Liv Boeree (world poker champion; astrophysicist; game theorist) is on a mission to explain why we are all trapped in a zero-sum, race to the bottom…with climate, AI, social media and politics. Why do we keep digging up resources, consuming carbon, getting stuck in nasty online spats and building robots that could kill us? Why don’t we just STOP?? Why CAN’T we just STOP?!
It’s because of "moloch" – a game theory "force" that sees us do something we know is bad for us - because everyone else is doing it and if stop we’ll be disadvantaged - until we wind up ruining everything for everyone. I’ve been exploring this concept for a while and invited Liv to talk about her antidote to “competition gone wrong”, which I think will intuitively gel for many of you. In this chat we talk about the death spiral of beauty filters, why AI is repeating the nuclear arms race and the joy we share for steadfastly searching for a win-win solution that will see us in a race to the TOP.
SHOW NOTES
Subscribe to Liv’s Substack
Follow Liv on Instagram and via her YouTube Channel
Read my original Substack post about Moloch
Listen to the Wild episode with Meg Wheatley on civilisation collapse
Watch the beauty fillers video Liv produced The Moloch Trap of AI Beauty Filters and Is the Media Moloch Driving Us Mad?
Read Scott Alexander’s Moloch essay we talk about
If you need to know a bit more about me… head to my "about" page
For more such conversations subscribe to my Substack newsletter, it’s where I interact the most!
Get your copy of my book, This One Wild and Precious Life
Let’s connect on Instagram and WeAre8
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ANNIE MURPHY PAUL: We don’t think with our brains, we think with the world!
AMA: Sarah, why did you move away from Australia?
MISSY SIMS: The TikTok star suing Big Oil
NATE HAGENS: On the “Great Simplification”
ADAM MASTROIANNI: Do we need to make the world great (and kinder) again?
EMILY M. BENDER: AI won’t kill us any time soon (don’t believe the bro’ hype!)
IAN LESLIE: Why your future depends on getting curious
DR GLADYS MCGAREY: “I’m 102, here’s how to spend your energy wildly”
JONATHAN ROWSON: Welcome to the “metacrisis”. Now what?
GAYA HERRINGTON: Complete global collapse by 2040? The prediction is “right on track”...
LUKE BURGIS: How humans “want”: Mimetic desire explained
CLANCY MARTIN: How not to kill yourself
SUSAN NEIMAN: Left is not woke!
FRANCES HAUGEN: In which I speak to the Facebook whistleblower
PICO IYER: The spiritual case for travel
TYSON YUNKAPORTA: Indigenous knowledge can save the world!
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