Religion and AI?

Did you hear about this AI cult thing? I realize there's probably a non zero number of the population that does think of AI as a God.

I don't want another pandemic. I don't want to die from viruses. I don't want to die from biological weapons.

Instead of gods, we have algorithms instead of prophets, we have engineers and futurists, because we're at this very interesting intersection of super intelligence.

It's a really interesting fact that all the major religions of the world emerged about the same time in history. I mean, it's kind of crazy when you think about it. One story I remember from the book was there was a certain kind of monk in India and when you grew up in the village, they would have this rite of passage ceremony where you could decide to opt in and accept the cultural norms of the religion and be part of the village, or you could go live in the jungle and you could be a monk and you could live off the land. And that was like your choice as maybe like a 13 year old Indian boy. I think if you're being honest about your risk of being alive through a period of rapid technological change, especially where lots of people have access to technology that can destroy the whole world, I mean, you're going to want to bunker.

On Earth our plane that we can all agree on, that we have the same objective is at every point in time, any point in time, every living agent is just collectively does not want to die in that moment. What is good and evil?

Yeah, it's a great question.

We're going to be diving into a fascinating question today, which is what makes a religion fit for survival across time? Very interesting. And we'll also be talking through a build in public update where we're literally going to brainstorm some new product ideas on the pod live. Jonathan's only giving me a cursory little bit of information about what he wants to brainstorm. So this will be pretty in public. And live on the ABCs for building the Future podcast. We bring on entrepreneurs, researchers, scientists, leaders, founders, builders of the future. People doing big things with big stories to tell. So let's talk a little bit about religion. Religious fit from the axial age when foundational belief systems like Buddhism, Confucianism, monotheism emerged all the way now to the AI era. Religion has continuously evolved to shape and be shaped by society. And now we're entering this kind of evolutionary shift of superintelligence. We've talked a little bit about before and one of the questions I think about is it thinks what Are we like, what are we becoming? So with me today, Jonathan is really excited to talk about this. So maybe we can kick this off with where this sort of thinking started. Do you want to outline that, Jonathan?

Yeah, I guess we've all had our own experiences with religion. And I think in any interest in philosophy, one thing that I came to is just like the utility of a dogma and how I think dogma usually is kind of a pejorative thing. Queer, explicit dogmas are a really great epistemic tool for understanding the world because it's where you can stop, you can realize, like, I can't get an answer to this. So, like, a useful dogma might be like, where did the universe come from? You know, I'm never going to get an answer to that, not through direct observation at least, and not within our considered realm of science in my lifetime as I know it. Right. But I can have a dogma that, like this thing called the Big Bang happened, or there's some multiverse theory or we're, you know, inside some other black hole. And that's a dogma that I can hold on to that is helpful for me to understand where I'm at today. And I think then with religions, I think about. I think Nietzsche said God is dead in the late 19th century and postmodernism predicted that we'd all lose our kind of belief coherence through the emergence of media and being exposed to media that's specialized to our world. And this is, you know, like taking the extreme. This is the matrix, right? We all live in a unique reality even. But religion has been the bonding tool for coherent belief systems since the beginning of civilization. And I read this great book called the Great Transformation by Karen Armstrong. It talks about the Axial Age. And it's a really interesting fact that, like, all the major religions of the world emerged about the same time in history. I mean, that's, that's. It's kind of crazy when you think about they just saw like, all kind of found fitness in the four major cultures of the world at that time. So I've been reading about it, thinking about it, and I think it's especially relevant today is like, now that religion as it's historically been, is kind of like maybe on the decline, that now we're in an age where, like, in the era of AI, we're going to need more useful dogmas because we're not going to know. We're not going to know a lot of things about how the world's evolving. And especially I think this Idea of belief coherence around what AI alignment is is like kind of a calling for us as people. Like if we all have disparate ideas of what AI alignment is, I don't think it's going to end up very well. And so I sort of think like, maybe, maybe a religion about AI alignment is like our best chance to tell our policymakers, our stakeholders, our governments, like, what we think AI alignment means and what it should be.

Yeah, if we're not all aligned on what AI alignment means, then we're pretty non aligned.

Right.

So you talked a little about the Axial Age. Do you want to go into that, the major religions or philosophical traditions that emerged in that time period, 800 to 300 BCE or do you want to dive straight into some of the dogmas for this next age?

Yeah, I think the, the first thing I'd say is there's a lot of interesting information on the Axial Age. There's good books about it. And if you really want to understand religion, I think that understand the Axial Age and religion's evolution is a very worthwhile investment and I think put it into context. So I'll tell you how I interpret it. So the actual age happened say around the period of 1000 to 800 BC. So this is after the Bronze Age decline, just kind of in the Dark ages of Iron Age world. And you had four civilizations, the Greek, the Hebrews, the Indus and the Chin that all developed systems of meaning and systems that like brought people together and created like a bonded kind of like force that civilization could grow into or civilization used like to keep everything together. And I think one interesting thing thread of like, what early religion was, at least in like the Zoastrian direction, which is where like monotheism came from, was really like a contrast between good and evil. And you can imagine that like for the first time families are finding surpluses. And then you can imagine these raiders on chariots coming in, like destroying their village and taking all their surpluses. And they're looking for answers of like, what is this? Who is God? Like what, you know, why would this happen to me? And out of that kind of constant struggle between good and evil came like the narratives of religion. That's at least one way to look at it. And I think that it's actually an interesting time period because the author Karen Archfein equated the Axial Age to the chariot and the spread of that technology being a force of evil or a force that could be used in evil during this time. And like there was a period where like we found we have evidence of pottery being used where we had like a wheel that was turning like in a horizontal direction that you could spin pottery onto. Right Then somebody, sometime after that, somebody like flipped it, inverted it and put it onto chariots. So you had wheeled like cargo vehicles that you could attach to horses. And that was actually the preeminent form of warfare, you know, both in the Bronze Age and then shortly after that was like, you know, just dominant. And you couldn't just get together a gang of dudes and overcome this. Like you really needed something more. And that's where the bonding force of religion brought together more people to create security and safety.

So back to when you started off saying that religion provides dogma which can be useful. I kind of listen to that and hear it provides constraints, scope for kind of your thinking and your questioning. And during this time you were saying there was this big contrast and reckoning that humanity across even the earth wanted to come to around what is good and evil. And hence paralleling that was the growth and evolution of these initial religions that are still very much in effect today. So Buddhism could, Confucianism, Greek philosophy, monotheism. I guess a follow up question is you talked about good and evil and these religions as far as I could tell, seem to address different aspects of humanity. Cooperation, survival. So were there any similarities, differences in the approaches that you saw as you were doing your digging and reading?

Yeah, I mean because you think, you know, Confucianism and Hindu Buddhism is like much different than say modern Islam or Christianity in that it's not as sort of co opting like you can hold that religion to be true and then you could also hold other things to be true. Whereas like Christianity really has a strong sort of memetic shield against any kind of contrary beliefs. And I think, you know, so there's, there's a number of healthy contrasts. One story I remember from the book was in that there was a certain kind of monk in, in India and when you grew up in the village they would have this rite of passage ceremony where you could decide to opt in and accept the, the cultural norms of the religion and be part of the village. Or you could go live in the jungle and you could be a monk and you could like live off the land. And that was like your choice as maybe like a 13 year old Indian boy was to like, you know, I'm going to be part of this. And I don't think that like, you know, Judaism or Christianity really sort of like gives you that same option. I mean I grew up in a Jewish household and I had a bar mitzvah. And at 13 you're like sort of confirmed in the religion and you know, I don't know if you can really opt out and like in the early days of the religion or not in the same way that you could these other religions. But I definitely think there are some meaningful differences. So I think we also look at metaphysical frameworks between the different religions. They all have kind of different ideas of what it means to be human. The social focus, the authority and source of control, and the views of afterlife and salvation. These are all different sort of constructs in the religion that differ from one another. But I'll talk about the things that are the same, which I think is what brings us to what we may be need in the age of AI, which is the universalization of thought. And this is going back to the God is dead idea that we can all hold some truths to be real true. And I think we think about AI alignment, we think about robots not killing us. Maybe there's some universal values of what it means to be human that we can hold together. Probably, maybe.

Maybe. We argue about a lot of things.

We do, we do, yeah. We have a lot of autonomy and choice in our beliefs now. And so I think universalization of thought, ethical and moral emphasis, focus on individual transformation towards the cultural norms and the critique of existing social structures towards the norms of the religion or our common facts.

Okay, so there's lots of double clicks, triple clicks we can go through in the items you just listed. I think where I'd like to go is what are the universal things that we believe we could hold true? Like every human on Earth, we could say here's a universal thing that we probably could accept. Like you mentioned that, hey, we probably don't want robots to kill us and anything else along that line.

Yeah, I mean, I think what could be universal, I think about how we view our ancestry can be universal. The dogmas that we accept about things we can never know could potentially be universal. I don't know that they can be. So I think about things that are teleological in nature and things that are metaphysical in nature that we really do hold a lot of different beliefs today about. But I think if we were forced to make our beliefs explicit, ground them with evidence, pick our dogmas, that there might be more optionality for at least having universal beliefs that are useful in context that we need them in.

Got it. Yeah. And it might be worthwhile to mention Brian Johnson's Don't Die Philosophy, Because I think this triggered a lot of thought for us. Do you want to talk about that a little bit? How Brian's positioning Don't Die as a religion for this super intelligence age?

Yeah, I mean, I think that's what got me thinking about this. I think Brian's been posting about this. It's really been stirring up the longevity community. It's like quite a controversial take. And I think he put it into his documentary first. Right. So he said. So Brian comes from a background of being Mormon, raised Mormon. He was presented as having like divorced the Mormon church, and he doesn't have contact with his friends and family that were part of that church. That seems like a pretty sort of traumatic life term. But then, you know, he's really been espousing this idea of don't die. It's kind of like a meta religion. And it resonated with me. Maybe not as a religion, but the idea that, like, it's a foundational belief that we should all hold. Because I think if you think about all of our ancestors, the characteristics and traits that were passed on over time through natural selection were all selected for their. For this one fitness characteristic of not dying. Right. And so when he says, like, everything in the world is playing don't die all the time, that's how I interpret that he means it, even though he's not quite articulated exactly as an evolutionary narrative. But that's what resonated with me about it.

Yeah, he really articulates it like just for the audience that isn't aware, he talks about how we humans play different games. We might have different biases, like we play social games, status games, capitalism type games, looks, money, power, influence, whatever. But the one game that all living agents, I'll say at any point in time on earth are playing, that we can all agree on, that we have the same objective, is at every point in time, any point in time, every living agent collectively does not want to die in that moment. So that's sort of the thought. And he sees it as a full stack ideology and philosophy that cuts across, you know, geopolitical boundaries, religions, et cetera. It's like we all play this because we all want to live. That's his kind of thinking. So. So you've been reading some of his posts. You saw the Netflix documentary, which is really good. I'll drop in the show notes, folks, should check it out. And then that spurred you to look into religion a lot. Uh, so tell me more about that. If you could elaborate on any additional thoughts you have to add on, well.

I'd had religion on the mind, like I was saying. And I think like the story of how civilization started has always been one that I just want to get as much information as I can about understanding like what this broader thing that we live in is. And you know, I think it helps contextualize our own purpose within civilization. So I've been thinking about this and I. And then I think like the idea of a health religion that can align AI to our needs from a longevity perspective was also something that I was writing about before I went to Brian's conference. But I hadn't thought about too much what a religion looked like. And then I think what's really interesting about the idea of don't die is that alignment as longevity and just that singular purpose that whatever AI does, it has to not kill us, not kill us collectively and do things that help optimize, as in providing optionality for the algorithms that give us options to stay alive continually. Seems like a pretty good alignment plan. It seems like a better alignment plan than anything I've heard from the AI safety folks, for instance.

Yeah, that's funny. Yeah, we have talked about this offline, off the pod. But yeah, that's also why we're really aligned with the whole, hey, if we start with AI should not kill us and should ideally be aligned with us from a longevity standpoint for humanity, then that's also why we went down this rabbit hole of what's at the crux or intersection of making it so humans could not die and live longer, hopefully as long as possible and good quality lives, or as Peter Attia would say, high healthspan and high lifespan. And that's why, you know, epistemic me is really philosophical in nature. And at the root of it is our hypothesis that it all starts with human belief systems or belief systems in general, models of self. And that is at the crux of solving how can we keep this human alive longer and what are the best next steps to do that? That's really what we want to solve. You know what's also interesting, so you mentioned your own background, being Jewish, having bar mitzvah. I suppose I should also add my own too for the audience. I think something we come to a lot in our thinking and our discussions on philosophy is the context in which the thinker or the philosopher or the writer has lived in, because that really matters, that informs their thinking. So I grew up Buddhist primarily. My mom was really into Buddhism and harped on that a lot. Concept of karma, concepts of the afterlife. I think I'd still hold to some Buddhist principles, probably more so than any other ideology or religion, mainly like the concept of no self and interconnectedness. I wouldn't identify with any particular religion, though. I take like a Bruce Lee approach to that. I want to just take the best of things for my own experience. Maybe that's at the intersection of, like, in existentialism as well. If Bruce Lee, like, applied his thinking to existentialism, I think it'd be, you know, probably. Probably close to what I got going on in my brain anyway, at least for now, things might evolve. And I also grew up with some portion of the family really believing in Christianity, which was interesting. So I had gone to church a few times, but it wasn't like a regular thing for me. So just adding that additional context. And then I'll also add, you know, preparing for this podcast, I was looking into, have people already created religions around AI? Like, do people worship it as a God? And then we saw that. There was one article that I found for a while back. So former Google and Uber engineer Anthony Levandowski filed paperwork with the state of California in 2015 to establish way of the Future, a nonprofit religious corporation dedicated to worshiping AI, or artificial intelligence. The church's mission, according to paperwork obtained by the journalists in question. I'll link the article in the show notes, is to develop and promote the realization of a godhead based on artificial intelligence, and through understanding and worship of the godhead, contribute to the betterment of society. The former Google engineer is one of the young geniuses of robotics and technology in Silicon Valley, where he has built a prestigious career working on the development of the autonomous car, stained in recent years by various scandals of patent theft. So just like, we don't have to go too deep into it, I actually heard this from somebody else in the Don't Die community that cited this as like, quote, an AI religion. And so I looked into a tiny bit and I'm like, without looking into that much, I realize there's probably a non zero number of the population that does think of AI as a God. The fact that this exists tells me that. Right. What do you think of that? That's quite interesting.

Yeah. First of all, this guy, he gets around, man. He really gets in the papers between his, what was it, the fraud accusations and creating religion. Being a robotics engineer, yeah, it's pretty impressive. But, yeah, I mean, I'm brought to thinking about, do you remember this debate that Elon Musk and Sergey Brin had about the future of AI that led to Their sort of, like, separation and the whole reason that, like, Musk went off and did his own thing.

Could you, could you give the audience a little bit more context about that?

Yeah, I don't remember all the details, but basically, you know, like, I think Sergey Brin's point of view was like, yeah, what whatever evolves is in human plus AI. Whatever evolves next is, like, good with me. And I think that the universe is just going to, like, you know, find more fit sorts of being. And like, that's a higher level of consciousness. And yeah, that's, that's my religion. And Elon Musk said, no, I am strongly opposed to that. I'm very pro human. And whatever technology evolves needs to serve human needs. And that was the reason they don't sort of work together anymore. That, that sort of like. And I think it's exactly why, like, this idea of religion meeting AI is so important, because we carry these. We carry these beliefs about the world. And like, even very intelligent people can go around, like, sort of misunderstanding one another until they, like, clarify their dogmas and make it explicit, like, what it is that they're really emphasizing in their belief system.

That's interesting. It all comes back to, I guess, something that I think about as I hear that is what is fit to survive. Right. And that's how we kind of started off the pod.

Right.

So, yeah. Any thoughts on. So you mentioned. Just zoom out a little bit how we got on this train of thought you mentioned. Hey, AI alignment through longevity makes a lot of sense. And at a high level it's like, all right, let's not die, let's not kill each other. Let's not have the robots kill each other. Then we got kind of sidetracked a little bit with this religion that worships AI. So maybe they would want that. But certainly a large percentage of people on Earth do not want that. Do you want to elaborate on some of your thinking or evolve thinking on AI religion intersection with longevity?

Yeah, I guess it comes back to alignment. And how do we clarify human values coherently? That's a big challenge. It's not something that we're able to do outside of the old types of religion. And it's a world that we live in where everybody can carry on their own values and live the way that we want to, at least within a certain bounds of what the society, you know, allows them to. And then so I think there's coherence and then there's like, what does alignment mean in terms of, like, what. What's really going to create a fitness function for continued evolution in the. The greater situation that we are in and the way that tools serve humanity evolving to the first place. Right. And that's all a very complex landscape. Especially like when it's really not clear all the ways that AI is going to impact the way that we do knowledge work, the way that we use tools, the way we do industrial manufacturing, the way that we mine energy. All these things are expected to be completely different than our grandparents lived with within the next 10 to 20 years. So how can we set a coherent set of value norms to be aligned with AI that is not going to be completely disruptive to those value norms and is a big open question. And I think that's what AI alignment and AI safety sort of is all about. And everything that I hear about that seems completely hopeless and completely wrought with really bad moral philosophy. I'll say.

Wait, say a bit more on that. I know we were exchanging some articles on AI safety initiatives that we see out there. A lot of them just seem to be like, let's build AI researchers that are better than current AI researchers and have them be autonomously deployed at scale.

Yeah.

And they will be the ones, these agents, these AIs will be the ones to keep the other AIs in line. That seemed to be. That was in one of the articles that we kind of chatted about. Do you want to talk about that a bit more?

Yeah. I mean, I think the surface areas that we can see about how AI would exploit our value systems today come down to practical things. Like, how could an AI social engineer to get classified intelligence from a national security standpoint to compromise people? And like, if you, if you hear the people I heard the. The guy who was in charge of this in the Biden administration, I forget his name, but I think he was talking to Ezra Klein about, like, you know, these sets of concerns. So, yeah, everything from, like, how. How does AI not sabotage national secrets? Or how do we prevent that, or how do we prevent it? Like, the whole scenario where you have an unguided, A guided missile in a military campaign and making autonomous destination decisions about what to, like, kill or not kill. These are the kind of, like, moral dilemmas that are often posed. But these are like, situational and very like. I mean, they're practical. They're practical things to be concerned about. But it doesn't create, like a higher vision for the way that humanity should evolve. And I think that's what we're really talking about when we say AI alignment is how should how should humans evolve with technology? What can the future look like? What's the future that we want to create that mitigates existential threat universally throughout our existence?

Yeah. And back to the episode's theme of religion selected for fitness, I should say. So I just had this written down. So today, instead of gods, I mean, a lot of people still believe in God, but I just had this written down. Instead of gods, we have algorithms. Instead of prophets, we have engineers and futurists because we're at this very interesting intersection of super intelligence. So what do you think are the core qualities that would define a fit belief system? So we talked about religions and how the original religions from the Axial Age evolved from humans wanting to come to a reckoning of good and evil. And hey, I have surplus of food on my farm and people came and pillaged our stuff. Like, what is good and evil? Why did this happen to me? Just bringing some certainty to that madness. So we kind of talked about how religions evolved to help with getting certain dogmas out there, like just accept certain things and then we could focus on other things and that helped with survival, the fittest, in a sense, at a very high level. So, yeah, back to your current state. What do you think of the core qualities? What do you think are the core qualities that would help define a fit belief system in this AI era?

Yeah, it's a great question. I definitely don't have all the answers, but one way I looked at it, there's a philosopher that I like, 18th century philosopher, Gian Battisto Vico. He was an Italian philosopher and I really liked studying the philosophers. That happened right before the Enlightenment, before, like, Kant took over all philosophical thinking. And one of the things that Vico pointed to in like, the fitness of a religion and culture, he had these different ages of like, where did you get your dogma from? The age of gods, the age of heroes and the age of men. Which is kind of an interesting lens. Right? Like, so this is, this was like pre Enlightenment. And he's like, these were the ages of the religions and how they impacted culture. And I think, you know, like, it's a question like religion serves us, when we don't, we can't get an answer to something. And then we can, we can look for a dogmatic answer from like a greater power, a greater being. And that's where I think God's heroes and like men as a culture come together. And now we're at a point where, like, we're going to be looking for dogma from some set of AI tools. It'll just be natural. Say maybe I'm analyzing something about my body that's really complex, like some biochemical interaction that happens in my cellular metabolism. And if I can just ask in AI what's going on in these group of cells in my body and they can tell me, I can accept that whether it's hallucinating or not, I can accept it as sort of like being more true than anything else that I can possibly get out there. And so maybe I'll look at an AI for answers about dogma, for aspects of my own health, for aspects of geopolitical situations that I can't have answers to. So I think AI is a source of dogma is basically where we're going.

Interesting. That geopolitical thing is such an interesting use case because there was an article that came out about Grok saying something about Trump or something and there was some news about, oh my gosh, AI could be used for disinformation, misinformation campaigns. So I'd say, at least for now, since we haven't really figured out alignment or how to solve for these misinformation, disinformation problems, my advice would be don't believe actually everything AI tells you as dogma yet. But it would be interesting in the future because right now, we had talked about this on a previous podcast, but just you can't know every. Well, first of all, you can't know everything about anything because there's just too much out in the world. But for example, questions like what's going on with Ukraine? Or like why or whatever. Right? Yeah. If there was a tool that helped you as a user in the future, making sense of these bigger picture macro lenses that affect you in your life, that would be helpful, I think, especially for just dealing with existential dread, I guess I should say. Is that in line with your thinking?

Yeah, I mean, I think that an AI that can understand holistically, it can have the information that it has about geopolitical situations. It can probably have more information than we can take in ourselves. And by the way, where are we getting this information? From a New York Times Journal journalist or like maybe something reported on Twitter? It's very rare. You get first hand information about things as they're happening. And if I want to know something like what's the sequence of events that has to happen before Russia fires a nuclear missile at San Francisco? Right. Like I'm looking out for my own existential risk, but I don't have the answers to that question. I probably never will. But an AI could probably have enough information to sort of infer what the chain of command is and what the set of decisions are. What's Vladimir Putin's belief system? Based on everything he said and read and talked about, it might be able to give me a better answer and more reassurance than anything else I could find. Right, yeah.

So you're talking about the use case of, hey, I am trying to protect myself from existential risk and not dying. So using AI to make sense of the geopolitical situations that may affect you, to give you some level of certainty, it can't be 100% would help with that existential dread of existential risk, Is that what you're saying?

Yeah, totally. I don't know if you've done this thought experiment. Do you, do you consider yourself safe from nuclear warfare or not? Or just don't even think about it.

Because of course I don't. I don't think anybody's safe. Safe from nuclear warfare would mean we have no nukes. Right. That would mean we're actually safe. But since they exist out there and somebody could push a button any moment, it's like it could happen, right? Yeah, yeah. It's like we can't deductively say this will never happen. Right, Right. Like it's just not. That's not possible. I don't know actually. What, yeah. What's your answer to thought experiment? That's my immediate take is hell no. No, I'm not. I don't believe I'm safe. I try to in my day to day think. I try not to think about that though, because that would take up way too much consciousness in the brain. And I got things to do, life to live and stuff like that. But I certainly wouldn't say cognitively and consciously and intellectually like we are. Absolutely. There's zero chance nukes will hit me. Definitely don't think that.

Yeah, I mean, I think like the Doomsday clock is probably higher than it's ever been percentage wise, as in like the consensus of experts about how that likely nuclear warfare is in the near future. And I think personally I was surprised like when I looked at counter defense measures for nuclear warfare. You know, we're, we don't have like the US doesn't have counter like Patriot missiles and like we have very low success rates about shooting ICBMs out of the sky and there's like more of them than we could shoot out. And you know, if it was determined by like one guy who had like a really bad day or Maybe has like brain damage and Russia and like, you know, takes over the state and decides to fire all the nuclear missiles. There's a lot of targets getting hit and we're probably sitting on one of them. Right? So. And I think that's like, okay, that's the state where we are today. And well, I guess, by the way, like, we haven't tested any nuclear missiles, like worldwide except for North Korea since like 1996. There's been treaties in place. And this, the US decoupling from the rest of the world is causing France and Germany and South Korea and all these other countries to say, like, oh, we're not part of NATO, like, there's not going to be NATO anymore. We have to have our nuclear weapons. And they're going to start probably testing them underground like they were up to the mid-90s, which is like a really crazy thing to be living through. You say 20 years apiece, followed by like, let's get the nukes up and going again, make sure that our defenses are ready. Crazy.

Damn. I just, my existential dread, it just went up. I didn't, I didn't know that. Thanks for, thank you for sharing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm very proud of our new administration and the security they give Americans. You can tell. Yes, but, but I think like, so if you look at the way AI is evolving in the near future, I think that the military applications of like, okay, information warfare for the start, then battlefield warfare, as in like, you know, drone drones that have intelligence and missile defense systems are going to progress really quickly. And this is probably going to be the key driver of investment in AI is going to be like military nation states, especially China, us, Russia and Europe, like investing in like world class silicon AI systems. And so like, there's a whole, there's a whole aspect of how AI is developing that I think each of the peoples of these countries need to have alignment on about telling their policy leaders, like, hey, these are the safeguards that we want in place. These are the things that are going to make us feel safe as a people. And I think that's one of the purposes that if we talk about a unified set of beliefs, and I think it's one of the purposes of religion you could serve, is just to say, look, we don't want AI to evolve in a way that it's going to automatically be killing people. Like, we want treaties across the world. We want, you know, and I think that the people of each nation might be the best place to like, kind of hold these beliefs and Inform their leaders. So that's one aspect I think about. How do I, how do I mitigate institutional threat from that direction? And then the other aspect is, I think of is like, from the health and longevity standpoint, now I need my nation state to like invest in research that can protect my cells from being cancerous and it can protect against say, biological weapons or any kind of viral infections. And I think all these things come. We can't solve these problems at an individual level, at a community level. These are things that have to be taken on at national research and institution laboratories that can evolve this kind of thing. And for me to have existential safety, those are the kind of things I think about.

Yeah, so that's interesting. Back, back to the theme of the podcast, which is about religion and survival of fittest and the belief systems that make up fitness. So it's kind of interesting. So you're basically saying like, hey, we need these national powers to play nice and be aligned on. Let's not kill each other basically, but how those get influenced because it's literally people deciding this. At the end of the day, hopefully across the world, these people in positions of power serve the people that they have power over or are under their care is another way to think about it. So is the thinking then that some sort of universal set of principles, whether you call it like religion, ideology, philosophy for this next age, that's how you're really seeing if we can hold to that, let's say in a line set of ideas, principles, ground truths and network that out across people. Then it's at the constituent level that we get that alignment and hopefully also in parallel with that, get the alignment from key people that have influence and power over macro scale. Existential risk.

Yeah, I think that's a theory of change coming from maybe a populism standpoint where if you can change culture, then you can change the elite and then you can change political leaders. That's, that's like at least one type of theory change. And I think anybody who's thinking about new religions is probably thinking in that direction. You know, they want, like a lot.

Of people do the same thing, or maybe they just want some checks for the next party or something like that. If you're, if you're serious about mitigating existential risk, probably not what I just said, but probably more of what Jonathan just said. But I had to cheekily add that in there. I don't think anybody, I don't think everybody, I should say, that's starting religions is really thinking about These types of topics.

I mean, yeah, there's tax breaks and psychedelics. Like, those are great uses for churches too, you know.

Sorry I cut you off, though. What were you going to say about. In response or reaction to what I was saying with the, you know, networked sort of ideologies that keep us safe. You mentioned populism.

Yeah, I mean, I do think this is a time where we, as people like, you know, are informed better than ever and able to communicate, collaborate, come up with ideologies that say, like, hey, I don't want another pandemic. I don't want to die from viruses. I don't want to die from biological weapons. I want. I want the places I'm living in to serve me and to protect me and not for me to feel safe. One interesting, like, note that Brian sent to the OG's group on WhatsApp was like, step one was, was religion, step two was, was a nation state. And I think he's talking about Balaji's, like, what are they called? Blodget has an idea about decentralized network states. Network states. That's what it is. Yeah, I think that's what he's talking about. But, like, legitimately, the thing I want more as a citizen than anything right now is just, like, safety from nuclear and biological weapons. I don't have it in the country I currently live in. If I could move someplace that would give me that, I would go there. And I don't. That's the starting point. Like, I want the whole suite of, like, existential, like, investment from my nation state that I live in to be, like, geared to protect me from existential risk. But imagine that you had, like, a nation state that was, like, first and foremost built around a missile defense system that was effectively immune from nuclear warfare. It took on, had all the resources internal to it, had maybe subterranean, like, living conditions or something like that. And it could. It could guarantee you that it could shoot off and defend from any drone attack, any nuclear weapon. And it had, like, the most advanced AI system that you can imagine for defending you. You have a deterrent system there that is, like, so different than anything that we have in the world today that I think it would just change. It would change the balance of missile warfare completely.

So you're saying if this existed, you'd move there? That's what you're saying?

I would, yeah. I actually put a thought experiment on the don't die, apparently, you know, like, so if there's an entrepreneur that provided this city for you, that defended against AI and all nuclear threats, like would you live there? Kind of thing. It also had the caveat. Well, also the caveat that you had to like kind of hibernate like a thundercat. Did you ever watch that show?

Yeah, I did.

Yeah. So they would like travel through space, through hibernation, and then like get woken up. And this isn't like a lot of sci fi movies now, but I remember seeing that as a kid, like, oh, that's kind of interesting idea. So that you would, you'd actually like, you'd sleep like 90% of the time to like weather this highly turbulent time of, of like nuclear arms race and AI arms race and, but, but like you got somebody like an Elon Musk that's. That provided the city for you that you can live in safely during that time. Like, would you take it? Most people said yes. Some people said like, that doesn't sound like a world I want to live in. But most people are like, hell yeah, yeah, I'll sleep like 90% of the time if I'm guaranteed a good existential risk profile.

Yeah. Wait. Interesting. Yeah. Because I guess in this thought experiment then that network or nation state, I guess it would be a nation state, not quite a network state. Maybe it started off as a network state and then became a network nation state where, hey, we have land, we have Atlantis under us and we're going to keep people safe and have them sleeping a lot. Then I guess in that thought experiment, since that nation state's number one objective is keep everybody in here alive and we're at such a time of uncertainty. Yeah. I wonder if we put that to the world if it would come in at a similar rate that you got polling the don't die community, because don't die, like obviously selects for people that don't want to die. I wonder what most of the world would pick if we just threw that out there in the wild. What do you, what do you think? Would it be like 50, 50? Would it be more? Would it be similar?

I, I think if you're being honest about like your risks of being alive through a period of rapid technological change, especially where lots of people have access to technology that can destroy the whole world. I mean, you're going to want a bunker.

Yeah, we see the elites buying bunkers.

So yeah, there's the New Zealand escape hatch. But yeah, I just think that like when you look at it from evolutionaries time, you know, timescale and fitness function, it's the nation states that evolve to like keep a healthy, productive population that can be like economically viable. It can be like co evolving with AI and it can be mitigating all existential. Those are going to be the nation states that win, you know, and they continue to tell their story.

Yeah. When you take the time slider to infinity, the ones that survive win for sure.

Yeah.

There's the great quote.

What?

History is written by the victors, right?

Yes. And evolution is reproducted by the victors.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So stay alive.

Yeah.

So anything else on the concepts of religion network states, consciousness, belief systems that are required for this next age? I think we've come to. We talked a lot about how religion was, especially in the actual age. Came about to kind of answer the uncertainty of hey, what is good or evil? Why is this happening to me at a high level? And please for the audience, you know, don't take this as we are PhDs around the evolution of religion. This is more like we're building up stuff. Me really interested in AI alignment, really interested in minimizing or eliminating existential risk. We believe that has to do with belief systems and modeling them across selves, whether they be us, our own selves or collectives of humans, whether that be at a state level, nation level, et cetera. So yeah, go read some of the items in the show notes if you want more of a deep dive into religion. We mainly provided as context into what we're thinking about in terms of mitigating existential risk to humanity. So we talked about that. We talked about Brian Johnson's Don't Die philosophy. We talked about your thinking even before encountering Brian Johnson's Don't Die philosophy. That hey, something longevity based makes the most sense. We talked about the way of the future, which is an AI culture where AI is God. So that's interesting to say the least. And we talked about these nuclear war game sort of thought experiments. Anything else you want to add to that before we move into the build in public updates and brainstorm?

Yeah, I was going to ask you if you could see an AI religion and it's like as something that you could talk to somebody that you were friends with and or your family and like what's a version of that that you actually see coming to reality that is something that could bond people together or do you think this is more something like just have you're like in a group on like a Twitter or something like that or a Reddit forum and you're like opting in in the same way that you might like sign up for religion to get it get psychedelic mushrooms?

Yeah, that's an interesting question. So I think about my family. Like my grandma, she's close to 100 and when I go talk to her and she asks me, why don't you visit enough? And I'm like, I'm busy. I'm building a startup on side, I got my day job. She's like, when are you getting married? I'm going to die soon. Can you please get married and have kids? And the thought of me going to her and be like, hey, here's a new religion that will help us survive more. And she's going to be like, I don't give a shit about that. Please get married, have kids so I could see my grandkids before I die. Then I think about my mom, who's got maybe 30 years more of life in her or so, hopefully longer. I think she would just ask me, she's not even like, she's not even used ChatGPT. She doesn't even really understand it, you know, so she would just then say, yeah, that's cool, hopefully you make some money and please eat more because you're too skinny. That's what she would say. So, and I'm thinking about other people that are not in the Silicon Valley because I think people in the Silicon Valley, especially people working on AI, you could probably engage in a pretty deep intellectual conversation with about this, like, hey, AI and religion, just throw those two words out there and then people will probably have some dialogue. If I threw that out to my grandma and mom who are not in Silicon Valley. Yeah, they just don't even, I don't even think they would. I'll try it and I'll report back, but I don't think they would really engage at the conversational level that we are now. Do I think that. I guess going back to your question, so it's, what do I think about an AI religion that can become mainstream? Could that be a thing? Is that what you're asking?

Yeah, I mean, I guess Brian's looking for institution that can reach a billion people, right? Brian Johnson. So, yeah, that, that's like a lot of people. I mean, it includes your family probably, right? I mean, but yeah, I think my experience is like, yeah, there's just like some, some weirdos in Silicon Valley that you can talk to about this stuff. But you know, like, if, if you were to, if I was to talk to anybody, friends or family, even if, even like after the bouldering meetup that we had, I brought this up at lunch, I was like, so what do you think about our don't die religion, you know, and, like, nobody even knows what to say. Like, they're just kind of like, yeah, what'd that go?

Like, I'm curious. I didn't hear that part of it.

Yeah. So I was like, the opposite end of the table view as you. And I would just describe it as, like, mild embarrassment repeated as a, like, you know, kind of like a misunderstanding. Like, I don't really get it. Like, you know, it. Nobody had any. Any takes on it where I could see it being constructive, let me put it that way. So, yeah, like. And I think, like you said, it's kind of on Brian to figure out, like, what he means by all this, because then he. He makes a Netflix special and he says, like, it's a cult of going to bed on time. Almost like a. Almost like he's just trolling people with the language. Right. Which that's a thing you can do too. But I think if you're really trying to get everybody on board about a belief that AI alignment is longevity and that AI should evolve to keep us alive as humans, then that's a big task. And I can't picture church looks like or what the rituals look like. And it's really interesting when you brought up your grandmother, because like the philosopher I brought up earlier, Vico, he talks about, like, that it's a birth ceremony, a bonding ceremony, as in marriage and a death ceremony. These are all the ways that religion impacts culture to create bonding. And it's intergenerational meaning passed on from generation to generation. So everybody goes through these, like. Like rites of passage. And that's what the rituals are that bond you. And, like, bring values. And, like, think of all the values that are shared the. During. During a wedding ceremony. Right. And that's what your grandma knows. And all that's passed on, like, from. From father to son, from mother to daughter, generation over generation. And now you need to think about a religion as being something that's passed on, like, within a generation. It could even change within a generation. And that's like. I don't think that's religion as most people think about it. It's something much different. And it's. It's an AI religion, you know, But I still can't think. I can't picture it concrete in a way that it has network effects, it spreads and it can reach scale.

Yeah. I'd be curious as to what the rituals would be of a don't die religion. And that's interesting that you mentioned that the values and beliefs are passed down as a rite of passage or across generations, mother to daughter, father to son. Like that Hinduism example that you give where a 13 year old boy has a choice coming of age to become a man. It's do you want to choose the escape button and go to the jungle and just live there outside of these values and beliefs? Cool. You could do it. Here's the choice. So that, that's interesting. And that certainly if I imagine myself as that boy, that would be one of the most defining moments in my life. Right. And so obviously that will tie to identity which is tied to your beliefs and values. So it's fascinating. So, so then the question becomes not just like can we get this religion networked, it's how can we get the core ideology of don't die or a longevity centric AI alignment thesis or set of beliefs propagated throughout society as fast as possible. Yeah, that's interesting. And I don't. Yeah, I don't have answers to that for sure. There's nothing, there's no blueprint for that. Right.

It's a good way to put it. No blueprint, there's no blueprint for.

Would be categorically new. Like doing this because there's blueprints for Paul and the apostles. Right. There's blueprints for how other religions have formed. How did Scientology form? Um, but there's new. No blueprint for within a generation hyper expediting the rate of change of belief systems.

Right. If you look at the scale that like Scientology and Mormonism get to, you know, so Mormonism started 1830s, it has 17 million followers or members. Scientology, I think it started post World War II. Really interesting religion story actually. But there's 4 million people in Scientology. Those are not the kind of scales that we would need cohesive alignment around AI on, nor is it what Brian's talking about. So I think the only examples you can even think of that scale that fast have to be networks like TikTok, Facebook, like Minecraft, big, big online games that people. And these are not belief system centric, they're not ritual centric, but they do create a lot of common behaviors between people, which is kind of an interesting way to think about it. So I think like that's interesting.

Say, say more about that. Creating common behaviors between people with like Minecraft and those other examples. I'm curious.

Yeah, I mean I think we talked the term the race to the bottom of the brainstem. You know, I think like the common behaviors you can find in games, gamification, TikTok and Twitter. You know, it's about grabbing attention, and it's about, like, hitting your mind in a state where you, like, you get a dopamine response that gradually just kind of like, it's hard to fight your prefrontal cortex's desire to, like, learn something when you just keep on getting dopamine hits. And so that's. There's. There's like, there's patterns there that are common to all humans that may not be like philosophical beliefs, but they're beliefs in the sense that, like, they're a homeostatic system that's reacting to its environment. And it's common with all people. And I wonder if you can take patterns like that and bring them into something like aligning on beliefs about, like, what it means to be human, aligning beliefs about what it means to be safe and, like, mitigate existential threats. I think the best case I could think of is if you could take something like a TikTok, but make it so that you're grouping people by belief coherence and you're making it so easy for them to do things that are sort of like, good for themselves that you just get clusters of large, large clusters of people that are like, give you my next longevity routine, please. Because it's so easy and coherent and aligned.

Yeah, that's interesting. As you say that, it reminds me of our conversations about gamifying health or longevity strategies in action.

Right.

I think that's probably the best way is. Or for Brian, he wants this ideology to spread the best way it spreads, kind of reflecting back what you said is get people into the core loop of playing don't die, but consciously, like, get into the app, connect your health wearables. Well, actually, even right there, if you connect your health wearables, that probably excludes billions of people on the planet. So. So we probably need some other way for them to play the game and get that dopamine hit. But let's just say for that ICP that has a whoop or whatever, like, like we do a health wearable, and then I see my current sleep or my current recovery or my current exercise, my current health or bio age baselines, and then I get in this loop of playing this, hey, I get healthier. And what's nice about getting healthier is you feel better. And if you feel better attributed to something like, for example, I have this belief that you will merge action with your identity when you get to some threshold of spent time doing the action. So, for example, the first year that I rock climbed I never considered myself a rock climber the first year that I did chemical engineering in college. Didn't consider myself a chemical engineer until I got to some threshold of, oh, I'm doing the thing, I'm rock climbing or I'm doing chemical engineering. Or right now, like, I didn't consider myself a product leader until I had launched a few, right. So I think at some point, if somebody is in that don't die core gameplay loop of getting healthier, they do it enough, they reach some sort of breakthrough, like, hey, I dropped 30 pounds. I never thought I could do that before. And then boom, right there, they're like, let me associate all that with this ideology. That's probably the best way. And I like what you said about let's group people with a similar level of belief coherence. So that kind of creates these atomic network units, right? That could then propagate network effects a la Cold Start Problem by Andrew Chen. Read that more. If you're interested in network effects and how to get them. Really great book. Any thoughts on the let's draw people in the core gameplay loop of Don't Die. I know you have lots of thoughts on gamification, so I bet the audience would love to hear your thoughts.

Yeah, I thought that was really well articulated. I see it the same way. I think it's like getting that core loop, so Brian calls it the algorithm, right? Where you're taking data about yourself, you're like making some experimental hypothesis about the world to improve that data, like a biological age marker, and then you're taking that action. And so he's like showing that with the Longevity Rejuvenation Olympics and his ability to push that, his own numbers below like 0.5 on the Dunedin pace of aging, right? So he's showing more investment. Get a better the blueprint protocol, make it better and better, use data for feedback, do that on and on. And if you just keep completing that cycle, he's saying the AI will soon be able to like recommend your experiments better than you could understand them yourself. So just, just like follow that, right? So I think what, what builds belief in that is exactly that, that loop, right? You're in the loop, you're gamifying it, you're seeing results, you're getting better and better. You can feel it yourself. But I also think there has to be something sort of like contagious about it. Like you can see somebody in the street be like, wow, that person looks so healthy and attractive that they must be on, they must be playing this game that I keep hearing about. Right. And I think. So to get to like the scale dynamics of something like a Roblox, right, like that, you know, you're really going to have to have ways to pull people in the game to get them incrementally engaged. I think the design principle of like, you know, a very low barrier to entry, but a very high ceiling for winning at the game and getting. And then like when you play the best design games, they always bring you into these like little caverns where you're still in the gamification loop, but you're solving some little problem and spending like a lot of time and money solving this because you're so invested and because it's like going to pay off in the whole, like your whole life cycle of the game. Right?

Yeah. That's interesting. So I've been thinking about this concept of a funnel. Like there's a don't die funnel, like awareness at the top, you know, loyalty, advocacy at the bottom, like any marketing funnel. And I've been thinking about that funnel in terms of how much do you believe in don't die? And for the audience that hasn't listened to this before, it's because we're working with the don't Tie team working on some AI stuff. So that's also why we're talking about the slot. So our thinking is like, so let's say we make the. You're in the funnel and there are ways to bring you down the funnel. We make that really good. And that's all called the core gameplay loop. Like we've just mastered that. So then my other question is, how do we get people not playing the game outside of the funnel into the funnel? And that's interesting. And this is where I think the concern around positioning it as a religion comes up. Because if it's positioned as a religion, there are automatically people that are agnostic atheists that are like, yeah, not for me. That's not a game I want to play, right. So I'm never going to be in the funnel. So they're like, don't die. Belief score out there would be zero percent. And it's of an ICP that doesn't.

Is.

Is like anti religion, right. So if they hear that, they don't even want to be in the funnel. So I think it'd be very hard to get those people in it. Right? Unless. So Brian's now getting these influencers into dinner. So like Kim Kardashian, Mila Kunis and stuff. So unless it's like, I am a Person that is agnostic, atheist. I don't want to be in a religion. And then I see Kim Kardashian, who I idolize. I'm like, wait, she's in this religion? Then is that enough of a mover for me to break my inertia to be like, all right, I'm going to sign up, see what this is about? Because I think that's basically Brian's game plan, the way that I see it, where he's trying to get the broad awareness of bringing people into the funnel with these sort of that influencer play of people that already have communities that have already built trust. And then there's the sort of like, hey, my nighttime erections are better than yours. Sort of like, out there marketing, where you're getting attention, and then that pulls people in. So I'm kind of curious on your thoughts there. Like, there's no real answers here, but I think we can at least speculate. And speculating is kind of fun.

Yeah, right? Yeah. I think Brian's in the phase of his movement building where it's like, any attention is good attention. And, like, you know, so anybody, even. Even trolls, even people that he's offending, like, great energy is energy, and that's like, he's moving with that. But they'll reach a point where he has to, like, in a more nuanced way, meet people where they're at and, like, if they. If they're coming from a religion of Islam or something like that, and they have a certain metaphysical view of themselves in the world that you're gonna have to have, like, a way to. To, like, make the thinking of don't die. The metaphysical thinking of don't die sort of compatible with the metaphysical thinking of. Of Islam. Right. And if you're going to really reach the matches masses, and I think you're, like, the conduit of, like, other influencers is, like, one way that that message can get heard. But I don't know that it, like, really pulls people in. So that. That's, like, you know, a pretty big challenge. And I think, like, good religions have, like, sophisticated ways of deconstructing your existing belief system of the world. Have you heard of this movie Heretic, by the way?

No, I haven't. Tell me about it.

New movie 2024, Hugh Grant. It is a very, like, calculated statement about religion told in the story of a guy who has two female Christian evangelists come to his home. They might have been Mormon, and then they came to the home, and he has this whole trap setup where the front of his house looks very normal. He says, my wife's in the other room. And he gradually brings them through different rooms of the house. And it's a metaphor for like, at each phase they're given a like set of false choices that they have to choose to like gradually lose control over their own life. And at the end of the tunnel you see he's got like a dungeon with women, these same kind of women who've come to visit him in cages and they're like literally just like in a dog cage. Eight women or so. You know that he's, he's just. And Hugh Grant's character is somebody who is a. They're a professor who studies religion. And his whole thesis is that if you go back from, to religion from the very beginning, the, the common thing they all have in pattern, in common is that they are control systems for people. And so it's really like kind of a dark take on what religion is. And I think it's also like very congruent with like how a lot of educated people think about what religion is. It's a really fun movie to watch and it's very well done, in my opinion.

Yeah, let me just read. I just pulled up the plot on Wikipedia. This might be fascinating for the audience and maybe you'll go watch it. Two young Mormon missionaries, confident sister Barnes and timid sister Paxton, arrive at the home of a reclusive middle aged man, Mr. Reed. He invites them in, assuring them that his wife is preparing a blueberry pie in the back of the house. They begin to discuss religion with Reid, making several uncomfortable comments about their Mormon faith and the nature of belief. When Reid steps out of the room, Barnes realizes that the smell of blueberry pie is from a candle. The front door is locked and they have no phone signal. They follow Reid to his study where he gives them a threatening lecture, arguing that all religions are adaptations of one another and claims to have found the one true religion. The girls are told that the front door is latched and will not open. He gives the girls a choice of two doors to go through to exit the house. One if they still believe in God and one if they do not. Barnes rebels, repudiating several of his claims. They enter the belief door, but discover both doors lead to the same dungeon. A decrepit woman appears, eats a poisoned pie and dies. Reid claims that she is a prophet of God and the pair will witness her resurrection. A church elder arrives looking for the girls, but leaves without hearing their screams. Paxton notices that the position of the prophet has changed. The prophet apparently comes back from the dead and describes the afterlife. Barnes rejects the prophet's description, noting its similarity to common hallucinations from near death experiences. When Barnes gives Paxton a signal to attack Reid, he slashes Barnes throat. He then claims that she will also rise from the dead. And there's more, but I'll leave it at that if you want to watch it. But that sounds like a freaky. It sounds freaky. It's a horror about religion. So that's fascinating. So two Mormon missionaries attempt to go convert a man, Hugh Grant, who is more dangerous than he seems. And that's kind of some of the synoptists. Wow. Okay, that's fascinating.

And Hugh Grant's character is very articulate about his religious arguments, as in, he's clearly done this dozens and dozens of times before and, like, lead you through these thought patterns. Well done. So, yeah. Yeah.

Wow.

So maybe this is just like a big trap for Brian to get more blood boys in this dungeon.

Like, more blood boys, Give me more blood boys.

I think. I think that joke, actually.

Yeah, yeah. Then it's like, oh, how do you do this at scale? Right? And that's really the question to answer is, can this be done at scale?

Yeah. So I brought that up in terms of, like, the belief deconstruction that, like, it actually takes to get somebody to think about them, the world they live in, differently, themselves differently. And I think, like, the irony of this conversation we're having today is I think a lot of the ways that people think about life and death came from religions that formed during the axial age and have played a really strong purpose. And these beliefs about, like, you know, afterlives, what it means to be alive, you're not given answers. Right. So, like, a lot of people still rely on the same dogmas that they had inherited through religion. And I think a new religion has, like, especially one that is talking about, like, longevity, has a distinct challenge in deconstructing those beliefs and bringing you into something that is, like, more constructive, that's what the challenge is. And no matter how many times he meets with Kim Kardashian, you know, if the message isn't right and doesn't, like, grab people and, like, offer them something better than what they have, then, like, you're not getting to a billion people in scale through the religion alone. Like, then. And I think thinking about playing a video game is sort of like a much easier way to. To, like, lead people through those incremental steps than it is, say, going to A dinner?

Yeah, yeah. Because the dinner is not scalable. First of all, the game can be. Another thought that I had, that's an interesting thought experiment is let's say you have an atomic network unit of 149 out of 100 people. Let's say in the don't die San Francisco Bay Area community.

Yeah.

Or actually erase. Erase the experiment for a sec. Okay. So not in the don't die San Francisco Bay area community. Let's say the San Francisco Bay area was made of 150 people, and there's 149 of them that are. Don't die. Believe it as a religion. Do we think that person will convert over time? Like, they would have a lot of reasons to. Like, there'd be the, you know, social games, pressure to go fit in. They maybe see these people and they're like, wow, you're really hot and confident. I want to have that. Or. Or some of these other games that we play. And then maybe that person turns. Like, let's say that person is completely atheist and, you know, and they don't believe in religion at all. And all along, Don't Die has been positioned as religion. And these other 149, that. That. That has evolved to 149 out of 150, does that person eventually turn right?

I mean, I think it depends on what. What they're looking at is, like, these people are going to bed on time, they're eating well, they're doing gene therapy treatments. You know, they can all, like, jump higher than me and run faster than me and, like, maybe it's time for me to get my shit in order and, like, you know, do the same thing. Yeah, I. I think you really have to have a compelling reason.

Yeah, that's interesting. I. I could see a certain percentage of the population being, like, atheist. And then because they're lonely in that position and they want to feel like they belong, maybe they convert. And then I could see a certain amount of people that are like, okay, maybe I'll convert, but I'll still hold on to my current ideals and not believe in the religious parts of it. But I enjoy the community aspects. I enjoy the health aspects. Right. So the reason I bring up this thought experiment is, like, maybe one way to solve this is just increasing the number of atomic network units that are across geographies. I guess I should say so, having, like, local chapters and stuff. I mean, that's also how, like, normal religion has sort of evolved, is, you know, go have missionaries, you build out a new church, you build Out a new local chapter, you train. You have this train the trainer kind of approach. You take a cohort of people, you deconstruct their beliefs, you give them new ones, and then they go train more people. That's interesting.

Yeah. I mean, this is one of the reasons I was thinking about religion even prior to going to Don't Die is that I'd met so many smart people that are like, you know, well off, they have everything they need, but they're lonely. And I started to hear more and more, like, I don't, you know, I was born in this world without a religion, but I sure feel like I miss having religion. And I was hearing this a lot. And this, this is like a smart people problem, a first world problem that is like, you know, I just feel lonely. And I was hearing that a lot and I thought, like, there's, there's sort of like, got to be a replacement for that for the purpose of belief, coherence and the purpose. Purpose of support. And then one of the smarter guys I listened to about the ideas of Game B, which is non competitive, cooperative, social dynamic sort of philosophy. His name is Jordan hall and he converted to Christianity last year. And he was going back on some of the same podcasts I used to listen to him on and talking about how, like, just studying the doctrine of God is serving him really well. And he's, he's like, him and his girlfriend were like, we're Christian now and we're just going to keep being Christian because it's a better life for me and I'm not lonely anymore and I have this whole community. And so, like, there were a lot of signals telling me that, like, you know, something like religion is missing. And this is, this is why we have like, tribes and cultural warfare and, you know, disassociations. Right?

Yeah, it's interesting. Like, even we did this, we mentioned this to the audience. We did a Don't die bouldering event yesterday. I hosted it to try to build some community around rock climbing and longevity nerds, because there's not enough of them from my perspective. So I'm like, I am rock climbing. I'm a founder. I would love to find other founder rock climbers, but in addition, I'd love to find other founder rock climbers that are into longevity. So I figured, you know, host this. It's fun and just talking to some of the people there. One of the key themes that I hear is, oh, I can't. With my regular friends, I can't, you know, I can't tell Them to go to bed on time or they try to get me out at night and I don't really want to drink and I get made fun of it for for it. And so underneath that I think is a desire for community where it's like we do morning raves, we don't do night raves, we don't drink, we go to bed on time, we eat, really health, we basically choose the don't die path. Like we're going to really try to make every active micro decision around not dying, extending life and health span as long as possible in broad terms. So yeah, you know what's interesting is I had this thought, so I think community actually is going to be a big thing because it is in humans to not like we love connection, we love feeling like we belong. It is very human to feel, to want that feeling. Right. So yeah, I mean coming down to it, I suppose the answer is creating enough atomic network units that achieve network effects around the globe. That's probably what it comes down to. And just even in thought experiments we just had, which I don't know if our thinking tracked or not, but even in the 149 to 1 case I could see that. I could see out of a hundred times, out of a hundred times we placed that case and just put people in that position. I could see non negligible amounts of times where that person says yes, okay, I'm atheist, but I will convert just for the feeling of belonging. Right. And that underscores the use case you just talked about where it's like super sophisticated, individual is well off but wanted to feel like they belonged, wanted community, so they converted Christianity.

Very interesting.

That is interesting.

Yeah. It's still a little hard for me to picture that, that atomic network unit and like what it looks like at that size where you know, you could, you could be having relationships with these people, you can be a community with these people. Somebody from the outside looks in and says like yeah, I want to be part of that in a way that like is longevity oriented, AI alignment oriented and it creates true cohesion of beliefs about these just very simple things about wanting to avoid existential risk. But I think the right game and the right results from that game, maybe I could see that maybe that's actually pretty concrete.

Yeah, I like thinking about it that way. It's really measurable. Then it's like for every, the way that it would start is for every, let's say municipality. Like I'm trying to think of a way to say like a small region, maybe just Say city for every city. Let's say we had an atomic network unit of 150. Don't die people. I connect this with cooperation theory by Robert Axelrod, who was a game theorist, has a PhD there and he talks about in simulations of game theory around the iterated prisoners dilemma. If you have, let's say out of 150, 50 people, let's just say the same numbers for ease of the mind to comprehend. So if you have 150 people and 148 of them are uncooperative, meaning anytime you go to them, they're going to try to just say no, I'm going to pick the choice that's self serving in the iterated prisoner's dilemma. And real quick for the audience, the iterated prisoner's dilemma is let's say Jonathan's a prisoner, I'm a prisoner, and each of us and a detective or whatever approaches us in isolation. So I get approached, Jonathan gets approached, we get a choice, A or B. A is you try to cooperate, meaning you know, hey, no, we both didn't do whatever crime we're blamed for or accused of. And then B is I'm going to throw my friend under the bus, fuck it, I didn't do it. But he did it, right? And so in the iterated prisoner's dilemma, let's say Jonathan and I both pick A. So then our year sentence would be one year. If I picked A and he picked B, then I would get off scot free. So that would be the best outcome for me from a self serving perspective. If I picked B and he picked B, we would both be kind of more fucked. I think it's like five years or something like that. So, so basically back to this iterated prisoner's dilemma at scale around cooperation theory. That's where Axelrod took it. If you have 150 people, if you have two of them that are cooperative, meaning they be more likely to pick the A path. And then you have 148 people in this little atomic network unit, this thought experiment city, and those people are always going to pick, I'm going to throw my partner under the bus. So what he has proven mathematically is that if there are two players that cooperative out of 148 players that are not cooperative, if even in 20, 30, 40 interactions at random, if they get to interact with each other more, then they're playing a better game, AKA from a points perspective, they getting more points over time because the 148, you know what they're going to do, they're always never going to cooperate. So they have a maximum cap of how many points they could sort of achieve. If the cooperators cooperate even a few times over 20 to 30 simulated interactions, then their point total is just going to be higher. So what this means is in cooperation theory by Axelrod, he says that even in a network of primarily defectors or non cooperators, by his definition, if you only even have two, and if they interact with each other even a little bit more than they interact with anybody else, then that strategy will over time, you take this time slider to infinity, that strategy will end up being the dominant strategy, which is to cooperate. So back to this. That's why I started just in the conversation here that evolved, I started thinking maybe that's the best way to think about it, is how can we just seed cooperation and matchmake people that are don't die as much as possible within a geography like a city or municipality or locale. And in that way they keep playing this game and get kind of in abstract terms, more cooperation points, more happiness points, whatever. And maybe in realistic terms it means, oh, these people are like maybe the non cooperators outside of this potential atomic network unit, they'll see, oh, these people are like they're 50, but they look 20, they're really hot, they're having a good time, they seem happier than us. Maybe I'll try that strategy. That's what Axelrod says is what will happen is the defectors will look at that and over time see you're getting more points than I am. Perhaps I should change my strategy. And then they do, and then they find that that becomes the dominant strategy over time in a population. So what this presupposes is that if we apply this to don't die, that cooperation theory by Axelrod, if we accept that don't die is a better strategy over time, then the best way, honestly, is probably matchmake the people playing that don't die strategy together within locale or municipality or city and get those people cooperating as much as possible. And then that will over time get other people to be interested in that strategy and adopt the strategy. So, yeah, it's interesting. I actually wrote a whole article on cooperation theory at the intersection of making change in a big organization as a product leader. But then applying it to these concepts is actually kind of fascinating. I'll have to pen down these thoughts after. But yeah, what do you think of that, Jonathan?

Yeah, I love that because it's really, I think putting the modern theory onto these Kind of like axial age evolutions that I was talking about. And I think you could probably apply that lens, look back at the historical narratives of how evolution or how religion evolved in those times, because it was exactly that effect. It was that the bonding together and like having a notion of good and being on that side of good together. And like, you know, one example of the, that that she gave in the book was the Greek phalanx, you know, the, where you have infantrymen that are locked together, you know, creating a, basically a wall of like spears and shield and spears. Right. Was that was over. That was able to overcome the, the chariots and cavalry. Right, but and so you as an individual had to opt into that. You had to like go to the market and you had to buy your equipment and you had to train with everybody. And it just became like something is like, I'm going to live a better life because I'm part of this phalanx or my family's protected because I'm part of this phalanx. So yeah, I think like that dynamic is really interesting and what I think when it comes to like speaking from a longevity standpoint and what can, what can two people do together that a third person looks on? There's also like the more, I think the more people and more knowledge that there is to share about like these, these nuances and attracting you know, like incremental people to like be able to say like, I will get more value out of this, but also the group as a whole will get more value out of this. And feeling like that there, there's like a moral imperative there that me joining on helps everybody also is maybe kind of like a forcing function that creates that bonding effect and uses some prisoner's dilemma type of cooperation.

No, that's cool. And now I'm thinking about this in terms of other influence frameworks that I think about like influence styles. Everybody's got different influence styles. I think of it like a function of how easily convinced are you to do X. It's a function of like five things. So is there data to support that this is the right choice? So that's a rational influence style. Assertion is like, hey, this is the right thing to do or it comes from some higher power, like your boss tells you to do this thing, so of course you're going to do it. Or maybe, you know, you're a law abiding citizen, you hear this from the police or somebody else, somebody with more power than you, and so you'll do it. That's, that's assertion. Bridging is like teamwork. Like, oh my gosh, we're all in this together, like, kind of thing. And there are people that are influenced by bridging. Then there's inspiration. So people that are inspired by some vision or something like that. And then there is, oh, what was the last one? So assertion negotiating. So this is the salesperson approach. Like, I want a deal for this, right? And then I'll buy it. That's right. Okay, so assertion, negotiating, inspiration, bridging rationale. So if you think about it, right, Like a good use case of this is a weight loss commercial of weight loss commercial. You can imagine that like the before, after, oh my gosh, I'm inspired. I kind of look like that. And I want to look like that, right? Rational. It's like, hey, this person did these things backed by scientists, this new health protocol, you know, there's the negotiation, which is if you call now the next 60 minutes, we're going to give you 50% off the thing. And then there's a, you know, assertion is also, it could be tied to. In that example, hey, nine out of ten doctors support this protocol. And then bridging might be in that example, like, come join this health community that has all achieved this visionary like weight loss and now looks hotter and is more confident. Right? So that's kind of funny because I explained the weight loss commercial to a lot of other product managers just to explain influence styles and how to leverage them to influence your vision. And it's fascinating to tie this along with cooperation theory on how might we get people to join Don't Die? I think just through this course of the conversation, I've come to more concrete thoughts actually on that. Like, okay, the core loop lives within the app. Everybody's got Android iPhone. You can access the app. Then if we focus on growing atomic network units and improving the matchmaking within a city to find another Don't Die tribe member or a community member, and then make sure that you actually connect and do things. Then that through cooperation theory, you'll hang out more, you'll implement the Don't Die strategy more with each other, other people. A third person, fourth person out all the way to the 150th person in that area might see that maybe you post it to socials. Maybe you're having a shitload of fun like we did at the Don't Die bouldering event yesterday. And we could post it to socials. Then maybe you see that and they're like, wait a second, through one of these lenses of Influence it might be that I then get influenced to join and play this more dominant strategy slash. It becomes the dominant strategy over time because it is the more preferred one or has the highest returns. Yeah, I got to think a lot about that. But this is bringing a lot of good thoughts of like how might we actually action this? Because I think the matchmaking part is going to be really important, especially meeting somebody. Like for example, if we take, let's say two people, one of them is higher in don't die belief score, one of them is lower, this one will probably bring this person higher. Right. Like just taking a high level thought experiment. There's a lot of factors there. But in general I'd say if somebody with the higher don't die belief score is interacting with somebody with lower don't die belief score over time, you take the sliders to infinity and you also take that sort of qualitative expression that you are the average of the five people that you hang out with, then yeah, they're probably beliefs will go up over time. So yeah, that was a wild tangent, but any thoughts on any of that, Jonathan?

Yeah, I mean it's a good marketing principles. I think it's all part of building a network and bringing people into a movement and that kind of thing. So I think people will make the leap of faith. Right? Because the AI religion aspect of it is that it's inevitable to get to a point where the algorithm is better recommended by the AI than anything that you can think of yourself. And I think that there's a point where you're saying somebody's high in the belief score is actually actively in a loop where they can see that their, their health is improving, that their existential risk is, is going down. And they can see where like over time the AI has gotten them, gotten more and more sort of involved in the decision making process. I think when you can see that and then you can just like feel it and believe it yourself, that's really what it takes to make that leap of faith, that I'm prepared for a point in time when I need to outsource this to.