From: jimruttshow8596
Humanity is in the midst of a “world historical transition” that could lead to catastrophe or to a “truly amazing future” [00:02:04]. This transition involves a move from “Game A” – the status quo of civilization – to “Game B” – a possible better world [01:09:06], [00:10:50].
Game A
Game A describes the way civilization has historically operated, characterized by competition and an increase in technological capability within that competitive context [00:04:46], [00:03:04].
Key characteristics and risks of Game A:
- Conflict and Catastrophe In Game A, disagreements at a civilizational level ultimately lead to conflict [00:03:20]. The development of nuclear weapons after World War II introduced the awareness that such conflicts could be “truly, truly catastrophic” and “kill everybody” [00:03:27], [00:03:58].
- Accelerating Destructive Capacity The core code of Game A involves increased technological capability coupled with competition [00:04:46]. This means humanity gets better at destroying things [00:05:05]. This is seen in:
- Biological Warfare Technologies like CRISPR enable catastrophic biological warfare to be delivered by a larger number of people, including “large criminal enterprises,” similar to how nuclear capabilities were once limited to superpowers [00:05:17], [00:05:41].
- Civilizational Fragility A highly technological civilization is inherently fragile [00:06:33]. Disrupting critical infrastructure like the power grid, which would have been minor 150 years ago, could now be catastrophic [00:06:38]. The capacity to deliver such disruptions is increasingly distributed through various means like EMPs, drone swarms, or cyber warfare [00:06:48].
- AI Arms Race There is an arms race in AI research, leading to heedlessness or recklessness [00:07:49]. Organizations feel compelled to “keep running forward as fast as we can” to avoid falling behind competitors, even if they realize their choices are reckless [00:08:07]. This is a game theoretical trap where the logic of competition drives choices that are recognized as dangerous [00:08:39].
- Ecological Limits Game A is nearing or has exceeded the Earth’s long-term carrying capacity to support 8 billion people at the current average lifestyle [00:09:00]. As more people adopt higher lifestyles, the environmental impact and “externalities” increase [00:09:59]. This is viewed as another form of “blowing up” – a “micro corrosion or toxicity” that breaks feedback loops maintaining homeostatic equilibrium [00:09:44], [00:09:47].
- War on Sense-Making The increasing power of technology, particularly AI-enhanced marketing and political propaganda on social media, is used to manipulate human choice-making by circumventing neuro-cognitive structures [00:12:07], [00:12:20]. This actively disrupts individuals’ capacity to make sense of the world and make effective choices [00:12:53]. This can be seen as an “autoimmune disease on sense-making,” where tools for sense-making turn against themselves [00:13:48].
- Unconscious Drive & Finite Games Game A operates on an unconscious, game-theoretic drive: if one doesn’t participate in the competitive advancements, they lose, which is “real bad” [00:10:57], [00:11:07]. This logic leads to a “self-terminating” point [00:11:11], [00:11:22]. Humanity is approaching “the power of gods without the wisdom of gods” [00:11:29].
Game B
Game B is conceived as a trajectory towards a better world [01:42:24]. It has emerged spontaneously through people gathering and co-discovering its concepts [00:17:31], [00:24:16].
Key characteristics and aspirations of Game B:
- Navigating Complexity Game B Philosophy involves building the capacity to navigate complexity without resorting to complicated systems [00:16:08]. This applies to natural, anthropo-complexity (people), and techno-complexity (technology’s impact) [00:16:46].
- Meta-protocol for Hyper Collaboration Game B is described as a “meta-protocol for hyper collaboration” [00:17:14]. This implies an emergent, distributed cognition where people, without formal top-down coordination, can collaborate to generate “real and useful” things [00:18:42]. It’s a “boot protocol” allowing anyone to orient themselves and participate meaningfully, adding value to the whole [00:19:14].
- Omnipresence and Skillfulness Everyone is already “playing” Game B at some level (perhaps “level zero”), and the goal is to consciously choose to increase one’s skillfulness in collaboration [00:21:17]. Hyper collaboration suggests that individuals can be working on separate projects, and yet, through synchronicity within the meta-protocol, their efforts align to support others’ needs at the right time [00:22:15].
- Architectural Principles The core architectural attributes of Game B are:
- Non-hierarchical [00:24:40]
- Network-oriented [00:24:40]
- Long-term metastable (a goal heuristic) [00:24:43] These principles are seen as driving the self-booting and self-growing aspects of Game B 2.0 [00:24:54].
- Wisdom-Power Symmetry Game B must orient its primary innovation capacity “first and foremost towards cultivating individual and collective sovereignty,” meaning wisdom and maturity [00:48:59]. The power generated through creative collaboration must be symmetric with, or superior to, the wisdom to wield it [00:48:46]. This prevents the “blow up” risk of accelerating technology [00:48:15].
Comparison Points
The comparison between Game A and Game B highlights their fundamental differences in approach and outcome:
| Feature | Game A | Game B |
|---|---|---|
| Complexity | Resorts to complicated approaches [00:17:06] | Develops capacity to navigate complexity without resorting to complicated systems [00:16:08]. |
| Collaboration | Driven by competition, leading to game theoretic traps [00:08:17], [00:08:39] | Meta-protocol for hyper collaboration [00:17:14]; emergent, distributed cognition without top-down structure [00:18:42]. |
| Motivation | Extrinsic motivation (e.g., bonus structures, carrot-and-stick, hierarchical control) [00:31:12] | Intrinsic motivation; supports creative collaboration by avoiding extrinsic motivators that inhibit free play [00:31:45]. |
| Power/Innovation | High existing power (stock) with a high linear rate of increase [00:28:18], [00:45:10] | Lower initial power, but a faster-than-exponential rate of increase [00:27:50], [00:45:33]. Designed to be “substantially better at innovation” [00:44:41]. |
| Decision-Making/Sense-Making | Susceptible to the “war on sense-making” through manipulation [00:11:57]. Relies on pre-figured sense-making and rationalization [00:52:46]. | Emphasizes liminality (not-knowing), curiosity, and deep listening [00:34:08]. Focus on discerning what is truly meaningful [00:52:30]. |
| Structure | Hierarchical [00:32:03]. | Non-hierarchical, network-oriented [00:24:40]. Promotes individual sovereignty [00:32:30]. |
| Time Horizon | Short-termism, constantly making trade-offs [01:02:58]. | Long-term metastable [00:24:43]; seeks “ongoingness of an increasing capacity” [01:07:08]. |
| Relationship | Focus on accumulating human power or technology [00:29:19]. | Cultivates integrity: all pieces fitting together well within oneself and with the world [01:05:14]. Wisdom symmetrical to power [00:48:46]. |
| Fragility | Inherently fragile due to complex, interconnected systems and competitive pressures [00:06:33]. | Aims to be anti-fragile, learning from and strengthening through challenges and failures [01:29:34]. |
Optimism for Game B
Despite Game A’s massive scale and power, there is optimism for Game B’s emergence and eventual success [00:25:51].
- Faster-than-Exponential Growth: Borrowing from Stuart Kauffman’s concept of the “adjacent possible,” Game B’s capacity to combine components in novel ways to generate new capacities means it can expand faster than exponentially [00:26:42], [00:27:17]. While starting slow, such a curve eventually becomes steeper and steeper, leading to a “crossover point” where it surpasses a system with linear growth, even if the latter is initially much larger [00:28:00], [00:45:48].
- Leverage of Innovation: The current technological landscape makes the raw material for innovation very large, offering high leverage for increasing the capacity to innovate [00:43:42]. This means what was not possible in 1750 or 1950, like Game B, might be possible now [00:44:03].
- Inherent Design for Innovation: Game B is “designed from the get-go to be substantially better at innovation than Game A” [00:44:35]. This superior capacity for creative collaboration is the key to its potential “escape velocity” through the innovation vector [00:45:02].
- Innate Human Code: The capacity for the type of coherence and specialization Game B describes might be “precisely what we are about,” a fundamental biological code that enables “enormous specialization and division of labor while maintaining the integrity of the whole” [01:40:42], [01:40:53].
Transitioning to Game B
The transition to Game B is complex, involving individual changes, experimentation with foundational “piece parts,” and eventual formation of integrated “proto-B” communities [01:08:15].
Pre-Game B World (Pre-B)
This is the current stage where individuals are preparing for Game B.
- Finding the Others: Connecting with like-minded individuals is crucial, occurring through platforms like the Game B Facebook group, Twitter (#GameB), and in-person meetings [00:50:29].
- Making Personal Changes:
- Transparent Agentic Mind: Cultivating the ability to be aware of and shift between axiomatic assumptions and paradigms in one’s sense-making [00:52:01].
- Orienting by Meaningfulness: Re-learning to orient choices based on what feels truly meaningful, rather than rationalizing or ignoring personal values in favor of external ideologies or societal expectations (e.g., status-oriented consumerism) [00:52:30], [00:54:15]. Meaningfulness is linked to the “wholeness of your entire mode of being in the world” and the “fitness of your way of being in relationship to the world” [00:58:20].
- Humility: A primary capacity for Game B, fostering liminality and an awareness of complexity [01:41:40].
- Financial Order: Gaining financial independence by spending less and reducing reliance on status consumption [00:56:12], [00:56:39].
Experimenting with Piece Parts
Game B requires solving many challenges for a holistic system. This involves finding and modifying existing solutions or developing new ones across various domains [01:07:37].
- Parenting: Shifting from an asymmetric (master/student) to a symmetric approach, recognizing children as “fully realized souls” [01:11:00]. The parent’s role is to support the child’s capacity-building, not to impose knowledge propositionally [01:11:47].
- Making a Living (Vocation/Calling): Cultivating the capacity to perceive one’s “calling” or ikigai—that which one is uniquely capable of doing with “exquisite care and capacity” and which aligns with their sense of meaningfulness [01:13:05].
- Conviviality: The “conscious design of culture” including rituals, tools, and gatherings, that fully support personal, relational, and holistic growth [01:15:50]. It emphasizes face-to-face interaction and seeing relationships as sacred, realized in the ordinary [01:16:23], [01:16:56]. A potluck picnic is perceived as more fulfilling than a fancy dinner [01:18:41]. This is seen as a potential “secret weapon” for Game B [01:17:40].
- Health: Viewing health holistically, encompassing physiological, psychological, and relational dimensions [01:21:02]. It emphasizes system-level mindfulness to avoid falsely optimizing for subsystems [01:22:12]. Well-being is the ongoing context that supports these health practices [01:22:35].
- Policing and Justice: Rather than punishment, this involves responding to injustice with curiosity, viewing incidents as opportunities to increase capacity and deepen meaningful relationships [01:27:19]. It requires discernment (not non-judgmentalism) to understand reality and what needs to be healed [01:34:20], [01:29:07]. For defectors or sociopaths, it means setting clear boundaries from a place of maturity and support, recognizing their actions might not serve their long-term interests [01:31:11], [01:33:04].
- Coherence: The synergistic relationship between distinct parts that creates an emergent whole “greater than the sum of the parts” [01:37:39]. Crucially, this hole is “autonomy-enhancing for the part” and increases the synergy’s intensity [01:38:00]. This “coherent pluralism” allows for diverse perspectives and specialization without causing fragmentation, providing a massive advantage over systems that cannot maintain integrity [01:40:42].
Proto-Bs and Scaling
The next stage involves creating integrated “proto-B” communities, which are initial attempts at holistic Game B life [01:49:37].
- Dependence and Parasitism: Early proto-Bs will likely be dependent on Game A infrastructure (e.g., computer chips, hospitals) [01:50:07]. They will also consciously and effectively “parasitize” Game A, drawing energy to build Game B [01:50:27]. This could involve creating “highly disruptive economic innovations” (e.g., new startup forms, advanced AI collaborations) that generate significant resources from Game A to fund Game B efforts [01:54:11].
- Geographical Anchor vs. Distributed Networks: While “embodied relationship is central” and anchored physical communities are crucial, proto-Bs might also involve episodic physical meetings for strong bonds, maintained virtually [01:56:25]. Additionally, collaboration can occur between different anchored proto-B groups in different locations, leading to synergistic innovation [01:57:47].
- Beyond Dunbar Number: The “hard problem of Game B” is scaling the coherence of groups beyond the Dunbar number (approximately 150 people for face-to-face social networks) [01:42:39], [01:43:01]. This requires discovering an “attractor in reality itself” that allows a distributed cognition group to maintain continuity and accelerate with the accelerating curve of the adjacent possible [01:44:02]. This is a process of meta-learning—learning faster about how to learn and experiment [01:47:23], [01:48:45].
- Honorable Failures: Proto-Bs will likely fail, but these failures are crucial for evolution [01:59:29]. Individuals from failed proto-Bs carry “deep learning” and “wisdom” that contributes to the larger Game B effort, making the system “anti-fragile” [01:59:43], [02:00:00], [02:01:20].