itself anyway, without the existence of the movement.
00:31:59:03 - 00:32:04:05
Vincent Woo
I think that's fair and accurate too. But I will say, I think there's a lot of like
00:32:04:05 - 00:32:19:16
Vincent Woo
if you look at like, yeah, the esthetic 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 from like this is a belief system shared by the rich and powerful.
00:32:19:22 - 00:32:28:12
Vincent Woo
I think that's obviously true to. And yet somehow when you specifically invoke the words e/acc instead of techno capital or whatever, like I think you're trying to say
00:32:28:12 - 00:32:31:19
Vincent Woo
or one is often trying to identify a slightly different group of people.
00:32:31:19 - 00:32:34:14
Bennett Tomlin
what you're talking about? There was honestly one of my
00:32:34:14 - 00:32:38:17
Bennett Tomlin
biggest difficulties. The first time I started trying to look into e/acc is because,
00:32:38:17 - 00:32:50:10
Bennett Tomlin
I went to the most trustworthy people and looked like the people they've referenced as, like their canonical pieces that, like, defined this space, looked at the people they referenced, and I'm like, wow, there's there's some really
00:32:50:10 - 00:32:53:13
Bennett Tomlin
deeply troubling, nihilistic, beliefs.
00:32:53:13 - 00:33:12:01
Bennett Tomlin
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 e/acc 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.
00:33:12:01 - 00:33:18:17
Bennett Tomlin
Am I supposed to criticize the idiot with e/acc in the Bible? Or the stupid philosophy paper that one person in the movement is citing?
00:33:18:17 - 00:33:19:13
Vincent Woo
Here's how I put it.
00:33:19:13 - 00:33:21:13
Vincent Woo
You ever spent a lot of time on AIM?
00:33:21:13 - 00:33:22:22
Vincent Woo
Like as a teenager?
00:33:22:22 - 00:33:27:22
Vincent Woo
You know how, like, for, like, a good chunk of time. Like the thing to do on Aim was to, like,
00:33:27:22 - 00:33:40:18
Vincent Woo
set your away message to, like, a specific song or something like. Likewise, I think, like the way you become a e/acc is like, you put e/acc in your profile on twitter.com and like you do it
00:33:40:18 - 00:33:44:21
Vincent Woo
because like other people you think are kind of cool or attractive are doing it.
00:33:44:23 - 00:33:45:16
Vincent Woo
And like,
00:33:45:16 - 00:33:51:11
Vincent Woo
like I think that specific phenomenon will vanish not long from now.
00:33:51:11 - 00:33:59:01
Vincent Woo
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 to say,
00:33:59:01 - 00:34:07:12
Vincent Woo
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.
00:34:07:14 - 00:34:14:09
Vincent Woo
you know, I think you could spend a whole, like, three hours discussing that, but, like, the person you'd want to discuss that with was is, like,
00:34:15:16 - 00:34:17:15
Bennett Tomlin
It's not Beff.
00:34:17:15 - 00:34:18:16
Vincent Woo
someone else.
00:34:18:16 - 00:34:22:02
Bennett Tomlin
Beff Jezos is a serious philosopher. We all agree.
00:34:22:07 - 00:34:24:04
Vincent Woo
He knows quantum. I heard.
00:34:24:11 - 00:34:27:16
Bennett Tomlin
He's going to put the AI in the quantum, and we're all going to be in trouble.
00:34:27:16 - 00:34:30:12
Cas Piancey
the two names when I think of e/accc are,
00:34:30:12 - 00:34:33:15
Cas Piancey
Marc Andreessen and, Gary Tan, actually.
00:34:33:15 - 00:34:35:03
Cas Piancey
And
00:34:35:03 - 00:34:35:20
Cas Piancey
and
00:34:35:20 - 00:34:38:07
Cas Piancey
I get what you're saying in that it's not fully
00:34:38:07 - 00:34:41:14
Cas Piancey
fleshed out and there's no 501 C3 or whatever.
00:34:41:14 - 00:34:41:22
Cas Piancey
but
00:34:41:22 - 00:34:45:03
Cas Piancey
it's troubling to me that the people who most believe in this
00:34:45:03 - 00:34:49:15
Cas Piancey
are those with a significant amount of power. And one of the most important
00:34:49:15 - 00:34:53:03
Cas Piancey
in one of the most important and wealthiest areas in America.
00:34:53:03 - 00:34:57:18
Vincent Woo
I'll give you that one. Yeah, I, I didn't like it when Gary Tan put e/acc in his profile.
00:34:57:18 - 00:34:59:04
Vincent Woo
I didn't care about Mark
00:34:59:04 - 00:35:07:02
Vincent Woo
because, 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,
00:35:07:02 - 00:35:11:04
Vincent Woo
and sometimes he can't be. And I felt like we lost that one.
00:35:11:04 - 00:35:18:14
Vincent Woo
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,
00:35:18:14 - 00:35:26:02
Vincent Woo
Yeah. It's worrying. Right. Like because like, to a lot of us, the movement is so like, transparently trifling that when,
00:35:26:02 - 00:35:28:05
Vincent Woo
someone who is, I guess,
00:35:28:05 - 00:35:29:05
Vincent Woo
important
00:35:29:05 - 00:35:29:19
Vincent Woo
like
00:35:29:19 - 00:35:34:00
Vincent Woo
this decides to sign up, you're like, just like, what the hell is going on in here?
00:35:34:03 - 00:35:38:02
Vincent Woo
And I agree, I don't have a good explanation for that. Besides that, I think,
00:35:38:02 - 00:35:42:02
Vincent Woo
these guys are trying to be 18 again. And this is what you do when you're 18. Like you,
00:35:42:02 - 00:35:44:08
Cas Piancey
Edgelord. You just think they're being edgelord.
00:35:44:08 - 00:35:47:16
Vincent Woo
don't know, they're trying to have fun. I think.
00:35:47:16 - 00:35:52:08
Bennett Tomlin
No, I really do think you're onto something there that they're like the. They want to be a
00:35:52:08 - 00:36:19:07
Bennett Tomlin
provocative 18 year old who still feels accepted and included in a group of other provocative 18 year olds or emotionally, whatever provocative 18 year olds. And it really kind of clicked for me when you were talking about the many people attracted to e/acc because of the esthetics, because of the people they see in it, because they want to go to the e/acc meetup, because, the cute guy they were talking to in class was going to the e/acc meetup or whatever.
00:36:19:07 - 00:36:21:11
Bennett Tomlin
is that like you saw that same dynamic,
00:36:21:11 - 00:36:33:06
Bennett Tomlin
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
00:36:33:06 - 00:36:40:01
Bennett Tomlin
bunch of other people starting to identify themselves as long term or other kind of EA type words like that.
00:36:40:01 - 00:36:41:14
Vincent Woo
you might be. You might be. Right.
00:36:41:14 - 00:36:47:02
Vincent Woo
I might be in the wrong sort of, I guess. I guess what I'm trying to say. I don't know how to put this except in delicately.
00:36:47:02 - 00:36:57:14
Vincent Woo
I was never enamored of the esthetics of EA. And I never thought that there aesthetic or there's social like in interpersonal sense.
00:36:57:14 - 00:36:58:12
Vincent Woo
Cachet
00:36:58:12 - 00:37:00:12
Vincent Woo
was very strong.
00:37:00:12 - 00:37:04:11
Vincent Woo
Take that how you want. I was actually sort of surprised
00:37:04:11 - 00:37:07:23
Vincent Woo
that so many people were convinced to become EA's.
00:37:07:23 - 00:37:09:02
Vincent Woo
Despite that,
00:37:09:02 - 00:37:12:02
Vincent Woo
usually you bootstrap a social movement with
00:37:12:02 - 00:37:12:15
Vincent Woo
like, how do I put
00:37:12:18 - 00:37:13:21
Bennett Tomlin
Charisma.
00:37:13:21 - 00:37:14:21
Vincent Woo
Yes, exactly.
00:37:14:21 - 00:37:21:14
Vincent Woo
And that E succeeded. Despite that, I thought it was kind of cool.
00:37:21:14 - 00:37:28:17
Vincent Woo
I think it's partly because some of the early speakers around the topic were actually pretty eloquent, you know, that you would talk to them for a while and you could actually find yourself sort of convinced.
00:37:28:17 - 00:37:30:03
Vincent Woo
I think it was my impression,
00:37:30:03 - 00:37:33:05
Vincent Woo
like the late Peter Eckersley, for instance. Right. Like
00:37:33:05 - 00:37:35:20
Vincent Woo
I guess he did have charisma, you know, in his own way. He was like,
00:37:35:20 - 00:37:39:23
Vincent Woo
he did a lot of good. He got around town. People liked his work.
00:37:39:23 - 00:37:42:03
Vincent Woo
I think that's how they did it. You know, somehow
00:37:49:06 - 00:37:50:12
Cas Piancey
I I'm good.
00:37:50:14 - 00:37:57:13
Cas Piancey
I yeah, yeah.
00:37:57:15 - 00:38:01:08
Cas Piancey
I, I yeah.
00:38:11:04 - 00:38:21:05
Cas Piancey
You can start it. You can start the movement. Bennett. Now's your chance.
00:38:21:05 - 00:38:27:18
Vincent Woo
to entry is low. Like if you want to have a aeaeac meetup, like any party, you throw it your house could be you just have to say that it is.
00:38:27:18 - 00:38:28:23
Vincent Woo
And there's something to that.
00:38:28:23 - 00:38:29:11
Vincent Woo
Like
00:38:29:11 - 00:38:39:11
Vincent Woo
I think it's I think it's akin to how crypto caught on, you know, I mean, like if we want to call back to a year earlier the bulk of the work of this podcast, like,
00:38:39:11 - 00:39:01:12
Cas Piancey
Not. I'm not going to like this argument at all. No, no, I my my, here's my issue that you're going to say it's like it's like crypto in this sense. And I'm already like, yes. And because of the way that crypto is, it's so pernicious now. Like it is everywhere. It's everywhere. So you're saying like e/accc is kind of like throw away garbage.
00:39:01:12 - 00:39:01:20
Cas Piancey
But
00:39:01:20 - 00:39:04:15
Cas Piancey
that's precisely why I'm scared.
00:39:11:17 - 00:39:29:00
Cas Piancey
Yes, yes. That. But that's a yes. I agree.
00:39:30:08 - 00:39:37:06
Cas Piancey
We're giving 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.
00:39:37:06 - 00:39:57:04
Bennett Tomlin
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 EAA 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.
00:40:03:01 - 00:40:05:18
Bennett Tomlin
You started. Yeah. What did that comparison?
00:40:05:18 - 00:40:11:01
Bennett Tomlin
Not me.
00:40:11:03 - 00:40:16:19
Bennett Tomlin
Oh, sure. I was thinking more. Yeah, yeah, yeah, a dozen weirdos and a 100 clinger on.
00:40:16:19 - 00:40:17:12
Vincent Woo
Yeah.
00:40:17:12 - 00:40:25:13
Vincent Woo
I don't know if you're still around from ten years from now. I'm not going to be that upset, you know, like, I'm okay with that. If it's around ten years from now, I'll be a little upset.
00:40:25:14 - 00:40:26:08
Vincent Woo
Like, I think that's
00:40:27:12 - 00:40:36:20
Bennett Tomlin
If I remember the name Beff Jezos. Ten years from now, that's it. I'm done for.
00:40:36:22 - 00:40:43:00
Bennett Tomlin
After I edit this part, after I edit this podcast, it'll never leave my brain.
00:40:43:00 - 00:40:52:19
Vincent Woo
times. Like you're fucked, man. 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 I.
00:40:52:19 - 00:41:01:09
Vincent Woo
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
00:41:01:09 - 00:41:02:18
Bennett Tomlin
this is why we need Neuralink.
00:41:07:16 - 00:41:13:04
Cas Piancey
You can just ask Elon if you can.
00:41:13:05 - 00:41:19:11
Cas Piancey
Eternal sunshine.
00:41:19:13 - 00:41:26:12
Cas Piancey
You're stoked for eternal sunshine. You want to lose your memory? That's the dude. Just get old enough. Just get old enough. You're fine.
00:41:26:20 - 00:41:31:12
Bennett Tomlin
I've got brain damage. The memory loss is coming. Whether I like it or not.
00:41:31:12 - 00:41:38:12
Vincent Woo
drugs guy, you know, like, I think of Neuralink as just like the next frontier of, like, recreational drugs, you know,
00:41:40:03 - 00:41:45:05
Bennett Tomlin
I think that's a, therapeutic endpoint that's a little bit harder to get FDA approval for.
00:41:45:05 - 00:41:56:22
Vincent Woo
Yeah. I mean, we're just gonna mod chip your Neuralink or, you know, like, they'll be like black market relics. Be like, hey, man, you download the newest mod pack. Like,
00:41:56:22 - 00:42:06:12
Bennett Tomlin
What I hate is you're not wrong. Like, if it exists and is popular, that will absolutely follow.
00:42:06:12 - 00:42:12:20
Cas Piancey
this this episode is going to get canceled because Elon is. We're giving away his business, his business model.
00:42:13:21 - 00:42:20:16
Bennett Tomlin
Elon was actually the second person to get a Neuralink just to get off ketamine. Definitely cutting that line. That's not making the episode.
00:42:20:20 - 00:42:26:23
Vincent Woo
Yeah, I totally got rid of that. I didn't know that you on own this podcast was what I was going to say. I was like, whoa, like, Elon can cancel this pod
00:42:27:13 - 00:42:33:00
Bennett Tomlin
Like, Elon's gonna buy Spotify and turn it into Xcom.
00:42:33:00 - 00:42:35:18
Vincent Woo
this point, like, who knows what he'll do? You know,
00:42:35:18 - 00:42:46:00
Vincent Woo
the magic of Elon. He could do any action 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.
00:42:47:12 - 00:42:50:02
Bennett Tomlin
Most of us have to worry about getting checks and
00:42:51:21 - 00:42:57:17
Cas Piancey
Kids are free, guys. Kids are free is as Elon says, kids are free.
00:42:57:19 - 00:43:00:05
Cas Piancey
Oh.
00:43:00:07 - 00:43:14:03
Cas Piancey
He says they're free. Kids are free. Don't talk about the horse, guys. We're not talking about the horse. Just.
00:43:14:05 - 00:43:20:01
Cas Piancey
The horse.
00:43:20:20 - 00:43:27:17
Cas Piancey
I don't know about that.
00:43:27:19 - 00:43:34:13
Cas Piancey
Aren't they in Waco?
00:43:34:15 - 00:43:43:07
Cas Piancey
1818 on 18 or something? Yeah, they'll. It'll be all of them. It'll be all 18 children.
00:43:43:09 - 00:43:46:13
Cas Piancey
Yeah.
00:43:46:19 - 00:43:47:20
Cas Piancey
Oh, God.
00:43:47:20 - 00:43:49:06
Cas Piancey
Thanks for that.
00:43:49:06 - 00:44:05:00
Cas Piancey
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
00:44:05:07 - 00:44:22:16
Vincent Woo
Oh should I plug, should I plug the Honest Charlie thing. So what you say. Hey if you guys want to see a fun documentary with a mayoral candidate in San Francisco who's been banned from almost every bar in a particular neighborhood, you should, go to my Twitter page.
00:44:22:16 - 00:44:30:08
Vincent Woo
It's it's on there. My Twitter handle is fully IG I and this is a terrible plug.
00:44:33:10 - 00:44:40:22
Vincent Woo
Oh, cool. You can do that. Yeah. It's a it's it's a good video I think. I mean I made it so yeah.
00:44:40:22 - 00:44:45:07
Vincent Woo
You don't even live here. You.
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