Daniel Schmachtenberger

Some Key Ideas

[[ The Metacrisis ]] -> Podcast - Green Pill with Daniel Schmachtenberger
- Useful to look at all our current biggest issues in a holistic way
  - trying to solve one problem might make the other ones worse
  - we can find the common “generator functions” (root causes) of our crises and try to solve for those
    - [[ coordination failures - multipolar traps (Moloch) ]]
      - arms races for AI, biotech, exponential tech
      - Tragedy of the Commons
      - perverse business incentives to skip careful risk assessments
        
        “privatize gains socialize losses”
- two high-risk attractors
  - Increasing Catastrophes & Breakdown
  - Dystopic Control Structures
- Third Attractor as something that allows us to avoid other attractors
- what’s worth optimizing for is not definable
Technology Is Not Values Neutral
Collective sense-making and choice-making
- epistemic humility
- [[ Information Commons ]]
  - [[ Protector memes help memes last longer ]]
  - [[ Propagative memes propagate more than true memes ]]
both-and thinking
- Think about the people your message doesn’t appeal to, how can you include them and their blowback?
- creating a higher order synthesis of different perspectives
[[ addiction is a signal of a less healthy and sovereign society ]]
- [[ thinking about success metrics ]]
- Compersion may be the feature of individuals in a healthy society
[[ what we call human nature is mostly human conditioning ]]
- our genetics selected for memetics

Self as a separate thing is a misnomer

“What am I without the Sun? Without the electromagnetic field? Without the Higgs boson? Without plants, algae, biosphere, or ozone layer? I don’t exist. Me as a separate thing is actually a misnomer. It doesn’t even exist.”
living a Meaningful Life
- being
- doing
- becoming
Sovereignty
[[ dealing with the hopelessness of our complex situation ]]
emotions remind us of whats important to us
post tragic personal dialectic both-and thinking
- if you’re not outraged you’re not paying attention
- if you’re not overwhelmed by the beauty of life you’re not paying attention
  - the outrage comes from the care for the beauty and wanting to preserve it
  - if I’m always outraged I’m not connected to the beauty and unable to honor it
  - how can we be with the beauty of life while working to try to preserve this beauty for future generations?