Great Houses

Gregory Treat: All right.

Hello, everybody.

Welcome to episode 33 of the Great
Houses Forum, where we're continuing

our conversation on how to build
great houses, what those are, and

at least what I think the future
could look like, down this direction.

right now we're in a series talking
about what, what the cursus honorum

of the AI future, would look like.

So, recently if you haven't listened to
my podcast with the great illustrious

Will Tanner, you really should.

I did a, a podcast on the Old World
Show and, uh, you know, Will gave his

excellent presentation of the Virginia
cursus honorum, which for the record,

it's my opinion that, he should be
employed for the rest of his life.

He should just be… Y- you know,
people should pay him to travel around

the country and explain the Virginia
gentry, the, the Virginia cursus

honorum, and how that worked and how
that functioned and how they built it.

I've heard him give that presentation
probably four times now in various

contexts, and every time, he's got
something a little bit different,

something new, something interesting.

Um, and it's just such
a fascinating subject.

It's, it's a really, really important
subject, um, because it's a… The-

there's, there's pieces of the American
experiment, the American Constitution,

the American myth that worked really,
really well in Virginia because of

Virginia's aristocratic character.

And, uh, they didn't work as well
in other parts of the country, which

sort of led to many of the compromises
which, uh, which led us here.

but I think it's worth noting
that most of this stuff worked

actually really well in Virginia.

So he talked about that, and then
I, I did a, my humble walkthrough

of the Roman cursus honorum.

and the point of the podcast was we were
talking about the difference between

a cursus-based system, a project-based
system, and a credential-based system

like the one that we've inherited from,
you know, the late Great WASP culture.

it was a fascinating conversation.

We talked about flock cameras and, and
kinda how technological solutions work

and, and, and what their strengths are,
but also just the basic recognition

that you're not gonna be able to
save our culture just by increasing

the technology available to us.

Flock cameras are not gonna save us
when we can't arrest people for DEI

reasons, that's the basic challenge.

Um, and so underneath the episode that
I did with Will, there was, there was

an implied question that I don't know
if we did the best job of highlighting.

And that, that was what has gone wrong
with our credentialing system, and I

suppose the larger question is what
do we do about it, We… like, the,

the answer is, well, instead of having
a credentialing system, we should

have something like a cursus honorum.

but I just wanted to start by
honing in on that question.

What has gone wrong?

Noah Revoy put out in a recent article,
this existing credential system, it keeps

churning out elites, For, for some values
of, of that term, and the country keeps

getting leaders that it cannot trust.

Like, there's something about the way
that we're producing leaders where at this

point, at the scale that we're operating
with the pressures and maybe with the,

the general stock that we have in the
country, uh, where we're not getting good

outcomes, that seems to be a very durable
effect of whatever it is that we're doing.

And so I, you know, I think, I think
most of us, certainly the people on

this call, a- and I think broadly in
the country too, at least suspect that

there is something deeply wrong with the
talent pipelines in our country, And m-

the answer I think that, that we need to
consider is what does a cursus honorum

look like in the AI future as AI is
shaping our world, just to give us all

some context, the modern classroom, the
modern credentialing system was really

built to upskill Prussian peasants, You're
talking, you know, mid, uh, 19th century,

the century that starts with an 1800.

mid-19th century, Prussians
that, are basically loyal,

that are incredibly homogenous.

Um, the earlier Prussians had
done an incredibly effective job

at, making sure there was only one,
uh, one basic bloodline in Prussia.

which is a fascinating story that, that
really when you, when you study that

part of history a lot of the things
that happened later in terms of Napoleon

and, and then even, you know, the World
Wars make a lot more sense when you

understand that, that Prussia is, is
this very ethnically distinct place

and, and experiences itself that way.

but the point was nothing in
the design of the credentialing

system was about fostering loyalty
about… or about forming character.

And, and to give them credit, that really
wasn't the problem that they had to solve.

It w- they were working with a deeply
homogenous people and, you know, shared

loyalties could basically be assumed,
And this made sense in a world where

democracy was making the lowest common
denominator in terms of the character

of the people the measure of society.

and I'll say that this worked pretty
well in a world, number one, where

every man was armed with a gun.

and number two, where, the Europeans had
just spent 700 years executing 1 to 2%

of the population every generation, which
is basically the most criminal elements.

they executed criminals, but
they did not execute people just

for having violent tendencies.

If you had non-criminal violent tendencies
they had clear pathways for you to go

serve your country and get rewarded
for it and have, have all that stuff,

There really is a sense in which an
armed society is a polite society, So

the education system depended, that the
credentialing system that, that we have

depended on that sort of virtue coming
in from the peasantry, and they thought

that all that was needed to unlock
even greater virtue was, this kind of

upskilling so that we could get the
peasants greater earning power, they'd

have more disposable income, and that
would just usher in the eschaton, The,

the, this is, this is the great promise
of, kind of the, the modernist view of

capitalism, But in practice, what this
led was to what, what I called in my

podcast with Will, uh, ungrounded virtue,
when, when you do the credentialing

things, you, you advance by leaving.

You go from the farm to, to a smaller
city, you know, then from the city

to the university town, and from
the university town to, like, the

state house and then to Washington.

and you never really go back.

Once you advance, once you're sorted
into some higher tier of existence

with a bunch of other, end of the
bell curve, high IQ, high virtue

people, you never go back home.

you never check to see if, if your
own fields are still producing,

Which is quite different from how
the Virginia cursus honorum worked.

and so what, what gets called
virtue is really just a, a set

of pure ideas, maybe a, a set of
propositions we might even say.

And, and, and this is, of
course, where the idea of a

propositional nation comes from.

It's, it's the result of what does it mean
to be somebody who excels in these kind

of free-floating university systems where
it's not about demonstrated character.

Like, character is not
what gets you the jobs.

What gets you the jobs, what gets you
advancement, what gets you promotion,

what gets you social status is being
able to correctly affirm the propositions

that are, the social religion of the
day, whatever that happens to be, Now,

when the social religion of the day was
basically traditional Christianity as it

had been practiced for, more or less 1,000
years, 2,000 years, that wasn't so bad.

especially because many of these people
did actually have deep convictions.

Many of these people did have,
you know, spiritual experiences.

You see, I mean, even as late as the
1850s, people are, at, at that point

in time, Harvard's, its first year for
its law track and its pastoral track

were a year-long course in the Book
of Romans in Latin, taught in Latin.

Um, fascinatingly, uh, I, I was doing some
research and the clanker informs me that

there is a material connection between the
amount of Latin that's being taught in, in

schools and the amount of mass violence.

The less Latin that's being taught,
the less Latin that we're teaching,

uh, the more that our wars get violent
and kind of, you know, democratically

to, to the knife, as it were, right?

When you teach Latin in your schools,
then your elites go out and fight,

and they may kill each other.

But by and large, they leave
the civilians out of it.

War becomes this kind of
aristocratic territorial thing.

But the less you teach Latin, especially
when you go From having Latin be

something that you use to study other
subjects, you know, they kept Latin

around in the, the high-end schools
probably until right before World War

I. but, uh, but in between the 1850s
and 1870s, most of the places in the

West, it stopped being a thing that you
used, you used to study other subjects.

But so for a while there, Harvard had,
uh, for a long time, Harvard had the,

the first year of its law track and the
first year of its pastoral track were

a one-year course in Romans and Latin,
and you could switch between majors, at

any time, and several people had, you
know, genuine religious experiences.

So it was this propositional
thing, but there was, there, there

was still a groundedness to it.

There was still something
that, that was real.

Of course, as we move into progressivism
in the, the 1920s, like, the, the set

of ideas that are being taught by the
universities just gets farther and farther

and farther, not just from a thing that,
that the people of America or the people

of the West had traditionally believed,
but it got farther and farther away from a

thing that a people as such could believe.

It became kind of the, this niche,
elite set of philosophies that,

couldn't even be understood by, a
normal IQ person, let alone practiced

in any meaningful fashion, right?

So, so what gets ca- And, and
this becomes virtue, right?

So what gets called virtue becomes
this kind of free-floating thing.

It's not really grounded
in a place, a people.

There's no, uh, reputation in it.

You're expected to come in with
very different ideas and change

your ideas to the new thing that
the university is, uh, is teaching.

So there's no penalty cost.

There can't be a penalty cost for
coming in and dramatically changing

everything you've said because
you're now in a new environment.

That's what the environment
kind of expects.

So this produces a world, where we,
we can't rely on anything, right?

No one, no one has any, any basis
for internal personal character.

That's the strategy.

That strategy, well, we come into a new
place, and we kind of parrot whatever

the reigning, social religion is.

That actually doesn't produce
high-character people who can be relied

upon to make important decisions,
which leads us to, you know, the flock

camera questions, one of the things
I wanna point out, and, and I'm a,

I'm a big promoter of, of, um, AI.

I think AI is gonna be a great invention.

I think many of these new
technologies are gonna change

the world for the better, right?

I think robotics and all this
stuff, medicine is gonna get better.

Construction is gonna get better.

A bunch of things are gonna get cheaper.

People are gonna live longer.

But I mean, I do think that there is
going to be dystopian outcomes, right?

There are going to be places and
times and, and, and specific groups of

people that are gonna endure weird and
dystopian things, as bad or worse as

anything that's been done in history.

So, what, what creates this dystopia is
the, the, a mismatch between the social

organization and, and kinda the, the
powers of the technology, your technology

requires a certain set of social ordering
in order to manage it effectively.

This is my aristocratic
democratic, uh, technology thesis.

Um, and so when you have an aristocratic
social structure attempting to

manage a democratic technology like
firearms, and you don't update your

social structure as the technology
becomes more and more dominant,

then you get the French Revolution.

But when you have a democratic social
structure trying to manage aristocratic

technologies, I think you get COVID.

Like, I think that's
basically what COVID was.

I think you have… I think the, the, the,
the biotechnology, uh, is, is clearly an

aristocratic technology by my definitions.

and I don't think that can be managed
effectively under our democratic system.

And so the way that, that that was pursued
was, was weird and, and it had to be

covered up, and that led to bad outcomes,
And even still to this day, we still

can't really grapple with whatever it was
that, that, that Anthony Fauci was doing.

A- as evidenced by the fact that
he came and testified, he invoked

the Fifth Amendment when he had no
legal right to do so, and Congress

did not call him in contempt, right?

We cannot manage whatever was going on
in that lab, whatever, whatever, you

know, the government's involvement was,
whatever, you know, the… just, just…

we ca- like, the only thing we can do
with technologies like that is ban them,

Which is what ostensibly we've done.

Uh, you know, the, the, that, that's
the hypothetical thing that we've done

is we, we ban uh, research into, in
to gain of function, all this stuff.

And to the extent that we haven't banned
it, the extent we're still trying to use

that or get a, get a hold on or even,
you know, potentially defend ourselves

against it, those things can't, can't
be acknowledged or, or effectively

grappled with by our democratic system.

The system just doesn't work, So I
think the right question when we think

about technological improvements is
under what conditions, and by that

I mean social conditions, under what
social management system will these

technologies be used appropriately?

Who is gonna have to be in charge?

What, what kind of
person will be in charge?

How do you get that kind of person?

And, and what, what restraints, what
accountability structures, what happens

to that person if he abuses his power?

And who enforces that decision on
him, How does that work, All these

new technologies, they create thrones.

They create seats of power.

who's gonna sit on those thrones?

and I'll note parenthetically,
we cannot avoid this problem.

I wanna go on record, predicting
that the worst outcomes will come

from pretending that we can create
a power position, we can create a

throne, and not have anyone in it.

Someone is going to sit in that throne,
if we say, "Well, well, we don't want

that," I mean, again, your options are
basically ban the technology entirely

or more likely, what, what you're saying
is, "Well, we just want you to lie.

We want you to tell us that there's no
throne and there's no one sitting in it."

And in fact, we're gonna have
somebody like Anthony Fauci making

life-altering decisions for the world
with no accountability mechanism.

Okay?

So the bottleneck here is human beings.

We need a supply of high-character
men, men that have been formed,

that, that have been tested in, in
a public way, not, not tested by,

like, proxy tests in a classroom.

we need th- to know that
they're trustworthy.

We need demonstrations of their character
before we hand them tools that can

hurt a whole city or a whole society.

And, and that's a trust problem.

And, there's two bad ways to
interact with a trust problem.

One is to say, "Well, Trust is
a black box. You can't predict

it. All we can worry about is
capacity." That doesn't work.

The other thing that you can
do is say, "Well, we can just

assume everyone is trustworthy.

Giving people education and, you
know, taking them out of bad social

situations, we just remove them.

If no one is hurting them,
then they'll automatically be

trustworthy." That doesn't work.

But there is a way to kind of vet
people for trust, And, and that way has

worked every time that we've tried it.

to abuse a quote from G.K. Chesterton,
the cursus honorum has not been,

been tried and found wanting, it has
been found hard and rarely tried.

honorum.

So Rome called this
method the cursus honorum.

The, the… That just means
the, the, the course of honors.

and Virginia ran an, an kind of Anglican
cavalier version of the same idea.

Britain, the British gentry were formed
by the same kinda sets of, set of things.

Um, so th- this is Western
civilization's method.

If, if your, your problem is, hey,
we actually need… We, we have

technologies that need to be entrusted
to unusually high-character people.

These are… These technologies
are too powerful, too dangerous,

too, um, difficult to manage.

The consequences of having somebody
misuse these powerful positions is so

destructive, so scary that we just, we
don't want everyone to have it, We don't

want everyone to have a nuclear weapon.

We don't want everyone to
have a nuclear reactor.

so what do you do?

you make people ascend through a set
of tasks and figure out who you can

trust who's worthy of, being extended
these super high levels of trust.

but Rome had, the, there's the lower
offices and the higher offices.

So Rome had… You start being a military
tribune, and so you had to command

soldiers in a legion successfully, right?

In battle almost always.

Um, Rome was basically always at war,
or they were, you know, you could send

a legion off to, to deal with bandits.

Um, then you became a
quaestor, um, or quaestor.

Uh, you know, my… So my Latin is not,
uh, not the best pronunciation, boys.

So, um, and, and this meant you
were involved in the, the, the

public accounts of the treasury
or, or served as a financial

deputy for a provincial governor.

Um, and, and you know, you were,
you were kind of like an auditor.

Your, your, your goal was
where is the money going?

And, and let's… You know, Rome had kind
of a curious set of interactions with

what we would modernly call corruption.

But, but they, they had a se- You had
to develop a sense for what was too

much corruption, and you had to deal
with it, Uh, then there was the, uh,

the aedile, um, which supervised the
markets, the weights and measures, the

water, the public buildings, and most
importantly, put on the big public

games, the big celebrations, the annual
celebrations, and then the, the occasional

celebrations that would happen when,
uh, when somebody died or when there

was a, a, a major victory for Rome.

Um, that's what the aedile did.

And, and the aedile was, was this
important figure 'cause if you, if

you'd risen to that level, that was
a, that was a very honorable rank.

You got to have a, a Roman death mask.

You, you… Which is kinda like a
tangible, a tangible expression of

what people were striving for in
Roman society, which was this, this

concept of immortal glory, right?

Immortal glory was what Rome
was, was oriented towards.

and if you got to be the i- you got
to the aedile rank, and then you got

to have a Roman death mask, then you,
you had achieved something, It also

pretty much guaranteed that you would
be inducted into the Senate the next

time there was an opening So above that
there was the, the, the praetor, uh,

which, which screened civil claims.

They would, they would frame
issues for private judges.

They would issue the annual edict.

Um, and then, and then after they'd served
as a praetor for a while, they would be

sent out to govern a province or command
an army, and it was kind of seen as

this training position for being consul.

And the consuls ruled Rome effectively.

There was always, there were two
consuls in the, the Republic,

uh, the period of the Republic.

They presided over the Senate, the
assemblies, they conducted elections,

they carried out policies, and
they were the top generals, right?

Rome had this interesting unitary
structure where they didn't really

have this concept of civilian
rank that didn't have, like,

some kind of military component.

Um, these were all effectively
drawn from the army.

note that from beginning to end, Rome's
military structure was paramount.

It had to produce and maintain
commanders who could lead men in battle.

and it was just really
effective at doing that, right?

There's this scene, I'm… This is
one of the things in the podcast with

Will that I was like, "Man, I should
have, I should have said that better."

Um, where there, there's a scene where,
uh, Hannibal sends his brother back

to Carthage, and he, they dump seven
or eight gallons of gold rings on the

floor, uh, of, of the, the Carthaginian
Senate, and basically said, "We have

wiped out their leadership class. Rome is
finished," They'd killed tens of thousands

of men and a bunch of the leaders, and
Rome is able to restock the Senate.

They're able to refill all
the, the leadership roles.

People just kind of slot in, and
within a year or two they, they have

to send out the Fabians to, to do this
delaying action to buy them a little

bit of time to, to rebuild the army.

But they are able to replace the
leadership class, oh so fast.

Oh, s- so much faster
than anybody expected.

and then they win the Punic Wars, Now,
an interesting point, uh, that I'll make

about this, is for these high offices,
these offices where you would leave,

one of the things is your household
had to run well enough that you could

leave without dysfunction setting in.

Y- y- your household had to run,
ideally well enough that it was

actually sending you money to help
maintain yourself and to do the

things you needed to do on campaign.

if your household wasn't very strong, it
was acceptable, though, kind of frowned

upon, to pull funds from the public
purse to maintain yourself in the field.

But what was illegal, what was, what was
problematic, what they really wanted to

avoid was somebody being in a position
where their, their house at home was

failing, and so they were put in this
position where they needed to draw public

funds that were supposed to be for the
campaign to send back to Rome to, uh, to

kind of make sure that their house could
keep functioning and they wouldn't lose

property or whatever, interestingly,
Paul borrows from the language that Rome

uses for its praetors and consuls, these
guys that need to operate in the field.

And, and, and that, that, that language
influences his, his description, his

requirements for Christian elders in
the, the, uh, pastoral epistles, So, keep

your children in submission with all due
gravity is, uh, is, is a phrase that is

really similar to how they talked about,
"Hey, this is what you have to do. This

is what you have to be in order for us
to consider you for a praetorship or,

uh, certainly for a consulship," right?

'Cause if you… I mean, if you're
consul, you might need to go out

in the field for a year, right?

Um, Rome also had some
fascinating voting privileges.

So basically, in order to, to be at the
highest rank, you had to have enough

money on hand to, to buy your own Roman
kit, the… which is the kit that Paul

talks about in Ephesians, the armor of
God, right, the belt, and the shoes, and

the, the breastplate, and the shield,
and the sword, and all of those things.

it wasn't a market cost exactly
'cause Rome produced it and sold

it at, at a pretty much fixed
cost, but that was the price.

If you had that much money, that's
what gave you the, the highest rank

and kind of full voting rights.

And if you had less than that, then
your, your voting rights kind of

went down proportionally to, to, uh,
your ability to afford that cost.

It's also the same cost as, as, uh,
being able to pay for a year's worth

of a century, which was, ironically
a century should mean 100 men.

For complicated historical
reasons, it meant about 80 men.

Um- And so that was, that was the
same amount of money, was, okay,

could you field your own century?

Could you be a centurion of, you know,
these 80 guys that are g- need to be out

in the field, they're gonna need to be
fed, they're gonna need to be maintained

as we're going out and doing something.

and, and you had to be that
caliber of person to really

make it into the higher levels.

now obviously Rome had a
bunch of complicated ways.

If you were talented but you didn't have
money, they weren't gonna wall you out.

There w- there was gonna be a way for,
for you to, to make the money work.

But that- those were the formal standards,
Then in Virginia, um, the, the, the

foundation was, was the plantation,
You had to produce tobacco by managing

land, labor, merchants, and debt.

And, and the idea here was they,
they wanted it set so that i- you

couldn't qualify just by working
really hard, they didn't want it to

be something where, well, this guy,
he just works, uh, 120 hours a week,

and he's able to do that, right?

No, they wanted it to be you need to
have- People, teams of people, probably

slaves in Virginia, You'd have teams
of people working your land, Three

to five people, three to five slaves
working your land, which is kind of

the minimum for what you needed to do.

Because the point was you had to get th-
those laborers to perform with excellence

to produce high-quality tobacco leaves.

So it was about wisdom.

Can you communicate to people, who are
much lower IQ than you probably, how to

do the things you need at the quality
levels you need them to do it at?

And that was their
foundational requirement.

If you couldn't figure out how to do that,
you just didn't get in, Then above that,

there was the parish vestry, uh, which was
again, dealing, dealing with, a bunch of

people who were less successful than you.

and the idea was you, you
had to be able to do that.

You had to fulfill your, your function.

So you, you're responsible for
kinda doling out, know, alms

and taking care of poor people,
taking care of widows and orphans.

And y- you had to not just
do that, but you had to do

that with a sense of dignity.

You had to do that in a way
that the community approved of.

If you just kind of showed up and
threw money at people and rode off,

that would get around, number one,
and people would be unhappy with you.

Even if you technically fulfilled the
position, um, you would not probably

get, you'd probably not get renewed
at the end of it, and you would not

get asked to ascend to a higher level,
which, you know, is, is, is interesting

because there, there's nothing like
these, these types of honors, um, the-

these types of, of secondary requirements
are often what we optimize away in kind

of our modern capitalistic society.

It tends to… We get very, we get
very autistic about what is the task

that we're doing right now, and we
hyper optimize for that task and that

task alone, and that means that we,
we don't develop the, the skills that

allow us to ascend to the higher levels.

So above the parish ventry, uh, vestry,
there was the justice of the peace.

There was the county court.

you know, they, they would hear
cr- civil and criminal cases.

The minister, uh, you know,
the, the county justice.

And then above that, there was the House
of Burgesses and then, you know, people,

the higher levels were speaker, council
member, continental delegate, et cetera.

Um, and interestingly, and, and if you
want more information on this, again,

just, just listen to, to my podcast with
Will or any, really any of the podcasts w-

uh, w- that Will Tanner has done recently.

And he's also put out a, just an amazing
article on the subject of the Virginia

gentry, uh, which, which I fully intend
to have my children, when, when it's

time for them to learn about this
topic, they're gonna read that essay,

I'm committed to that, cause I, I
very much doubt that I'll find anything

better between, between now and then.

but you had to do all these things
as you're ascending kind of up

the ranks while still maintaining
the quality of your tobacco leaf.

That was seen as, as a proxy for
your character and your skill

at training, managing, and,
and inspiring loyalty, right?

That, so these people, again, these,
these people who were probably lower IQ

than you were so well-trained, there was
so much excellence, there was so much

loyalty that you could leave for three,
six months and the, the quality of the

tobacco leaf wouldn't go down, right?

Which is not nothing, okay?

Um, Britain had a similar thing.

I won't go into the, the, the whole
thing, uh, of the British gentry,

but, but you know, I've, I've
done a couple of episodes on it.

Uh, but, but the thing that I wanna focus
on for, for, for today's purposes is the

idea that, that you, you had to issue
and manage private currencies in effect.

You, you, you kind of had a personal
c- credit, a personal currency, and

your house had a, had a currency.

You know, your, your wife's family
might have… There, there would be

different ventures and different,
you know, corporations, different

structures that people would make,
and all of them would immediately

start issuing notes and bonds and,
and various financial instruments that

could be used in that day like currency.

There was, there was, you know,
all of those, all of those things.

Um, so that was a really important
skill, and the British government

wanted its aristocrats to have
that skill before they put them

in, in, in governmental positions.

Because basically all governmental
positions involved this organ

of the government or this office
has the right to issue bonds.

That's how they funded themselves
from, you know, 1600 on.

Um, and I mean, that, that's
basically what I… This is, this

is what I was talking about in the,
in the Churchill episodes, right?

So this is the, the, the, the method
of governance that John Churchill, um,

kind of pioneered, and it was what,
what led to the, the development of the

gentry throughout the next 400 years
until, you know, until the gentry kind

of meet their end in, in the fields
of Flanders in World War I, right?

But so for that period of time, the
British government really needed

people, that could manage, private
currencies or these, these, these

weird bonds that, that could be,
that could be spent like currency.

And so the, the way that it, it handled
that, the way that it figured out…

Like, you couldn't administrate a test
and say, "Well, do you know how to, how to

manage a currency?" 'Cause I mean, well,
sure I know how to manage a currency.

Um, the test is c- could this
guy manage his personal credit?

If he can't, we're not gonna put him…
He's not gonna ascend to high rank

because all of the high-ranking positions
in the British Empire require you to

manage, uh, you know, effectively a, a,
a sub-currency, So, all three of these

things, um, it, it's the same lesson.

They, they have this tiered structure.

They have broader goals.

and they're really helping pe-
They're testing not just can you do

the task, but can you do the task
with an eye to the bigger picture?

Okay.

Uh, one of the ways of describing this is,
is that these, these ladders, they, they

train something closer to a priestly role.

So you have long-term care of a people,
a place, you have to develop some kind

of public trust, and, you know, the, the
results may not show up for years, right?

Feedback is slow, and you have to
develop your reputation across, you

know, seasons and years and decades.

And people can go back and check, right?

There, there's gonna be a
public reputation that follows

you from thing to thing.

And, and, and, and if you build
something… And it was one of the

important things, and this is, this
was especially true in the, I mean,

in, in all of them, um, in Rome as
well, but, but also in the British

and the, and the Virginia, uh, gentry.

I- if you built something, your personal
name and credit was attached to it, right?

Uh, one of the interesting things
about the way that Rome did, uh, its,

its diplomatic ventures is they would
send a high-ranking senator, And the

senator would conduct the negotiations
with a foreign power, and they would

sign a treaty, And in that treaty,
the senator would place their personal

reputation on the line, and they would
say, "And I promise," basically, "to,

in good faith, attempt to get Rome to
ratify the treaty." By the way, Rome

did not always ratify the treaties.

Um, Rome did not always
go along with this.

Uh, but so it was, it was kind of a risk.

But your personal name and
reputation was basically

associated with, with that treaty.

And so unless you had some really good
reason why it wasn't your fault, if

that thing collapses later, it's on you.

You've gotta figure out how
to solve the problem, okay?

And again, the, uh,
the requirement stacks.

You always remain responsible, uh, to be
qualified for the lesser included offices.

If the quality of your tobacco leaf
drops, if there is a run on your personal

credit, then that could very well be
disqualifying even years or decades

later, And, and again, the thing that I
said this earlier, you know, character

formation is not a black box, right?

Uh, we, we have-- we've gotten addicted
in our society to having short-term…

Wh-what we want is we have a
need, we expect the market to

fill that need very quickly.

All we do is we apply capital, and
the capital is supposed to be able

to source someone who just appears
from nowhere with all of the skills

and, and all of the capacities.

And, and e-even if somebody isn't
skilled, we really want them to

appear within, like, a two-year
framework, otherwise we're really mad.

Okay?

Um, and, and, and then we say, "Well,
if we can't get it in two years,

we've gotta do-- we've gotta just do
something like, you know, import a

bunch of people from around the world."
'Cause we couldn't possibly say, "Well,

no, actually, we should plan on the
long term to meet this need," right?

And this has been fashionable basically
since our elites turned so hard against

Christian morality in the latter half
of the 19th century, just to kinda treat

character formation as a black box.

We, we wanna pretend that we don't
know what causes moral failures,

and basically what causes moral
failures is when you stop having

h-h- holding people accountable.

It's when you stop saying, "Character
matters, and we're going to evaluate

your character at each level of a
public or semi-public, demonstration.

And, hey, you might not lose your
position, you might not lose your job

if you, m- fail the character test,
but you're not gonna advance anything

more," actually… And, and one of the
thing-- important things is if someone

is qualified at a lower level, you
don't want them to lose their job if

they're not, if they're not excellent
at the thing they're doing, right?

All that does is, is ensure that, you
know, people, the, the, the continuation

of, of the Peter principle, right?

Which is that people rise to
the level of their incompetence.

What you want is somebody who rises to the
level where they can do the job, right?

And then if they don't, if they're
not demonstrating signs that they

have excess moral capacity to do
higher and better things, you just

want them to stay there, right?

A whole bunch of people would get
to the, the ideal level, right?

The, the level where you're,
you're conducting the games, and

they would just kinda stay there.

They'd get their, their, their
death mask, their Roman death mask.

They, they had some
level of, um, of honor.

They'd get inducted into the Senate, and
then they would just kind of sit there

in the Senate for the rest of their life.

That was a very normal thing.

They never showed the capacity to say,
"Hey, I, I could actually, you know, go

on campaign for six months and my house
wouldn't fall apart." There's lots of guys

that were solid guys that, that, that won
glory and honor for, for themselves and

their house and their nation that didn't
meet that standard, and that was okay.

They weren't shamed for that.

They just weren't selected
for greater honor, okay?

Now, I think the, the traditional
answer of, the modernists and, and

then the post-modernists then, "Well,
we're, we're just gonna kind of grow

our way out of that. Growth is the
cure that solves all ills. So if we can

just, if we can just grow, then that
will, that will solve this problem."

And I, I, I think we're, we're coming to
the end of where that's a viable strategy.

It seems to me that, that, uh,
growth is not enough, right?

So what do we do when
growth is not enough?

Um, so we, we have a, a new set
of super powerful tools, right?

We have flock cameras, AI, drones, robots.

And, and, and I, I, um, w- one of the
points of this episode is, is to say,

okay, there is a real risk that there
are dystopian outcomes from these things.

So the question I wanna say is, well,
under what circumstances could these

technologies be used for good, when the
operators have been formed and screened

and the system treats character as the
most important piece, Where we say, "Hey,

we, we actually don't want someone to
be a VP of flock cameras unless he has

a lot of demonstrated character right?"

We, we actually want that
to… We, we want to select.

We would say we would, we would rather
not have someone, we would rather

have someone that, that doesn't have
the highest capacity if, if he comes

with that potential moral failure.

We don't want him.

I don't care how high capacity he is.

I don't want that guy sitting in
that seat because the, the amount

of power that he has is so dangerous
and so destructive that, that, that

we won't get good outcomes, right?

So what, what would it look like,
what could it look like if we actually

tried to design a system that would
produce men whose capacity, whose

skill at using the new technologies
was paired with moral formation, right?

And what you would do is the same thing
as what the, the cursus guys done-

did in, in, in Rome and, and Virginia.

You, you allow other people's decisions
to validate the thesis of the skill

set under question rather than, than
creating a credentialing system and

testing them in an artificial environment.

Now, this means you m- you may
have to provide training, you

may have to provide assistance
for the people playing this game.

Um, you know, in, in the British gentry,
the- there, there's a lot of evidence

that there were, there were guys that were
probably funded by the British government,

that they would, they would make sure
that, that if you were a young aristocrat,

you kinda got a fair shake, right?

That, that, that credit was extended to
you really whether you deserved it or not.

And it wasn't maybe large amounts, but
it was enough to keep you going and they,

they just didn't want somebody to find
themselves in a position where, "Hey,

I, I, I guessed wrong the first couple
times that I tried to play this game,

and that put me out of the game," right?

Um, destroying this noble house.

They, they didn't want that to
happen and so they, they behaved

kind of in, in collegial ways.

There was this sense of we- we're, we're
not… this is not a cutthroat game.

We're playing here, right?

Uh, but, but we're playing a game with
rules and, and we're playing a game

where the goal is to keep playing the
game and to possibly recruit these

people for a higher game, right?

If you're, if you're playing a game
in a, in a league and, and the goal of

everyone is to recruit the best players
out of these teams to form a super

team, you're gonna behave differently.

You're not… It's not gonna be as
cutthroat, And I, I think, you know,

hopefully it's obvious to people
that, that we, we have lost this.

again, I, I've spent some time talking
about what I think the three skills

of, of AI and, and again, I could
be, I could be wrong about this.

There could be five skills, there
could be 10 skills, but let's just

say that the, these skills are,
are code, content, and command.

So code means you can see the logical
flow of what you want the machine to do.

You understand the logical
architecture of the work.

Content is, is rhetoric, especially, you
know, the kind of rhetoric that scales up.

It's, it's influencers, it's TikTok
videos, it's, it's, uh, PR, right?

And, and depending on your perspective,
that can look like pro- propaganda or it

can look like motivation and, you know,
again, your, your, your, your orientation

towards the morality and the cause of the
person doing this, this activity probably

greatly influences your opinion of it.

Um, and then command means that you
can work inside the structure, probably

the custom structure that you have
built, and then use those custom

commands or, you know, macros at the
right time and in the right place and

take responsibility for the decision.

Um, and, and again, I think, I
think, as I've said in, in prior

episodes, I think this is gonna be…

there's gonna be incredible gains to,
from optimizing AI systems to say,

"Hey, there's this point where the AI
has to make a decision instead of just

presenting options." And it… the, the
token sco- to- costs of the AI making

that decision scale to ridiculous degrees.

You can dramatically
reduce the cost of, um…

So, and, and I've done this,
right, in, in, in my AI work.

When I do a presentation like this
or, or I do an essay, you know, there

are… I've, I've gotten… I've
actually gotten pretty good essays

out of some of the frontier models by
just saying, "Loop on, on this stuff

until you get a, a top-tier essay." But
it'll use, you know, 10, 20% of your

monthly allotment in one shot, right?

Whereas I was able to do this presentation
with, I think, one and a half percent

of my, uh, of my monthly allotment
because I made all the decisions, right?

It, it would present me with options.

It would present me with, well, here's,
here are the things, and at these

points you could, you could just do
any one of these three options and,

and sometimes I would override and say,
"No, you, you've gotten that wrong."

But, but a lot of times I was able to
pick this, pick that, pick that, and,

and that dramatically reduces the token
cost of, of, of what you're doing there.

Okay?

So, um, so when I say the AI era will,
will, again, hopefully produce a cursus

honorum, I mean a series of games, a
series of engagements that train and

test those three functions and kind
of demonstrates your capacity, right?

So we're gonna discuss a
progression with, with alternate

pathways at each, at each level.

That, that, that doesn't
necessarily mean that I think

there will be alternate pathways.

I, I, I suspect that at some point our
society will, um, will hone in on, on the

preferred way of ascending this ladder.

Um, but I don't know what that is yet.

I don't, I don't think anyone
can predict what that is yet.

And, and, and the point of this design
would be to produce AI paladins.

Right now that's my word.

I, I… I mean, unless I'm vastly
more successful than, uh, than I am

right now, that, that probably won't
be the word that people will use.

Um, but they, they will have this
sense of we want high character people.

We want high quality, but we also
want high character people a- and

we don't, we don't want… We're
uncomfortable with just trusting

this to people who have gotten a
credential from a university, right?

Um, so we want trustworthy men
whose mastery of all three core

skills gives them an incredible
multiplier on their value, okay?

So level one, I, I think you
would start with, with bits,

uh, control of bits, software.

Uh, so this pathway looks like
the ability to manage an AI rather

than having the AI manage you.

It means, as I said, understanding
the log- logical architecture of

what you want the computer to do,
how it's getting there, and this

is, this is probably grammar.

I mean, uh, you know, again, it,
it involves, in my experience,

a lot of actual literal grammar.

I spend a bunch of time when the AI
makes a mistake or does something

that I don't want, I say, "Tell me
what your word for this is," right?

And it tells me.

It, it has a vector where it
says, "Oh, this is the word that,

that, that, that, uh, that I think
this, uh, this verbal tick is."

And I say, "Okay, well, never do that
ever again. Um, and, and let's talk

about how to fix that when it pops up,
how to recognize it." And, and so it's,

it's… I have to remember the grammar.

I have to understand how the thing
talks to itself and insert my own

content into, uh, into that loop as
it's running, and that's what allows

me to do what I, what I do with AI.

Um, and, and this is what it'll
allow people to… You gotta read

the output, understand why the AI
what… did what it did, and know

how to influence its own behavior.

Right now, this is probably
somebody who can set up their own

AI harness or, at a minimum, their
own second brain tuned to them.

In the future, it probably looks
like, uh, completing the training or

fine-tuning of a model, uh, to, to be
something that's kinda custom-designed

for them or designing maybe, maybe
penetration testing software platforms.

And, um, and, and of course, in the
AI era, the, the penetration testing

is starting to, to, to mean a lot
more things because you can sort of

socially hack AI, which is a, which is
a fascinating… But that gets into the

other level one gateway that I think
we'll see, uh, which is narrative.

Uh, so this will look like, uh, building
an audience with AI-augmented tools.

It'll look like running social media
for a campaign or a legal defense.

And, you know, uh, what- whatever
it looks like, you're, you're,

you're influencing people.

You're, you're understanding
human psychology, right?

Uh, you're, you're, you're
using rhetoric at a high level.

You're understanding what attracts
people, what causes them to have emotion,

what causes them to agree with you.

Um, you know, this is, this is
the skill that I'm not natively

gifted at, but I'm trying.

I'm learning.

I'm learning from some smart
people, so, you know, I really

appreciate all the people that,
uh, that have helped me, right?

And again, um, you know, uh, Balaji has,
has ta- has talked about, you know, he

sees AI affecting the internet as a whole.

And so what he thinks is gonna
happen is that AI is gonna just re-

wreck transactional markets, right?

So anything where you're interacting
with a stranger, any, any transactional

game, uh, recruiting, sales, marketing,
um, is gonna get flooded with AI

spam, slop, scams, all of that.

Uh, the- these channels, you know, the,
the internet was, was built to be a, an

open system, kind of a high trust system.

A lot of people talk about that,
DARPA net and all that stuff.

These channels were never built
for, for the level of, of, of just

pure spam that, that, that can
come out in an AI, uh, AI world.

And so those, those
filters are gonna break.

So what are people gonna do?

They're gonna retreat.

They're gonna fall back
into digital tribes.

They're gonna want deterministic gates.

They're gonna want proof
that you're a human.

They're gonna want signed
credentials, hard to fake signals.

Probably there's a pretty
heavy crypto element to this.

Um, and, and, and the interesting thing
is that, that will, that will probably

create, uh… There, there'll be, there
will need to be a, well, some human signed

off on you joining the tribe, right?

Um, I'm a member of Exit and, uh, you
know, Exit has a 30-minute phone call with

everyone that, that, that wants to join.

And I think that, that, that, you
know, what's interesting about that

is that, that, that having that
level of vetting alone has produced

absolutely incredible results in terms
of the quality of the people, right?

And, and I think that sort of thing will,
will only get stronger as, as people

get more and more comfortable with AI.

Um, this, this will probably be a
position in the cursus honorum, right?

Um, so you're gonna have people who are
assisted by AI who are saying, "How do

I establish relationships with other
humans and with other AI silos, with

other cryptographic, uh, digital silos?"

And say, "We're gonna accord
everyone in that digital silo some

level of identity with us because
we trust their vetting mechanism.

We're sort of federating, uh, some level
of proof of human, some level of, uh,

of trust there." So- But I think that,
that could be if you've demonstrated

your command of software, and you've
demonstrated your command of rhetoric,

so you're, you're able to kind of
create a space that's, that's free of,

uh, psycho hazards, as it were, um,
I think that that'll, that'll be…

That would be something that would
be very useful to, to evaluate

someone's capacity and their goodwill,
and again, their character, right?

Because this is… A lot of this
is super character driven, right?

It's do, do you, do you resonate?

Do, do the vibes fit with this person?

And, and you know, we, we, we make
decisions based on vibes, right?

Um, and, and, and you have to do this.

Like, one of the things, the interesting
things, we've gotten so uncomfortable

with making decisions based on vibes.

I was having a conversation with a,
with a guy, uh, recently, and he was

talking to me about, "You know, I
had this meeting with this guy, and

I just didn't like him, you know?"

And, and I was like, "Well,
you should just not trust him.

If you didn't like him, if you got a
bad vibe, that's gotta be enough, right?

Like, you're, you're, you're a
good guy, you're of good character.

You have some sense of what's
right and real and true.

Um, and if you get bad vibes
from a guy, let's-" You know?

Let's trust that.

Let's, let's assume that that's a
good read, that that's an honest read.

And by the same token, if you really
like someone, still, still verify,

but, but do the work to invite them in.

Build bonds of hospitality, right?

Uh, I think, I think, uh, hospitality
in, in the literal sense of, like,

having people over to your house and,
and looking at them in the eye and

watching their kids and interacting
with them, that's alway- also gonna

be just, just become really important.

Um, so, uh, if you can master bits
and rhetoric, you can maintain a, you

know, a digital environment that's
suitable for humans to live in.

You're sort of the, uh, the, the,
the maintainer of the, the, the,

the habitat, if you will, right?

Um, and, and that, that would
probably be, like a, like an honorable

position at, at, at level one.

If you've, if you've mastered those
tools, you can master the content

curation, you're going to be able to
create a, a protected space for the

normies, the non-AI literate people
in your life to live and work and,

and, and not be just deluged with
crazy, you know, internet spam, right?

Um, a- and I think we're gonna need…

One, one of the things is I, I think
we're gonna need to recognize that

the people that can do that have a
duty to do that, have a responsibility

to curate their worlds, have a
responsibility to say, "Hey, guys.

If you wanna, if you wanna be
here, the… We are a space that

doesn't, uh, that doesn't allow
certain types of be- of behavior.

We are a space that says, um, we have
opinions on what reality is, and you

don't get to just sort of hash out."
I mean, now, if somebody comes in and

they need to kinda, like, you know,
be deconditioned or whatever, right?

'Cause they, they've been in a
cult, they've been gaslighted.

Hey, you know, have, have that, but
don't let that affect the group.

Don't let, you know… Don't, don't have
a, a situation where people can get, um,

you know, where someone can just spend a
million dollars on an ad campaign or on

a, some kind of influencer campaign, and
suddenly all of your people are getting

hit with, with lies that, that, that
distract them, that make them go sideways.

I really think that we're gonna get
to the point where it's like, hey, I

just kinda wanna live in the shadow
of somebody that is doing the work

to figure out what's real, and their
AI kind of sends out directives for

what, what narratives, what, what, what
lo- thought lines to just say, "No,

we're not gonna let this in," right?

'Cause you're not gonna be able to
tell what's real and what's not real.

You're gonna have to j- basically
depend on, on, on a curated set

of people that are, that are,
that are doing the work there.

Okay?

So that's level one.

Uh, so level two, uh, we, we might
put toget- put out a, another fork.

You might do manufacturing
or farming, right?

Agriculture.

So manufacturing is when you apply your
skill to the physical environment, right?

Controlling robots on a
manufacturing floor or some other,

you know, bounded environment.

Um, this path is more long-term.

It takes more capital.

It shows how you have handled efficiency.

Uh, I think one of the interesting things
about manufacturing, uh, you know, in

these bounded systems is you probably can
actually get the human out of the loop.

Right?

If you have the same robots and you
have the same box and you're producing

the same thing consistently, right?

Then until you need to change that, you
probably can develop an AI system that

can just run it while you're gone, right?

I mean, one of the, one of the
questions will be, I mean, will, will

humans be involved in manufacturing,
like, at all, aside from sending

in, "Hey, we want new things."

So you have product development.

But once the product has been developed,
um, it's… I think there's a very

real world where in 10, 20 years,
really the only place that humans get

directly involved is, uh, obviously
if something goes wrong, but to kind

of more at the financial level, making
bets, saying, "Hey, we think demand

is gonna go this way or that way."

I think that's a very real possibility.

The other level too is, is farming, right?

Robots moving across open
country, autonomous tractors,

the agricultural lasers we
talked about in earlier episodes,

defensive drone swarms over fields.

I know parenthetically that there's a
lot of overlap, between, drones defending

a field from flies or mosquitoes or,
other kind of, bugs and pests and

larger, more military applications,
This path is more short-term.

You get faster feedback.

It shows how well you
handle living creatures.

You'll be able to kind of track
how stressed are the cows every

time the drone buzzes over, right?

Um, and, and it's unclear how
high capital this will be.

Um, a- and I think there's… The,
the early indications are that

this will be easier to do other
places in the United States, right?

Latin America appears to be the place
where we're gonna work this out.

That's where Peter Thiel is, is going.

He's trialing his, his early AI,
you know, ventures on this topic in,

um, in Paraguay, I believe, um, or
somewhere else in Latin America, right?

So when you've done that level two
work, you could probably start to

design, you know, AI workflows.

And again, I think there…
that means understanding where

the human in the loop goes.

So I think a lot of what command
is, is knowing where having a human

in the loop to make a decision on
trained instinct dramatically reduces

the token cost and, and the time
even of the most capable models.

Um, so that, that, that's
probably where, where I, I would

say level two kinda tops out.

Then we get to level three, which is
your, your, your public service, your

medical, your police, your military.

Um, you're applying the core skills from
lower levels to situations involving

people, some degree of violence, surgical
and casualty evacuation robotics,

protective drone work, I mean, in, in
the military context, drone defense and,

and, and then drone attack obviously.

Um- Now interestingly, at that level you
still have to persuade people and defend

decisions, so rhetoric comes back around.

And, and I think this, this is the
step that's gonna require some level

of public or official gatekeeping.

It, it, it, it carries and it
should carry, um, a, a pretty heavy

character test because human lives
are at stake with every decision.

Um, and then when you master that
level, you're, you're really talking

about somebody who has … who is an AI
paladin, who has an enormous amount of

skill, an enormous amount of e- economic
impact, and, and I think he's gonna

be qualified for h- for high office.

Uh, probably before, um, he, he does
that, you're, you're gonna need to, um,

you're gonna need to give him charge.

This … If you, if you have somebody
that's gonna be defending critical

infrastructure, nuclear power plants,
um, you know, water infrastructure,

all of that stuff, you're gonna need
somebody who has incredible skill in all

of these underlying technologies, and,
and who is motivated, who is trustworthy,

who has a stake in the system.

Um, you know, this is, this is somebody
who is e- equivalent to the consul,

somebody who's climbed and now commands,
um, you know, the, the, the, the

core technologies of the day, right?

A- another thing that I think that the
AI paladins will, will be necessary

for is hunting those bad actors, right?

I, I said earlier, things are
going to get dystopian if we do

not update our social structures
for the powers we have released.

Um, and, and again, I
think that's gonna happen.

And I think it'll happen not necessarily
on a society-wide level, but I think

it will happen on a corporate level,
on a city level, on a community level.

There will be certain, you know, countries
that really do, certain states, right?

Uh, we just, you know, heard, heard
today there's a town in Illinois that

has, has declared itself to be a, a
Flock safety town, which basically

means as near as they can make it, every
square inch of their town is under Flock

surveillance, right, that's outside.

Uh, you know, public property, private
property, like the, the, the, the

level of intrusion, uh, that they are
proclaiming to the whole world that

they have of these Flock cameras, uh,
I mean, I, it's not attractive to me.

I wouldn't live there.

But we'll, we'll see kind of
what that, what that leads to.

And again, I, I think it'll lead
to some really bad outcomes.

I think there's gonna be… The- people
do not understand that they are creating

a throne upon which a, an actual human
person with real interests and real

desires which will not always align
with you is gonna sit, and they're gonna

make decisions to benefit them, right?

And if you're on the wrong
side of them, um, they're…

That- that's gonna become
really hard and really bad.

And if you're on the right side of them,
you're probably gonna be able to get away.

There's gonna be enormous corruption.

These, these guys are going to help
their friends and, uh, and hurt

their enemies and, and, uh, if you're
not prepared for that, if you…

A- again, there's, there's
nothing inherently dystopian

about these technologies.

It doesn't have to be used this way.

You could have someone that we say, "Hey,
let's have a serious, you know, social

conversation about what kind of person
we want to sit in that throne." And if

we spent five, 10 years, uh, earnestly
seeking that person, I'm very confident

we could figure out who that guy would
be, reward him appropriately, set up

proper accountability structures, and
the system would work pretty well, okay?

But that's not what we're gonna do,
so you're gonna get some really bad

outcomes, and then there's gonna
be backlash against the technology.

It's gonna kind of go back and forth.

And my prediction is that what's gonna
solve that is these high-level actors

that, that master the technology,
that really know what's going on,

um, and they're able to come in
and, and deal with the problem.

They're able to come into a corporation
and figure out, hey, somebody is

using AI to hack the system to get
themselves promoted higher faster

than they should, to blackmail people.

Uh, some- somebody in Flock cameras is
blackmailing the mayor or the, the, the,

the, the police chief of the town because
he has evidence on camera of their affairs

or their, you know, whatever, whatever
it is that these people are doing, right?

Um- And so you're gonna need an AI paladin
who has the technical skill to come

in, beat whatever encryption, undo, you
know, anything AI can do, AI can undo.

Um, go in, say, "Okay, this is really
what we think happened," and deal with it.

Um, so I think, I think that- that's
what you'll need before you give a

man charge of defending the critical
infrastructure of such a place.

And as soon as we have a group of people
like that, I think that they're gonna

immediately, if they do well, if they
save a town or, or a company when that

town had kind of gone culty and dystopian,
those guys are gonna be incredibly

politically powerful and influential.

A- and that's a good thing,
That's actually what we want.

So as I wind up here, you know,
order is a cultural choice.

I gave these, these different levels,
these alternate pathways that…

Because I think that's probably
what it'll look like initially.

I think long term, the, the culture
will probably pick one idealized order

of the levels, and that order, you
know, will be related to what the,

the, the, the polity values, right?

Rome's military first order declared
Rome a city of soldiers, right?

Uh, the Virginia cursus honorum was about
producing farmers, high quality farmers.

The British gentry was about
producing financiers, um, of a sort.

Uh, so, so we're still kind of
figuring out what it is that, that

we care about, um, on, on this level.

but that's, that's where,
that's where I think it'll go.

Um, I, I also wanna, again, emphasize,
you know, both Rome and Virginia placed

a very high premium on leaders who could
effectively manage lower IQ people in

military and agricultural environments.

Um, our culture these last 100, 150 years
has massively downplayed that skill set.

You'll talk to people who don't think
it's even possible to really model, for a

high IQ person to model low IQ behavior.

Um, uh, you know, I, I was
trained by my grandfather.

Um, and I… It, it's, it's just a skill.

It's like any other.

You can develop it.

You can get good at it.

Um, if you're high IQ, you are
perfectly capable of developing mental

models for how low IQ people think,
what they want, how to motivate them

effectively, how to work with them well.

It's not that difficult, guys.

so it's entirely possible that we
will and, and probably we should, uh,

put, put something that, that, that
reintroduces that back as a feeder

game right at the beginning of, of
a cursus honorum of the AI future.

Um, now I'll, I'll acknowledge
we have AI models and that might

substitute in part kind of the way the
medieval cultures judged a house by

the horses that it bred and trained.

Um, but I still suspect that dealing with
people who are not AI capable, who are

not… who, who need to be managed by
AI rather than are capable of managing

AI, I think that'll be a core skill.

Um, I think that'll be something
that we're s- we're, we're doing

for the foreseeable future, right?

Um, I also think that financial
ability will, will matter

alongside the skill domains.

I, I didn't put that in, uh, uh, in par-
in the direct ladder because I think

that AI and cryptocurrency will reinforce
each other and they'll create something

that's materially new and I don't really
know what that'll look like, right?

We're, we're seeing this with the
Zero Human company which uses, you

know, jewels e- effectively as a
currency for paying its AI agents.

Um, it's entirely possible
that we will require people to

build their own AI economies.

You know, tuning individual agents
and system-wide incentives until

a stable economy emerges, right?

People have done that
in, in, in video games.

I think, um, you know,
RuneQuest famously at one point.

Uh, the, the… one of the chief coders
in RuneQuest, um, won an award and, and I

think a knighthood or something like that
from the British, uh, the British Crown

for demonstrating that you could with
20,000 people create a stable currency.

I heard him talk about it on a podcast
once and, and, and he had this hilarious

comment about something to the effect
of, you know, "I, I, uh, I went and

took this knighthood that I'd gotten
and I went and tried to talk to all

the economists that advi- advise
politicians on how you could create

stable currencies and after about a year
I figured out that no one in politics was

interested in creating stable currencies

Uh, which is, which is exactly the
problem that we're facing, right?

But I think that, you know, the fact
that that was a thing that a guy… I

mean, he basically just tried to do that.

His government asked him, "Hey, could
you try and make a stable currency

that you don't have to constantly
adjust?" Um, and so he tried.

He was a talented software developer,
you know, a tier one software developer

but he wasn't, he wasn't a superhuman
and he was able to do that with, uh,

with, uh, with his, his video game
that he was, that he was running.

Um, so it's entirely possible.

We'll just… that'll be one of
the things you're required to do.

Like, that'll be your, your
standard high school project.

You just gotta do this.

Uh, and, you know, and again, I
don't know what that'll look like

or what the specific technology will
be so I don't know kind of where

in the, in the ranks that'll occur.

, But competitions between those economies
and then, you know, maybe even joining

the real financial markets at a
certain point might become some kind of

coming of age ceremony or some marker
that you've achieved a certain tier.

Again, I, I, so as I said earlier, I think
manufacturing may become so commoditized

that in 20 years there really aren't any
humans in the loop in the direct of, uh,

manufacturing economy, and it's all we're
just kind of dealing with the financial

incentives at a layer above that.

One of the points that, that I do wanna
emphasize before we wind up is I think

we, we need to understand that in the
AI era, you will constantly be producing

artifacts, digital creations that can
live on someone's hardware, right?

Um, and those, those artifacts
will be y- a, a incredible evidence

of your skill at a certain thing,
at a certain point in time.

And in all probability, unless you
go to a, to great lengths to, like,

wipe that away, uh, those things
are not, they're not gonna go away.

They're, they're gonna
be on someone's computer.

Someone will be able to query them.

Someone is gonna be able to go
back and, and expect, you know, the

quality of the leaf, right, for you.

Which, which, which again, it… There,
there's certainly a very dystopian

way, um, for that to work its way out,
but there's also a very virtuous, a

very wonderful way, a very, a very
pro-social way if you work with it.

If you say, you know, "We're, we're
gonna have reasonable… You know, we're

gonna have some kind of household AI
so my core data gets sectioned off and

held in a, in a reasonably secure way
so that people getting access to my body

of work don't get access to, you know,
my teenage diaries or whatever," right?

Um, but people are able to, to, to, to
make queries of, of an AI that knows

basically everything about me and, and,
you know, we can develop protocols around,

you know, zero knowledge proofs and h-
way to get answers to yes or no questions

without revealing any of the data that
underlies them, all of that stuff.

Um, I think that there, there's a world,
if we plan for, if we say, "This is a

new situation, this is a…" And now it's
not an entirely new situation, right?

It's very, very similar to certain things
we've done in the past, but this is

different from what we've been doing,
and so we need new social management

systems to deal with that, right?

Another implication is testing as
we understand it is gonna become

obsolete, and its replacement is gonna
become ubiquitous and cheap, right?

Any AI in its interactions with you will
very quickly determine your IQ level and,

uh, and again, a, your profile, list of
interest, aptitudes, personality profiles.

AIs that do not do that will not
be able to function, and again,

someone is going to have access,
root level access to those chat logs.

Um, and if that person is someone that
you know, you like, you trust, that has

your c- best interest at heart, that
has some kind of what I would call a

covenantal relationship with you, this
could be an incredibly good thing for you.

If that person is not bound by any
kind of custom or laws or, or sense of

morality, won't be a good thing for you.

Okay?

So we, we have to take that seriously.

But, um, again, we know how to do this.

We… Th- this is effectively a problem of
grammar, rhetoric, and leadership, right?

Code, content, and command, and
we've been doing this in the West

for a very long time, um, and, and,
and we know how to do it, okay?

So, uh, whoops.

So last time we asked what,
what One Prime is worth.

Uh, so today I kinda went through what
I, what I, the, what I think will be

the series of iterative games that can
produce paladins with the high character

that those offices require or, or, you
know, something similar to that, right?

Now, I, I think the credential
systems will, will, will stick around.

They will keep talking, um, but
I don't think they can deliver.

I think that more and more people are,
are s- realizing that they can't deliver.

Again, we are creating thrones.

Someone is going to sit on those thrones
and, and, and I want you all to think

about how do we work this, right?

How do we work this?

Um, how do we sto- sit back
and say, "Okay, the democratic

assumptions are not gonna work.

The, the credentialing
systems are not gonna work.

We need to, to say, 'We're not
gonna, we're not gonna send our

kids off to, uh, university.

We are going to build
from a local perspective.

We are going to raise people where
they're from, and, and we're gonna

maintain relationships so that as
they grow, as they, as they develop,

um, we, we, we keep the reputation.

We keep going back to
what is your foundation?

Where do you come from?

Have you been able to demonstrate, as you
grow and develop in skill, have you been

able to demonstrate consistent character,
and are you, uh, are you integrated with

a series of, of things so that it will
matter if your reputation is ruined?'"

Right?

Um, th- the answer to that is, is that
that's what the cursus honorum is, right?

It's this series of games that
you grow into, and you get higher

and higher, and at every level,
you're demonstrating character.

That's the primary thing you're doing.

So, That concludes, my prepared remarks,
so we are going to enter the Q&A.

Thank you, everybody, for, for sticking
with me for a little bit longer.