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Isaac Arthur runs the YouTube channel Science and Futurism With Isaac Arthur, where he goes into incredibly deep dives on subjects like megastructures, future space colonies, aliens, and little things like farming black holes (like you do). Here we touch on a few of those topics and do a little shop talk about life as YouTubers.

If you enjoy this episode, check out Isaac’s channel at www.isaacarthur.net

This is the audio version of the YouTube video, so some references may be made to something you can’t see.

Automation and artificial intelligence are already causing massive disruptions to commerce and industry all over the world. Economists warn that in the next 10 years, 30% of jobs could go away due to technological advancement. An unemployment rate that would be worse than even The Great Depression. How does society react in the face of this kind of change, and what can we do to position ourselves to be ready for the changes to come? In this audio version of my YouTube video, I discuss what I think are the best options.

LINKS LINKS LINKS:

The interview I reference in the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWoyn…

TRANSCRIPT:

I was watching an interview the other day where they were talking about how apparently there are billionaires who are preparing for the kind of economic collapse I was talking about on a previous video.

Tech entrepreneurs who are plugged into the latest market news and know what’s happening with AI and are building bunkers and doing survivalist training to prepare for what’s coming.

Many are worried that as automation and artificial intelligence starts disrupting more and more industries and people start to suffer, that they’ll rise up all French Revolution style against the businessmen and tech leaders like themselves who made all that technology possible.

But I don’t think people will rise up against technology, that same technology makes it possible for them to watch their favorite TV show on their phone and post pictures of their food.

But I do think, and made the argument in my last video, that people will turn on each other.

Start blaming other groups of people for their misfortune.

But in the midst of this discussion, one of the people just kind-of blurted out something that really stuck with me. He said we need to build communities, not bunkers.

I think as trust in our institutions starts to fall apart, more than ever before we’ll need to rely on each other and our social circles for support.

I mean, you only need to look at the growth of Go Fund Me to see it starting to happen.

People who are squeezed by the economy may start to opt out of the system and join these community marketplaces.

Throw into the mix the rise of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and you have whole off-the-grid economies that function completely independent from the banking and commerce system.

A cellular society of underground communities with decentralized self-sustaining economies just doing their own thing while the world burns.

Now, if it feels like I just keep talking about this, it’s because it’s important.

Most people don’t see the big picture, they’ve just got their heads down trying to live their lives and are so caught up in the day to day that when big systemic change starts to happen around them, it looks like something else.

It looks like something conspiring against them, either the elites above them with a boot on their neck or the lower class below them trying to take what they have.

The more we can get people to understand that these changes are inevitable, that it’s a much, much bigger force at work that is completely indifferent to them and their situation, something that is beyond any human’s control, the better.

Because humanity, and humans… are two completely different things.

Just like an ant colony acts as a singular unit, an emergent super organism, that has objectives that are totally different than that of an ant.

Humanity is the emergent super organism created by the natural collective machinations of humans.

Now, the ant metaphor may sound extreme because after all, we’re humans, we’re conscious, advanced creatures, not mindless little automatons, we have free will and reason and emotions…

But there is a foundational algorithm to our decisions and behaviors that, spread out over 7 billion people, creates humanity. A completely separate entity with completely different objectives. And humanity always moves in the direction of technological progress.

Humanity is not nostalgic. Humanity just keeps moving forward. Humanity has had a lot of setbacks because people didn’t understand this and wanted to turn things back the way they used to be.

This forward progress has always and is now disrupting the world of industry and commerce, and the way that disruption affects the average person is not always positive. Or fair.

I like Tim Urban’s description of the Human Colossus, I like putting a name on it, creating a separation between our personal motivations as people and the movements of our entire species as a whole.

But the more people understand that this is the natural flow of things and adjust accordingly instead of pointing the finger at other groups of people, the less likely this whole thing is to devolve into some kind of Mad Max style apocalyptic nightmare.

There is no divide and conquer here. There is only divide and fail. Build communities. Not bunkers.

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LINKS LINKS LINKS:

Hilbert’s Unanswered Problems:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert%27s_problems

Millennium Prize Problems:
http://www.claymath.org/millennium-problems

PBS Spacetime: