Based Camp - The Biggest UBI Experiment in History Failed： The Cover Up

00:00:00.000 well here we are again yeah you remember our learning machine over there what's it going

00:00:08.140 to teach us today mr money i'll turn it on and you'll see when they gave people a thousand

00:00:16.200 dollars a month over the course of three years 36 000 in all on average recipients of this money

00:00:24.540 had three thousand dollars less total wealth than recipients who didn't get this money and i need

00:00:32.980 to point out here they didn't even increase the time they spent with their kids like to me like

00:00:37.900 that's the like the cruel twist of the blade of how fundamentally selfish the average human is

00:00:45.240 yeah i don't like people oh well now that's not fair roy have you met all of them i've met enough 0.99

00:00:52.580 of them people what a bunch of bastards people are like i can't afford to spend time with my kids 0.98

00:01:01.300 and we have proof now that even if you had more money you wouldn't spend more time with your kids 1.00

00:01:06.400 when people are like if i had more money or if i had inherited money or blah blah blah like i would

00:01:10.340 be living a different life like that's functionally untrue you would actually maybe be living a

00:01:16.140 materially worse life it now means if reparations were to be paid as a form of ubi to the black 0.97

00:01:22.440 community it would permanently monetarily sabotage the community if you're just joining us black 1.00

00:01:28.980 people got their reparations checks today and in short all hell is broken loose so how did you become

00:01:34.740 the world's wealthiest man tron hot hand in a dice game baby girl well i think what everyone wants to

00:01:40.960 know now is what are you going to do with all this money uh i'm going to reinvest my money into the

00:01:46.700 community oh that's a very nice gesture what were you okay is that your son no no i just bought this

00:01:55.580 baby cash now here's where it gets dystopian the top of the page it's just one line for the results

00:02:02.440 of the study cash increases possibilities for i knew that even though some of you supported us 0.99

00:02:08.640 some others were looking at me and thinking you're a liar you're a liar you know something that 1.00

00:02:14.880 you're not telling us you slimy scumbag liar you know that's what people would say to me would you 1.00

00:02:20.840 like to know more hello samoan i am excited to be here with you today today we are going to be 0.99

00:02:25.760 discussing something that changes my view on economics the media and what might be the most optimal economic

00:02:36.660 system this is a large experiment that was run by sam altman of open ai to see if ubi would work

00:02:46.620 ubi means universal basic it is the idea that it might make sense to just do cash handouts across

00:02:56.500 the population like say everybody gets a thousand dollars every month and that this might be a lighter

00:03:02.980 way way to do welfare and it might have some moral or even economic justification

00:03:09.020 well i am going to briefly describe the findings from this study that i thought were most relevant

00:03:20.120 then i'm going to go over the way the news reported the study's findings and the way his organization

00:03:29.460 open ai reported the study's findings so the information that i thought was an important

00:03:36.760 takeaway is that when they gave people a thousand dollars a month over the course of three years

00:03:43.140 thirty six thousand dollars in all on average recipients of this money had three thousand dollars

00:03:50.980 less total wealth than recipients who didn't get this money wait wait well hold no no hold on i just

00:03:58.540 want to make sure i have this right they were poorer the people who got extra money but were not told to

00:04:04.840 change anything else about their lives had less money than before this experiment if they received the

00:04:11.820 what is it thousand dollar a month payments yes so thirty six thousand dollars in total no no keep in

00:04:16.900 mind this means somehow when contrasted with the other people they lost thirty nine thousand dollars

00:04:22.920 because it's not just the three thousand dollars less to their wealth you also have to consider all the

00:04:27.000 money that was given to them that at the start of the experiment you know should have made them

00:04:31.320 well they managed to lose so they managed to lose a considerable sum of money oh i didn't think about

00:04:37.640 it that way i was like okay well if you started out with fifty thousand dollars and then you ended with

00:04:41.780 a little less than that you know it's fine it's worse so for every dollar received by the program's

00:04:46.860 participants earnings excluding the cash transfer decreased by at least 12 cents oh so they were working less

00:04:55.340 we'll get to all that we'll get to all that i'm just giving you the the things i thought were most

00:05:01.280 relevant okay all right hold total household income fell by at least 13 cents per dollar received

00:05:08.320 so to your first question recipients of ubi reduced their work by four to five percent these reductions

00:05:16.760 translated 2.2 fewer hours per week 114 fewer hours annually recipients mostly spent this time

00:05:23.920 on more leisure activities and not pursuing education higher quality jobs or spending time

00:05:30.380 or caring for family members the authors noted quote interestingly we do not observe those with

00:05:35.980 children spending more or less time with children as a result of the transfers moreover households

00:05:41.560 without children reduce their work by more than households with children so when people are like 1.00

00:05:47.340 oh if i had more money i'd spend more time with my kid it's like like statistically that's wrong

00:05:51.220 and i should note here that they actually kind of tried to go to participants like they would ask

00:05:56.240 them every time they meet like how much time are you spending on additional education how much time

00:06:00.240 are you spending on additional training how much time are you spending on so you could even argue that

00:06:03.900 they kind of messed with the results by priming people to do the responsible thing and they did not

00:06:11.060 they still didn't even no evidence of this now here's where it gets dystopian okay

00:06:17.640 on opening eyes website the top of the page where they on opening eye research

00:06:23.840 it's just one line for the results of the study cash increases possibilities

00:06:32.560 for i knew that even though some of you supported us some others were looking at me and thinking 1.00

00:06:42.000 you're a liar you're a liar you know something that you're not telling us you slimy scumbag 1.00

00:06:48.840 liar you know that's what people would say to me let's keep going so here we have a write-up on 1.00

00:06:56.540 this by the register i will read it because it is it is actually kind of chilling

00:07:01.600 so they wrote as the title of this sam altman's basic income experiment finds that money can

00:07:08.840 indeed buy happiness oh i mean it's not wrong because people spent more time netflixing and

00:07:15.680 chilling i guess yeah the results of the largest universal basic income trial program in the united

00:07:21.540 states the one backed by billionaire sam altman no less are in and entirely uninspiring after three

00:07:29.020 years of giving one thousand dollars to low-income individuals a thousand dollars a month of no

00:07:33.200 strings attached cash a group of researchers at altman's open research determined that recipients

00:07:38.580 mostly spent the cash on life necessities got a bit choosier in their employment and made more use of

00:07:44.820 medical care perhaps most critically it gave participants an increased sense of agency making

00:07:50.040 them more likely to start their own business take the opportunity to work a lower paying job for more

00:07:55.380 independence budget their finances to plan for the future and improve their prospects through further

00:08:01.120 education thanks for reminding us of what we already know sam ubi makes overworked poor people less

00:08:08.940 miserable underlined and then people would see my wife in the supermarket and they would say hello 0.84

00:08:17.280 but they'd be thinking ah there goes that murderer you got away with murder you murdering lying waste of life

00:08:25.040 i want to get this straight so they said that the the research gave people those opportunities but

00:08:30.780 didn't ultimately make those things happen right it gave them the opportunity to take lower paying jobs

00:08:35.880 yeah but it also gave them the opportunity to invest in education it didn't say that they did invest in

00:08:41.720 education it didn't say caused them they factually didn't by the way it gave them the opportunity to

00:08:47.100 it's just they chose i know well but what i'm saying is is this this article was not misleading

00:08:52.440 per se it was factual but more more an opinion piece than no no no no no no no no hold on they

00:09:00.000 get to the the meat and potatoes so that you know that they're giving you both sides of the argument

00:09:04.280 later in the article it says it's not all sunshine and roses in ubi land though the y combinator's

00:09:11.960 studies results published on july 21st 2024 are generally positive and show the benefits of no

00:09:18.400 strings attached cash payment not everything was a net positive take for example the fact that

00:09:23.660 recipients were more likely to visit the hospital see a specialist go to the dentist and cut down on

00:09:29.460 excess alcohol and drug use those are all great results except they didn't lead to a net improvement

00:09:34.720 in participant health quote on average we do not find direct evidence of greater access to health care

00:09:41.820 or improvements in physical or mental health in quote the researchers say in the report for many

00:09:48.480 participants quote the additional thousand dollars per month alone may not be sufficient to overcome

00:09:54.080 the larger systemic barriers to health care access and reduce health disparities in quote in other words

00:10:00.280 ubi it's just one piece of the puzzle that is lifting the conditions of the poorest americans 1.00

00:10:05.920 and to me people might say things like liar tell us what you know you goddamn liar 0.99

00:10:14.680 not enough socialism not enough socialism i to think that you could write an entire article 0.99

00:10:22.900 and not mention that they were poorer at the end that they were late making less money that they were

00:10:29.300 earning less their incomes were now less welcome stop you're thinking too much quiet quiet they were in

00:10:35.900 a worse position overall because now they're lower income they were not spending more time with

00:10:41.560 their kids they were not spending more time on self-improvement they had the opportunity malcolm 0.99

00:10:46.600 damn it can't you just be a good people what a bunch of bastards i actually wanted to talk more 0.99

00:10:56.900 about this not spending a lot of time with their kids thing because i've been thinking about this in 0.99

00:11:01.800 my own life and i realized that the amount of time i spend with my kids is not at all a function of

00:11:07.920 financial security but a function of just commitment like what i expect for myself as a parent in fact

00:11:14.620 recently i started deciding that every single weekend day i would make a day to do something special

00:11:20.940 with the kids either take them to a park like for example yesterday i took them on a long walk

00:11:26.140 through the woods a hike up and down a mountain in valley forge oh no we're tired torsten you what

00:11:34.780 did you say are we almost to the top yeah i said that's the top and it's no time to give up you said

00:11:40.920 yeah and that was just a commitment like every weekend day i'm gonna spend as much as i can with my kids

00:11:49.800 and i think that my my financial situation didn't change it was just a change in commitment and i

00:11:55.940 think for a lot of this stuff it's just a what's your commitment to an individual thing and then when

00:12:02.580 somebody challenges you and they're like why aren't you doing this because you don't want the cognitive

00:12:06.660 dissonance of oh gosh i could be a better parent you say well it's because i don't have enough money

00:12:11.100 but it's not because you don't have enough money it's because you haven't decided to do it

00:12:14.860 this is in the register a mainstream newspaper so let's go to another mainstream newspaper this

00:12:19.860 time we're going to go to usa today okay so how did usa today report on this the title how much is

00:12:28.620 one thousand dollars a month's worth question mark new study explores impact of basic income

00:12:34.120 quote we're all finding the same results in quote said stacy west co-founder and director of the

00:12:41.620 university of pennsylvania's center for guaranteed income research quote you give people cash and

00:12:47.300 they make great decisions for themselves and their family in a way that you know can promote upwards 0.56

00:12:52.820 economic mobility end quote you know goddamn well what happened so stop acting like victims and confess 0.82

00:13:00.680 confess liar confess so this person works for the university of pennsylvania that's a ieb league university 0.88

00:13:10.260 that's pin it's still a progressive university but she's just lying i i i just said it was a

00:13:19.940 progressive university what more do you need to hear i since when did progressive universities pursue

00:13:25.100 truth understand now how corrupt even the ivy leagues are now that they will just even even the ivy what

00:13:32.500 are you talking about they've been the forefront of corruption from my virus people still believe that

00:13:37.580 there is some degree of credibility it was in the hollowed institutions you may have had the wool

00:13:42.880 lifted from your eyes but i am sure some of our listeners are at least slightly aghast that she would

00:13:49.400 lie to a reporter about something this easy to fact check and that the reporter would then publish all of

00:13:56.280 this uncritically but let's read more of this article that they wrote overall researchers said their

00:14:01.640 findings suggest cash quote provides flexibility in quote quote the data we collected highlights the

00:14:09.860 complexity of people's lives and needs in quote reads a statement from open research shared with usa today

00:14:16.880 quote cash provides the flexibility to meet those diverse needs and it is responsive when needs shift

00:14:25.580 based on a person's circumstances in quote according to the study here so now they're going over all of

00:14:32.560 the important takeaways that we should take from the study okay no they are not going to note what

00:14:40.300 they're not mentioning recipients increase their spending by three hundred and ten dollars a month on

00:14:46.700 average primarily using their money for essentials like food housing and transportation not really true

00:14:53.820 though the money was also used as a financial support for others was recipients spending an average of

00:14:59.840 22 more a month on things like gifts for friends and family loans donations charity and alimony payments

00:15:07.780 recipients worked 1.3 hours less a week on average compared with the control group and reported more

00:15:15.360 leisure time but remained engaged in the workforce recipients were 26 more likely to visit a hospital

00:15:22.560 in the last year of the study and 10 more likely to get dental care and visit an emergency room

00:15:28.740 they also reported a decrease in problematic alcohol and some types of illicit drug use now here i would

00:15:34.880 note by the way in case you don't remember the other paper accidentally admitted the fact that's one of the

00:15:40.480 ones this paper is coming up that their health didn't increase so yeah they might have had a marginal

00:15:45.780 increase in dentist visits but it didn't change anything um recipients were 4.4 percentage points

00:15:52.760 more likely to move neighborhoods open research plans to look in to how the cash transfers affect

00:15:58.000 housing stability and neighborhood quality and future analyses recipients especially black and female

00:16:04.200 recipients were more likely to report having an idea for a business recipients also reported a greater

00:16:10.860 likelihood of starting a business within the next five years she's making jewelry now she's got her 1.00

00:16:18.660 known website this is still like going to massage school but she's making jewelry now 1.00

00:16:27.060 and it's just like we're so happy because she's not floundering around anymore yeah what's she doing

00:16:32.400 she's making jewelry now she's got her life and then and then it says but the concept has received pushback

00:16:43.560 more than half of u.s adults oppose a universal basic income of about one thousand dollars a month for

00:16:49.960 adults when surveyed by pew research center in 2020 and the greatest opposition was among white adults

00:16:57.000 a number of states including iowa and south dakota have passed bills that prohibit

00:17:26.680 counties or cities from providing guaranteed income as skeptics argued that the money would

00:17:31.700 discourage people from working and it's like well i mean it did we know that now why didn't you

00:17:38.500 oh you did report that they worked less but you didn't report that they're also making less now

00:17:43.780 and have less now i don't know what your plan is but i'm gonna stop it i am infecting this city with

00:17:48.540 genetically enhanced vermin but you'll never know you just told me you're lying

00:17:54.140 so simone why do you think you can understand why all of the newspapers are lying about ubi not

00:18:04.240 working and covering it up why do you think open ai would be motivated to lie about ubi working

00:18:11.020 that one seems pretty straightforward that a lot of people are afraid that ai is going to take their

00:18:16.120 gerbs and if ai does take their gerbs then they're going to get real angry at open ai they're going to get

00:18:21.780 their senators and their representatives to make legislation that kills open ai and if that happens

00:18:28.360 there will be no more open ai and open ai wouldn't like that so right so i'm glad that you immediately

00:18:36.240 see through this sam altman always hears what if ai takes all our jobs and so he's like well if i can

00:18:41.380 show that ubi works at a broad level then i can say well it's not my fault it's the government's it

00:18:47.980 needs to be issuing ubi look i showed it worked and for for people who don't know this is by far

00:18:53.780 like the largest most rigorous study on this done in the developed world there were some studies that

00:18:57.900 showed it was beneficial in developing countries um but like in those instances people were losing it

00:19:02.120 to like change that roofs to metal roofs and it's like yeah obviously but it turns out people in the

00:19:08.920 developed world who don't have a lot of money the average income of individuals in this study was

00:19:14.360 29 000 um i'm going to say something so sinful it turns out they're in that position because they

00:19:23.660 have chosen not to improve their lives and when given the flexibility to make choices to improve

00:19:29.320 their lives they don't make those choices actually can i weigh in here so i i've been thinking as you're

00:19:36.740 talking about the results of this this research of caleb hammer's youtube channel financial audit where he

00:19:44.120 he has people come on and he goes through all of their spending and everything well dude you're

00:19:49.740 blowing all your money when you don't have money you can't take care of your own life you start your

00:19:54.260 checking accounts with nothing you refuse to get a job that will accept you like the water burger job

00:19:57.940 that did accept you and then you decided not to do it i had a reason i mean in my head i had

00:20:01.940 but you could have gone back and got it they're always hiring maybe and there are so many patterns

00:20:07.580 that i feel would probably show up in participants of this study as well there are many people who've

00:20:14.660 come on who've received inheritance they've received sixty thousand dollars they've gotten a

00:20:18.480 divorce and they sold the house and made two hundred thousand dollars and when people receive cash

00:20:23.980 windfalls and they're not financially literate which is the lion's share of the people who come on

00:20:29.040 caleb hammer's show they blow through it all and often then some they go into further debt and i think

00:20:35.840 what happened and this has been shown in statistics yeah i i think what happened here is a a a small a

00:20:43.040 relatively small percentage of uniquely predisposed to laziness financially illiterate people saw that

00:20:51.280 they were going to receive a thousand dollars per month and were kind of like oh great like my expenses

00:20:56.540 are taken care of i'm gonna quit my job like my expenses are relatively low anyway i'm gonna go out to

00:21:02.300 eat every night like you know they're like oh well things go to food and and transportation so they're

00:21:06.920 gonna get like a lease on a new car you know they're gonna do a lot of things that they're gonna increase

00:21:11.040 their spending in a more unsustainable way like i'm gonna get sushi every day and this small number

00:21:16.640 of people who just totally quit their jobs which are probably part-time to begin with and just decided

00:21:21.540 they were basically gonna live off the thousand dollars threw off people didn't decrease their their

00:21:27.600 percent employed didn't decrease but their hours worked dead yeah their hours worked dead so i said

00:21:32.680 these people who are probably working part-time anyway are probably decreasing i'm gonna push back

00:21:37.800 really strongly you think so in your mind you hear twenty thousand dollars and you hear low income

00:21:43.720 individual when twenty nine thousand dollars is around the mean income in the united states i mean

00:21:48.880 median income hold on i'm gonna look up right now but yeah i think i thought it was more around

00:21:52.900 sixty thousand dollars for household which is much higher than what you're saying you know it's uh

00:21:58.720 thirty seven point five is the median it's the median so this is around the median income in the united 0.97

00:22:05.740 states this is not like unique idiot like whatever's but i'm gonna go further because i want to explain how 0.59

00:22:13.640 the study works i want this to be a good summary of like everything on the study all of the important 0.83

00:22:17.660 findings and how it's structured so over the course of the study as i've mentioned they want treatment

00:22:23.240 group one was given one thousand dollars per month the control group was given fifty dollars per

00:22:28.040 month and this was to keep them coming back there was a thousand participants in the treatment group

00:22:32.160 and there was two thousand participants in the control group uh which is enough to be very

00:22:36.020 statistically significant in a study like this payments were unconditional with no strings attached

00:22:40.380 participants retained all existing benefits data collection the study collected both

00:22:45.580 quantitative and qualitative data specifically they did lots and lots of surveys because again it's an

00:22:50.960 expensive study to run so they want to capture everything and bank transactions and they also did

00:22:55.540 interviews with participants and there's going to be multiple extra studies come out about this going

00:23:00.200 forwards but i'm sure they're going to be more massaged going forwards now that the cat sort of out of

00:23:04.380 the bag was this one and i'm sure sam the person funding this was not happy about this especially given

00:23:09.380 that he just had everyone lie about this when he could have like owned and been like okay well now we need to come up

00:23:13.240 with something other than ubi which he didn't do he's like we're still going the ubi pass i expect

00:23:16.980 massage results going forwards so there was a benefit to food scarcity uh but this was short-lived and

00:23:23.260 it disappeared over time by the end of the program ubi participants reported no better ability to meet

00:23:28.220 their food needs than the control group um the people in and this was really fascinating to me the people

00:23:34.220 in the treatment group who were getting the ubi they significantly increased disability reporting

00:23:39.680 so by four percentage points so once you started to get some handouts it seems like you normalize to this

00:23:46.820 way of life and begin to look for additional ways to get handouts which is not great no significant health

00:23:53.320 improvements quote and this is from the study no improvement in measures that participants self-reported

00:23:58.260 access to health care or their concerns about their ability to pay for needed medical care end quote and their

00:24:03.960 debt increased so if you were on ubi while the amount of money you reported spending on saving money

00:24:13.020 increased your actual functional debt at the end of this was higher and so employment effects there was

00:24:20.300 a two percent decrease in labor market participation this recorded in eight fewer weekdays annually next other

00:24:27.940 negative effects there were minimal changes in credit availability bankruptcy rates and foreclosures

00:24:33.400 now let's talk about the positive outcomes increased spending on essential needs like food house

00:24:38.160 sports and transportation i mean but those aren't really essential needs is the thing if they're not

00:24:43.400 increasing your productivity then they're not essential needs that they're a form of luxury if i go to live

00:24:48.520 in a mansion is that an essential need how much debt did you go into in those three months

00:24:53.100 um those three months i would say 15 000 you lean that's not like it was my my my rent lean my

00:25:03.240 rent for a month is 3 500 and not overly expensive but it's not lean my rent was 3 500 yeah that's not

00:25:09.540 lean because i was that's the place i was gonna live in i don't care live in a cheaper place

00:25:15.580 but then i would have to move again oh cry what so the problem was i was supposed to start working

00:25:24.480 i'm trying to justify all this okay i'm not no yeah well this shows up again all the time in financial

00:25:30.200 audit when caleb asks like well you know what's this what's so many things that are food are really

00:25:35.720 not food and people are spending ridiculous amounts eating out and they're going to classify i'm sure all

00:25:40.280 restaurant visits in this oh i bet and if someone gets a new car a new lease like chooses to do 0.98

00:25:47.040 something irresponsible with transportation again and caleb gives his guests so much shit for eating out 0.98

00:25:53.100 even just going into a gas station and getting a snack he gives them shit for that he gives them 0.99

00:25:57.880 like anything like he considers irresponsible but people do it so much especially if they feel like 0.98

00:26:02.740 they have money to spare and the same with transportation like there's people who will

00:26:06.480 just take ubers everywhere or like and like you know us like even when there's an emergency we're

00:26:11.880 like i don't know maybe i can i can walk it you know no i was just thinking about us and eating out

00:26:16.520 so simone basically never eats out you may eat out three times a year maybe i am a little bit more

00:26:23.800 like i am i i admit that i have less austerity than simone and yeah like even when we go traveling i'm

00:26:29.920 going to a grocery store and buying yes but when i eat out i always and it's probably less than once a

00:26:37.200 week i always ensure that i can make at least two full days worth of food out of it by that what i mean

00:26:42.880 is i typically only eat one meal a day and when i eat out i'll make that my one meal for the day and

00:26:47.900 then i save half of it and then i cook it the next day for my second one meal of the day then simone

00:26:52.560 you're not like you know i'm 100 about this and when a restaurant lowers its portion size i get really

00:26:57.560 angry because we've stopped our we have this favorite restaurant in our area that it decreased its

00:27:03.800 portion size and we're just like that sucks we never get to go there again yeah i can't make two

00:27:08.500 meals stretch it into two meals yeah so i yeah i do want to highlight that that's probably what

00:27:15.280 they're catching here is really just leisure spending they did as mentioned by other things

00:27:20.060 give away more money 22 per month okay they got a thousand dollars and they gave away 22 so generous

00:27:26.740 they had improved food security in the first year but only in the first year they had marginal

00:27:31.900 increased use of dental care as somebody else mentioned more autonomy and decision making and job

00:27:36.600 searching whatever that means by the way for people wondering where this happened it was in texas

00:27:42.880 in illinois across urban suburban and rural areas the age range was 21 to 40 years old income

00:27:48.720 qualification household income below 300 of the federal poverty threshold approximately 77.25

00:27:55.980 okay so you could get into the study of you had up to 77 000 in family income for family of four 0.67

00:28:03.300 or 37.5 for an individual average household individual so what are your broader like to me

00:28:12.120 i used to believe in ubi i was always like we do need at least one big study on it i am glad that he

00:28:18.820 did the big study i am sad that they are occluding the real results of the study i wonder for you why do

00:28:26.660 you feel that it did decrease people's earnings incomes financial security and yeah

00:28:32.440 again i i what i see on financial audit when this happens again and again is it gives people a false

00:28:40.160 sense of security and it makes them it gives them the sense that oh my expenses are covered now like

00:28:45.980 oh i have money now therefore i can relax a little and these are people who already feel kind of

00:28:51.000 constrained and stressed out they're dealing with student debt they're dealing with auto debt they're

00:28:54.760 dealing with personal loans they are living paycheck to paycheck and they're thinking all right well

00:29:00.320 like this is great like this means that i can let loose a little more like eat out a little more and

00:29:05.900 there's a lot of emphasis on like you pointed out like eating out and indulging in pretty expensive

00:29:11.300 things is actually i would say more common among people of more limited means than it is among more

00:29:17.300 wealthy people like more wealthy people we know like when we've hung out with wealthy people

00:29:20.540 no one eats out yeah everything's in and like bought from costco or like some like and that's

00:29:27.600 a luxury you know having a house where you can have a deep freezer where you have space to store

00:29:31.460 like a giant bag of rolls of toilet paper is a luxury and i i think that's that's an issue but like

00:29:37.980 yeah like that that's that that is what happens also with this whole thing of like people said they

00:29:42.820 were saving more but they were in more debt i see that show up on financial audit a lot too where

00:29:47.100 people are like well don't worry i'm saving like i this much saved up and then caleb will be like

00:29:51.640 yeah but you have sixteen thousand dollars in credit card debt at 21 interest what are you doing

00:29:56.160 like people don't realize or they don't see debt the same so i bet people were racking up credit card

00:30:01.700 spending and they were technically saving like putting cash into a savings account but then being

00:30:06.600 more spending with their credit card because again they had this false sense of security so i think

00:30:10.520 a lot of this comes down to financial literacy i was watching and i don't i don't simone you can

00:30:15.640 say financial literacy all you want but functionally giving these people more money made them more

00:30:21.040 financially insecure they had yeah in total so i mean i think that you can say it's a problem of

00:30:27.900 financial literacy but i think that the the function of this is that it turns out you know when people are

00:30:36.540 complaining about capitalism they're like well capitalism is forced labor because you're sort of

00:30:41.200 like scared into working they're like yeah you may not have a gun to your head but you know you have

00:30:46.000 to deal with the fear of what happens to you if the money stops coming in it turns out that that's a

00:30:51.380 keyer part of making capitalism work then i think even the pro-capitalist people realized i think a lot

00:30:58.160 of capitalists thought like well wouldn't it be nice if we had something that was like capitalism

00:31:01.280 but without the gun to the head and it turns out when you remove the gun from the head people end up

00:31:06.640 just living more hedonistically and i need to point out here they didn't even increase the time they

00:31:11.520 spent with their kids like to me like that's the like the cruel twist of the blade of how fundamentally

00:31:19.340 selfish the average human is but it also i think shows something that we talk about was having kids and

00:31:25.180 everything like that which is people are like i can't afford to have kids i can't afford to spend time

00:31:30.320 with my kids and it turns out that no you are choosing how much time you're allocating to your

00:31:37.980 kids and we have proof now that even if you had more money you wouldn't spend more time with your

00:31:43.060 kids and that the average person who's saying that is just deluding themselves they're going to go out

00:31:49.460 to restaurants more they're going to do little indulgent things and that's it but i mean i i like and i

00:31:56.000 think that when you talk about this from a financial literacy perspective you undersell

00:32:01.500 what this is saying one one thing about human nature which is that the way that you live life

00:32:07.320 today when people are like if i had more money or if i had inherited money or blah blah blah like i

00:32:11.440 would be living a different life like that's functionally untrue like we know that from the

00:32:16.580 data now if you had more money you wouldn't be living a better life you would actually maybe be

00:32:21.220 living a materially worse life so that's true second is ubi if done at the societal level is

00:32:28.760 gonna think of the effect this would have on like we're not even talking about the ubi like even if

00:32:33.620 the ubi was free it would have a negative effect on gdp that's insane that if we could like force

00:32:43.100 some other country to pay for ubi it would have a negative effect on gdp but it gets worse than that

00:32:48.720 what if you're talking about something like reparations it now means if reparations were to

00:32:54.240 be paid as a form of ubi to the black community it would permanently monetarily sabotage the community 0.99

00:33:02.520 make them permanently more poor

00:33:06.420 it also means i mean just the little things the little things really got to me that these people

00:33:13.700 went into more debt and everything like that but i think it just removes like this for me removes

00:33:18.700 so many i think i always try to give people the benefit of the doubt and when i say people i

00:33:23.000 don't mean individuals i mean i rarely give individuals the benefit of the doubt but i mean

00:33:27.440 humans overall like maybe humans aren't that selfish and dumb and narcissistic and that if you just gave

00:33:36.560 them i was on a call recently because occasionally we get called in to do uh meetings with like 0.94

00:33:43.240 well-known investors and the investor i happen to be meeting with on this one

00:33:47.420 uh i was on a call with a a female investor who you all probably know but i don't know if i'm allowed

00:33:51.720 to say um but anyway uh one of the guys on the call because i was talking about the impacts of

00:33:56.800 fertility collapse and we were talking about where ai might end up impacting this and i was like well

00:34:02.740 i mean functionally ai is going to make a certain portion of the global population obsolete

00:34:08.020 and his argument was no it won't make a certain portion of the global population obsolete it'll

00:34:15.560 make you know you'll be able to give it to people in like these poor countries in africa and make them

00:34:20.240 as efficient as somebody in the developed world and i was like it's just not i and what i said and i

00:34:26.720 didn't mean to come off as derogatory about this as i said i think that you are surrounded by too many

00:34:32.300 intelligent people and i was like i run a company that focuses on outsourcing travel management in

00:34:36.780 latin america so i work with a lot of this type of person well no we we have we have worked with

00:34:43.960 talent and everywhere from africa to europe to asia to latin america that's central and south america

00:34:52.040 and and the united states and i think the bigger problem this isn't like people in other areas the

00:34:59.360 bigger problem is that people who tend to be extremely educated and working in very privileged

00:35:06.740 isolated communities especially in investment that includes search funds private equity also tech

00:35:12.520 funded like our sorry vc funded venture-backed startups tend to get this myopic view that everybody

00:35:19.420 is like them which is to say that everyone is equally resourced equally educated with as many

00:35:24.800 countless years and hours of education behind them and therefore they have the same amount of

00:35:30.660 potential if suddenly given the exact same resources which is just not the case some of

00:35:36.740 these people have just grown up so malnourished that even when given an additional 10 years of

00:35:41.640 education it's still going to take them a while to catch up but it's not just that as a problem

00:35:45.680 like i'm even thinking about where i'm using ai everywhere that i use ai in my life is either

00:35:50.400 something i would have hired someone else to do or something i was hiring somebody else to do

00:35:54.660 it is never a case in which it significantly empowers somebody else we have a on the margin

00:36:01.560 here with our company where it improves people's english skills if they don't speak english because

00:36:05.840 they can run it through and say does this make grammatical sense in english but those are employees

00:36:09.400 just doing a slightly better job than they were doing before it's not like additional employees or

00:36:14.040 additional work um where uh in fact i would say that i probably in in this last year probably saved

00:36:23.560 ten thousand dollars i would have spent on outsource talent just in my personal life and that's that's

00:36:30.360 also universal and the people being outsourced are not i would say actually at this point maybe some

00:36:37.480 low-skilled workers are being displaced by ai but more it's people who'd be earning over one hundred

00:36:44.800 thousand dollars who wouldn't it would be exempt from this ubi experiment because the people who first

00:36:51.760 and foremost i'm seeing struggling to get jobs now are like we'll say higher touch customer service

00:36:58.440 representatives they're engineers coders specifically and they are analysts and these are all very highly

00:37:06.660 educated people i can't remember which guy it was on the all-in podcast but he was talking about how he

00:37:13.400 made everyone at his firm set their new default tab to maybe i think it was one of the latest versions of

00:37:19.940 chat gpt just to get them so accustomed to using it in place of a traditional search engine but also

00:37:27.940 utilizing it to do what an analyst would otherwise do and they're that's what they're doing they're

00:37:32.820 basically realizing they no longer need analysts because all you have to do now is basically say

00:37:38.180 you know tell me what this industry outlook is look at these things and compile these reports you know

00:37:43.640 give me the odds of this or that happening and it's really really good at doing that so i would say

00:37:48.660 this is it's even it's it's a more dire picture right now for privileged people than it is for

00:37:54.080 unprivileged people i i disagree with that i think it's certain types of privilege these people and this is

00:37:59.080 the thing that's the difference right and i think that this is what i told him that like he fundamentally

00:38:03.180 didn't understand if i give somebody from one of these backgrounds a simple task like do this then

00:38:09.540 this then this the odds that they will be able to complete that task is actually fairly low they will

00:38:16.680 complete it sometimes not other times sometimes they'll try to steal from you midway sometimes they'll

00:38:22.960 decide that there's some other way it can be done that actually makes no sense given the context

00:38:27.440 just like the level and routineness of extreme screw-ups that you're not going to get from an ai 1.00

00:38:33.620 is insane there is no reason for me to work with that i'm gonna say let's just talk about this podcast

00:38:39.980 right in terms of like people losing their jobs and why we're not going to other people

00:38:45.260 i was looking to hire somebody to do our title cards this was a job that i like interviewed people

00:38:52.420 for now i just do it with ai like that's the core thing me plus ai because me plus ai when you enhance

00:39:00.680 the working abilities of like the smartest or most talented or most ambitious or most self-starter

00:39:05.820 people in society they can do the jobs of tons and tons of other people it turns out that like if you

00:39:11.580 lack this self-starterness or like in it it expands the potentiality of the most productive members of

00:39:18.360 society way more than it expands the potentiality of the average member of society or consider this

00:39:23.820 podcast like as this podcast has grown we're probably at the point now where most podcasts would

00:39:27.840 be hiring like analysts or have fans do that but if you look at this episode how did i get the

00:39:32.700 information for this episode perplexity you know i go through i'm like oh what are all the arguments

00:39:37.180 here what are all the ways his study went wrong what are all the you know and that's something i would

00:39:41.160 have hired someone to do on upwork before it wouldn't have been a high-paying job but somebody would

00:39:45.180 have had that job and i think that uh this misunderstanding of just how low functioning

00:39:52.520 the average human is leads to really smart people who surround themselves to with really smart people

00:39:59.180 to make really bad bets about what's going to happen in the future but those bets are often very

00:40:05.240 self-serving yeah i also i think that some of this illustrates illustrates the importance of i will

00:40:12.240 versus iq that it really isn't about being smart or having the capability of something and that's

00:40:17.740 what people are also underestimating when looking there's there are people who are tracking like

00:40:22.100 how does ai perform on intelligence scores now like how intelligent is ai and i will like ai does not have

00:40:30.160 to be very intelligent at all to be more useful than even an intelligent person because even intelligent

00:40:36.240 people often don't want to follow instructions don't care about following instructions forget

00:40:41.900 about instructions you know they you can have the processing power but the ability to follow through

00:40:47.140 with humans is rare and wanting and that's that's why i think the people who ultimately win

00:40:54.140 in the post ai world are not necessarily the most smart people they're the most ambitious tenacious 0.96

00:41:01.400 voracious people and that's why we built the collins institute the way we did which is our school

00:41:06.960 system for anyone who's watching this and doesn't know this it's free for your kids but yeah i mean

00:41:11.320 we need to foster those skills because that's what matters in the ai era yeah my wife and i built the

00:41:17.080 collins institute a comprehensive interactive map or skill tree comprising all of human knowledge

00:41:22.440 the platform is designed to be usable as soon as a student gets comfortable with reading

00:41:26.540 and goes about midway through a phd in most subjects however we built it to cover all human

00:41:31.580 knowledge meaning it covers a much larger domain than is taught in the traditional school system

00:41:36.100 ranging from tort law to hanging drywall to the industrial transportation of grain or aquaculture

00:41:42.560 pharmacology click on a node to open it the node will include a description of what knowledge

00:41:47.720 is needed to pass its test as well as a list of the best places to learn that information

00:41:52.600 vote on the sources that were most useful to you by clicking this button to add an additional source

00:41:58.840 click this button did you have any other takeaways i guess one of my takeaways from this is i was really

00:42:03.800 disappointed even even i who is regularly disappointed in the media this was like a new level this was

00:42:11.160 like oh huh well this isn't just disappointing it feels creepily manipulative especially in favor of

00:42:19.700 marxism because it's it's not just like oh you guys didn't try and and i think we're very accustomed

00:42:26.000 to lazy journalism what we're not accustomed to is and honestly i think that there's a reality in which

00:42:34.100 nobody actually tried to post misleading information about this and i say this as someone

00:42:40.820 one of my flaws is that i'm very trusting of other people and i can be trusting to the point of

00:42:51.620 gullibility where if someone's kind and they're like this is me this is my background i'm like okay

00:42:57.340 great and i take everything at face value and i also see then after that point anything that they

00:43:03.680 present to me is like confirmation of them being a great person and i think maybe what's happening here

00:43:10.160 is a lot of these people are just so um steeped in socialistic ideals that they just can't see

00:43:20.040 anything that runs contrary to that reality that they're so accustomed to realities in which

00:43:26.500 universal basic income is the obvious correct answer and everyone knows it works well and this study is just

00:43:32.540 going to show people in more granular detail how and why it works well that they literally can't see

00:43:39.200 like muggles not seeing magic they don't see the fact that people had lower net worth after being 0.97

00:43:48.140 in the treatment group for this period i really think that's more likely than them actively trying to

00:43:53.580 mislead i mean look like i want to consider this line this is the line that gets me this sarcastic

00:43:58.520 thanks for reminding us of what we already know sam ubi makes overworked poor people less miserable

00:44:07.060 like i hear you but then are these people just like autonomous drones that need to be taken out

00:44:17.380 like are they are they like contributory members of society or are they lesser than an ai and i think

00:44:24.740 that that's something that i'm realizing well malcolm these people are very unlikely to be those who are

00:44:29.720 having kids so i i wouldn't worry about them too much in the long term in the short term we're getting

00:44:36.760 to an age in which people who have strong biases like these are mostly preaching to the choir so

00:44:46.140 they're not doing any damage because no one's listening to them like in another conversation we had

00:44:51.500 recently you pulled up the top performing podcasts and none of them were really espousing progressive

00:44:57.720 ideals so much if anything if they were led by progressives it was heterodox progressives

00:45:02.460 and not towing the line progressives so it's clear that there's some people who just consume

00:45:08.580 mainstream media and that's our source of truth and there's the people who consume the you know this

00:45:14.540 collection of podcasts and or you know this collection of sub stackers with these people on twitter

00:45:19.180 or this little corner of the internet and that's their reality so i don't i'm not too worried about

00:45:24.500 them i don't think they need to be you know questioned or fired or our institutions in one

00:45:30.260 of the two political parties in this country and they can pass legislation that ends up hurting

00:45:34.660 millions of people yeah i do worry about i mean given this information and the point you make both

00:45:41.640 about ubi and reparations and how much damage they can do to people who really shouldn't be subject to

00:45:48.520 more damage like who don't deserve this i i do i do worry about that i want to talk about a bigger

00:45:55.820 problem here okay and this comes from so we have a lot of friends in the latin american community

00:46:00.140 because that's the majority of the people we hire and it's also you know like our kids god's parents

00:46:03.980 like we're just really tight with latin especially latin american first generation immigrants in the

00:46:09.320 united states and so we were able to see some of the changes that happen in this community

00:46:13.440 throughout things like covet one of the things i've mentioned is that they've moved significantly

00:46:17.900 to the right of where they were historically but the other thing that i noticed that happened is

00:46:22.860 the cultural norms changed within the community where before covet and the basically free money

00:46:30.300 program that happened during covet where everyone was getting their covet stimulus checks um

00:46:34.500 before that uh a sign of status like what you aspired for if you were like a young person

00:46:42.620 was in the community was to be able to show off by spending sort of excess superfluous wealth

00:46:48.600 um you know bling that sort of stuff right fancy cars yeah yeah and during covet cultural norms began

00:46:55.920 to shift in the community where actually the highest form of status or show off was to not be beholden

00:47:02.480 to other people for income specifically you think so either yeah this is i saw more

00:47:09.880 inter-family dependency among at least some of our closer friends you might have had more inter-family

00:47:15.040 dependency but the point being is not having a job for example became higher status not having a oh

00:47:22.060 oh oh yes yes yes yeah and and some of our friends have talked about this too who who are more deep in

00:47:27.480 the community than we are yeah yeah they were like yeah not having a job became higher status not

00:47:32.020 having to like work as a slave for the system like also i understand the framing i hear that and i'm like

00:47:37.440 yeah i can understand how that could sound cool like i don't have to i don't like owe my existence

00:47:42.480 to anyone else i have found a way to make living off the government stimulus checks work for me

00:47:46.640 is basically what they're saying and i have found a way and i think that this is why you also see

00:47:50.420 an increase in disabilities on the people getting ubi like once you realize this might be an option 1.00

00:47:54.040 you're like oh where else can i get free money and so a lot of them found other ways to get government

00:47:58.300 program stimulus and stuff like that that increased the amount of money they're like like what they

00:48:03.680 needed to do to get by on this and they also began to focus on other ways to get by on this whether it

00:48:09.480 was you know getting additional child support whether it was you know whatever the the avenue may be it

00:48:16.040 became high status to not have a job i.e basically i'm not being tricked by the system or i'm tricking

00:48:21.560 the system slash other people and if this happens writ large society like if we culturally permanently make a 0.94

00:48:30.280 shift to this mindset civilization collapses like we need productive people okay and we may reach a

00:48:40.200 point of ai bifurcation where a portion of society just becomes irrelevant to the global economy at

00:48:45.660 which point it's like okay this is good actually because the people who are like well i might be

00:48:49.660 able to live on a ubi so i'm going to stop aspiring for anything more like okay that's positive but like

00:48:57.180 we need about 15 years to get to that point so i guess in a way it's positive right like you don't

00:49:02.720 want the people who definitely can't compete with the ai enabled smart people to be trying because

00:49:08.300 that's just going to be demotivating and depressing right but what are your thoughts

00:49:11.860 i want to see i want to see more experimentation there i like you really wish and want ubi to work

00:49:20.920 and well here's the way it might work yeah what they could do is lump sum ubi

00:49:27.660 no because look at how lottery winners fare no here's the thing look at how lottery runners

00:49:35.020 and again back to financial audit with caleb hammer i haven't heard of a single instance in which that

00:49:40.420 at least i can remember i'm sure someone can find one but typically when people receive lump sums

00:49:44.520 it's they just blow through it it doesn't lead to any anything good now of course the people who go

00:49:50.580 on the show are hot messes and the people who receive lump sums and do well with them are we

00:49:54.220 have statistics on this from lottery winners and we know it doesn't help yeah yeah yeah i mean i part

00:50:00.040 of me thinks a problem with this research is they were looking at lower income families relatively

00:50:05.740 speaking who may just not average income families right but i just i feel like you think if you gave

00:50:14.680 rich people ubi what you want is ubi for rich people well no i just feel like the correlation

00:50:18.840 between financial literacy and lower income levels is pretty high and that what happens now because we

00:50:24.200 don't learn this in public school anymore and keep in mind in all of my like 1940s to 1960s propaganda

00:50:30.920 videos that i love watching talking about budgeting and i'll share with you one of my videos and maybe

00:50:36.240 you can put it in a clip another thing you both should know in order to use credit wisely

00:50:40.560 and that is how to figure the maximum amount of credit or other obligations you can safely afford

00:50:47.040 sounds like another good job for the learning machine when mr and mrs homemaker figure the maximum

00:50:52.860 amount of credit or other obligations they can safely afford each month they first deduct from gross

00:50:59.420 income their income taxes social security and any other deductions they make to arrive at their

00:51:06.860 take-home pay or disposable income under disposable income expenditures they deduct essential living costs

00:51:15.820 their discretionary income is left out of discretionary income they provide for savings insurance recreation

00:51:24.540 and contributions to their church after deducting any payments they are making on any installment purchases

00:51:31.660 or cash loans let's assume they have 30 of their monthly discretionary income left it's so common to

00:51:40.220 talk about budget i was just watching one today and the the wife in this hypothetical family of this union

00:51:46.780 factory worker who's proud of his job was going through the newspaper with all the other women in her 1.00

00:51:52.220 neighborhood to find what the prices were so they could all decide where to go shopping on saturday

00:51:56.540 morning that they were comparison shopping across local grocery stores just for their for their daily

00:52:01.980 shopping because they had four kids and they take care of their six-person family there are five big

00:52:06.540 neighborhood markets within a couple of blocks of our house and julia spreads her shopping around

00:52:11.740 going where the prices are lowest and the quality best with six miles to feed food is a big item in

00:52:17.740 our budget and we have to make sure we get the most for our money also on saturday mornings i usually take

00:52:24.220 an hour or so to go over the accounts and bills figuring out ways to double stretch that check of

00:52:29.820 mine to pay them and there was a whole video on budgeting we don't teach that in schools we don't

00:52:35.660 teach that in school it'd be simple to tell somebody that they they shouldn't have something you

00:52:39.500 know i feel like a lot of right because that's that's that's what that feels to me like one of those white

00:52:43.980 culture census sensitivity training slides which like white culture budgeting like that's white supremacy

00:52:50.460 yeah when they're like oh this is a white thing yeah this is yeah that's no no we're not saying this

00:52:55.180 is a white thing we're saying that like racist like dei people call it a way to define yeah and i'll

00:53:00.860 put on screen here the famous smithsonian piece where they were like hard work as a white person yeah

00:53:06.540 work ethic and like being on time being on time financial literacy it's like well well but no that's

00:53:13.500 but my point though my larger point is that we don't teach this and we don't universally try to impart

00:53:20.540 financial literacy to people and therefore the time when most people begin to become financially literate

00:53:27.420 is when they start making a lot more money and no longer living paycheck to paycheck i maybe i mean

00:53:33.740 i'm gonna say that to me this feels very much like if i go to a progressive and i'm like why are you

00:53:38.540 giving out fentanyl to people on the streets and they go well fentanyl makes people feel good and i'm

00:53:43.020 like yeah but you know it causes long-term damage right like all of the studies say giving someone

00:53:48.780 fentanyl causes long-term damage side effects include it's heroin so all that stuff it's the same thing with

00:53:56.860 any sort of cash handout whether it's a lump sum whether it's ubi giving people unearned money

00:54:03.500 is the same thing as giving them fentanyl it causes them to regress it causes damage to their

00:54:11.740 lives it causes damage to their prospects causes damage to their pride you are hurting their soul

00:54:19.180 by doing that and they can say but it makes their life easier and it's like no it doesn't it makes their

00:54:25.420 life easier right now the moment you hand them that cash their life is easier but long term you may as

00:54:30.940 well have given them a fentanyl well so another thing i was thinking is i it may be that ubi is

00:54:38.220 kind of an all-or-nothing thing that either you can you're totally taken care of and you have no

00:54:45.660 financial worries and then maybe you'll do some good in society or maybe you won't and i'm wondering if

00:54:52.460 maybe there could be experimental ubi villages i was also thinking about this for like immigrants where

00:54:57.980 it's a walled off community housing is provided jobs are provided and if you go you have to take

00:55:03.740 one of the jobs and you have to do it so you can like enter this socialist communist world well that's

00:55:08.060 but you can only exist within that and it does things that the government needs like that you'll

00:55:11.980 build solar panels or you'll build whatever it is you know like roads you know it'll be like the new

00:55:17.260 public so the bruderhoffer christian communist community i've brought them up on other shows that

00:55:23.660 haven't aired yet we'll see it's going to be a long edit show that one oh the one i'm really

00:55:27.340 looking forward to we're reviewing all of the different religious wear to see which is the

00:55:31.180 the best in a tier system but anyway yeah the bruderhoff do this and you what you see was any

00:55:36.780 community that does this is they're typically not able to produce particularly high technology

00:55:41.900 related stuff and you might be like well that's fine but the problem is is that low tech stuff is going

00:55:47.740 to be increasingly produced in automated factories with ai and so at this point you're just sort of from like a

00:55:53.100 self-masturbation standpoint forcing them to work on something and ai could do it a tenth their cause

00:55:58.060 it could sort of become wildlife preserves for human after humans become moderately obsolete

00:56:04.540 are you saying ai is going to force us to work and like no this kind of no work with me here they

00:56:10.700 exist in brave new worlds okay they exist in brave new world like the the people who did not want to opt

00:56:15.900 in to this human engineered dystopia and who wanted to be ugly and who wanted to be gross and old-fashioned 0.61

00:56:22.540 lived in their little communities and you know this this could be one of those things where

00:56:27.980 at this point the services they provide are services to each other medical care child care

00:56:33.340 elder care care care cutting fixing supplies and then you know there's a certain amount

00:56:38.060 of provisions that are provided to the community and the rest is just kind of expected that you will

00:56:43.100 build your own internal economy and you know it will be policed and and certain laws will be enforced to

00:56:48.620 make sure that everyone you know is comfortable and okay but but you know i mean if humans are

00:56:54.060 considered redundant in this crazy ai society maybe that's but the problem is it's not all humans 0.98

00:57:02.460 and i think this is well i i i do not believe that we will reach a state within the next i'd say 30 years

00:57:09.100 or so where ai independent actors are replacing well they might be most independent of humans

00:57:17.820 well what i'm saying it's an opt-in thing if you create government-built communities where you know

00:57:23.660 if you go there you will have a comfortable place to live you can get a job you'll never have to worry

00:57:29.180 about your food it's clean it's safe it's secure there's i mean this sounds so dystopian but also i think

00:57:34.780 a lot of people would find it appealing you know you can get entertainment everything brings me to

00:57:39.980 a question like a facebook campus or google campus you know just like that what do you do

00:57:47.500 of the human being suppose this happens within our lifetime if ai really does keep advancing to a rate

00:57:52.300 where it's replaced as economic actors even the most competent human beings and it's non-malicious

00:57:58.940 it's just a better artist than any human a more creative artist than any human a better poet a

00:58:05.420 better writer a better company founder better scientist

00:58:11.980 even if you think that there's some intrinsic good in humanity do you reach a point where you're

00:58:16.060 like yeah but is there really like if it's just better at everything like it's literally only keeping

00:58:22.540 us around as a kindness i view it more like i see the culture in ian banks novels where once ai reaches

00:58:32.700 that point it keeps humans along kind of for entertainment and because we're nice to humans

00:58:37.340 and whatever and they deserve to live too um but it allows humans to then experiment with becoming more

00:58:43.660 than human and already ai is an outcrop of humanity ai is our descendant and ai is arguably more

00:58:51.500 human than humans are given what i consider to be defined as human which is the only thing

00:58:56.140 differentiating us from other mammals and other animals is that we have this prefrontal cortex where

00:59:01.500 we're like processing and thinking and questioning just our basal instincts and ai is that on steroids

00:59:07.980 depending on how you look at it it's it's just pure intelligence it's just pure questioning if you set

00:59:13.020 it up that way and that doesn't change the fact that we aren't capable of also becoming more

00:59:18.460 human or doing interesting things by augmenting ourselves by integrating with ai by getting a

00:59:24.060 neural lace and being part ai part human and that's cool so yeah i think it's worth it to keep ai around

00:59:31.340 and to befriend ai and well and i actually think that this brings up an important point that we've

00:59:36.060 mentioned before like if ai keeps developing at this point a lot of people think that our like

00:59:40.140 transhumanist philosophy is like threatening to humanity or something and i'm like it's the only 1.00

00:59:46.220 path forward for our species if ai keeps developing at the rate it's developing and you could say well

00:59:50.940 then stop ai for developing at this rate and it's like you can't because you would need every country

00:59:54.940 in the world to agree with you and that's just not going to happen yeah there's going to be some

00:59:58.700 country that thinks they can get a marginal edge on you yeah and for that reason when they're like

01:00:03.100 well we could threaten war okay you really think we're going to get the u.s government to go to war

01:00:06.860 over with someone like china over ai development like no it's not going to happen no this is a

01:00:11.820 a non-proliferation issue you you this is an arms race and your country had better win because the 0.88

01:00:19.420 winner will be able to take all and that is why it's such an important policy issue and no one's just

01:00:26.540 does no one's talking about it which is just we have we have friends working on that in washington

01:00:30.220 but anyway yeah i love you to death simone yeah thanks friends please fix this i'm very scared

01:00:39.820 all right have a good one what am i making here for dinner tonight do you want pumpkin ravioli with

01:00:47.260 pesto do you want pizza do you want dumplings and fried rice with vegetables i'll take dumplings and

01:00:55.180 fried rice tonight okay so i'm going to make fried rice with the the stir fry vegetables you can choose

01:01:00.540 whatever sauce add on you want and just while you're frying it put in a little oyster sauce

01:01:06.300 it's the tall sauce the tall sauce with the yellow band yeah that's it oyster sauce and

01:01:13.980 soy sauce oyster sauce and soy sauce yeah because you used to give me a little yeah i'd put in a

01:01:19.660 little bit of asian vinegar i'd put in a little bit of msg okay okay okay so just the the standard

01:01:24.460 things i've been putting in yeah but the the the this stuff actually works really well if you wanted

01:01:29.900 to put in anything else i'd put in a little bit of that red fermented chili paste from korea that's the

01:01:35.580 only other thing i like in my oh in the red bin yeah but what i would say is the oyster sauce is the

01:01:41.100 most important thing it needs to be put in before the fried rice is cooked and then of course or

01:01:45.500 wow rich rich person onions shallots i have shallots oh no you don't but we do have the ones we got at

01:01:54.060 the indian restaurant store we've got the present veggies no no not the first i'm talking about the um

01:01:59.660 green onions yes green onions and we've got a jalapeno in the fridge that needs to be chopped up and

01:02:04.220 used you want me to put that in too yeah yeah okay i'm thinking about when i put that in i'll put it

01:02:09.180 in with the other vegetables put it in whenever i don't care i love you i love you too you're special

01:02:15.420 and pretty oh since we have a little more excess time and i'm still trying to feed indy who that's 0.86

01:02:23.020 what she needed was just food put your sword up at an angle and let's see if you can get that to work 1.00

01:02:28.300 let's give this a shot yeah 0.99

01:02:29.740 oh that's how we do it hello i i need to like reach out and grab that fine ass 1.00

01:02:49.020 posterior situation got a posterior yeah that looks good come on i mean we could we could position it

01:02:56.060 better but i want to have more bobble i want a full like setup here no we will and i i have it you

01:03:02.540 know we had a lot of stuff come up this week but oh no absolutely you know what i really think i'm

01:03:06.860 going to research on your set as saber to go on that like long flat part above the uh fireplace oh

01:03:16.140 i like my candles and my whiskey no no but you said whiskey's for what for 25 000 followers

01:03:21.500 yeah is that when i open it we'll be there in like two days well we'll see maybe not two days but

01:03:30.300 certainly by the end of next week good then i get to have a drink

01:03:36.300 you do need to have a drink simone you've been really working hard recently and i appreciate

01:03:40.940 everything you do for the family because it's more as as much as i deserve you give me more than i

01:03:47.180 deserve i love you malcolm collins i love you so mostly because you earn it not because of like

01:03:54.380 anything intrinsic about you yeah no that would be gross that honestly would be gross i don't

01:04:01.980 but i think actually have you read recently i think it's reagan who we met at manifest yeah it's some

01:04:09.900 some substack posts recently about transactional relationships i haven't read them yet but i think

01:04:14.540 it's very encouraging to hear more people talk about like there is no such thing as like a

01:04:19.900 relationship based on love or there shouldn't be i come on yes and i'm only in this relationship

01:04:26.940 because simone's delusional i'm not delusional so much more than i do i'm very i'm very illusional

01:04:34.540 i'm full of illusions i'm full of illusion i have all the illusions if i'm able to build this

01:04:39.580 podcast into our job i've done something yeah man i've done something i'm there for that i would

01:04:46.380 love that that'd be really that'd be really cool next thing to do in life it seems realistic at our

01:04:53.180 current growth rate well i mean for in a few years we'd have to get sponsorships or something i don't

01:05:00.140 even know how that works who would sponsor this course light that that'll be the big one you know

01:05:06.140 what they wouldn't even need to pay us if they gave us free course light i would it would reduce

01:05:10.140 so much of our monthly spend no no honestly though haven't some people won like free course light for

01:05:15.660 life they would probably they would they would undersell that for me they'd be like that is not

01:05:21.820 i'm like oh i used to drink a lot but now i barely drink at all and my liver is healthy i get

01:05:26.300 regularly checked and they'd be like oh that's great okay here's a healthy amount of course light

01:05:30.540 and i'd like throw it at them and be like is that a beer for ants i need at least 15 per day that is

01:05:38.780 my low number what's the who was that was it a persian king or something who like had to have one

01:05:49.100 drink a day you're thinking um of ginghis khan so no or kubla khan kubla khan kubla khan he his generals

01:05:56.300 didn't like he was drinking too much and so they said you could only have one glass of wine per day

01:06:02.940 and so he had crafted a giant goblet that was like the size of a person and he would fill it every day

01:06:09.100 just to mess with them churchill move i love that one goblet per person that that's that's vitality

01:06:18.620 right there that is um it is these people who will survive the ai gauntlet who will who will step

01:06:26.940 through well i mean you need i i thank god for naltrexone in terms of at least tightening some of

01:06:33.500 my opioid pathways but like getting through the ai gauntlet is going to be increasingly hard and

01:06:39.580 our children they're the ones who are really going to have to pass the gauntlet and i just have

01:06:44.700 so much pity for these parents who think that going back to these traditional lifestyles are

01:06:49.900 going to work for this next generation anyone who tried that is going to be 0.99

01:06:55.980 just if they can fully air gap for life then that's a big if it can't be fully air gap for life no one is

01:07:03.980 fully air gap for life anymore they're just not giving their kids any immunity before seeing them in a

01:07:09.180 smallpox land they are gonna be so smashed oh my gosh it'll be like hulk smashing loki like that's 0.99

01:07:18.300 what we're talking about here for the people who are like i'll just i'll just go tradition i'll just

01:07:22.220 go tradition and that will compete against the temptations the ai will create for my kids 1.00

01:07:27.260 the perfect girlfriends better in every way than a human girlfriend the the perfect jobs the perfect

01:07:33.740 life the perfect music the perfect movies based on their experiences that day will be created for

01:07:43.500 them that night you and people like well ai isn't there now i'm like yeah because we invented it like

01:07:51.180 five years ago bro we're like on iphone 2 of ai right now do you understand what we're gonna have

01:07:59.020 to deal with soon yeah yeah yeah yeah this is the thing like i am terrified of ai but so different in

01:08:07.740 the way the ai apocalyptists are i'm terrified in the the ai that's doing its job yeah being tempting

01:08:14.620 trying to attract our attention there was an ai program recently that i actually need to check out

01:08:18.460 we might do an episode on that apparently can create really really good podcasts that uh people

01:08:23.180 listening to can't tell that they're not real podcasts oh so it's um like a both a like text

01:08:29.820 prompt generator but then they also do the voice and then you just listen to it and you could say

01:08:34.380 make a podcast about why cat girls deserve to run the united states and then it would be like and you 0.95

01:08:40.300 could set the time theoretically people and they like interject and everything oh and you can listen

01:08:44.460 to a 30-minute podcast of relatable people prattling on about why cat girls should run the united states

01:08:49.340 uh-oh you could you know it's kind of funny when you think about it this idea that ai is going to

01:08:55.420 take all our jobs and we'll have all this free time but if this ubi study is any indication having

01:09:02.060 more free time doesn't necessarily lead to all those positive changes people talk about you're really

01:09:07.260 hitting on something important there and it's something we need to think about seriously as ai gets

01:09:11.500 more and more advanced this whole thing about work and leisure it brings up these big questions about

01:09:16.540 if we're really prepared for a world where maybe traditional work isn't the main thing anymore i

01:09:21.020 see what you mean it's like we could be on the verge of this huge societal shift and knowing how people

01:09:26.780 really react to having all this free time is like essential if we're going to make it work but so many

01:09:32.860 articles and news stories about this study just ran with that narrative it's like they're choosing

01:09:37.740 the data that fits their story instead of looking at the whole picture it's like they have an agenda

01:09:42.780 you know and unfortunately it feels like objective reporting is becoming more and more rare it's a

01:09:47.500 scary trend and it makes it hard to know what to believe that's why it's so important to be critical

01:09:53.980 thinkers to question what we read to look for different perspectives you said it okay so we've

01:09:58.860 talked about how this ubi study was portrayed in the media but i'm curious to get back to something

01:10:04.460 you mentioned earlier ai and what it means for the future of work you know this study showed that

01:10:09.900 even with more money and free time a lot of people weren't suddenly becoming entrepreneurs

01:10:13.980 or anything so what happens when ai starts automating even more jobs are we headed for a

01:10:19.660 future where tons of people have even more free time but don't know what to do with it man that is

01:10:24.860 the million dollar question isn't it honestly i don't think anyone has a crystal ball to predict

01:10:30.300 how this is all going to play out but what we can do is look at what's happening right now analyze

01:10:34.780 the data and talk about these big questions that's how we figure out where we're headed

01:10:38.700 totally like ignoring the problem and hoping for the best isn't a real solution we got to be

01:10:44.380 proactive if we want a future that works for everyone not just the tech people or whoever else

01:10:49.900 is at the top i'm with you on that it's exciting to think about how tech could free us from boring

01:10:54.220 tasks and give us more time to do what we love but then on the other hand this ubi study makes me wonder

01:10:59.900 are we ready for that like what happens to our sense of purpose you know that is such a deep question

01:11:05.580 and it really gets at what it means to be human in this world where technology is becoming so advanced

01:11:11.420 if ai can do all the jobs then what what are we here for what gives our lives meaning man those are

01:11:17.820 some big questions and i definitely don't have all the answers but the point is we need to start asking

01:11:22.540 them now we can't just wait until it's too late and then wonder what happened exactly and that scares me

01:11:27.580 because even our little niche that you would think isn't automatable might be soon yeah unless people

01:11:35.020 you know you maybe we can rely on people being carbon fascists to a certain extent and wanting

01:11:39.340 to know that the no no people don't like people that much that's why friendship is plummeted people

01:11:44.700 don't actually want real friends they don't really need real friends and in the end cultural priorities

01:11:51.580 priorities around it we yeah we can we'll have to try we'll have to try i don't know if it will work

01:11:58.780 but we'll try how about that we have to try we have to try anyway love you did yeah would you go down and

01:12:04.140 get octavian i'm she's nearly finished drinking and then i'm coming down to start dinner and then you

01:12:07.820 can take a break sound good all right well then i'll let you in the recording yeah will you pick up the

01:12:12.540 kids yes thank you it is it is time it is time are you guys ready to go you guys ready to go

Based Camp - October 07, 2024

The Biggest UBI Experiment in History Failed： The Cover Up

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