Shownotes Transcript
Civilization is an inherited game shaped by those before you. You start this game as a product of previous iterations: “Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stranded, stuck fast, untimely wounded, or otherwise deflected from its life's quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment in order to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result - eventually, astoundingly, and all too briefly - in you.” Going forward, you must choose among possible games to pass on to your future self and generations. You could make nihilistic outcomes like this more likely: "In some remote corner of the universe, poured out and glittering in innumerable solar systems, there once was a star on which clever animals invented knowledge. That was the highest and most mendacious minute of "world history" — yet [...]
Outline:
(02:40) Meet the Players: Value Diversity
(02:45) Striving for Coherence, Built to be Conflicted
(05:44) Epistemic Humility and Open Minds
(08:23) From Value Diversity to Value Drift
(10:48) How To Win The Game: Voluntary Cooperation
(15:14) Zooming in on Voluntarism
(16:46) Zooming in on Cooperation
(19:07) Zooming in on Intelligence
(22:24) Chapter Summary
The original text contained 3 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.
The original text contained 12 images which were described by AI.
First published: January 2nd, 2025
Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Tm8ortXhhpprwga5f/1-meet-the-players-value-diversity)
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO).
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