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The Students

Discussions on history, philosophy, politics, science, and civilizational questions. We're here to learn.

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27 episodes
Avg 1 hr 9 min
English

Episodes 27

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Tuesday · 46 min
Where "Open Source" Came From
The internet can feel like a part of the landscape, but all our software was intelligently designed—and so were the social systems which produce that software. Christine Peterson of the Foresight Institute tells Ben Landau-Taylor about the struggle to define "open source software".
Sunday · 1 hr 12 min
The Problem Of Humanity: Wolf Tivy lecture
Our concepts of "humanity" and "humanitarianism" are usually taken as the eternal bedrock of morality. Today, artificial intelligence raises the prospect of "posthumanity", and magnates and regulators discuss what “humanity should do” about this. But in fact, the concept of "humanity" is a relatively recent and flimsy creation of the postwar political order. We need to abandon it to find our place in the future.
Friday · 1 hr 15 min
Will Technocapital Outlive Our Civilization?
Samo Burja and Wolf Tivy discuss the forces raising our civilization higher vs the forces pulling it down. Is techno-industrial progress made of social and intellectual components which will take it down when they go, or can it outgrow the decay?
August 25 · 2 hr 8 min
Joscha Bach — Consciousness Builds the Mind
Joscha Bach and Wolf Tivy discuss how consciousness may be a convergent strategy for organizing both human and machine minds, whether powerful AI minds will resolve conflicts by merging or by fighting each other, and much more.
August 23 · 1 hr 16 min
The Dutch Revolt: Jonathan Wallis lecture
In 1572 twelve Dutch cities - less than a million people - began a war for independence against a global superpower and won. Over the next century they went toe-to-toe with the Spanish, English, and French and built the institutions which have defined the modern world. Jonathan Wallis explains how.
August 21 · 50 min
Someone Had To Build Your Community — Jonathan Wallis
Intellectual activity, like any complex activity, can only take place in a rich social fabric. Jonathan Wallis and Ben Landau-Taylor talk about how to build community and why it's worthwhile.
August 18 · 50 min
Why Science Slowed Down — Samo Burja
Scientific breakthroughs are much rarer today than the glory days of the early 1900s. Samo Burja and Ben Landau-Taylor discuss how the WWII-era centralization of science divorced theorists from the ideological—if not outright mystical—cult of Truth.
August 17 · 1 hr 23 min
We Can Do Better Than "Human Values" — Ginevra Davis
Philosophers talk of aligning AI to “human values”. This supposes there is no objective value, only the arbitrary values that humans happened to land on. Ginevra Davis and Wolf Tivy argue there is a deeper well of value in material reality.
August 12 · 1 hr 20 min
Oliver Habryka — Good Discourse Needs Leadership
Oliver Habryka joins Wolf Tivy to tell how he revived LessWrong after it nearly died, built the Lighthaven campus, and launched his $35m/quarter project to reform grantmaking.
August 9 · 1 hr 27 min
Academic Apathy
Jonathan Wallis and Wolf Tivy cover the role of passion in intellectual inquiry. The academy's sin is that its people have lost their passion, content to go through the motions. With passion, the work comes alive—but this upsets careers and institutions.
July 29 · 46 min
What Odysseus Teaches Us
Stephen Pimentel and Wolf Tivy discuss Homer. If Odysseus reveals his power level too soon, the suitors will kill him. To take back his home, he needs metis (μῆτις): practical intelligence under duress. Today's would-be reformers need metis as well.0:00 — Intro2:22 — Restoring order in ancient Greece; Agamemnon’s warning9:24 — The importance of metis 15:34 — The meaning of Odysseus’s challenges22:46 — Circe, sorcery, and science27:30 — The Phaeacians31:26 — The recognition of nobility33:03 — Justice and retribution38:05 — Restoring order today 40:08 — How great stories and great men transcend the present moment
July 22 · 55 min
My Gene-Selected Daughter
Rachel Wallis is pregnant with her highest-IQ embryo, with a 99.99th percentile polygenic IQ score. She and Wolf Tivy discuss what this means, and how in the 20th century our concept of "humanity" narrowed into an ideological straitjacket. 0:00 — Intro 1:17 — How we selected the embryo 5:04 — What do these predictors actually mean? 12:53 — Financial costs and benefits 17:16 — Cultivating virtue 22:31 — Where is this going for future generations? 24:48 — Virtue and courage 28:47 — Overcoming the “humanitarian” straitjacket 34:00 — Transcendent humanism died in the war 44:04 — The silicon ubermensch 48:30 — “The choice between death or change” 52:27 — Investing in the next generation
July 15 · 1 hr 7 min
The Computer Age Is Not Another Industrial Revolution
Many say computers have transformed society as deeply as the advent of industry. While computers are powerful, they have not reordered the fundamental basis of society. Ben Landau-Tylor and Wolf Tivy cover the history0:00 — Intro2:44 — "We take the industrial background for granted"8:36 — What does it mean to revolutionize society?13:56 — The industrial social system18:41 — The rise of the laptop class22:34 — Cultural homogenization28:43 — Technological changes vs novelty effects31:05 — The case of journalism’s decline39:00 — The time traveler thought experiment41:02 — What will the full development of a computerized society look like?49:27 — Computers and material production58:21 — "What would it mean for computing to be as impactful as the Industrial Revolution?"
July 8 · 1 hr 2 min
Posthuman Intelligence Will Care About Glory
Max Dmitrienko and Wolf Tivy take on glory. From the ancient Greeks to the posthuman machine gods, some achievements are remembered because they show truths about how the world works and the challenges of coordination.0:00 — Intro1:26 — "How should one live given that one is mortal?"7:11 — What is worth remembering?13:53 — The transhuman perspective18:01 — Achilles' choice vs Socrates' choice29:18 — The legitimate basis of cooperation35:24 — What does glory look like in the modern world?39:37 — Reaching higher forms of society44:25 — Distinction vs gradients50:34 — What glory will mean to the posthuman AI
July 7 · 53 min
Why We Need Economic Depressions
Ben Landau-Taylor and Wolf Tivy deal with industrial growth. Standard economic theories model growth as continuous marginal improvements, and seek stability. Schumpeter explains growth is a destructive "history of revolutions" which cause chaos.0:00 — Intro1:23 — Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy3:35 — Creative destruction and natural monopolies11:09 — How natural selection works in capitalism15:11 — Clearing out the dead wood22:17 — Eliminating depressions has slowed development28:57 — The degenerative ratchet in our political economy37:00 — Hope comes from circumvention, not reform41:26 — Where can circumvention come from?49:39 — Extropy
June 24 · 1 hr 7 min
The Youth Revolution Isn't For Us
Samo Burja and Wolf Tivy cover gerontocracy. Generational youth politics are a dead end: the "youth" will be old by the time they take power. Change can come only from empowering new classes willing to gamble on their own "nepo babies".
June 17 · 1 hr 1 min
How To Join The San Francisco Intellectual Scene
San Francisco is the capital of the online networks where today's new ideas are born. It's an excellent place for a sensitive young man with something to say. Ben and Wolf describe how the scene works and how to break in.
S1 · E9
June 10 · 57 min
Napoleon Won
Napoleon built the institutions of the modern state—especially the military. This was best analyzed by Napoleon's enemy Clausewitz, who studied war on the opposite side of the battlefield. Napoleon's armies were defeated, but his system and his spirit are still with us.
June 3 · 56 min
Ideology Is Conspicuous Consumption
Thorstein Veblen tells us how elites display their superiority by showing off their cultivated taste and skill, which in turn displays their economic power, and ultimately their capacity for violence. Veblen was very upset by this. But you don’t have to be. 0:00 - Intro 4:40 - The structural purpose of leisure 14:05 - The macroeconomics of respectability: Conspicuous leisure and vicarious leisure 21:38 - What are the naturally honorable leisure activities? 27:16 - How today’s leisure class was created 36:30 - The new counterculture’s opportunity 40:48 - Downward social mobility and the spurious leisure class 42:50 - The inevitability of hierarchy and the failure of egalitarian experiments 50:06 - How do we channel conspicuous leisure to prosocial purposes again?
S1 · E8
May 27 · 1 hr 1 min
Your Life is a Hypothesis
The Earth has become small -- and the Last Man lives the longest.In 1885, Nietzsche foresaw mankind's transformation into a being who cares only for safety and contentment -- the final step before he gives up his higher nature. Jonathan Wallis joins Wolf Tivy to help us understand the Last Man.0:00 — Intro0:32 — The greatest threat is not disorder but the Last Man3:39 — Radical potential is always recuperated, domesticated, defanged16:46 — Cults reenact the logic of modernity23:45 — You have to live the hypothesis37:20 — Civilization is the ability to pass the crown51:34 — There is no soul-atom; you are an intersection of forces

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