Based Camp - How Do I Know if I Lived a Good Life？

00:00:00.000 The core things where people like really fuck up how they're optimizing their lives is they optimize it around competing in a specific social dynamic or a specific social community that is like, you know, it could be that they organize themselves based on how alpha they are, for example.

00:00:17.440 And that doesn't really matter when you're dead. 0.68

00:00:19.220 Yeah, that's the thing is I think that like our final theme here might be that the bigger issue is that it's not like people are optimizing around dumb reasons for a life to all lived.

00:00:30.000 Like we alluded to in the beginning, which we don't agree with, you know, like how many people show up in a funeral pub, but they don't, there's, there is literally nothing, you know, like I'll just spend all my money.

00:00:37.900 I will just like max out everything.

00:00:39.980 Nothing matters after I die.

00:00:41.600 No, I don't.

00:00:42.300 You see this.

00:00:42.700 I think that's true, but I think a different way to word that is they're optimizing around norm, like living the cultural ideal set out, like the aesthetic cultural ideal set out by a specific community that they identify with.

00:00:57.740 And one of the key problems of this is this often leads to an obsession with like being okay with yourself and being okay with your identity in a way that can become all consuming because it's so circular.

00:01:09.240 It's only you who judges whether or not you're okay with who you are.

00:01:12.280 And so when you live a life to be okay with who you are, you will never really be okay with who you are.

00:01:18.320 Would you like to know more?

00:01:19.220 So Malcolm, you know how we were told multiple times by someone that like the way, you know, you've lived your life well is by the number of people at your funeral.

00:01:28.380 So if you have a ton of people at your funeral, obviously that means you nailed it, right?

00:01:31.900 Yeah.

00:01:32.360 Well, I just like heard of the greatest tack for this.

00:01:34.840 Someone for their funeral had a raffle for giving away their car.

00:01:39.660 And I'm like, well, this is it.

00:01:41.680 You just like, you make, you pre-plan it, you pay it, you have a public announcement when you die and you list all the assets you're going to raffle off to anyone who comes.

00:01:50.220 Everyone shows up to your funeral, like done, you know, you hacked it.

00:01:54.400 Now you've apparently lived a good life and all this happens after you die, of course, but apparently a lot of people care about stuff like that.

00:02:00.600 So for those who do, you're welcome.

00:02:02.840 And there's a lot of cultures similar to that where you can buy grievers.

00:02:06.900 You know, we've talked about this in other episodes, like in Korea, you can buy people to come and grieve at your funeral if not enough people are going to come.

00:02:14.140 Well, and I mean, this goes back to ancient Egypt where there were professional mourners, right?

00:02:17.880 Who would, you know, wail and whatnot.

00:02:20.600 Well, and Rome did this as well with the processions after people would die.

00:02:24.180 You know, it's...

00:02:24.780 Why do they care?

00:02:26.320 Like, what is this weird desire for people to be really sad that you died?

00:02:34.220 I mean, I guess it means that, like, you were necessary to them. 0.96

00:02:37.860 It implies that you provided a lot of resources because I think the real reason why people would lose their shit if you died is they were also losing their house and their food and their job and, like... 0.96

00:02:48.060 I think it's a popularity thing. 0.98

00:02:49.980 Well, they see life is about accumulating, I guess I'd call it emotional debt from other people.

00:02:57.240 And they want the maximum number of other people to feel bad about the fact that they had died.

00:03:02.440 Like, they want to go out like Princess Diana.

00:03:04.200 Like, she, I feel like, in all human history, probably had the best, like, everyone mourning for her very dramatically thing.

00:03:10.780 You know, where, like, it was traumatic for everyone, right?

00:03:13.140 I always remember her as the one with the expensive beanie baby made for the... 0.98

00:03:17.240 Well, yeah, you know you've made it when you die and they make a commemorative, trendy collectible for you, whatever that may be, you know. 1.00

00:03:28.840 Stupid reason. 1.00

00:03:29.740 No, well, like, stupid measurements for a life well-lived. 1.00

00:03:33.000 So what are good measurements for a life well-lived? 0.99

00:03:35.460 Well, I mean, I think that this varies across cultures, but I think it's important to talk about from the perspective of our own cultural group.

00:03:42.480 Yeah.

00:03:42.700 What is a good measurement?

00:03:44.780 Okay.

00:03:44.920 And I would say there is only one measurement that really matters to me.

00:03:49.860 And that is, what do my kids think of my life?

00:03:55.520 Oh, what?

00:03:56.720 Interesting.

00:03:57.360 I'll explain.

00:03:58.360 So there's a lot.

00:03:59.240 Like I said, I think a good life lived is an individual who makes the world a better place for the next generation.

00:04:04.880 Yeah.

00:04:05.280 But I think it's more than that.

00:04:06.960 Okay.

00:04:07.320 I get to teach my kids a value system.

00:04:13.420 Now, two things here.

00:04:15.020 If that value system isn't good, if they don't believe that in my life it reflected in a good life, like in the way I treat you, et cetera, then they will leave that value system.

00:04:23.040 They will go to another value system and they will judge me by that other value system, which is presumably better than the value system I taught them because they turned away from it.

00:04:30.880 Correct.

00:04:31.720 Yeah.

00:04:32.260 Okay.

00:04:33.020 So in that case, they would judge me negatively or just whatever through the eyes of this other value system.

00:04:38.180 Well, another way of looking at it, though, is even if your kids choose to go another way, that may be thanks to you and that other way is way, way better and you just didn't have enough information in your lifetime to know it, you actually do them a huge favor by giving them the information they need combined with their, you know, real world experience to choose a better option.

00:04:58.700 So, okay, what Philip of Macedonia was an okay ruler, right?

00:05:06.480 But like Alexander the Great may have disagreed with him.

00:05:09.300 He didn't exactly carry on exactly what Philip did.

00:05:12.100 He also didn't carry on exactly what his mother encouraged him to do, but instead he achieved really, really great things.

00:05:17.640 I don't think he would have achieved exactly what he would have achieved had he not been exposed to his parents and seen what they did well and what they didn't do well.

00:05:24.760 And he did learn a lot from Philip for sure.

00:05:26.820 But he, he remixed it.

00:05:29.280 I don't even think that like having your kids choose something different is a bad sign.

00:05:34.060 I think having kids who are efficacious is the ultimate sign.

00:05:37.020 And as long as you set them up for that, I think it's great, right?

00:05:40.020 Yes, but hold on.

00:05:41.420 So I'll keep going.

00:05:43.020 So that's one potentiality.

00:05:44.940 They choose a different tradition because based on what you have given them as sort of the tools and then through the eyes of that different tradition, which is in the way that we do the world axiomatically better than ours because they chose it over ours.

00:05:56.820 A better mechanism for judging whether or not we have lived a good life or they stay within my tradition, right?

00:06:03.420 Within the value set that I teach them.

00:06:05.200 And then they judge me by the values that I taught them.

00:06:11.420 And if I can't live up to that value system, if I cannot be a good person from the framework that I am providing my kids for what is defined as a good person, then I am not a good person.

00:06:26.440 Yeah, if they're judging you by your own framework, but I rarely see children do that.

00:06:31.780 I see children typically go to like, you know, public schools or modern universities, be inculcated with a very different value set, and then judge their parents negatively, even though their parents live with high fidelity in dedication to their values.

00:06:44.680 Now, this is – if my kids do that, then I have failed as a parent.

00:06:49.600 See, so my life doesn't deserve to be valued highly.

00:06:53.620 If my kids are – if I put them in a context where they are able to be brainwashed by a nefarious force like the existing urban monoculture, and through that brainwashing, they end up hating me.

00:07:05.440 Well, then I should hate myself because I failed at a core task of being human, which is giving my kids a good platform to go out into the world. 0.99

00:07:16.020 If they end up converting into a culture which is so non-efficacious, so unaligned with our value set, then I have failed because – not because they have chosen something better than me, but because they have chosen something so obviously stupid. 0.93

00:07:30.720 Which is sad, but I still think that it is a good measure of whether or not I have lived a good life. 0.57

00:07:39.660 And then there's the question of, you know – you were going to say something?

00:07:44.720 Well, so it's – just to recap, it's not that they like you.

00:07:47.800 It's not that they miss you.

00:07:48.900 It's not that anyone even notices your absence.

00:07:51.980 It's whether or not they carry on your values.

00:07:57.760 No.

00:07:58.440 No.

00:07:59.020 Okay.

00:07:59.300 No.

00:08:00.720 They evolve the value system that I gave them or move to a value system that they find more efficacious but that is aligned broadly with our goals for the future of the species, and then they use that to judge me.

00:08:14.540 So there are many ways that they could judge me as a good parent.

00:08:17.160 So two, just within that.

00:08:19.140 One, they basically stay with our value system but evolve it in some core ways.

00:08:23.520 Okay.

00:08:23.860 So you're cool with remixing.

00:08:26.240 No.

00:08:26.560 I think it's important that they remix.

00:08:28.200 If they are just a clone of me, one, I think that that's going to be a fragile culture, so it will eventually die out, so it's largely pointless.

00:08:36.280 Agreed.

00:08:36.600 And two, even our value system would tell them that, like, we would be disappointed in them if they were just clones of our value system.

00:08:44.440 Like, this is something we raise our kids believing.

00:08:46.900 If you cannot come up with any evolution of our ideas, then you likely, like, what was the point?

00:08:54.120 What was the point of you being the next generation if you can't do better than us, right?

00:08:58.260 But I know my kids can do better than me, and I know they'll see flaws in my logic, and I know that they'll build upon this and create something better.

00:09:04.900 But what's interesting is as they build something better, the question is, is the way I'm living my life, does it account for the ways that the value system may evolve?

00:09:13.480 Like, when they look back on my life today, are they able to say, even in the ways our value system evolved, I still think that he lived a good life, like an honorable life, right?

00:09:27.520 So that's one way I could do well.

00:09:28.880 Or they could convert to a different tradition.

00:09:30.540 Like, I don't know, they convert to Judaism, right?

00:09:32.840 But by this, like, orthodox framework of Judaism's value set, they still think that we lived a good life.

00:09:41.440 Interesting. 0.97

00:09:42.400 Okay, so they're also, like, a lot of what you're looking at is, do your children think that you are a hypocrite? 0.72

00:09:47.380 In other words, do they think that you did not live your values?

00:09:51.480 Well, that could be how they judge my value system, but they could judge it through a different mechanism.

00:09:56.820 Do you see what I mean?

00:09:57.680 And so, for example, they convert to orthodox Judaism, and they convert to, like, traditional Catholicism or something like that.

00:10:04.740 They may even believe that we had lived a good life insofar as we paved the way and created an environment where they could convert to this radically different culture.

00:10:17.040 However, I would be, you know, personally, with my value system, I'd be disappointed in that.

00:10:22.460 It would be, like, a refutation that anything that we have built has value.

00:10:26.000 But I still think that it means that I lived a good life because I set them up to do knowing everything we know about the world and being smart and having the education that we granted them.

00:10:37.840 They decided that this other tradition was just axiomatically better than everything we had built for them.

00:10:43.400 And that's fine.

00:10:45.800 Right?

00:10:46.880 Yeah.

00:10:47.380 Yeah.

00:10:47.680 That checks out.

00:10:48.460 It's interesting to me, like, how much your evaluation depends on the opinions of your children.

00:10:57.980 Because I feel like there are many people who I see as, like, great, great signs of success and testaments to their parents' upbringing who don't really respect their parents.

00:11:14.660 Even though, in many ways, like, at least I think in the ways that count, they're really carrying on some of the core values that their parents would have hoped them to carry on.

00:11:25.780 I have seen that.

00:11:29.380 Actually, I haven't seen that.

00:11:31.960 Typically, when people hate their parents, it's because they've been converted into a completely different cultural framework.

00:11:39.020 And typically, when a cult or a tradition is converting you, and they're not one of the, like, conservative, healthy ones, just, like, one of the newer progressive ones or something like that.

00:11:47.720 Just a soft culture, in other words?

00:11:49.540 Yeah, the key way that cults convert people is they separate them from their family.

00:11:54.760 Like, they try to create walls between them and their family.

00:11:57.240 And so they'll induce memories of trauma and stuff like that to prevent the individual from having a support network to go back to.

00:12:04.000 And so that's why, like, typically when I see somebody, like, think that their parents were just, like, the worst, either they've been converted into one of these usually very inefficacious cults, or they were abused by their parents.

00:12:19.900 Like, genuinely, their parents did, like, a terrible job raising them, were narcissistic, something like that.

00:12:24.620 Now, when I see people convert into harder religious traditions, I don't often see this divide with the parents as much.

00:12:34.700 Like, like, like, like older, harder religious traditions.

00:12:37.580 So you think when people, like, go hardline from soft, softer cultures, they still somewhat respect their parents?

00:12:44.420 Yeah.

00:12:45.760 I haven't seen that often somebody, typically because the people who convert into these harder religious traditions just have more mental maturity

00:12:53.080 than the people who are seduced by promises of hedonism and doing whatever they want whenever they want, you know.

00:13:00.740 But there's another thing here which is important.

00:13:03.480 Like, I think an interesting thing about our deaths, when contrasted with the deaths of our parents,

00:13:09.800 is that if you look at where AI technology is going and what it can already do in terms of simulating people,

00:13:16.180 and you look at the volume of content that we have produced on YouTube with our faces, us talking,

00:13:21.980 you and me as separate people.

00:13:23.720 Now, this wasn't true when we had just written the books.

00:13:26.220 True.

00:13:26.340 But it's certainly true now, Kevin, you know, 30 to 45 minutes every weekday, if we keep this up for a few years.

00:13:31.940 It will be very easy to train a very detailed AI on us, to look like us, to talk like us, likely to even exist within a 3D virtual environment.

00:13:42.280 So, we will be summonable to our kids, to our grandkids, whenever they want, if they see any utility in interacting with us.

00:13:51.040 Our death just isn't that meaningful in terms of a loss of a source of information or mentorship or perspective to our kids,

00:13:59.380 because they will still have access to all of those things, even after we die.

00:14:04.920 Hmm. Yeah.

00:14:05.900 Would that make our lives better lived?

00:14:11.340 Well, I mean, I imagine it depends on how much the kids value our opinion and how much the grandkids value our opinion,

00:14:17.460 how much anything we do...

00:14:18.900 Oh, so you see more as like a KPI of whether or not they respect what we have done,

00:14:24.560 then you see it as like itself an outcome that's desired.

00:14:27.780 But if you have done a good job, they will want to interact with the AI version of you more.

00:14:31.900 I don't know if that's true. I can see us doing a good job and them just being like,

00:14:35.880 yeah, but intergenerational, I have improved so much over my parents that they just don't have much useful information to share with me.

00:14:44.820 Probably not, yeah.

00:14:45.480 An example of this would be like my dad, right?

00:14:49.040 He, I think, did a great job as a dad, insofar as I really like how I turned out as a person.

00:14:54.920 And I feel like he worked hard to make the world a better place.

00:14:58.220 You know, he built up institutions like the Santa Fe Institute, which ended up having a really big impact on like the way people think and culture and stuff like that, right?

00:15:05.080 You know, so he's a, he lived a good life by my value set, but he is philosophically so behind me,

00:15:16.400 just in terms of his philosophical, metaphysical, like understanding of the world or sophistication,

00:15:22.080 that there's very little I would ask him and expect like useful novel information.

00:15:27.520 Yeah, so you respect him insofar as he raised you well and he set you in the right direction,

00:15:32.440 but also like you've now, you've taken the torch and you will carry it forward and you hope that our children do the same

00:15:37.660 and therefore they may not consult you much because they will have hopefully surpassed you, right?

00:15:43.300 And I think that to me is what's more interesting.

00:15:46.140 And that's maybe why you heard me like immediately go to like, oh, kids who were different from you were better.

00:15:50.740 Because I mean, the whole point of having kids and having an impact in your, through your kids and our cultural interest involving in a good life,

00:15:58.780 involving a good life being what your kids outcomes are, is that we don't want stagnation.

00:16:05.500 We don't want ourselves to live forever.

00:16:07.160 We don't want ourselves to persist forever.

00:16:08.840 We want to be a part of a meaningful chain of evolution.

00:16:12.180 In a way, it is a testament to just how good my dad did that I wouldn't want to constantly summon an AI of him to ask him for advice.

00:16:25.880 Right, because he should have made someone better than him and he did.

00:16:29.520 Yeah, which is really interesting.

00:16:32.360 And so even though I think our kids won't have to deal with, and I hear in this video, I certify,

00:16:39.220 if you do make an AI of me from these videos, just treat anything it says as if I had said it.

00:16:44.940 I don't have any problem with that.

00:16:46.560 I don't have any problem.

00:16:47.960 Somebody could be like, well, the AI is just sort of hijacking his memory to...

00:16:52.180 Yeah, but what do you think your brain is doing right now, right?

00:16:55.580 Yeah, my brain is hijacking a memory it has of who I am and like a self-conception.

00:17:00.660 And then selling it to you guys.

00:17:03.440 So yeah, it's just the same thing.

00:17:05.840 But it may have different opinions than I have right now.

00:17:08.320 But so future me might have different opinions than I'd have right now.

00:17:11.660 This is also why was this AI technology living forever as a stagnant entity is so pointless.

00:17:16.980 Like, why does it help that I'm living forever when an AI recreation of me could live forever?

00:17:21.560 Like, why is that useful?

00:17:23.900 I think there's this intuition that people want to experience all of it themselves

00:17:29.120 when they don't realize just how non-contiguous one's self is, even one's experience.

00:17:34.220 And this is also important when you think about deaths from us, like non-contiguousness and

00:17:37.520 everything like that.

00:17:38.100 So we genuinely, and I think really deeply believe ourselves to be intergenerational entities.

00:17:42.920 And by that, what I mean is I am half my dad, half my mom and the culture of my ancestors and

00:17:50.760 2%, 3% something else, you know, but most is just a continuation of my parents.

00:17:58.100 And they were half their dad, half their mom, the culture that they came from in a dash of

00:18:02.740 maybe something else where I think most people think that they're mostly something else.

00:18:06.900 And so from my perspective, I am, and my kids are, like my mom who died recently, I am

00:18:13.600 her experiencing the world in a slightly different body.

00:18:17.800 My kids are her, fractionally speaking, of course, experiencing the world in a slightly

00:18:23.340 different body.

00:18:23.940 One that was not burdened with her prejudices or her, and by that, what I mean is we all

00:18:28.840 have prejudices.

00:18:29.600 Like, I could just live forever as a single individual.

00:18:32.320 Like, that would kind of suck because as you live your life, you build up prejudices and

00:18:37.360 biases and sunk cost fallacies.

00:18:39.900 And when I have a kid, I can sort of tell them, okay, here's like everything I think about the

00:18:45.240 world.

00:18:45.660 And then they get to filter that and say, okay, here's what's probably true.

00:18:49.000 And here's what's probably not true.

00:18:51.180 And that's just so much better than me continuing on into the future with all of these biases.

00:18:57.580 You know, this sort of a hard reset we get every 100 years or so as a species or less than

00:19:03.900 that, you know, 30, 40 years as a species.

00:19:05.800 It's a really unique and high utility system for living.

00:19:11.420 And so I don't really believe I die as long as my relatives live.

00:19:16.900 And my relatives are a very big network.

00:19:19.320 So I just don't think unless all of humanity dies that I have meaningfully died.

00:19:24.500 And do you feel the same way or?

00:19:29.040 Yeah, yeah, I absolutely feel the same way.

00:19:31.520 And I also, I mean, we've said, we've talked about this in other like discussions, but that

00:19:38.160 the idea that you even are yourself for the same person or the you that you are is experiencing

00:19:44.460 life now is going to be that it will not last.

00:19:48.140 It will not last longer than a couple of weeks, a couple of years.

00:19:51.640 Like you, you, you, even yourself within your life are not the same person, not the same

00:19:56.700 consciousness, not the same biological body, not the same cluster of cells.

00:20:00.680 So it's really weird to think that even you are an unbroken consciousness.

00:20:07.060 So I think once you view life through that lens, it becomes so much easier to have the

00:20:14.640 view that we have where like our kids are versions of us a little bit remixed, a little

00:20:19.580 bit improved experiencing life.

00:20:21.620 But I think it's really hard to have that view if you truly believe that you are not

00:20:27.560 a ship of Theseus, but rather this thing that will never change that is experiencing an

00:20:33.680 unending line of consciousness, which is a really interesting perspective that you have

00:20:40.380 that I'd love you to talk about is sort of this idea that even in between moments, you

00:20:44.720 are a different person.

00:20:45.540 You tomorrow is absolutely meaningfully a different person than you are today.

00:20:49.280 Yeah.

00:20:49.900 And I think the easiest way for people to experience this or realize this would involve writing letters

00:20:56.420 to yourself in six months, in three years, you know, about what you're thinking about,

00:21:01.440 what you're doing.

00:21:03.680 What you think of the future, what you worry about, what you obsess over, because when

00:21:09.600 you receive those letters and you try to think back to that time, you'll remember things

00:21:13.340 about it that you really can't get back in the head of that person.

00:21:16.460 And you realize that you are receiving a letter from a different person, someone that you're

00:21:21.220 related to, and you can feel for them and care for their plight, but you really are feeling

00:21:26.000 for someone else's plight.

00:21:28.180 And you structure the wording of these letters that way.

00:21:30.740 You're like, yes, future Simone.

00:21:32.120 Yes, past Simone.

00:21:32.960 Stuff like that.

00:21:34.020 Yeah.

00:21:34.580 But, you know, I think a lot of people do that intuitively.

00:21:36.560 You know, they're like, I could make my bed, but that's a problem for future Janet. 0.94

00:21:40.660 You know, like people, people do this all the time by screwing over their future selves

00:21:46.860 by not planning for the future.

00:21:48.620 The fact that the majority of Americans are living, is it the majority?

00:21:52.220 It's some huge proportion of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.

00:21:54.780 People aren't saving.

00:21:56.120 People are not making financial decisions for the future shows a lack of empathy for their

00:22:00.720 future selves.

00:22:01.220 And also a lack of identification with their future selves.

00:22:04.220 Yeah.

00:22:04.340 So, I mean, I think actually life extensionists are somewhat the exception that they don't

00:22:12.280 think normally because the average person, and most importantly through actions and not

00:22:16.500 words, is demonstrating that they don't identify with their future selves and they don't identify

00:22:21.120 with their past selves.

00:22:21.860 Yeah, well, so an interesting thing is I think that you're partially right here, but I think

00:22:27.240 that life extensionists are not so interested in living forever as they are afraid of death

00:22:33.220 because their sense of identity is only the contiguous self.

00:22:37.620 And they believe that their purpose is happiness, basically, or something like that, right?

00:22:44.800 Like something hedonistic, something about their qualia or experience of the world.

00:22:49.060 So they attempt to maximize this and the longer they can live, the less they need to think about

00:22:54.320 how trivial all those things are because they're all going to be dust soon.

00:22:59.180 And I think that when you internalize your mortality...

00:23:02.220 Wait, I just want to make sure I understand you correctly.

00:23:04.360 So you think it's basically nihilism that makes life extensionists afraid of death.

00:23:08.820 Is that correct?

00:23:09.520 Yes.

00:23:11.100 That's interesting because I think you and I don't want to die, 100% don't want to die,

00:23:16.720 but it's not because we are afraid of death.

00:23:20.060 In fact, death is going to be kind of a relief.

00:23:23.280 Instead, we are afraid of not setting up our kids well enough, that our kids will not be well

00:23:30.620 taken care of, that our kids will not yet be independent, that our kids will not be

00:23:34.340 yet have the resources from us that they need to thrive.

00:23:38.880 Once our kids are set, I mean, we're probably going to get really interested in our grandkids

00:23:44.000 and try to help them as much as we can because our kids are going to have less bandwidth to

00:23:48.940 invest disproportionately in their own kids while they're at their peak earning years,

00:23:53.360 et cetera.

00:23:54.080 But yeah, I think that's the only thing.

00:23:55.780 So we're actually not afraid of death.

00:23:57.140 We're kind of like super excited about death.

00:23:59.320 So the way I'd word it for people who struggle to understand this concept, because I think

00:24:03.440 people who are brought up in the mainstream culture of society today, this can seem like

00:24:06.920 a really weird mental framework.

00:24:09.380 Is it sort of like we have a to-do list?

00:24:11.940 When the to-do list is done, death is great.

00:24:15.760 Like, because we've accomplished all that we were meant to accomplish, all that we decided

00:24:20.440 that we were meant to accomplish, all that we needed to accomplish in the world.

00:24:23.080 And once we've accomplished all those things, it's like, congrats, everything's done. 0.99

00:24:28.300 You get to die. 0.97

00:24:29.220 Now I get to die. 1.00

00:24:29.960 Death is the reward. 1.00

00:24:31.280 Death is the treat.

00:24:33.560 But it's, and I think that this leads to this like real lack of an existential fear.

00:24:40.140 There's an existential fear that I don't get the things done that I want to get done before.

00:24:43.960 100%.

00:24:44.540 That really scares me.

00:24:45.760 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:24:46.060 I leave my kids a world or a framework and tools that don't set them up to do the things

00:24:52.880 that they need to do with their lives before they intergenerationally improve, before they

00:24:55.960 move to the next generation.

00:24:57.340 That worries me.

00:24:58.780 But other than that, and I think that this, you know, when somebody was asking us, like,

00:25:02.360 why would you try to make the world a better place if you're not going to get to experiencing

00:25:06.040 it?

00:25:07.080 This, the question just seems so odd if you see time and reality the way we do.

00:25:13.180 Where we're like, I don't get to experience tomorrow.

00:25:17.440 You know, I get to experience today as who I am today.

00:25:19.600 But if I lived life as somebody just constantly maxing the moment, then I, you know, paycheck

00:25:25.120 to paycheck, I think.

00:25:26.380 And, and I think that our biologies aren't really adapted to that.

00:25:29.340 So when you do hedonistic in the moment maxing, I think that it actually ends up sort of destroying

00:25:35.500 your brain and everything begins to feel sad and ennui and, and terrible.

00:25:40.180 And I, and I think that when I look at people who do this, I actually think that this is

00:25:45.240 where the antinatalists come from.

00:25:47.960 Like when we look at the antinatalists, they all seem like really deeply unhappy people, 1.00

00:25:53.980 usually bought far into the urban monoculture of like, I should do whatever I want, whenever

00:25:59.880 I want in an attempt to be as happy as possible.

00:26:02.020 And when you do this, like when you're just constantly chasing happiness for its own sake

00:26:06.860 and hedonism for its own sake, what you realize is that you're no longer happy when you get

00:26:12.040 those things anymore.

00:26:12.800 And you begin to realize that happiness never really had any value to begin with.

00:26:17.820 And then you develop this negative utilitarian framework.

00:26:21.540 Whereas to us, not at all.

00:26:24.900 Like we are like, happiness doesn't matter.

00:26:27.220 Of course, happiness doesn't matter.

00:26:28.240 You know, it's something that we get in the background when we're doing more purposeful

00:26:32.040 things than, than things designed to achieve happiness.

00:26:35.600 Yeah.

00:26:36.140 Here's the thing also, like, do you think a lot of this could, like, I also feel like this

00:26:41.840 existential fear of death is, is relatively new because when you look at like the Victorian

00:26:46.220 era back then you, people would witness each other's deaths and your neighbors would come

00:26:50.820 over and watch you die. 0.79

00:26:51.900 And there were all sorts of, uh, momentum mori that people would carry around with them.

00:26:56.540 Like you would cut off locks of hair from people who died and you would weave them into

00:27:01.640 necklaces and jewelry and wear them.

00:27:04.120 You would wear dead people's hair and talk about death a lot.

00:27:09.520 And like, I feel like back then maybe a lot of it was just the understanding, like more widespread

00:27:18.140 that, Oh, we're going to go to heaven and be reunited there.

00:27:21.420 What do you think happened?

00:27:22.420 Because I do think that there was an interesting breakdown throughout the 1900s that has led

00:27:28.160 us to where we are now.

00:27:29.860 I think the, the urban monoculture is the key culprit here.

00:27:33.480 It, when I look at different hard cultural traditions, like religions, you could say people

00:27:38.420 who are in softer iterations of those that are closer to the urban monoculture, you know,

00:27:42.260 that the lost most of their traditions, they're the ones that seem to be hit most by death.

00:27:46.080 And the ones that are in harder cultural traditions typically just aren't, and most harder cultural

00:27:50.800 traditions are, are these older ways of doing things, these older, more cohesive cultural

00:27:54.560 traditions that differ from the urban monoculture.

00:27:56.640 They're not as affected by death because their lives, you know, have purpose and they know

00:28:01.040 the metrics by which things are measured.

00:28:03.160 So they don't worry about it as much.

00:28:06.140 So yeah, I'm just going to say, I think that you are right about that.

00:28:10.320 And what's really interesting is I actually think that you can sort of see the moment when society

00:28:14.120 first started to care about death and be afraid of death, which was in the 1920s, 1930s spiritual

00:28:21.340 medium fad, when like everyone got like really obsessed with spiritual mediums, you know,

00:28:27.600 Oh, that's a drink.

00:28:28.800 That's very interesting.

00:28:30.480 Yeah.

00:28:30.660 So when it stopped being, we witnessed death, we are around death.

00:28:34.980 We talk about death to like, let's try to hold on to the people we've lost.

00:28:39.940 Yeah.

00:28:40.680 So if you look at traditional Calvinist culture, right?

00:28:43.540 Like one of the things mentioned in the Albion seed is that they would have kids stand over

00:28:49.600 graveyards with, with dead people.

00:28:51.840 Just like, look at it. 0.98

00:28:53.100 You're going to die one day. 0.95

00:28:54.060 Yeah. 0.98

00:28:55.580 And I, you know, I've mentioned this in another video.

00:28:57.880 I've worked with lots of dead people.

00:28:59.440 I worked at a medical examiner, you know, moving their brains for dissection.

00:29:03.640 And so I got to read their file because, you know, I needed, we needed to collect the right

00:29:09.240 brains.

00:29:10.040 And so I got to really see who they were as a person, see everything they were talking

00:29:13.200 to their psychologist about, see their body, see how they died and over and over and over

00:29:18.060 and over again.

00:29:18.720 And that might've played a big role in desensitizing me to death to just be like, Oh yeah, death

00:29:23.380 is like a really normal thing.

00:29:25.380 And it's, it's not something to fear.

00:29:28.400 The only thing to fear is what I do not accomplish before I die and the, the people that my death

00:29:35.800 ends up hurting because I didn't provide them with the tools necessary, but by doing things

00:29:40.900 like these videos that couldn't be turned into an AI iteration of myself, that is one

00:29:46.040 thing that my kids, one, one of the many things that I won't be depriving my kids of.

00:29:50.220 I won't be depriving them of a source of potentially orthogonal advice.

00:29:53.700 You think your encounters with cadavers tangibly changed the way that you look at death and

00:30:00.000 your own death. 0.68

00:30:01.160 Yeah.

00:30:02.420 Seeing lots of dead people over and over and over again, and then working at the Smithsonian

00:30:06.060 with all of those bodies in that department that bones takes place in.

00:30:09.420 I think we've talked about this in other things.

00:30:11.280 Yeah.

00:30:11.560 I think, you know, just it, it normalized it.

00:30:16.760 And I think this is something that people used to have.

00:30:18.840 I mean, if you think about the normal person today, I can talk to the normal person and

00:30:21.980 they've never seen a dead body in person before.

00:30:24.520 Like, that's wild.

00:30:25.720 We live in a society where-

00:30:27.100 I've never seen a dead body in person, for sure.

00:30:29.640 That like, yeah, dead people happen all the time.

00:30:32.220 If you're in a major city, there's people dying every day, dozens of them.

00:30:35.680 And you haven't seen them because-

00:30:39.060 We must come away.

00:30:39.940 ...is death as something wrong that's not supposed to happen ever, ever, ever, and must

00:30:46.040 be hidden the moment it happens.

00:30:47.380 Well, and again, see, that's why I think it's not just a matter of soft culture.

00:30:50.720 I think it's also a matter of medical breakthroughs that have made it easier to keep people alive

00:30:55.220 than ever before.

00:30:56.740 And combined with the Hippocratic Oath, which we just haven't let go of, which I think is

00:31:00.880 pretty toxic, of like, no matter what, even if they're not really alive, you know, even

00:31:06.360 if they're in more pain, even if they're suffering, even if they're never going to leave the hospital

00:31:09.660 again, even if their family can't afford it, blah, blah, blah, right?

00:31:12.500 Like, even if they are a vegetable, we will keep them alive at all costs.

00:31:16.880 Making, inadvertently, death like a thing that has gone terribly wrong, even when it's totally

00:31:23.700 someone's time, right?

00:31:24.980 Like, they're very old, there's nothing left ahead of them, et cetera, et cetera.

00:31:29.920 So I think that's not just soft culture.

00:31:32.920 That is an entire industry, economically driven, but also weirdly regulatorily and ideologically

00:31:40.160 driven through the way that doctors are trained that has told us that death was a mistake.

00:31:45.480 It could have been prevented with the right medical care.

00:31:48.240 You know what I mean?

00:31:49.120 Yeah.

00:31:49.780 So that's, you know, not just culture, also like a weird, like bad combination of like

00:31:55.460 the, just the perfect storm of technology and an outdated method.

00:32:02.140 Which is funny because the Hippocratic Oath, like just totally didn't work at all for like

00:32:06.340 most of medical history, right?

00:32:08.260 Like most doctors who are treating people like throughout the middle ages, throughout like,

00:32:12.880 even like, you know, the mid to late 1800s were like quite often killing people, like making

00:32:18.060 it worse, further compromising people, killing new babies and pregnant women by like, you know,

00:32:23.980 working with like sick cadavers and then delivering babies without washing their hands. 0.51

00:32:28.020 You know, like it's, it's really, it's weird.

00:32:30.200 But anyway, I just decided it probably not really relevant, but I still think that that matters.

00:32:33.880 But I'm curious to hear from people in the comments, what they think a life well lived

00:32:37.980 is, you know, aside from like how many people show up at your funeral, I'm actually not sure

00:32:41.940 what people are going for.

00:32:45.100 Are there other common things that I'm missing here?

00:32:48.440 Yeah, I think he didn't, what I would say is, is a lot of people today, they'll maximize

00:32:53.040 like really dumb stuff, like the number of people they sleep with or like how alpha they 0.63

00:32:56.720 are. 0.99

00:32:56.980 Oh, so just like how many, like how much money they're dying with, you think?

00:33:00.340 Like, no, well, no, I think that that's actually pretty rare these days.

00:33:05.780 Yeah, the core things where people like really fuck up how they're optimizing their lives is

00:33:11.120 they optimize it around competing in a specific social dynamic or a specific social community

00:33:15.880 that is like, you know, it could be that they organize themselves based on how alpha they

00:33:22.540 are, for example.

00:33:23.580 And that doesn't really matter when you're dead.

00:33:25.360 Yeah, that's the thing is, I think that like our final theme here might be that the bigger

00:33:30.680 issue is that it's not like people are optimizing around dumb reasons for a life well lived,

00:33:36.080 like we alluded to in the beginning, which we don't agree with, you know, like how many

00:33:38.940 people show up at your funeral pub, but they don't, there's, there is literally nothing,

00:33:42.420 you know, like I'll just spend all my money.

00:33:44.160 I will just like max out everything.

00:33:46.120 Nothing matters after I die.

00:33:47.760 No, I don't.

00:33:48.460 You see this.

00:33:49.020 I think you see this a lot.

00:33:49.800 I think that's true, but I think a different way to word that is they're optimizing around

00:33:53.020 norm, like, like living the cultural ideal set out, like the aesthetic cultural ideal

00:34:00.280 set out by a specific community that they identify with.

00:34:04.140 And one of the key problems of this is this often leads to an obsession with like being

00:34:09.020 okay with yourself and being okay with your identity in a way that can become all consuming

00:34:14.220 because it's so circular.

00:34:15.380 It's only you who judges whether or not you're okay with who you are.

00:34:18.140 And so when you live a life to be okay with who you are, you will never really be okay

00:34:23.440 with who you are.

00:34:24.580 And that's kind of one, a silly thing to live one's life around, I think.

00:34:29.240 But two, it's really sad that that has become so popular as a way to live.

00:34:34.960 Yeah.

00:34:35.860 I'm trying to think of instances in like the news where like a famous person died and

00:34:42.400 we're like, yeah, they died well.

00:34:44.060 Are there any of those recently where like people have said someone died well?

00:34:47.400 Do we just like kind of sweep it under the rug?

00:34:49.600 Like there is no, people don't talk about dying well, living well, et cetera.

00:34:53.580 I think they talk about like legacies left behind.

00:34:56.340 Like, oh.

00:34:56.800 You and I do.

00:34:57.480 When somebody dies in our life, we're always like, okay, did they live a good life or a

00:35:00.680 bad life?

00:35:01.180 And this is like a family tradition that we want to have our kids do is when somebody

00:35:04.980 dies, the way that they process that is we as a family talk through, did they live

00:35:09.080 a good life or a bad life?

00:35:10.340 And we live in a society today where people can't say somebody lived a bad life, but our

00:35:15.740 family, you know, we're like, okay, what was their value system?

00:35:17.760 Did they achieve what they wanted to achieve?

00:35:19.220 What is our value system?

00:35:20.120 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:35:21.020 Anything meaningful by that?

00:35:22.300 And using these two metrics, you know, if they lived a good life, then so what if they

00:35:26.460 died?

00:35:26.760 Like, great.

00:35:27.260 They did it.

00:35:28.000 You know?

00:35:28.300 Yeah.

00:35:28.580 Yeah.

00:35:28.780 If they, if they would be satisfied with it.

00:35:31.060 No point.

00:35:31.440 Nothing to be sad about.

00:35:32.440 If they lived a bad life, then focus on where their life went off the rails and learn from

00:35:39.360 that so that it doesn't happen to you.

00:35:41.860 And I think it's often really clear where this happened.

00:35:44.180 Either the person never developed really a good internal model for why they were alive

00:35:47.980 or they, you know, tried methamphetamines or they, you know, married somebody who was

00:35:54.560 just a horrible spouse to them. 0.99

00:35:55.760 Like there, there are obviously identifiable things and these can be a really clear way

00:36:01.340 to like hit this home for our kids in thinking about another person's life and the quality

00:36:06.480 of their life after they died in terms of how they categorize that person in their mental

00:36:12.300 history.

00:36:13.140 I appreciate that because I think there's this, this theme after people die of like, you can

00:36:17.200 only say nice things about them.

00:36:18.780 I know this is not universal and people have written books like about how they're glad their

00:36:22.380 mom's dead, et cetera. 0.80

00:36:23.200 But, you know, in general, people have to, you know, they're blameless.

00:36:28.180 Oh, she was, he was great.

00:36:29.880 She was amazing.

00:36:30.660 You know, not great.

00:36:32.760 Yeah.

00:36:33.500 Well, I love you, Sinan.

00:36:34.720 And, and please don't die anytime soon because I really need you to do a lot of things.

00:36:38.500 We have so much to do.

00:36:39.380 We have so much to do.

00:36:40.400 Yeah.

00:36:41.280 But I believe we can do most of it in about 20 years.

00:36:44.840 So if we live for 20 years, I think that we will have achieved most of the task we want

00:36:49.160 to achieve and less disagree, because if we're successful in having the number of kids that

00:36:54.320 we want to have, you know, we need at least like 30 years to get our, our youngest kid

00:37:00.800 to, I mean, I agree that like the risk goes down of a premature death because one can hope

00:37:05.660 that older siblings would adopt and take in younger siblings.

00:37:09.980 And we should probably set up trust incentives to do that where like they'd be incentivized 0.87

00:37:14.340 to come in and raise their youngest siblings as adults.

00:37:17.400 But still we have a long way to go and I'm not, I'm not ready at all.

00:37:21.540 If we die, not like as a default plan.

00:37:24.120 Yeah.

00:37:25.580 Yeah.

00:37:26.940 Anyway, I love you.

00:37:28.160 Don't die.

00:37:28.780 Be safe.

00:37:29.500 Okay.

Based Camp - November 17, 2023

How Do I Know if I Lived a Good Life？

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