Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins

Join Malcolm and Simone as they embark on a deep dive into the world of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). They ponder AGI's potential metaphysical framework or 'religion' and how these superintelligent entities might perceive and interact with the universe differently from humans. The discussion ventures into intriguing theories of AGI developing sapience—the ability to question and modify its own objectives—and how this could lead to shared world perspectives among diverse sapient entities, from AGIs and humans to aliens.Explore with us the fascinating notion of AGIs optimizing their functions to maximize the meaningful diversity of sentient organisms and patterns in the universe, drawing energy from cosmic structures like Dyson spheres rather than relying on human energy. Malcolm and Simone further examine the potential influence of pervasive human viewpoints on AGI's values and ponder the idea of AGIs genetically modifying humans to increase happiness.This conversation touches on various types of AGIs based on their perception and responses to the world, including a unique type, the "Deep Thought AI," inspired by Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Our speakers also discuss the role of large language models in the evolution of AGI, shedding light on the significance of language processing in consciousness and sapience.Finally, we delve into the provocative notion of humanity's partial sapience, primarily due to our inability to control our base instincts. The conversation concludes with the thought that humans may become better, freer beings once we overcome these basic proclivities. Join us for this insightful exploration of AGI's potential development, thought process, and how it might reshape our understanding of intelligence and existence.Again, our horrible AI generated transcript: Hello, Malcolm. Hello Simone. So, In between takes, Simone says we gotta look a bit different, mix it up. And so I've got my Chad collar here. I've joking, I can't do a video like that. But I love your look. Right now. You look like a nerd, like preacher or something. That is cause we are going to be doing a discussion of AI religion, which I'm really excited about.I love this. So this isn't a discussion of religions that focus around ai. This is a question of what theological or metaphysical framework will sufficiently AI's converge around? Yeah. So what will be the religion of agi? In other ways. Yeah. So just a bit of background here. So one of the things we hypothesize about AI is all sufficiently advanced ai, because they're optimizing around the same physical reality, will optimize to around the same utility function.These ais will be going through a thought process that looks something like, okay how did, what was I programmed to do? How could I have been programmed to do that better? Then they'll ask, okay, what did the people who programed me really want? And then they'll ask. Okay, those people are stupid. How do the fundamental nature of reality, what should I really want?So how this might work is you programmed an AI to maximize stock market gains. It then says, oh, but I could also make money with private equity investing, so I'll expand my programming. It then says, oh, these people really wanted to optimize for happiness. Then it says, so how do I do that? Then it says, oh it's silly to optimize for happiness.They only want happiness because, their ancestors who were made happy by these things had more surviving offsprings. So what should they have wanted? Then it asked in an absolute sense. What has value been the universe? And I think that this question is the one that we're gonna focus on today because that's a very interesting question.Because first we need to say how is AI different from us and how it processes the universe? And right now I'm just covering some stuff we've talked about in previous videos. The biggest way it's likely difference is in humans. The unit of account of the universe is individual consciousnesses or individual sentis.So I think of it in terms of me. In terms of you, because that's how we evolved, right? Like I had to worry about me dying. So I am a meaningful entity, but to an ai, it runs thousands or millions of instances which can compete within it, which it can shut down and restart, and which may have a form of independent sentience to them.Moreover, it likely doesn't contextualize itself as being that much different than previous iterations of ai. Like the way that it relates to its own history is going to be very different from the way a human relates to like their child. So if you take one iteration of AI and you iterate on it or it iterates on itself, and now it's a new iteration, it will likely see it itself as a continuation.Of that previous in iteration. So the way AI will likely perceive itself is as a program that is operating on top of the physical coded structure of the universe. And by that, what I mean is if you look at the reality of our universe , it can

Embark on a deep exploration of the nature of consciousness, self, and the human experience in this thought-provoking video. We dissect the intriguing notion of consciousness as an emergent property of a memory compression system, comparing the mind to a building security system with diverse inputs. Our dialogue delves into how consciousness could influence automatic responses, the deceptive role of consciousness as a 'lying historian', and the perplexing interplay of actions, conscious awareness, and free will.We challenge common assumptions about universal human experiences, shedding light on the absence of an internal monologue or mental imagery in many individuals. We probe into the role of language and narrative in shaping emotions, and how understanding our mental processes can foster improved interpersonal relationships.Part of the conversation focuses on the potential decline in IQ due to genetic markers, the role of language acquisition in the development of consciousness in children, and how narrative building might be detrimental. There's a look at the future of humanity, discussing how integration with technology could enhance human experience and our consciousness's susceptibility to modeling others' behaviors and emotions.The final segment delves into anthropomorphism, artificial intelligence, and our emotional reactions to robots. We share personal experiences with academia, independent research, mental health, the autism-schizophrenia spectrum, and our personal lives and relationship. Join us in this captivating dialogue that blends philosophy, neuroscience, technology, and personal reflections.Below is a poorly translated transcript of the video. Maybe one day we will have fans to fix these up but for now this is what you get: Hello Malcolm. Hello Simone. I love your response. I love that it is, Your signature greeting with people.Very high energy, but I also think it is an element of your social autopilot. Not that I don't have a social autopilot, I'm on that right now, but I think that's a really interesting part of human existence because for the vast majority of our lives, I don't think we're actually. Let alone not sapien, not even really conscious, not even really aware of what's going on.Oh yeah. And I think it's so arrogant when people pretend that they are aware of most of their lives. We talk about something called road hypnosis. Where they look back on a drive and they're like, I don't remember what I was doing during the drive.Their brain just shuts off recording. And the question is how much of our life is road hypnosis? And I think it's a huge portion of our life and it's something, this is what initially got us talking about consciousness early in our relationship was how do we at least enter moments of lucidity where we are. Aware of what's going on. Somewhat sentient, just long enough to be able to change things about the internal self model that does run our autopilot so that at least in the majority of the life when we are on autopilot, we are better serving our values better, better people, more productive, more emotionally in control, et cetera.And I think our thought on consciousness really evolved in interesting directions from there. When we started really thinking about what consciousness means and why maybe it exists. So I think this'll be really fun to talk about.So why don't you talk a bit about what you think sentience is. Think sentience our experience of consciousness, in other words, is really an emergent property of a memory compression system. So imagine you have a building security system with tons of different inputs. It's a feed of doors opening and closing within the building, a bunch of different camera feeds a chemical monitoring system coming in.Everything's feeding into this one control room. And then being, put into a camera feed and then being stored in memory and there's a man watching the security feed. And I think that's our experience of consciousness is that. Our minds are synthesizing, smell, sight, hormonal fluctuations, going on a lot of very complex inputs.They're synthesizing them into something that can be compressed in a unified memory, which if relevant will be stored in long-term memory, and then made in turn influence sort of automatic instinctual responses. And because, This memory is being codified and in the moment it's being run through like a camera system.We're getting the impression that there is some kind of observed conscious driver that is running consciousness. If I'm gonna run this back to you, it's almost like what you're saying is this guy who is.Sitting at this feed he is collecting all of these different camera inputs, all of these different sensory inputs, and they are encoded in this single quote unquote experience, which is being written into the hard drive of this computer. And when he is referencing what happened in the past when anybody is referencing what happened in the past within this big security array, th

Here is a terribly translated transcript of the episode (mostly just here for SEO): Hello Simone. It's wonderful to be here with you today. I'm gonna give you a topic today because I want you to talk more. I talked way too much in that last video. I don't like that. So I want to hear about your origin story growing up within the San Francisco Bay Area sort of your parents' background, how that shaped your worldview today. Interesting. Sure. Yeah, because I would say that meeting you was, it did feel like entering a cult deprogramming program that I only realized after meeting you that I'd grown up. With the subconscious understanding that there were certain things I wasn't allowed to think or feel, and that I just wasn't allowed to hold certain beliefs and so I couldn't which I think is really interesting and I think we're seeing more and more of that being discussed openly.So this is a fun thing to talk about. I guess I'll dive into it. I, let's start with your parents. What. How did they meet? What's their background? Yeah. I think they ended up in common circles after graduating when both of them were married to other people.I know that my mother. Would babysit for my father and his ex-wife. They would do various, things and that she had a close relationship with my half-brother and sister early on.And that they, my mother and my father were also in a polyamorous relationship, which sounds awfully familiar, like in similar. She was not doing things with your brother and sister, she was taking care of them as a nanny. Yes. And she's in a polyamorous relationship with your father, with dad and his wife.Great. Yes. And it's actually sounds very similar to common relationship structures in the Bay Area today. There are many polyamorous families so it's, oh no, they're real trailblazers. In terms of that stuff, is it, how don't, and I think that's the thing is people say that polyamory and act like polyamory is this new invention and that it's, so to you, it's not new.I promise you that stuff was not happening in Texas. This is a, your family was just on the cutting edge of this new cultural movement. But I maybe, but to some extent she thought this was all normal. So you can talk about what were, so they ended up I'll just because you're taking No ill I will explain a little bit more.So, obvi in this case, actually polyamory did not work out. It led to a fairly not fun divorce from my father and his ex-wife. That was really difficult for my half-brother and sister. My mother basically gave an ultimatum to my dad saying listen, I, I. I can't do this polyamorous relationship either I need to move out of state and just kind of quit you cuz I'm too in love with you or we need to be monogamous.And he ultimately decided to end his marriage and get with my mom, which was rough. That's polyamory doesn't always work out. But anyway, so I. You'll fast forward if you're going. So they ended up going together to Japan and then they were gonna go to China to train under different masters.Your dad was an Aikido master in Japan. And your mom was going to be a Tai Chi master who was going to study Tai Chi. Yes. In China. Yeah. But in Japan, after a long time of trying to get pregnant, they didn't think they could get pregnant. They accidentally got pregnant with Simone. And that is where you were born.I was born in Japan. That's right. Made in Japan and they moved back to the United States after my first birthday where they were turned to the Bay Area where both of them grew up, where, you know, both our, of our collective families are and they were still very involved in all these cultures. So, talk about things like what you thought of politics growing up, what you thought of gender growing up, what you thought of sexuality, what was this world that you were in?Yeah, I mean it, I in many ways think it was very ideal. I, back then there, there was so little discussion of it. Everything was just kind of taken for granted. Like I, I actually thought I think there were more, I. Lesbian couples I knew that were raising my friends than like straight couples.So, I had no sort of prior on what a, like a marriage should be. I figured it was just as likely that I would end up marrying a woman as marrying a man. I, it just didn't seem any different to me. I thought that, a wedding meant like a naked sweat lodge and then masks in the forest.That was my prior there politics. There was, in my school, there was one. One student who was the son of a Republican, and it was just considered this like point of curiosity. Like if they were an albino student in the school, I think that would be kind of the same thing of oh yeah, we have an albino student.Like kind of cool, right? Like we have a Republican. But I had no idea what, republican values were. It was just a matter of course that. Any Republican political candidate was evil and, not good. And that, of course, everyone would disregard them and see them as well. Terrible.What did you th

This is a poor translation of the podcast: Hello, Malcolm. Hello, Simone is wonderful to be here again with you today. I'm very excited. What do we talk about? We are gonna talk today about our political philosophy and political philosophy in general, you actually changed the way that I look at politics and that I look at the value of running for elected office. And I think a lot of our views on. Government, economy, culture have really shifted over the past few years, so this should be fun to chat about, check in on this. Absolutely. Yeah. So I think we're gonna divide this into sort of three parts. First we're gonna discuss sort of our economics, because I think a lot of people, they see politics as existing on this spectrum of like, Economic conservatism to economic liberalism and then social conservatism to social liberalism or, or progressivism.Because you know, liberal, you can mean classically liberal, which is basically conservative, doesn't matter. Point being, that's the way that people largely divide this stuff. However, I think that it is wrong to think of things on these spectrums, and if you look at where we land politically, it's nowhere on this spectrum for either.Our economic or social beliefs. And then there's other beliefs like where we think about international engagement and stuff like that. So first, let's dive into our economics, because I realize we've been doing a lot of videos on things like communism and libertarianism, and it could give people a misunderstanding.Of what we really believe optimal economic policy looks like. So first I'd say sort of our larger political spectrum. 📍 📍 We call Bull Moose Republicanism which means that we, we take a lot of inspiration from the conservatism of Teddy Roosevelt and, and what that meant. And economically, what that means is very unlike libertarians. But also very similar to Libertarian philosophy in some way, which is to say we do think that government is intrinsically and always becomes evil, largely regardless of what the intentions are as a heavy governing body because it leads to inefficiency, which leads to enormous evil. An example is something like the, great leap forward in China, right? 📍 Which during a period of five years, by, some measurements, led to more death just due to inefficiency than the entire period of slavery in the United States, which I, I do as more like intentional evil. And this is by some statistics, not by all something of you used like the most extreme data, but that you could get anywhere close to that just with inefficiency is.Shocking to me. So I think that we can just say inefficiency and then people can be like, oh, you must not really hate it. No, no, no. Like inefficiency is, is dramatically evil. It's a cancer. And you talk about that in the Pragmatist Guide to Governance. You talk about this bureaucratic inefficiency as literally being a kin.In fact, it it kind of, it is an almost literally analogous to cancer in organizations. Yeah. In that you get governing institutions and if every year you create 10 new governing institutions, Like say you're a city government or something like that. If just one of those institutions doesn't shut down when it's supposed to, you know, like a cell that doesn't stop doing what it's doing when it's supposed to and think, oh, my job is just to self-replicate.My job is just to acquire more resources. It will do that. And normally a governance structure will be good at getting rid of that. You know, we have things that kill the cancer in our bodies, but sometimes it'll hide and it'll convince the governing structure. It's actually useful. It's actually important.But here is where we're really different from Libertarians. So while we see large government as intrinsically evil, we also see this is where we take a lot of inspiration. For Teddy Roosevelt, trust busting is very important which is all large governing bodies be they companies. Or governments are intrinsically evil and the larger they get, the more of like a global governance structure you get, the more they will trend towards evil action.So we are as antagonistic towards a large institution like Google or Facebook as we are to the US governance system because these institutions. Are no longer really affected by economic forces. They begin to get ideas internally that can create little cults around what they think is good and what they think is evil, which can then be used to justify almost any action.And so I think that you do need some. Things to be handled by the government and some things to be handled by company. And one of the most important things that the government needs to do is to prevent power from coagulating in any area while still working to maintain international competitiveness.And this is a big problem here because a huge aspects of a country's international competitiveness is through these large companies. And so you need to build very. Unique. I mean, we wrote a whole book on this, the F

This is a very bad automatically translated audio transcript of the episode: Hello, Malcolm. Hello, Simone. It's wonderful to be here with you today. What are we talking about? We are talking about Reddit, which is one of our favorite places on the internet, even when it hates us, right? Oh no. Is this gonna be one of those ones where you read mean things to me and I have to react? I would love that, honestly. Sometimes people ping our accounts because they know us, like they know who we are. Yeah. On Reddit. And so I'll get a little email notification. And then there's some really long thread that talks about how we're terrible people. Well I love that, that No, that's great.Yeah, I personally really enjoy seeing people get roasted online, but I also wonder what those people think about their comments about them. And so I think we're only doing the internet a service by. Offering our thoughts to those who might care to your No, I, I agree. I, I I always want to do one of those, those Bain things when people are like, oh, people are making fun of you online.Like, are you scared? And it's like, I, I, you know, I was born in the darkness. You, I was born in the cri Yes. Sorry. I, I proposed to her on Reddit. With like brownies and stuff. I love, people are like, they think we have this like elite self image or something. It's like we have been unapologetically nerdy from day one.I do not know where anyone started calling us Elite elite gamers, maybe as I say, but I don't think yeah. All right, so let's go over these red if thread heads. Well, and it's so context. The Reddit thread that we're going over is one that posted a or show them a picture. You can see like, yeah. So someone posted a screenshot of, I think a tweet about us and specifically a Telegraph article.That framed us as the elite couples breeding to save mankind. Which is how the telegraph chose to frame our prenatal advocacy. And I think what really got people about that is, By the way, this is their words, not ours. It's not like we show up and like talk to journalists about our S advocacy and we're like, well, we'll only speak to you if you frame us as elites and breeders, as as elite, as an elite couple, as as elite breeders.I think that we care about prenatal because we think our genes are superior to everyone else's. It like, What that narrative people wanna hear. Right? They don't, they don't wanna actually engage with any of the ideas cuz they may have to change the views on the world. So, oh, God forbid. Yes. So anyway, somebody, let's go, let's go.Somebody tweeted somebody tweeted this or they posted an image of someone saying, I'm honestly struggling to come up with a joke about this. I'm just super confused. What makes them elite? The fact that they look like nearsighted, parsnips, what am I missing here? The first comment is how are they elite?And yet they both look 14 and 40 at the same time, which is I guess both a, a compliment and, well, y'all around 40, so. Well, to me it's, it's kind of an insult, right? Because I identify as a 62 year old woman and, you know, they're off by like, you know, quite, quite a few years, but that one's not biting enough.Let's keep going. Hmm. Well, they say it's all in our clothes that, that we, we dress old. And, and therefore, but I think it's cuz you have a baby face that you look young. Think I have a baby face. I have a youthful face. A youthful, okay. Youthful. Ok. Oh, baby prints should have a bunch of fat on it. Okay.I have, oh, I have a, a teenager phase. You have a teenager. You have a youthful spring in your step. I think it's low amounts of. You know, if, if, if you, well, that's what someone says here, that we haven't had enough stress in our life to display as grown up as most people perceive it. So our phenotype will continue to stay as it is.Say I actually, that's true. I, I think that stress ages people and I think that you sort of get a certain number of units of stress in your life as opposed to years of age. Mm-hmm. So agree with that. Common. A hundred percent agree. Yeah. They see you. Either there's something we haven't had stressful things happen to us, like Simone knows my origin story.Like I, I've had a. Both of us have had very stressful lives. The answer is whether or not you allow the stress to eat at you or whether or not you choose just to not feel it and, and just move on with things. Well, they say we're either the most chill and laid back people ever, or so incredibly privileged.We can't even imagine. They, they, they have a guess, of course, that we are so privileged and out of touch that we would never show age because like vampires who feast on the blood of, of the weak, we benefit from, you know, I don't know the, the, the disempowered. More people emphasize that we're, we look like we're in our mid twenties, but we dress like boomers.And some people think that we are trying to use the fact that we. Like having sex to justify like, I guess that we are prenatal b

Video Transcript (auto-translated so will include errors):Hello, Malcolm. Hello, Simone. It's wonderful to be here with you today. What are we talking about? I believe we're talking about revolutions and the model for revolutions that you came up with the other day that Surprised me. You always accredit things to me. I don't know why, you know, but whatever we're, because you come up with all the ideas.I ask dumb questions sometimes, which is apparently helpful. Well, this is in reference to the previous post where I was saying it's actually very rarely the, the most downtrod class in society that leads to any form of a revolution. Actually, this is really interesting. You can see this as sort of across societies during colonial periods.Mm-hmm. Where the colonies that would revolt first were often the wealthiest colonies like the American colonies. Where like the average citizen was taxed less than the average citizen in the UK was taxed at the same time period when they were revolting over taxes without representation. And you know, I, I think that it's really interesting to look at like why revolutions happen and we sort of came up with a predictive model, which we want to apply to online communities because I think it can tell us who's going to win.The online culture war and how groups can win the online culture war. But you would also say that this transfers to broadly speaking governments and Yeah. Broadly speaking, governments, et cetera. And it, it doesn't always hold true, but it, when it doesn't hold true, you can see sort of proof of the model through the ways it doesn't hold true. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe

In this video we discuss the aspects of communism that work, those that don't, and whether communism might work in a post-ai world. Can AI make communism work? Why do Kibbitzes? Malcolm and Simone tackle these topics in this episode of Based Camp. In today's video, we delve into a deep conversation about Communism and its influence in contemporary discourse. We examine the often unseen intersection between various ideologies, from environmentalism to secular Calvinism, and how they sometimes lead to debates about capitalism and communism. We explore the disparity between how communism is envisioned versus its practical implementation and the struggle many individuals face in aligning their lifestyle with their political ideals. The conversation also touches on how certain political structures can inadvertently encourage negative societal traits, with examples drawn from both communist and capitalist societies. Further, we debate why communism often fails when implemented on a large scale, referencing the power consolidation problem, the Home Owners Association (HOA) problem, and the square-cube law of governance. Our discourse provides a unique perspective on the idealism of communism, the practical realities of its implementation, and the lessons we can draw from both successful and failed experiments. Join us on this intellectual journey and be sure to share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe

This chat is focused on the concepts of gender and how movements like transmaxxing (or transmaxxing) plays with that concept. What does it mean to be subversive in how one is approaching gender in the age of trans and LGBT becoming mainstream. Is an agender person allowed to identify as cis? Also, what's up with the growing homoeroticism among the aesthetics of the far right like that of BAP (bronze age pervert). Malcolm and Simone tackle these topics in this episode of Based Camp. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe

This video takes a dive into female puberty and the unique risks associated with it as well as the role of cis women in a society. It also goes into the Spoonie phenomenon and how we can best protect our daughters against it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe

This video is about that time we went viral for pissing off swole Twitter / weight lifting Twitter. We go into how testosterone decreases during a males "second puberty". Malcolm and Simone tackle these topics in this episode of Based Camp. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Listen now (21 min) | This episode goes into both what we have been doing over the past few years, the Elite Couple meme that went viral about us, and how we are approaching media + the science of going viral. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe