Hacking State

Michael Millerman joins me to discuss starting a philosophy school, why tech and startups are seeking wisdom, whether Western philosophy is still a living tradition, objections to the usefulness of philosophy, leading students to the eternal questions, the intimate pleasure of communing with old friends, Martin Heidegger's influence on Alexander Dugin, Leo Strauss and Heidegger's disagreement on philosophical historicism, our place in the cave beneath Plato's Cave, Millerman's intriguing encounter with Dugin, why Dugin is a dangerous philosopher, his take on "Selective Breeding and the Birth of Philosophy," and the potential for the rewilding of philosophy.

Relevant Links:

Millerman on X: https://x.com/M_Millerman

The Millerman School

Beginning with Heidegger

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I sit down with Bitcoin Gandalf for a deep dive on Satoshi's immaculate coinception. Gandalf is a large influencer in the Bitcoin space and works in Bitcoin mining.

Bitcoin is one of the most innovative technologies of the last century from a governance and coordination perspective. I believe it has the potential to be a vehicle for civilization-level reconfiguration of value.

We cover our respective journeys in becoming "orange-pilled" on Bitcoin, the Bitcoin mining industry from the inside, Bitcoin maximalism, its potential to supplant existing fiat currencies, the virtues of self-custody, Bitcoin ETFs, Bitcoiners (community), proof of work vs. proof of stake, where we are in the current hype cycle, and getting into Bitcoin for noobs.

You can find Gandalf on:

https://x.com/BTCGandalf

Suggested Reading:

Bitcoin White Paper: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

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DeepNews is using LLMs to aggregate and summarize the latest news across the internet, seeking to change the way we digest news.

Nikolai Yakovenko is an ex-Twitter, Google, and Nvidia machine-learning engineer who initially forayed into Web3 with his venture 'DeepNFTValue,' which uses machine learning to estimate the value of NFTs; before also going on to create DeepNews.

We cover using generative AI for compression, why this application of LLMs could better deliver news from primary sources across the internet in real time, the narrative neutrality of the AI-platform, concerns about information accuracy, misinformation, fidelity, and robustness, as well as potential areas for improvement.

You can find Nikolai on:

https://x.com/ivan_bezdomny

https://substack.com/@nikocrypto

Relevant Links:

https://deepnewz.com

https://www.deepnftvalue.com

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We envision a nuclear Texas.

Grant Dever is a research fellow at FREOPP (Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity) who writes about energy policy, with a focus on nuclear power. He earned his degree in economics and business from the University of Rochester. During the pandemic, Grant cultivated community for IndieThinkers.org—an accelerator for independent thinkers on the internet. He also authored "Lead The Future: Strategies and Systems for Emerging Leaders."

The conversation touches on Texas as an independent energy powerhouse and the challenges with its power grid. Dever also speaks about the role of tech giants in advancing Nuclear Energy. By adopting demand response and managing intermittency, power-intensive applications like bitcoin mining, training LLMs & hydrogen production can be transformative in nuclear energy proliferation. 

The discussion concludes with a note on the  opportunities in the Texas energy sector, particularly when diverging from federal directives, standing as the lone star state.

You can find Grant on: 

Website:

https://grantdever.com/

Substack:

FREOPP: https://freopp.org/the-freopp-scholar-grant-dever-badbe66c8b7e

X: https://twitter.com/grantadever

Book: https://www.amazon.com/Lead-Future-Strategies-Systems-Emerging-ebook/dp/B0828895H4

Relevant Links: 

https://freopp.org/rethinking-u-s-nuclear-energy-regulation-7639c7e88642

https://blog.freopp.org/were-not-going-to-have-another-chernobyl/

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Brendon Marotta is a filmmaker, author, and podcaster. We talk about his book, Children's Justice, which applies critical theory to the controversial topic of infant circumcision.

We go through his decision to appropriate the tools and tactics of critical theory in service of this issue, apprehensions around taking circumcision up as a social justice or human rights concern, my discomfort with everything about this, childhood trauma and its reverberating effects on adults and institutions, rhetorical methods borrowed from Foucault and others to make his argument, barriers for men and parents to discussing circumcision, and why he sees advocacy around this issue as a microcosm for opening a broader discussion around the treatment of children.

Brendon Marotta's feature-length documentary, "American Circumcision" garnered numerous nominations and awards at film festivals, including Best Documentary at the Lone Star Film Festival (2017), The Silver Jury Prize at The Social Justice Film Festival (2017), Best Documentary Feature at Outer Docs Film Festival (2018), and is available on Netflix (non-US) and Prime video.

Gods of AI (2022)

Brendon Marotta

Site: https://brendonmarotta

X: https://x.com/bdmarotta

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Engineer and essayist Stephen Pimentel joins me for a review of the recently released bestselling book in Political Philosophy, Costin Alamariu’s “Selective Breeding and the Birth of Philosophy”. In this discussion we go deep in tracing the argument, point-by-point, of Costin’s thesis concerning the twin emergence of philosophy and tyranny out of the idea of nature, and its teaching and preservation in the aristocratic regime.

We attempt to tour the line of argument in sequential fashion, laying out the basic premises, consequences, and conclusions Costin provides, as well as its potential reverberations for our understanding of classical political philosophy; and hint at potential future implications, given advances in technology and age of the current regime, of this timely and unexpectedly popular hit.

We go through the early anthropological account of pre-philosophical societies under the sway of collective nomos, the introduction of natural law from martial-aristocratic pastoralist conquerors, the discussion of Pindar and his insights for the aristocracy's self-understanding, phusis and its connection to physicality, the emergence of nature outside the city by breeding and training as a re-wilding project aimed at cultivating men of andreia and phronesis, Callicles and Socrates in Plato's Gorgias--turning Platonic political philosophy on its head, and Nietzsche's resurrection of aristocratic radicalism in service of the preservation of philosophy for the production of genius.

Get the book: https://www.amazon.com/Selective-Breeding-Philosophy-Costin-Alamariu/dp/B0CJ3ZDHF6 

Stephen Pimentel: https://twitter.com/StephenPiment 

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Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics at Michigan State University, as well as the founder of Genomic Prediction and SuperFocus AI; he also hosts the Manifold podcast, and the Information Processing blog.

Steve and I speak about polygenic risk scoring and embryo selection, using AI to predict phenotype from genotype, in-vitro fertilization (IVF), egg freezing, eugenic public policy, addressing Christians' and right-wing traditionalists' concerns, SuperFocus AI's plan to eliminate hallucination in large language models (LLMs) by separating memory from inference, introspection for LLM error correction, and surviving a cancellation attempt at MSU.

Steve Hsu:

On X: https://twitter.com/hsu_steve

Personal Site: https://infoproc.blogspot.com/

Manifold podcast: https://www.manifold1.com/

Genomic Prediction: https://www.lifeview.com/

SuperFocus AI: https://superfocus.ai/

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Garrett Dailey is the founder of Aion Enterprises, a business philosophy and design firm. We speak about the meaning of Aion, building a business around philosophy, individuation, the Candy Cane model of reality, and the importance of aesthetics for catalyzing people with a compelling vision of the future.

“Any sufficiently complex thought is philosophy.” - Garrett Dailey

Aion:

https://www.aion.enterprises/

https://twitter.com/AionEnterprises

Garrett Dailey:

https://twitter.com/Liber_Rex

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Disgraced Propagandist (Isaac Simpson) is the founder of WILL, a dissident marketing agency, and The Carousel Substack and podcast. We speak about how Will does dissident marketing for a cohort of new natural “wholesome” brands, the marketing industry as the canary in the coal mine for workplaces becoming Longhouses, the power of branding, the meaning of The Carousel metaphor, nostalgia, the “hype dad” archetype, his literary influences, and NEVER APOLOGIZE!

WILL, the agency: https://willtheagency.com/

On X: https://x.com/WILLtheagency

The Carousel:

Disgraced Propagandist: 

On X: https://x.com/DisgracedProp

Site: https://isaacsimpson.com/

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Razib Khan is a population geneticist, has a popular Substack on genetics and history, and is a co-founder of GenRait.

We speak about his role in the scientific ecosystem, the effect of the computing revolution on ancient genetics and genomics, why he’s most interested in Eurasian steppe populations, how ancient DNA has shed light on theories in archeology and philology, the effects of delayed fertility on genetic quality of offspring, prenatal genetic screening and gene editing, selection effects of modern environments, his startup, GenRait, and his antics on Twitter/X.

Website: https://www.razib.com/

Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/razibkhan 

GenRait: https://www.genrait.com/

 

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