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The tension between the ambiguity of individuals' goals and large scale collective organization Transcript: Speaker 2 Here's the pessimistic nightmare. It is really good and healthy for human beings to live in an ambiguous environment with a pluralistic set of goals, many of which are in Kuwait. That is an essential tension with the methods of large scale collective organization. If it's true that for an organization to cohere, it needs to have clear policies so it can act coherently, then we should not expect that kind of ambiguity to survive at scale. And I think what you're describing, so I tend to think about since I'm a philosopher like what makes something constitutively coherent. And what you're describing is a kind of evolutionary process. You know, some organizations are going to be more coherent than others and some people are more interested in coherence. And the people that are more interested in following the strict outcome are going to arise in the organization. And the organizations that have clear outcomes are going to be better at achieving those outcomes. And so our world is going to be full of large organizations staffed with people that have very, very clear specifications of outcomes. And there's something inhumane and bad about that for individuals. But that's what happens when we need to organize in large scale collectives.

Paul Smaldino & C. Thi Nguyen on Problems With Value Metrics & Governance at Scale

COMPLEXITY: Physics of Life

"All truth, beauty, and progress comes from the union of the unlike": The Philosophy Behind Glen Weyl's Work Summary: My career is like the Vulcan philosophy of infinite difference and infinite combinations from Star Trek. I've been a socialist campaigner, head of the National Teenage Republican Organization, a technocratic economist, and now a figure in the web three space. I've been connected to populist political movements and the neoliberal establishment. I thrive on contradictions and trying to make something of them. Transcript: Speaker 2 I think the way I describe it is leaning on a phrase that I often use to substantively describe some of the work, which is it's drawn from Star Trek and the Vulcan philosophy of infinite Difference and infinite combinations. And it says that all truth, beauty, and progress comes from the union of the unlike. And I think that that's a good description of my career. I was a socialist campaigner before I was 10. And I was head of the National Teenage Republican Organization. A few years after that, I was a technocratic economist and total basher of the web three space. And now I'm something of a figure in that space. And I've been connected to populist political movements of various stripes and also, you know, to like the neoliberal establishment. I'm into these contradictions and to trying to make something of that.

Glen Weyl & Cris Moore on Plurality, Governance, and Decentralized Society

COMPLEXITY: Physics of Life

The danger, and you see it often in investing, is when people become too McNamara-like – so obsessed with data and so confident in their models that they leave no room for error or surprise. No room for things to be crazy, dumb, unexplainable, and to remain that way for a long time. Always asking, “Why is this happening?” and expecting there to be a rational answer. Or worse, always mistaking what happened for what you think should have happened. The ones who thrive long term are those who understand the real world is a neverending chain of absurdity, confusions, messy relationships, and imperfect people.

Does Not Compute

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