In 1776, people immigrated to America for EQUALITY, to live without lords or kings. In 2016, I came to America for her INEQUALITY, to learn from billionaires and intellectuals who have achieved an unequaled greatness. America has abandoned its founding principle of equality, but that’s not a completely bad thing. Canada, where I came from, scoffs at American inequality, but the best Canadians immigrate for it. We come here precisely for this inequality and the unbounded limits of achievement it opens up. In Canada, all humans are given more respect regardless of their achievements. Society is materially and socially more equal. But when you are given a participation trophy for just being human, there isn't the same lust for success. The same sentiments of equality so hospitable to the majority are suffocating for the ambitious. Ask yourself this American: why do the best talent from stable, rich, lawful western democracies all want to come to the US? What do you have that no one else does? • If they wanted equality they would go to Norway. • If they loved private property, New Zealand protects it more. • If they craved rule of law they could go to Canada. • If they were tired of European civilization and wanted to immerse themselves in non-western cultures, they would go to Paris. What you have that none of the other democracies do is radical inequality, and that’s why we are here. The vast chasm between the billionaire and the struggling worker, the Ivy League chair and the wandering community college adjunct, the best private healthcare in the world and no healthcare at all sets Americans into a frenzy, a frenzy that most would be happier living without. Most Americans would live better lives in Canada. But the same fire that makes chaff smoke makes gold glow. And a tiny minority of you are able to capture that frenzy, that lightning in a bottle, and transmute it towards great ends. That energy is what we came to America for. America is unrecognizable from that of 250 years ago. When Tocqueville visited, just a few decades after the founding, America was so equal that one of his chief worries was that this equality would result in a complacent mediocrity that left no verticality for greatness. Today that has flipped, America is the only country in the western hemisphere hospitable to greatness, but at the terrible cost of not just equality but its very nature as a democracy. America has increasingly taken on the features of aristocracy it once stood proudly against. But just because America betrayed, what Tocqueville considered, its founding principle, that doesn’t mean you Americans can no longer embrace it: • Rome was first a kingdom, and there was beauty in Romulus’ founding, in Numa’s laws, in Lucretia’s suicide. • ~250 years later, Rome became a republic, it defined itself against the Tarquins and kingship. But there was new republican beauty to be found: in Regulus’ honor, in Cicero’s oratory, in Cato’s stubbornness. • And then Rome changed again, into an empire. It betrayed everything the republic stood for. But there was a new imperial beauty to be found: in Vergil’s lines, in the wisdom of the five good Emperors, in the conversion of Constantine. America has no less betrayed who she was, but that does not mean there is not a new aristocratic beauty to fall in love with in your great country. This lecture, given at the very Chateau where Tocqueville wrote Democracy in America, is my love letter to this new America; to a country that has accepted me with open arms, furnished me with unlimited freedom and resources; a country in which ten years ago I came not knowing a single soul, and now call home and have formed my deepest relationships; a country in which I’ve in turn come to love, not for who she was, not for who she would like to be, but for who she has become. And my gift to America on her 250th birthday is to help you see and delight in your new republic through my fresh foreign eyes that never saw what was and does not long for it, but only sees what is and delights in it. As Tocqueville says, “the majority … lives in perpetual adoration of itself; only foreigners or experience can make certain truths reach the ears of the Americans.” This is America’s next chapter, a mixed democratic-aristocratic constitution or, if it's easier to swallow, “Democracy with American Characteristics.”

1% of the world own 43% of the wealth. 1% of startups drive over 80% of returns. This power law is even stronger with books: 1% of books contain all the important ideas. My new lecture series will take you through the only books you'll ever need. Watch the launch trailer:

My biggest issue with Nietzsche was his pathetic life: an incel, sickly, destitute, no readership in his sane years. When you look at modern far-right Nietzscheans, it's never the blonde beast or übermensch, it's always someone very much like Nietzsche: unattractive, marginalized, and resentful. Makes you wonder if only those who are completely powerless fetishize power so much.

Made possible by a generous grant from @tylercowen, @david_perell and I produced a 10+ hour long lecture series covering the entirety of René Girard's Mimetic Theory. These lectures will be made available to the public for free starting in April. 🧵 of what we will cover …

Nietzsche's Guide to Greatness | Great Books Lecture On the Genealogy of Morality is one of Nietzsche's most important books, written to cultivate "higher men": the Napoleons, Goethes, and Shakespeares of the world. Nietzsche thinks that what is holding back higher men today is everything we've learned to call "morality": equality, compassion, moderation, altruism ... the goal of this book is to rid higher men of these false values to engender cultural greatness. Timestamps: 02:00 Fake v/s Real reasons for starting a company 5:12 How Nietzsche rescued me from resentment 9:44 Egalitarianism is anti-greatness 10:10 The story of Beethoven, the ruthless artist 14:30 Against compassion 21:41 How Slave Morality conquered the world 28:25 The psychology of slaves 32:03 The Master Morality of the Greco-Roman world 40:40 Against free will 46:24 Socrates is an ugly plebe 49:13 Why you shouldn't trust priests 1:09:09 Why so many early Christians self-castrated 1:20:27 Why Christianity won 1:24:37 Nietzsche's limitations / What I disagree with him on Links to full episode, further reading, podcast and transcripts below...

I’m fascinated with history’s thinker-doers: Cicero, Marcus Aurelius, Benjamin Franklin. There’s no greater achievement than calling your shots: laying out a theoretical worldview, then executing ruthlessly to bend reality. There exist people like this today, who write a manifesto and go build a $100B company on top. And I’m launching a new @cosmos_inst series to interview these modern greats, featuring Peter Thiel, Joe Lonsdale, Jim O’Shaughnessy and more detailed in the thread below👇 If you feel pulled both by the joys of understanding and the thrill of action, this series is a masterclass on how to integrate the two. The inaugural episode today is with Colin Moran, founder of one of the best-performing, multi-billion hedge funds on wall street in the last 20 years. And yet, he couldn’t be further from your average money-manager: Colin is a devout Christian whose primary concern is rescuing Catholic art, music, and architecture. He studied intellectual history at Duke and Oxford and wanted to be an academic. His fund is not run by quants of ivy-league athletes but a nerdy group of humanities scholars who studied classics, theology, musicology, and history. Colin analyzes each company as if close reading a Great Book. And he attributes his best investments to following his intellectual curiosity: writing an academic essay on the nature of creativity, for example, resulted in one of his best investments in Shopify. He calls this process “following the fun”… it turns out the best way to make money is not to think about making money. Timestamps: 2:09 How to Read a Company as a Text 5:58 Follow The Fun, the Money Will Come 11:54 Great Founders: Autistic, Megalomaniac, or Vengeful 15:46 The Limits of Reason in Investing and Faith 25:40 Colin’s Intellectual Influence: John Henry Newman 32:03 Faith and Investing Share Uncertainty 47:58 Colin’s Story From Ivory Tower to Wall Street 1:15:37 Classical Liberals vs. National Conservatives 1:23:10 Judaism and Christianity: A Marriage of Convenience?

Canadians scoff at America's inequality, yet the best in Canada immigrate to it. We come here precisely for this inequality and the unbounded limits of achievement it opens up. In Canada, all humans are given more respect regardless of their achievements. Society is materially and socially more equal. But when you are given a participation trophy for doing nothing, for just being a human, there isn't the same hunger for success. The same sentiments of equality so hospitable to the majority is suffocating for the ambitious.

America needs a natural aristocracy. Aristocracy just means “rule by the best” and Joe Lonsdale argues that it is an idea that is unduly demonized. Artificial, hereditary aristocracies are indeed a corrupting force, but to reject the idea that the most competent should rule is equally dangerous. By rejecting Aristocracy altogether, we don’t unleash democracy we get bureaucracy: a geriatric slop that will suffocate a civilization if not eradicated. This is what is plaguing America today. @JTLonsdale is the closest thing you’ll find to a Roman senator, someone who acts courageously in politics, commerce, and the military informed by a classical understanding of virtue. And this interview will tease out Lonsdale’s political philosophy that underlies all of his ventures: Palantir, UATX, Cicero and 8VC. Timestamps: 1:50 Change Requires a Demanding Philosophy 3:17 America’s Problem: No Aristocracy 8:34 In a World of Machiavellis, Be a Cyrus 10:51 The World Can’t Afford Our Absence 21:43 Democracy Dies in Bureaucracy 30:48 How Cicero Institute Writes Philosophy Into Bills 32:38 Measuring Who Gets Help First 44:04 When Buyers Become Too Powerful 50:04 The Philosophy Behind Palantir

Harvey Mansfield at 93 did a 3-hour interview with no break, sharp as ever. Here is the final product, a masterclass on Machiavelli: the Anti-Christ. According to Mansfield, Machiavelli is the very founder of modernity, responsible for establishing the very world you and I live in. He is the founder not just of modern ethics and politics but the true father of modern science itself. In Mansfield's estimation, Machaivelli’s chief rivals are no less than Plato and Jesus, Machiavelli is the anti-christ and we are his heirs. Machiavelli started a silent revolution, one that was purposefully hidden. Mansfield is here to reveal to us its secrets. Timestamps: 1:45 Machiavelli's Chief Enemy is Christ 5:30 Christianity Is Too Cruel & Too Weak 8:55 Christianity Makes Men Effeminate 11:17 Nietzsche vs. Machiavelli: The True Antichrist 13:37 Strength Comes From Conflict 30:35 Why Billionaires Always Want More 36:16 Philosophers Are More Glorious Than Billionaires 1:17:47 You Can’t Run Away From Politics

Why are there so many tech leaders who studied philosophy? Peter Thiel, Paul Graham, Reid Hoffman, Alex Karp, Jonah Peretti, Sarah Tavel.. The answer is that building technology requires a profound understanding of human nature. This is what most technologists have overlooked:

All 7 lectures on René Girard's Mimetic Theory are live. Thank you all for the tremendous support and interest! Here's where to find all the lectures/transcripts/podcasts 👇

Harvey Mansfield at 93, did a 3 hour interview on Machiavelli with no break, sharp as ever. Incredible

This is the wildest interview I’ve ever done. It led to me witnessing a literal Christian miracle! Yale's Carlos Eire provides robust evidence that Christians actually LEVITATED!! His new book on the subject is named: They Flew. This book isn’t wild speculation but rigorous scholarship by one of the most respected historians in the world. As an agnostic, I was so suspicious before picking it up, but by the time I put it down, I was awestruck by the overwhelming historical evidence that Carlos presented. In fact, I was so shook by this book, that I ended up chasing down a rumor in Pennsylvania (w/ @jeremygiffon) where both of us witnessed a literal Christian miracle with our own eyes (I discuss with Carlos at 26:52). If you listen to this interview with an open mind, it will radically transform how you see the world. Even if you remain suspicious about the reality of miracles, you will see how central thinking about miracles has been to philosophy, history, technology, and even science. Timestamps: 05:38 Joseph of Cupertino: Levitating Saint 26:52 I Witnessed a Miracle 36:29 How the Catholic Church Uses Science to Test Miracles 1:09:53 The Devil Worked “Miracles” Too 1:15:05 Martin Luther Saw the Devil Everywhere 1:19:55 Belief in the Devil ENDED Witch Hunts 1:37:05 Technology and the Miraculous 1:42:21 Why Miracles Started Popping up in “the Age of Reason” 1:45:42 It’s Rational to Believe in Miracles 1:49:10 Buddhists Miracles are Cooler than Christian Ones 2:05:22 What is the Purpose of Miracles in Christianity?

Many books claim to be life-changing, Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations is a rare one that actually is. Marcus was not just a stoic philosopher but the greatest emperor of Rome. And the exciting promise of his Meditations is that you can be like him: effective, resilient, and tranquil. The stoic ideal is available to all humans. There’s just one problem, the Meditations isn’t an instruction manual that you can just apply to your life, in fact it’s not even a book. Marcus Aurelius wrote it as a personal diary containing fragments of wisdom but not his full philosophical worldview. I’ve spent the last few months studying with and interviewing the greatest stoic philosophers alive to bring you a summary of the missing philosophy behind the meditations. This is a condensed version of the education Marcus himself would have received from his imperial tutors and the key to unlocking the value of this book for your life. Timestamps: 06:10 Pursue money & power while not being corrupted 09:49 Wealth is just as dangerous as poverty 13:59 Health is not necessary for happiness 14:34 How to be happy, even while being tortured 26:17 To not suffer in the “downs” of your life, don’t get attached on the “ups” 42:48 The obstacle is the way 54:26 Marcus Idolized Diogenes (who routinely masturbated and defecated in public) 01:13:26 Why you should meditate on the death of your child

So many of the great thinkers -- Heidegger, Nietzsche, Girard, Augustine -- were bad scholars, here's why.

Studying Marx made me a much better entrepreneur. The most vocal critics of a system (Nietzsche to Christianity, Schmitt to Liberalism) are often the best guides. Marx is no different. If you want to master the game of capital, you need to understand his penetrating insights on alienation, primitive accumulation, and fetishization. My guest Marcus Ryu is one such master. He built a $16 billion startup, Guidewire, in response to Marx’s idea of alienation. The way to have motivated, effective employees is to address the problem of “estranged labor” within capitalism itself. This response represents both a deep agreement and rejection of Marx’s ideas. Marx was, of course, not his only philosophical guide in his entrepreneurial journey. For the first 25 years of his life, Marcus seemed destined to be a philosophy professor: top of his class at Princeton and Oxford, nerdy, with no interest outside the most theoretical of questions. And yet, after an existential crisis towards the end of his PhD on Wittgenstein Marcus found himself in Silicon Valley. This interview catalogs the story of that radical transformation and how Nietzsche, Marx, Hegel, and Wittgenstein shaped his approach to building startups. Timestamps: 1:55 How To Unalienate Your Labor 16:38 From Oxford to SF 25:28 Two Founder Types: Messianic Leader vs. The Hyperationalist 30:32 How Philosophy Harms You As a Founder 42:10 The Sociopathic Founder Type 52:38 The Inner Dialogue of a Philosopher 1:02:59 Scholars are not thinkers, employees are not founders 1:36:10 Philosophy as a Monastic Life 1:55:24 Human-Centered vs. Ruthless Leadership

Philosophy is the last discipline worth studying in the AI age. 1. For the first time in history the interface with technology is semantic not numeric. That gives masters of language incredible power. 2. AGI is the end of techne, the end of instrumentality. Yet philosophy is the only discipline that's non-instrumental. I could care less who discovers the cure for cancer, but at the end of the day I need to decide what is the good life. AGI can't replace that because I need to be the one making the decision.

You can't play long term games without resolving short term needs: sex, prestige, money, etc. If they are not renounced or satisfied, your "long term games" will often be, unbeknownst even to yourself, only a front to address short term needs. e.g. Building startup to be cool.

How Intellectuals Poison Society | Great Books Lecture Science harms nations; art corrupts you; the burning of the Library of Alexandria is good; the printing press is bad; only a tiny elite should do philosophy; enlightenment destroys civilization ... these are the conclusions of Rousseau's (in)famous First Discourse. How could one of the greatest minds of the enlightenment attack enlightenment while writing the greatest works of the enlightenment? Is Rousseau a hypocrite? And should we stop reading books altogether? TIMESTAMPS 02:55 Intellectuals Create Hard Times 05:23 Sparta > Athens 06:54 Reason Makes You Immoral 09:24 True Philosophers don't Write Books 14:14 Contrarianism is a Disease 22:24 Reason Destroys Communities 29:43 Science is Useless 35:14 Popular Education is Bad 39:10 Movies Can't Morally Improve You 43:49 How an Anti-Monopoly Activist Invented Monopoly 50:03 Art’s Second Order Dangers 56:50 How Hollywood Ruined California 1:02:52 How to Fight Enlightenment with Enlightenment 1:10:20 Rousseau, the Anti-Revolutionary 1:21:31 How to Bribe Intellectuals 1:28:15 What this Means for Technology Where to find the full lecture, transcripts, notes:

I am suspicious of anyone who critiques a system without mastering it. Siddhartha was a prince before renouncing worldly pleasures and prestige. Nietzsche was a classics prodigy before critiquing much of philosophy. Critique without mastery usually hides resentment.

This is the most meaningful interview I’ve done: seeing my friend Francis Pedraza react to conversations we had 8 years ago before his success. Francis Pedraza now runs one of the fastest-growing AI unicorns worth $2 billion, but when I met him a decade ago he was at a low point: broke, recently single, having failed his first company, and struggling with his second. We became fast friends over our love of the Great Books and recorded 6 hours of conversations on philosophy, entrepreneurship, and God. This summer, I invited Francis back to listen to his old self and see how success has changed his views. The first part of this video is our latest interview in 2025 where he reacts to our past conversations and the second audio-only part is the highlights from 2018. What’s so cool is that Francis called his shot. Even when everything wasn’t working, even when he was a “failure” by all accounts, he boldly predicted his success and laid out a laughably ambitious plan that seemed impossible. I called him Don Quixote to his face, but boy am I happy that I was wrong! What’s so beautiful, when you watch these two interviews together, is to see how Francis’ obsession with philosophy, which made him seem like a complete buffoon in 2018, became the cause of his success. It was because of his continued study of the Great Books that Francis was able to come up with ideas no one else saw, persevere through dire challenges, and finally share his newfound wealth in a dignified way. Francis’ favorite book is The Once and Future King, the hero’s journey of King Arthur. He fell in love with this book as a kid and credits it with saving not just his company but his very soul as an adult. What you are about to witness in the next two hours then, is how Francis lived out this book. This is the hero’s journey of @francispedraza. Timestamps: 4:47 The Purpose of Education Is Action 19:03 The Anti-Progress Tech Founder 35:05 Billionaires Have No Cultural Appetite 47:48 Turning Failure Into a Billion-Dollar Win 59:28 How Success Corrupts Entrepreneurs 1:06:52 Thinker-Doers: Where Ideas Meet Action 1:11:31 The Brutal Truth About Entrepreneurship 1:36:12 Heroism in an Anti-Heroic Age

Nietzsche’s life sucked: - Demented & paralyzed for last decade … possibly due to syphilis from hookers - Simps hard, rejected, dies alone. The girl chooses his friend instead - Increasingly sickly, resentful, and isolated after Basel - He literally goes insane Most damning of all, he seethed with the resentment of the very slaves he despised. To be clear: Nietzsche was THE genius of his century, but he himself teaches us to critique the thinker not just the thought: "every great philosophy so far has been the personal confession of its author.” Those afraid to examine the man behind the ideas are not Nietzschean enough. @bronzeagemantis duel me (I’ll spare you the crystal)

Why "Innovation" Was a Crime in the 16th Century | Great Books Lecture For most of history, “Innovation” was a BAD word. Plato despised it, Aristotle was suspicious of it, Machiavelli warned against it, and Edward VI even criminalized it. But why did the greatest minds of the west despise innovation? Even stranger, something drastic happened in the 18th century that caused innovation to suddenly transform from a derided idea to a beloved ideal. And society is still suffering the consequences of this revolution. In this lecture you are going to learn: - The forgotten dangers of innovation - How we were seduced to innovate in the 18th century - Why this change matters for innovators today - Girard’s philosophy of innovation - What the West lost by demanding originality at all costs TIMESTAMPS: 07:28 - The three things that define innovation 12:03 - Why Plato despised innovation 17:23 - The surprising way Romans used the word “innovation” 20:54 - Machiavelli's advice to innovators 25:02 - Why Protestant England criminalized innovation 29:28 - How Utilitarianism rescued innovation 32:31 - Why measuring things is dangerous 42:33 - You can't be a conservative and a technologist at the same time 43:26 - The dangers of innovation 46:21 - The innovator’s dilemma: why we can't stop innovating 47:33 - Why stagnation is good 55:28 - America is guilty of the same intellectual piracy it blames China for 59:26 - The Humanities were destroyed by the quest for originality

For all my addictions: I find abstinence much easier than moderation.

Stoicism is a Coping Mechanism | Great Books Interview Stoicism is often just a coping mechanism and we should be alarmed by the rise of stoicism today. In the late Roman republic, Stoicism was the coping mechanism of choice for the losing side of the civil war: defeated on the battlefield Cato’s defining act of stoic defiance was suicide. His ally Cicero turned to Stoic ideals for consolation. And as the republic gave way to empire, Stoicism rose from a fringe school to the dominant philosophy as citizens saw their freedoms curtailed. Is it not an issue that Stoicism seems tailor-made to those with the least amount of control of their lives (its greatest exemplars are a slave and an emperor)? And can these ideas actually be lived out in reality? My guest, leading Columbia classicist Katharina Volk, wrestles with these questions by examining Stoicism in the late Roman Republic. In this interview, we cover: - Stoicism’s implausible understanding of happiness - Why Stoicism appealed to the losing side in Rome - How modern self-help twisted ancient Stoic wisdom - What the rise of Stoicism and Buddhism reveal about our society TIMESTAMPS: 02:35 The Stoic secret to happiness 07:31 Why the Stoics saw politics as the highest calling 09:19 The odd life of Cato the Stoic 14:04 The bizarre reason Cato divorced then remarried his wife 15:09 From Cato to Aurelius: How Stoicism changed 21:24 Did Stoicism destroy the Roman Republic? 23:24 What is a “preferred-indifferent”? 28:52 Was Cato's Stoicism just political theater? 33:41 How the Stoics coped with defeat against Caesar 36:20 Consolation as a genre of philosophy 39:01 Is Stoicism a philosophy for losers? 44:01 Why Stoicism’s popularity today is a bad sign

Going to Mars is Not Ambitious Enough | Interview on Nietzsche, Technology, and Nihilism The tech industry aspires to elevate humanity. What it often does instead is to serve the most base needs at scale: * Facebook: Vanity * Tinder: Lust * Robinhood: Greed * Doordash: Gluttony * Uber: Lethargy ... Technology today is the culmination of many threads that Nietzsche despises: egalitarianism, utilitarianism, and a fetish of "rationality." It is about democratization, about appealing to the disposition of the majority, and Nietzsche would hate that because the majority are "herd animals" while genius is possessed only by a small elite. Technology, then, doesn't elevate the best of us as much as reduce all of us to a middling equality ... just look at the quality of the dialogue here on X. Even the most ambitious project of our times, going to mars, is about the mere subsistence of our species. Nietzsche would think this goal of mere survival is quite low-minded and pathetic, and that we should aim higher to cultural greatness. Our goal should be to produce higher humans, not just for there to be humans. My guest Robert Pippin is one of the world's top scholars of German philosophy. In this interview he shares: * Why nihilism is such a big problem for our world today * Why technology fails to provide meaning to our lives * How Nietzsche attempted to overcome Nihilism TIMESTAMPS: 02:55 - What Nietzsche meant by “nihilism” and why it’s a major issue today 05:43 - Why I left a rocketship startup to return to philosophy 08:57 - Going to Mars is not ambitious enough 10:55 - A top investor friend of mine hopes for a world war, here’s why. 20:25 - The futility of intellectual life 24:45 - GDP is the wrong measure of progress 28:50 - Does Multiculturalism threaten our ability to live meaningful lives? 42:18 - We hoped social media would improve civil discourse, it destroyed it instead 50:54 - Literature > Philosophy: Why Shakespeare is more inspiring than Descartes 56:54 - This is what Nietzsche most admired about Montaigne 01:01:33 - Was Nietzsche's life a failure?

DeepSeek: How US Sanctions Help Chinese Innovation | Tyler Cowen on the Paradox of Control @tylercowen was the first columnist to break the news on DeepSeek, an advanced Chinese AI, weeks before the markets reacted. His claim is that by restricting China’s high-end chip supply, the U.S. unintentionally encouraged China to pioneer techniques in cost-effective AI training. We kick off this interview by discussing what this “Sputnik moment” has to teach us about U.S.-China relations, counter-espionage, and the philosophy of innovation. Later in the conversation, Tyler shares his predictions on how AI will transform philosophy, knowledge work, warfare, economics, and everything in between. For example, Tyler thinks that OpenAI’s o1 pro is ALREADY better at reflecting on complex questions at the frontier of economics. We discuss what that means for the future of work and philosophy, and where you should invest your skills and time today. For me, the most valuable takeaways from this conversation are all the practical tips Tyler has to share about how we can stay ahead of the AI curve and not be made obsolete. Timestamps: 02:37 AI Is Neither Libertarian nor Communist, but chaotic 03:53 Can the U.S. Restrict China's AI Advances? 04:47 How the U.S. Unintentionally Jump-started China’s Space Program 05:29 The Only Way to Protect American Technology is Openness 10:35 Girard’s Philosophy of Innovation 13:26 The American Case for Stealing Technology 15:55 How to Live in “Moving History” 24:34 Why Most Reactions to AI are Cope 33:20 Can Democracy Survive AI? 37:19 Why Tyler Writes Primarily for AIs (not Humans) 49:58 Most Intellectual Work will be Automated 01:00:03 Why Travel Will Matter More in the AI Era

The Killer-App of AI isn't Chatbots, it's Social | Reid Hoffman Interview Mark Zuckerberg @finkd is making AI friends to supplement human friends: “The average American has 3 friends, but has demand for 15.” @reidhoffman believes this is fundamentally the wrong approach. AI agents shouldn’t replace your human relationships but help you strengthen your relationship with them by acting as a facilitator. Make no mistake, just like the internet, AI’s killer-app won’t be single player information retrieval (chatbots), but multiplayer social. And rival AI platforms are currently being built with radically different philosophies that mirror their internet predecessors: - Meta: have people spend as much time virtually as possible - Linkedin: use the virtual to facilitate real-world interactions If you thought social media was influential in changing society, then the stakes of getting “AI Social” right are infinitely higher. I sit down with Reid Hoffman to explore the full scope of “AI-Social” from how it will transform traditional social media to what friendships and romantic relationships with AIs could look like. Timestamps 01:51 The Social Killer App for AI 09:35 The Secret to Creating Emotionally Intelligent AI 14:15 The Risk of AI Addiction 16:58 Could AI Follow the Same Dark Path as Social Media? 20:18 How Hoffman invests in the 7 deadly sins 25:36 Why AI Can't Replace Human Relationships 37:38 Our Fear of AI & Plato’s Fear of Books 48:42 How AI Could Change Philosophy 1:11:52 Why AI Benchmarks Matter More Than Regulation 1:13:23 The Most Important Skill of the Next Decade

Machiavelli, Boethius, Dante, Cicero … many of the great thinkers wrote their best works in exile. This is not a coincidence. In fact, Plato, in his Republic, lists exile as one of the conditions to produce true philosophers. I take you on a tour of Machiavelli’s place of exile to discuss why philosophy demands alienation:

Attended a lecture on Pythagoras in the cave which Pythagoras taught his students in Samos Greece ... Marvelous.

Girard predicted Trump’s trade war & what he thought comes next is terrifying. In 2007, at the height of Sino-American optimism, Girard concluded: "A conflict between the United States and China will follow: everything is in place, though it will not necessarily occur on the military level at first… Trade can transform very quickly into war… From this point of view, we can reasonably fear a major clash between China and the United States in the coming decades." … surprisingly, Girard believed this conflict would be because the two nations were becoming indistinguishably similar … "The looming conflict between the United States and China has nothing to do with a ‘clash of civilizations.’ We always try to see differences where in fact there are none. In fact, the dispute is between two forms of capitalism that are becoming more and more similar." … and that this trade war would quickly escalate into real war. Here is my commentary on Girard’s prophetic anticipations of a Sino-American trade war almost two decades ago:

Self-Esteem Requires External Validation | Great Books Interview w/ Columbia Rousseau Scholar "Don't care what others think of you" is terrible advice ... because its impossible. I learned this the hard way when I tried to live by this motto in college: I deleted my social media, gave up my worldly pursuits, and moved to nepal to practice in a Tibetan monastery .... but no matter what I did, I couldn't stop caring what others thought of me. Rousseau argues that caring what others think is essential to human nature, it's what makes society run, but this isn't a bad thing. This desire can indeed lead us astray but its also what makes a whole host of good things possible: love, communal life, virtue, reason. etc. The goal then is to not to stop caring but to care in the right way. In this interview you will learn: * Why self-esteem requires external validation * The right way to win approval & combine external validation with intrinsically meaningful pursuits * How to design a healthy social environment that supports you TIMESTAMPS: 2:22 - All your actions are driven by these two desires 8:54 - Why you can't resist comparing yourself to others 22:53 - Why Instagram feels more real than your life 28:42 - The healthy way to be ambitious 35:33 - Why NY feels more freeing than SF 37:39 - The dangers of pursuing wealth 39:35 - Eating rice became a status symbol in Communist China 48:03 - The desire for external validation is a GOOD thing 57:14 - Why denying your self makes you less human 1:00:21 - Stoicism is Inhumane 1:10:33 - understanding @elonmusk : does greatness require madness? 1:16:40 - Why you should let your kids follow their passions 1:19:35 - How love is like war

Much of online education (e.g. Masterclass, podcasts) is about making you FEEL like you are learning and growing at the lowest minimum amount of effort possible -- therefore, often not learning anything at all.

Caesar: to be a coward is to die before you die

If you thought “pop” stoicism was ridiculous wait till you hear what “real” stoics believed: it’s somehow more insane, unlivable and counterproductive. In this lecture I'm going to share with you why I think “real” stoicism is wrong, why its counter productive to try and live as a stoic, and what better ideas we can adopt if we find the stoic intuitions appealing. I spent the better part of last year studying ancient Greek, interviewing the top stoic scholars alive and reading stoic texts. And yet the deeper I've dug into their theory, the more dissatisfied I've become. But just to be clear, I'm not a stoic hater. In fact, I’m going to end this lecture by telling you why I will still be reading them despite thinking they got it comically wrong. Timestamps: 03:01 Nietzsche’s Critique of Stoicism: Cope Alert 08:51 Stoicisms popularity is a warning for our times 11:25 The Hypocrisy of Seneca 15:43 The Illusion of Autonomy in Stoicism 29:29 Stoic Ethics Are Wildly Unrealistic 38:38 Why Stoics Argue That Plato and Hitler Are Both Equally Miserable 44:45 Suicide: When You Should Kill Yourself 01:10:19 Stoicism is a Religion 01:16:07 What Stoicism Can Teach Us Despite Being Wrong

Michael Gibson studied philosophy at NYU, UChicago, and Oxford. Now, he’s waging war against elite universities. Michael was part of the founding team of the Thiel Fellowship, which funded talented youngsters to drop out. He considers universities to be part of what he calls “the Paper Belt,” a series of centralized bureaucracies whose power relies on printing paper: money by the government, laws passed in DC, newspapers printed in New York, and diplomas given by universities. As an anarchist, Michael believes today’s Paper Belt is just as corrupt as the Catholic Church was when it sold indulgences. As a venture capitalist, Michael sees universities as a source of stagnation and offers an alternative plan for how to engender innovation instead. Timestamps: 2:11 The Dark Truth About Universities 12:22 Why Dropouts Have Been So Successful 23:57 Universities Have Stopped Producing Geniuses 36:24 We Destroy the Desire to Be Extraordinary 50:46 No Degree is Required to Be a Great Thinker 52:49 The Tragedy of Self-Doubt 1:00:05 The Poet-Philosopher 1:10:25 How to Be a Conservative Anarchist

“The Singularity is Bullshit” - Oxford’s Michael Wooldridge Existential risk has crowded out more pressing AI conversations, argues @wooldridgemike veteran AI researcher and pioneer of agent-based AI. In this interview, Wooldridge will take us through the entire 80-year history of AI development, from Turing to today’s LLMs, to help us anticipate what’s coming next. Exploring this history uncovers a surprising benefit: forgotten AI techniques with modern potential. Most historical AI “failures” weren’t fundamentally flawed, they were simply ahead of their time. This history is a treasure trove of ideas waiting to inspire today’s innovations. Timestamps 02:45 The Singularity Is Bullshit 03:51 What the "Existential Risk" Movement Gets Wrong 09:28 The Real AI Threat We Should Worry About 11:18 The Right Way to do AI Regulation 15:45 Studying AI's History Could Hold the Key to Future Breakthroughs 18:58 How Alan Turing Invented the Digital Age 30:39 Why Machines Can’t Be Moral Agents 35:58 The Barrier That Stopped Early AI in Its Tracks 39:29 The First AI Winter Was a Blessing in Disguise 46:52 Cyc: The Most Ambitious AI Failure You’ve Never Heard of 1:02:32 Why Multi-Agent AI Is the Future 1:08:18 Why Foundation Models Won't Lead to AGI 1:12:27 AI Still Struggles with First Principles 01:22:23 The Sobering Reality of AI Progress

The discrimination asians face in US college admissions is insane. I had... * 35 ACT * 15 APs * Canadian Math Olympiad Invitee, Waterloo Competition National Gold * District Student Council President * Starting 2-Guard on Varsity Team * An engineering internship + shit tons of extracurriculars .. and was rejected by every top 20 school except for Columbia. I applied to only one school in UK (Cambridge) which did not do race quotas and got in. The plus side is that the competition is a cakewalk if you do manage to get in.

When I ask people about the most life-changing books they've read, one consistently comes out on top: Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality. This is my story of how I encountered the Genealogy and how it changed my life:

The real risk of AI isn’t extinction, it's being turned into NPCs, into mindless sheep. Silicon valley has been so caught up with X-Risk, e/acc, Effective Altruism - extremes of either optimism/pessimism - that they’ve missed this. One of my friends uses ChatGPT for hours everyday not just as a search engine but as an operating system of his life, he asks it: - Where he should eat - What he should text girls on dating apps - He gets up everyday and has it create a schedule for him My friend does this not because he’s stupid, he’s one of the smartest people I know, but because ChatGPT already knows so much about him that the advice is getting quite good. The restaurants and shops it recommends for example are already better than ones he can find himself. My friend is not alone. Gen Z & Gen Alpha are increasingly using AI as a holistic operating system to which they offload their own decisions onto. And @mbrendan1 argues that this kind of offloading is the real danger of AI no one is talking about. In this interview you will learn why human autonomy is important, how AI threatens it, and how to harness the power of AI without forming an unhealthy dependency. Timestamps: 2:29 What’s Wrong the Pessimists: EA & X-Risk 12:35 What’s Wrong the Optimists: The AI Optimists: Accelerationism 20:28 The Hidden Risk of AI: Autocomplete For Life 31:06 The One Thing You Must Never Outsource to AI 49:07 Can AI Govern Us Better Than Humans? 51:39 Not Trusting AI Is Blasphemy 1:29:32 Why Has America Never Produced a Great Thinker?

"If God did not exist, we would have to invent him." Carlos Eire thinks most people misunderstand this Voltaire quote. Most people think it's about believing in God. But it's about using God to control people. Voltaire noticed something clever: The people in charge often don't believe in God themselves. They want everyone else to believe, because it keeps order. A historian noted about Rome: "The people find religions equally true, philosophers find them equally false, and politicians find them equally useful." Our modern paradox is that we proclaimed God dead, yet we've never been more devout. We've switched temples: Now we worship Markets, Progress, and faux Studio Ghibli memes.

Elon is a Mozart Sonata — His greatness is apparent to both the amateur and the pro. Thiel is a Bach Fugue — His genius is only accessible to the most sophisticated of observers; laymen just see a dry, incomprehensible mess.

Funnily enough, I had just filmed this monday in Ithaca right before the trolls started attacking my thinkers vs. scholars video. Couldn't have been more timely: what Aurelius/Rousseau have to teach us about dealing with criticism/haters.

You do realize that the point of the video is to elevate the thinker (whom I compare with a conqueror) over the mere scholar (whom I compare with a gardener) right? It's in praise of Heidegger, Nietzsche, Girard, Augustine for not being circumscribed by academic conventions.

"Don't Care What Others Think of You" is terrible advice. It's not only impossible but actively harmful, here's what you should be doing instead:

“What important truth do very few people agree with you on?”   A list of contrarian theses I believe to be true …

Bill Gates once said of the Steve Jobs wannabes in SF: they got the asshole part down, but not the genius. The same can be said of the many Nietzsche imitators: they got the crazy part down, but not the brilliance.

Satan is the ultimate technologist. In Catholic theology, God is supernatural, whereas Satan is preternatural. He’s simply good at manipulating the laws of nature. Satan has been studying the universe's code for millennia, learning every exploit and vulnerability. Hence the Spanish proverb: "The devil is so smart because he's so old." So next time you kneel before AI or give praise to the latest iPhone, ask yourself: Am I really more advanced than my ancestors or just worshipping the devil in a new disguise?

Selfish Heroes Make Great Leaders | Great Books Interview Superheroes have never been more popular in movies, but real heroes have never been more absent in society. The modern world loves tearing heroes down and Rousseau thinks this is DISASTROUS. It robs us of great models to imitate. In this interview, you will learn 1. why heroes are absolutely crucial for building a good society 2. why modernity attacks them and 3. what we can do in their absence. TIMESTAMPS: 5:30 Justice & Courage are NOT necessary for heroes 8:18 Strong Criminals > Weak Hypocrites 9:35 Rousseau Invented the Godfather/Admirable-Criminal Archetype 13:57 Wiseman vs. Hero vs. Virtuous Man 21:30 Selfish entrepreneurs do more good than compassionate monks 42:50 The Challenge of Producing "Canadian" Content 48:10 Philosophy made Greece fall to tyrants 54:40 Internet memes poison society 57:35 Why Rousseau loved Robinson Crusoe 1:09:10 Compassion vs. heroism Transcript, podcast, book links:

Why Plato Hated Democracy | The Republic Explained Plato’s Republic is the foundational text of the west. And yet, it is hostile to almost everything the modern west stands for: equality, liberty, freedom of speech, tolerance, all of these are explicitly named by Plato as things which produce bad lives and even worse societies. My guest today is the leading Plato scholar Giovanni Ferrari who will help us understand why Plato despised democracy and what are the better ways to organize society and our lives. Timestamps 02:07 Plato's Critique of Democracy 04:29 Equality is Anarchy 06:35 The Hidden Dangers of Tolerance and Freedom 10:19 Plato's Theory of the Soul 11:38 Why Democracy Is Prone to Tyranny 18:59 Why Philosophers Make the Best Rulers 28:58 Why A Strong Spirit Is Essential for Ruling 34:49 The Philosopher-King’s Duty to Serve the City 41:50 Should the Philosopher Engage with a Corrupt Society? 46:52 Why Even the Best Regimes Degenerate 48:05 The Reason Why War-Like Societies Don't Endure 58:45 How Oligarchy Breeds Revolution 1:02:13 Plato vs. Modern Utilitarianism 1:07:54 Plato vs. Stoics on Desire 1:12:49 The Surprising Role of Reincarnation in Plato's Republic

Carnegie recognized that the pursuit of wealth was a debasing activity and vowed to stop at thirty five and turn towards contemplation instead.

Nietzsche's Attack on Free Will | Great Books Interview Launch Thread Nietzsche thinks that free will is a harmful illusion, invented by the weak to restrain the strong. But how can the "will to power" guy not believe in free will? How can he advocate for agential action but reject the idea of agency? In this interview, we discuss Nietzsche's fascinating arguments against free will and why you must reject it to live a flourishing life. You are going to learn: 1. why free will is an illusion 2. how believing in free will holds you back and 3. why rejecting it will help you fulfill your potential 4. what Nietzsche's advice "become who you are" means Timestamps: 02:18 Why Nietzsche attacked free will 09:10 Why we don’t know our own deepest desires 13:42 What eagles and lambs tell us about human nature 14:57 How language tricks us into believing in free will 16:33 Why people exaggerate how innovative they are 18:54 Ouija boards prove introspection is unreliable 25:00 Where consciousness really come from 31:27 Criminals are criminal by "nature" 41:16 Is the world Quantum or Newtonian? 44:30 Can the judicial system work without free will? 47:32 Why Nietzsche was fated to be Nietzsche 49:30 Great men believe in fate, not free will 52:12 Why people cannot change, and what to do about it Links to transcripts, full video, further reading:

In less than 1 year of launch, I’ve crossed 500K+ subs across platforms. I’m now hiring a part-time growth person to help me take this project to the next level. You will start off by helping me get more juice out of my long form content -- selecting clips & shorts, thumbnail design, copy -- with the possibility of expanding to a full-time role. You need to be 1. Social media savvy, ideally with a proven track record of growing accounts 2. In love with the Great Books. Editing/design skills a bonus but not required. If you are interested email me your background at johnathan [at] greatbooks [dot] io

This is what makes someone a "master" and someone a "slave" for Nietzsche:

I no longer fear AI taking my job, I welcome it. My first experience using GPT was awe and fear. I felt threatened that AI would replace philosophers and render all my work obsolete. Now, I actively welcome AI surpassing me in philosophy, here's why:

The first lecture and interview on Nietzsche releases tomorrow! To receive them for free in your inbox, join my newsletter at:

Children should be raised the same way muscles are built: Expose them to the largest setbacks they can recover from. I've found that people who've only "won" growing up are quite fragile and have a disproportionate fear of failure.

How to AGI-Proof Your Life | Nick Bostrom Today, work gives many of us purpose and meaning. But AI is making more and more of that work obsolete, until one day, AI might make redundant not just work but also much of leisure! Deep Utopia, a new book by @NickBostromPhD, is all about that day and what to do about it. In this interview, you are going to learn: 1. Where you can invest your time, effort, and resources NOW that is most AI-proof. 2. What human activities even AGI cannot replace. 3. What life will look like post-AGI. Timestamps 02:15 AI Radically Changes the Practice of Philosophy 06:08 Why Ignorance Is Set to Become a Luxury 07:45 Why AI Can’t Replace Human Relationships 11:41 How AI Changes the Labor Market 17:40 AI will make even leisure obsolete 20:35 How AI Changes the Meaning of the Good Life 21:52 The Five Pillars of Meaning post-AGI 35:22 People underestimate the importance of pleasure 42:33 The Biggest Problem in Utopia Will Be Boredom 51:01 Can Life Be Meaningful Without Stakes & Risk? 55:19 Utopia's Greatest Challenge to Human Nature 58:38 Can Simulation Save Us from Boredom? 1:03:18 The Unabomber's Prescient Intuition 1:05:44 Philosophy of AI & Theology

Releasing a 50,000-word book project on Rene Girard and Buddhism that I’ve been working on for the last 2 years. 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐆𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐫𝐝: 𝐀𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐝𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐀𝐩𝐨𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐲𝐩𝐬𝐞 johnathanbi.com/my-book/star…

egalité

One of Rousseau's most controversial conclusions is that Enlightenment destroys civilizations. Egypt, Greece, Rome, and China have all been brought down by learning, erudition, and culture:

The real plague of our era? Intellectual cowardice. When Rousseau saw the printing press spreading dangerous ideas, he didn't retreat. He published on the printing press, warning of its dangers. Today, intellectuals who abandon social media are betraying their duty. Serious thinkers OUGHT to engage on social media BECAUSE of and not DESPITE its flaws. The presence of junk content shouldn’t mean we abandon these spaces. We should flood them with substance and warn people. Social media operates like any marketplace of ideas: the worst products dominate. This means that intellectual withdrawal is moral abandonment. The lesson is clear: intellectuals must not retreat to ivory towers while misinformation spreads. We must enter the same platforms to provide the antidote.

Introducing: The Philosophy x AI Series I’m thrilled to launch a new interview series on Philosophy x AI as a fellow of @cosmos_inst, where we explore the philosophical implications of this AI revolution and how best to promote human flourishing. The first episode with @tylercowen on DeepSeek, the US-China AI race, and the philosophy of innovation drops this coming Monday. After that, we have an awesome lineup of founders, philosophers, and researchers from @UniofOxford , @GoogleDeepMind , @imperialcollege , and an OG of the PayPal Mafia. Thanks to my friends @mbrendan1 and @LorenRotner at Cosmos for collaborating with me on this series. For fans of my Great Books series, fear not, this will not replace my work there. If anything, this series will show why our study of philosophy is more necessary than ever in an era of radical technological change.

Today, a drone operator kills from 7,000 miles away while sipping coffee. In 18th century Europe, enemies shared wine between battles. Who is really more civilized? These 18th century soilders had something we've lost: integrity. The most surprising part? During the off-season, officers traveled through enemy territory, and their enemies guaranteed their safe passage. These "gentlemen's agreements" reveal a forgotten truth: even mortal enemies preserved a form of civility and deep respect Their "primitive" warfare preserved our highest cultural achievements. Our "advanced" warfare threatens to destroy them all. The irony would not be lost on them. We didn't evolve past these customs. Instead, we regressed, labeling it progress. We traded honor for effectiveness.

Studying Ancient Greek in Greece with @RalstonCollege was one of the best trips + learning experiences of my life. They've rescued pedagogy from the Renaissance to teach classical languages. Here are the unintuitive insights around language learning:

The core of Mimetic Theory will be presented in a systematic and accessible way. We will illuminate Girard’s most important ideas and their relevance for our contemporary world: • mimesis • mimetic desire • scapegoating • the epistemology of love & many more

How to Combine Action & Contemplation | On Cicero & Caesar Caesar wasn’t just a great general but a great intellectual: calendar reforms, magnetic orations, he even produced a groundbreaking treatise on Latin grammar … while waging a war in Gaul! The politicians during the late Roman Republic were often also its great intellectuals. In this interview, we investigate the lives of Cicero and Caesar to understand how they combined action and contemplation and to reflect on the lack of “gentleman-scholars” in our own day. TIMESTAMPS 04:09 How Brutus decided who to invite into the conspiracy to kill Caesar. 12:42 The incredible intellectual lives of Rome’s political elite 14:19 What happened to the “gentleman-scholar”? 17:26 Greece vs Rome: who were the better intellectuals? 25:02 Cicero's meteoric rise from outsider to Consul. 34:12 Cicero’s training in Academic Skepticism 38:55 Cicero’s Art of Compromise 51:39 What Caesar's writing style reveals about his character 53:53 Why Cicero and Caesar clashed over Latin grammar 58:34 Caesar's calendar reform: the triumph of reason over tradition 1:04:17 Does intellectual flourishing require political turmoil?

I only get two kinds of responses in my comment section, nothing in between:

I will duel anyone who insists otherwise

People think you need volumes upon volumes to communicate profound ideas. Yet a single thought (or two) with just the right turn of phrase is a better key to the human soul. @jposhaughnessy has brought us an entire treasure chest of such keys from the greatest minds of humanity: accessible enough to inspire a few thoughts before bed, but profound enough to keep you thinking for the rest of your life.

When people convert today they cite their psychology: God/Buddha/Christ made me FEEL whole. Nietzsche's response is that is precisely why you should be suspicious of it! These religions exist because they satisfy some deep psychological need and not because they are actually true.

Studying "the great books" was the pillar of education in the west for millennia. Since the 20th century, this tradition has slowly been going extinct. Robert Hutchins, legendary UChicago president, gives 3 reasons why.

Its underrated how so many of the great thinkers didn't write books: Socrates, Confucius, Jesus, Buddha, Epictetus... The point of philosophy is not writing a good book but living a good life

Just moved to Austin: uprooted from the social circles and friends I've built over the few years in SF/NYC. I have a, however incomparable and brief, glimpse at the loneliness the elderly must feel when their friends and loved ones all pass away.

Just hit 100K subs on YouTube today, 8 months since launch of the Great Book Series. Onwards🚀

Hitler was a vegetarian out of concern for animal welfare, a fact he was proud to repeatedly advertise over dinner parties. I distrust those who parade their higher moral characters and values. Often, they are just using the cause itself as a moral weapon to laud over others.

There are many great books projects. What makes JB's so different?🧐 📚First, I skip around. A lot. I'll hit you with some Nietzsche and then reverse back to Plato, and right when you think you are sensing a pattern I’ll throw a little Sun Tzu in just to completely disorient you. 📚Second, I know the correct reading of every text. Every single one of them. You don’t. So subscribe MFs. 📚Third, I’m a lone wolf. Whether it’s asking guests the most obscure questions that only I’m interested in, or (even better) me lecturing you over the internet with no possibility of a response, you are just a passive object. 📚Fourth, my interpretations are so good you never have to read the original texts (see second point). In a thousand years, scholars will be reading the transcripts of my lectures on a Great Book rather than the original. 📚Fifth, no noobs allowed. If you aren’t tenure-track at an R1, you aren’t welcome here. (All jokes aside, Ascend is great, go check out our recent conversation on the Gorgias!)

Next Great Books lecture 6/30 in New York. Have a few seats left. If you want to attend in person retweet this post and I will dm if there is space

Just published my first peer-reviewed journal article! One to N: Girard’s Philosophy of Innovation

We will analyze modern and historical phenomena under a Girardian lens: • the Trojan War • the genealogy of capitalism • the founding of Rome • modern victimhood culture • the Sino-American trade war • COVID and social unrest • the philosophy of innovation

We will engage frequently with the western philosophical canon: • Nietzsche • Hegel • Plato • Rousseau • Marx … and even more frequently with the world literary canon: • the Epic of Gilgamesh • the Vedas • Homer • Sophocles • Shakespeare • Dostoevsky

Is twitter good for rigorous thinking? I’m not asking if you can express deep ideas in 280. But is using Twitter conducive to deep thinking? How does it effect your perspectives? Here are my reflections on how my first two weeks on Twitter is effecting me as a thinker:

AI Validates the Truth of Buddhism | Philosophy x AI In this interview, Imperial’s Murray Shanahan @mpshanahan lays out a systematic procedure to validate machine consciousness. You might think the question of whether AIs are conscious is a trivial, theoretical fancy with no use in the real world. This interview will show you why it’s one of the most important questions with practical implications for not just how we treat AI systems but also how we build and align them. But the most unexpected reward of investigating AI consciousness turns out to be what it reveals about our consciousness, about the nature of the human self. Murray’s most interesting claim is that LLMs have an important buddhist lesson to teach all of us, namely, that there is no “us.” By better understanding the "no-self" of LLMs we are given a mirror to reflect on whether human selves are also an illusion. Timestamps: 08:26 Why Buddhist Enlightenment May be Easier for Software Programs 16:30 Super-Intelligent AI Might Not Want To Take Over the World 30:25 Wittgenstein’s Radical Take on Consciousness 42:55 What Video Games Teach Us About Consciousness 49:59 How the Movie Ex Machina Created a Better Test for AI Consciousness 1:02:36 What the Debate about AI Consciousness Is Missing 1:09:31 Does Conscious AI Have A Moral Right to Live? 1:15:01 Is the Human Brain Computationally Superior to AI? 1:26:59 Why Philosophy Is the Essential Skill for the AI Age

Sex > Philosophy. This is what philosophers have been hiding all along. - Letter from friend to Machiavelli

Can Love Survive Marriage? Shakespeare's Views on Marriage Explained Shakespeare is considered the great playwright of love: midsummer night’s dream, Romeo and Juliet … And yet he does not depict good marriages in his plays! Marriages are either not mentioned at all and, when they are, they are almost always terrible. What is he trying to tell us about the nature of love by constantly depicting desirable romances that degenerate into disastrous marriages? What can we expect to achieve in our love lives? In this lecture we cover: - Shakespeare’s unhappy marriage - The fantasy vs. reality of marriage in Elizabethan England - Why Shakespeare celebrated the thrill of ephemeral romances - The absence of good marriages in Shakespeare TIMESTAMPS 02:27 Shakespeare’s terrible marriage 12:37 Why Romeo and Juliet is the ONLY true love in Shakespeare 16:33 Shakespeare’s surprising advice on love 18:16 Shakespeare's romances were an escapist fantasy 22:33 The grim reality of marriage in Shakespeare's time 23:20 In relationships, men are the problem 24:45 Why the villainous Macbeths have the best marriage in Shakespeare 25:40 Shakespeare’s homoerotic letters to South Hampton 27:43 Elizabethan England was surprisingly tolerant of homosexuality 28:56 Was Shakespeare justified to abandon his family for his art?

For those stubborn or morbidly curious enough to embark on this journey, subscribe below to be notified of lecture releases girardlectures.com/ Lecture-by-lecture breakdown of what we will cover 👇

The primary source of inequality is not money, connections, nepotism, class, or talent. It is desire. Being surrounded by successful people who've achieved unreasonable goals makes you think you can (and should) do it too. "If he can do it, so can I."

The Surprising Sources of Shakespeare’s Inspiration | Harvard’s Stephen Greenblatt Shakespeare’s story is almost unbelievable: born in a provincial town with no wealth, connections, or university education, he quickly shot up the ranks of Elizabethan theater to become the ultimate playwright: mastering both comedy and tragedy, educating the lettered and uneducated, entertaining peasants and kings. My guest today, Stephen Greenblatt, is one of the greatest living Shakespeare scholars, and he will share the surprising sources from which Shakespeare drew his inspiration. And it’s nothing like you’d expect: animal cruelty, rote memorization, borrowed plots, gangster playwrights, a dead son… This interview is a must-listen for any creative who wants to learn how the GOAT himself created his masterpieces. Timestamps 02:50 What makes Shakespeare unique 04:43 Why the theater was banished from London 07:04 The cruel violence of Elizabethan theater 10:14 Elizabethan playwrights led crazy lives 15:20 How Shakespeare built a business empire 17:17 Plagiarism was the norm for Shakespeare's era 19:37 How rote memorization influenced Shakespeare's works 26:14 Why Hamlet is Shakespeare's greatest masterpiece 29:39 How Shakespeare mourned his lost son in Hamlet 33:13 Here's why Shakespeare hid the motives of his characters 36:20 Shakespeare's genius drew from every corner of his world

How Shakespeare Bought His Way into the Upper Class Shakespeare was obsessed with becoming a Gentleman. As soon as he made some money, he spent a fortune buying a Coat of Arms to erase his commoner roots … money he could’ve spent on his family, his art, or his business. Was Shakespeare a hypocrite for mocking in his plays the very social ambition he displayed? And what was the big deal of becoming a “gentleman” in his society? This interview with Harvard’s Stephen Greenblatt is a deep dive into Shakespeare’s views on ambition, both in his plays and his own life. Timestamps: 03:34 Shakespeare's quest to become a gentleman 07:37 In Elizabethan England, knowing Latin could literally save your life 09:49 How Marlowe's education helped him cheat death 11:26 Shakespeare was publicly humiliated for his social ambition 12:41 The shocking truth: Shakespeare bought his way into the elite 15:13 Acting used to be a lowly profession 18:15 Shakespeare’s critique of ambition 22:19 How Elizabeth I kept ambitious factions in check 23:22 Shakespeare's views on honor and social mobility 27:48 Philosophy vs. Literature: which is the better guide to the good life? 32:31 Shakespeare thought the theater was dangerous 38:33 Unpacking Shakespeare's contradictions

I went and hiked the trail that inspired Nietzsche’s Zarathustra. It added a whole new dimension to how I read this enigmatic work:

As the recent debacle with FTX shows, a not-insignificant reason that EA is so popular among the ambitious is because it is a convenient cover-up to pursue power at all costs. It justifies the most grotesque forms of selfishness under the banner of complete altruism.

You can be happy, even if you are rich.

Casual Sex is like Prostitution | Plato’s Attack on Hookup Culture Plato’s Phaedrus begins by examining what we would call casual sex: the attempt to separate sex out from passionate love. Plato was writing to a liberal culture similar to our own and forcefully rejected it: casual sex not only hurts our souls but is structurally analogous to prostitution. Even more surprisingly, Plato argues that even sex between two lovers falls short of the best life! True lovers should abstain from sex and, instead, redirect their passion for each other towards something much better: philosophy. But why is philosophy a better form of sex? And what does this mean for modern love? Timestamps: 02:38 Plato Anticipated Hookup Culture 13:18 Why Madness Is As A Virtue 15:47 Does Philosophy Require Madness? 23:35 What Socrates Thinks of Beauty 29:14 Socrates: True Love Transcends Sex 34:52 Nietzsche vs. Socrates on Beauty 43:43 The Dangerous Power of Beauty 49:11 How Plato Uses Rhetoric to Elevate Philosophy 57:31 Socrates’ Critique of Writing Books 1:04:56 How to Guard Against Intellectual Decadence

🚨 Why did so many great minds avoid marriage? Kant, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Rousseau, and Nietzsche all remained unmarried. The common view? They were too immersed in abstract thought for romance. Nietzsche thought these men didn't rise above human desires—they found a better way to satisfy them. They discovered a superior channel for immortality. Most people have children to ensure their legacy after death, but philosophers achieve the same through their work. Their books weren’t just ‘works’. They were offspring. Why raise a family when you can create ideas that could change the world for generations?

So sick @jasonjoyride. The quality of these videos are insane

Despite having strong political intuitions, I don't participate in politics for the exact concerns raised here by Wittgenstein. My openness to examine/critique/abandon any idea makes me a poor political bedfellow. Politics is a religious act grounded on an unquestioning faith.

Silicon Valley replaced God with algorithms. Their new religion? The Singularity. And Oxford’s AI chair Michael Wooldridge (@wooldridgemike) thinks it’s “bullshit”. Every civilization craves its apocalypse myth. Silicon Valley found theirs in the Singularity, a secular eschatology perfect for our digital era. Like many messianic prophecies, it reveals more about our desires than our destiny. Wooldridge's heresy? Exposing the Singularity as intellectual parasitism: a techno-theological fantasy feeding on our deepest anxieties. It feeds on our ancient doomer impulses while stifling genuine technological discourse. The "existential risk" industry became our modern priesthood, with its own indulgences: Billion-dollar research grants from tech titans presented as civilization's saviors.

AI can write a Great Book. There’s no reason why a human has to be behind a book for it to be “great.” Philosophers are not safe. To be clear, something is lost when there’s no soul behind the words. We read Marcus Aurelius, Nietzsche, Machiavelli and we feel the weight of a life lived. That will be lost in AI books. But the content itself may be so moving, brilliant, and better than what any human could do that we overlook this tradeoff. In fact, there already are Great Books which claim to not be written by man. The Quran, for its believers, is great precisely because it is not authored by a human. @mbrendan1, @anecdotal, and @zenahitz join me to debate this topic, moderated by @AriSchulman Timestamps: 01:18 Why AI Can Write Great Books 6:58 The End of Academic Philosophy Brought by AI 7:55 AI Can Teach Math But Not Prudence 17:18 I Sit With Claude And He Winces Not 19:54 If God Can Write a Great Book, Why Not AI? 30:33 The Dark Side of Tech

To get into an elite uni, you need to be a long term planner (SAT, APs, extracurriculars). Often, you need to start planning from Grade 8 what you are going to do in the next five years. Yet, this same mentality becomes limiting once you get in.