From: jimruttshow8596
Daniel Schmachtenberger, an independent thinker focused on the future of civilization, believes that humanity is approaching its end if fundamental design issues in our social operating system are not addressed [00:00:59]. He describes this critical juncture as a “hard fork hypothesis,” where the future could be either dire or lead to a radically different, vastly improved civilizational model [00:00:53], [00:02:44].
Historical Context and Unprecedented Scale of Risk
Historically, most civilizations have undergone internal decay leading to collapse [00:01:12]. However, the current situation is fundamentally different due to two factors:
- Globalization: Civilization is now fully globalized, meaning local environmental harm can affect the habitability of the biosphere at large [00:01:40].
- Technology: The existence of weapons of mass destruction and the exponential rates of technological advancement have dramatically changed the capacity for warfare and other issues, leading to a “change of magnitude” that becomes a “change in kind” [00:01:51].
Instead of addressing individual catastrophic risks like an AGI scenario, climate change, biodiversity loss, or World War III, Schmachtenberger argues that these are all symptoms of underlying “generator functions” [00:02:18]. Tackling specific issues without addressing these deeper causes buys little time before new problems emerge [00:02:32].
Technology vs. Evolution: Breaking the Balance
A central point of Schmachtenberger’s analysis is the fundamental difference between evolved systems and human-created technology.
Evolved Systems
In nature, evolution is characterized by mutation, survival selection, and mate selection within evolutionary niches [00:04:30].
- Evenness of Mutation Pressures: Mutations (e.g., gamma rays, copying errors) affect all agents in an ecosystem relatively similarly [00:04:50].
- Co-selective Pressures and Symmetric Coupling of Power: Advances in one species (e.g., a faster lion) lead to corresponding advances in others (e.g., faster gazelles), maintaining a relatively symmetric balance of power across the system [00:05:34]. Predators and prey are in a “rival risk dynamic” individually, but all lions and all gazelles are symbiotic; they need each other to survive [00:06:07].
Human-Created Technology
Human-invented technology (broadly defined as consciously mediated methods stemming from abstraction, e.g., language, social tech, physical tools) differs fundamentally from evolution [00:06:44].
- Rapid and Uneven Change: Abstract pattern replicators (ideas, designs) can change much faster and with uneven distribution compared to genetically mediated changes [00:07:00].
- Breakdown of Power Symmetry: Human technology allows for rapid, orders-of-magnitude increases in capacity (e.g., predatory capacity) that the environment cannot adapt to quickly enough [00:08:55]. This breaks the “power asymmetry” necessary for the meta-stability of evolved systems [00:09:21].
- Unlike a lion with limited destructive capacity, a single human or small group with exponential technology can have “radical amplification of agency” [00:10:07].
- This leads to a situation where humans, as apex predators, don’t fit a niche but rather “overkill an environment” and move on, eventually becoming “apex predator everywhere” [00:11:51].
- Human activity (e.g., livestock, poultry) now constitutes the vast majority of mammal and bird biomass on Earth, demonstrating a fundamental co-option of the biosphere’s energetics [00:10:43].
Core Generator Functions of Existential Risk
Schmachtenberger identifies three primary generator functions of existential risks that must be addressed:
1. Rivalry Dynamics Multiplied by Exponential Technology
This is the core problem:
- Rival Risk Games: Humans are playing “rival risk games” where an in-group seeks to gain at the expense of an out-group or the commons (e.g., companies exploiting environments, nations engaging in warfare) [00:16:58].
- Self-Termination: When this rivalry capacity is unlimited by technological innovation, it leads to exponential power escalation. Using this power in ways that inexorably harm the total system cannot be sustained in a finite playing field and will “self-terminate” [00:17:46].
- The Inexorability of Tech: Since exponential tech cannot be stopped (“we cannot put the cat back in the bag”) [00:18:06], humanity must “figure out rigorously anti-rivalry systems” or face a finite existence [00:18:10]. This implies fundamental changes to concepts like nation-states and private balance sheets [00:18:23].
2. Increased Fragility and Uncontrolled Growth
Humans tend to replace the antifragility of the natural world with fragile, complicated systems [00:43:50].
- Fragility Ratio: We are creating an “increasingly higher fragility to antifragility ratio” while simultaneously running exponentially more energy through these systems [00:44:22].
- Limits to Growth: Humans historically do not limit their growth; increased efficiency leads to exploitation of more areas rather than sustainability [00:44:52]. This is seen in Jevons paradox, where efficiency increases lead to increased overall consumption [00:14:16].
3. Solutions Creating Worse Problems (Entropy)
Human problem-solving, though well-intentioned, often creates worse problems due to a fundamental entropic or thermodynamic principle [00:45:22].
- Narrow Problem Definition: Solutions often address a narrowly defined problem, but interact with complex systems, leading to larger, unintended “harm externalities” [00:46:06]. (e.g., the plow solving local famine but causing desertification globally [00:46:21]; the internal combustion engine solving horse manure problems but causing climate change [00:46:30]).
- NP-Hard Safety Analysis: The information and computation required to come up with new technology is orders of magnitude less than what’s needed to ensure it won’t have long-term externalities; safety analysis is “np-hard” relative to tech creation [00:47:19].
Critique of Existing Systems: Markets and Governments
Schmachtenberger argues that conventional approaches like democratic liberalism, which attempt to regulate markets with government, are formally impossible to resolve these deeper issues.
Markets and Multipolar Traps
Pure laissez-faire markets, modeled on evolutionary theory, inevitably lead to “multipolar traps” [00:22:20].
- A multipolar trap is a scenario (generalization of tragedy of the commons or an arms race) where an action that is bad for the whole in the long term is very good for an individual or entity in the short term, providing competitive advantage [00:23:26].
- Without binding law, everyone is compelled to engage in the harmful behavior to avoid losing [00:23:43].
- With exponential tech, these traps become “catastrophically bad” [00:27:00].
Governments and Agency Risk
Governments, as top-down systems designed to solve multipolar traps through a monopoly of force and rule of law, face their own inherent problems [00:27:22].
- Agency Risk (Public Choice Theory): The agents running the government (politicians, lobbyists, judges) are still driven by their own rival-risk incentives (status, power, wealth) within the economic system [00:29:00]. The system designed to bind incentives gets corrupted by those incentives [00:36:15].
- National Rivalries: A national government’s laws (e.g., carbon tax) are insufficient if other nation-states are caught in the same multipolar trap and defect, leading to a loss of competitive advantage for the compliant nation [00:30:04].
- Decentralized Exponential Tech: The emergence of decentralized exponential technologies empowers small groups and non-state actors with “catastrophic capacity” (e.g., gene drives, drones). This represents an “emergent breakdown in the capacity for rule of law writ large,” as traditional monopolies of force cannot be exerted over such diffuse power [00:31:28].
- Information Ecology: The incentive to gain competitive advantage leads to withholding true information and spreading disinformation (trade secrets, classified info) [00:39:34]. Exponential information technology amplifies this, making “customized disinformation” possible and leading to a world where it’s impossible to “parse signal from noise,” rendering coordination impossible [00:40:03].
The Sociopath Problem
The current structure of power systems (corporations, governments) acts as a “strange attractor” for individuals with personality disorders like sociopathy [00:52:17]. Studies suggest that 30% of c-suite executives in Fortune 500 companies may test for sociopathy [00:51:34].
- Systemic Reinforcement: These systems “attract, reward, incentivize, and condition sociopathy” because climbing the ladder involves winning “win-lose games,” often using disinformation and defection [00:51:52].
- Fractal Defection: Inside large systems, individuals optimize for their own benefit and direct relationships, not the whole, leading to “fractal defection” where “everybody defecting on everyone to some degree while signaling that they’re not doing that” [01:00:50].
- Lack of Transparency: Unlike tribes where forced transparency and strong community relationships deter sociopathic behavior, large, anonymous societies with corrupted accounting systems create an “evolutionary niche” for internal defection [00:54:22].
Towards a New Civilizational Model (“Game B”)
Schmachtenberger argues that humanity needs to become a “safer vessel for power” with a “different basis for human choice making” [00:49:18]. This requires creating a system where agents’ choices do not cause harm, directly or indirectly, to the system [00:49:54].
Anti-Rival Risk Basis for Coordination
The fundamental shift involves moving from rivalry to an “anti-rival risk basis for coordination” [00:42:26].
- Beyond Private Property: The concept of private property, where one’s possession removes another’s access and incentivizes hoarding and artificial scarcity, creates misaligned agency [01:02:02].
- Commonwealth Access: A new model could involve “Commonwealth access” resources, where one’s access doesn’t diminish another’s, but rather enhances the overall system (e.g., shared transportation, maker studios) [01:04:57]. This moves from “rival risks” to “non-rival risk” and ultimately to “anti-rival risks,” where individual well-being and the collective good are rigorously positively coupled [01:05:07].
- Identity Shift: In such a system, identity and self-actualization would come from contribution and creativity, rather than from acquiring “stuff” [01:05:46]. Creative endeavors are inherently non-fungible and high-dimensional, making direct comparison difficult and fostering mutual appreciation rather than hierarchy [01:06:06].
The Transition Challenge
The challenge lies in transitioning from the current “game A” to a new “game B” [01:08:11].
- Comprehensive Betterment: Schmachtenberger posits that even the wealthiest individuals in the current system are constrained by its sub-optimalities (e.g., intellectual property limiting optimal product design, pharmaceutical research driven by patentability rather than public health) [01:08:51]. A new system would offer a comprehensively better world for everyone, including the currently powerful [01:11:00].
- Non-Weaponizable Advantage: The new system needs to find a source of increased capacity that cannot be weaponized [01:15:19]. This is achievable through “social technology that was anti rival risks,” which inherently dissolves the incentive for weaponization by changing the nature of agency [01:15:39].
- Information Ecology: A system where there is no incentive to spread disinformation or hoard information, and instead, full earnestness and transparency are incentivized, would lead to a radically better “information ecology” [01:16:36]. This improved sense-making would enhance coordination and innovation, making the new system more effective at producing well-being and creation [01:17:00].
- Attractor Basin: A new, full-stack civilization built on these principles could become a “new attractive Basin,” drawing in “fast adopters” and then “medium adopters” who see its superior quality of life and problem-solving capabilities [01:17:27]. By offering solutions to the world without seeking to win a power game, this new system could foster dependence rather than enmity [01:18:06].
- Subversive but Subtle: The ground rules of this new system would fundamentally change the basis for agency for its members, subverting the old paradigm in a subtle, non-directly challenging way through shared values and rules for interaction [01:19:54]. This involves fostering a culture where intelligence and capacity are oriented towards stewardship rather than exploitation [01:22:00].