daveshap

January Patreon Townhall (Formerly Masterclass) - Zoom info for ALL paying members!

Added 2024-01-03 14:35:24 +0000 UTC

Hey folks, this post contains the meeting information for the monthly Townhall. I used to host this on Discord, but it frequently gave us trouble (folks couldn't hear, etc). Plus there are limitations. However, with Zoom Webinars, we have a nicer, cleaner, and more standardized platform. On top of that, this has new features, such as live Q&A polls so you can all propose questions and then the crowd can vote on which questions they want answered. This format has worked really well and created a lot of engagement.

NOTE: Zoom Webinar info at the bottom of this post!

Brief Update: Editors, Patreon Tiers, Masterclass

As you might have seen posted in the sticky, I've recently flattened my Patreon tiers to a one-size-fits-all approach with the Universal Access tier. After the next Townhall I'll make all prior Masterclass sessions visible to all paying members. A quick recap about why I made this decision, after gathering feedback from all of you:

Equality and fairness - we collectively agreed that we don't like paywalls and gatekeeping (within reason) and that it would just be easier and more fair to create a more uniform subscription model.
Scalability and sustainability - I am a one man shop so managing four channels plus a bunch of exclusive paywalled content and a community is just... well it's just too much lol. Really what everyone wants is for me to spend more time in front of the camera so I can create more content (hence why I've hired editors!) - thus simplifying Patreon is in service to optimizing for "Dave in front of the camera more!"

Which by the way is working. I spend about an hour or two in front of the camera almost all workdays now and I have about 15 videos in the editor's queue. I will probably have to hire more editors to keep up with me. I'm basically adopting Simon Whistler's model (you probably know him from Today I Found Out and Warographics channels, he has like 8 channels). He's a great guy and I had the pleasure to chat with him back when I was still on Twitter. Anyways, his advice has now been implemented.

The only reason I can afford this many editors is because of you guys, and honestly some of my best videos have come from your questions. So please keep it coming! I do have an agenda of my own (research Post-Labor Economics, etc) but I'm also here for you. It's a very symbiotic relationship.

Economic Agency in Post-Labor Economics

I've been reading a ton (Ray Dalio, John Mearsheimer, Thomas Sowell) to get a better understanding of economics, macroeconomics, and geopolitics. We're hitting a major inflection point in the history of humanity. I recently made another post sharing an article I wrote on the topic, but here's a TLDR:

Economic Agency

The number one thing that people need is economic agency. Economic agency is defined loosely as:

The right to make autonomous financial decisions (what to purchase)
The right to participate in business and markets
The right to seek employment and exchange labor for money
The right to trade goods and services for money (or vice versa)
The right to influence monetary and fiscal policy (e.g. democratic voting, council hearings, etc)

This is basically the cornerstone of neoliberalism e.g. "Everyone's money is equally green and everyone's labor is equally valid." This is, perhaps, the most egalitarian and meritocratic aspect of neoliberalism. The darkside of this, though, is that your liberty is directly tied to your wallet. You're only as free as your dollar will take you.

If AI permanently destroys the need for human labor, this drastically destroys a ton of economic agency. For most people, their career is the bedrock of their economic agency! So the question arises: how do we shore up economic agency in the age of AGI? Sure, UBI at the local, state, and federal level can help. Just giving people money might work. But, as many of you have pointed out, then you're totally beholden to the government which gives them too much power over you.

The thinkers I've been reading point out that everything comes down to power structures, and so in order to create a fair, sustainable environment, you need the right power structure and incentive structure. So that means private ownership combined with structural changes in the business and government landscape (power to the people, basically).

I haven't quite worked out the solutions here but at least I've articulated the problem and the goal. The new social contract is starting to come into focus. There are, I think, three primary pillars of this new social contract:

Decentralized private ownership (distinct from communism and socialism, as these are not run by the state, but at least must be enforced or regulated by the state) - basically more trusts and co-ops.
Stakeholder capitalism (which seems to work)
Redistribution (UBI, UBS, etc)

Why Economic Agency Must be Solved

Many of you, and other commenters have asked the question: If everyone loses their job, how will they pay for anything even if AI creates a bunch of goods and services? This is the crux of it. The entire economy is predicated on consumer spending. If consumers have no money, the economy grinds to a halt. It's that simple. Through several centuries of economic theory and policy, the primary engine of the economy is the demands of individual humans.

During the pandemic, we tried direct injection via stimulus checks, which I view as a sort of prototype UBI. While it worked a bit, and was certainly a relief to many, it was incredibly expensive and required the printing of a lot of money, which is simply not sustainable in the long run.

So if jobs are going away and printing money doesn't work, what then? If AI is going to generate trillions of dollars, how do we ensure that everyone has a stake in it? Certainly we can tax the AI companies, data centers, and Big Tech, but that still gives the government too much power and influence, which is a recipe for corruption and skimming.

What if you could invest in every AGI data center directly, though? Just an idea... What if YOU could directly skim off the profits of Big Tech by owning the means of production (AI)?

If we don't solve economic agency in a post-labor world, we're in for a catastrophic tailspin that will necessitate civil war (or worse) and honestly that is the biggest source of p(doom) for me. In all my experiments, AI is easy to align. I know, people call me a charlatan and worse for saying that, but compared to aligning humans, I think it's safe to say that AI is the easy part!

Here's what happens (back of the napkin) if we DON'T solve economic agency in PLE:

First, salaries and wages drop as AI takes more jobs.
Second, credit and debt crunches happen (foreclosures, credit card bills, and loans get called). This is due to lower aggregate consumer demand.
Third, this decreases all spending across the board, which seizes up capital markets and big business (trickle down theory is a bitch when it cuts both ways).
Fourth, this decreased credit and spending across the board causes even more job losses (and thus less wages).
Fifth, this vicious cycles causes all the engines of productivity to switch off (farmers stop harvesting because there's no money to finance each season, so food supply drops, for instance).
Sixth, hunger ramps up and the government tries what the government always tries (purchasing directly, price controls, etc, and none of it really works, and usually makes the problem worse).
Seventh, with no jobs and no food, we're left with very few options...

Radical Revolution vs Incremental Change

Now, many people have radical ideas, such as fundamentally restructuring all of society and the economy. The reason that I don't like that is because there has never been a radical restructuring of society without significant bloodshed and economic destruction. So, under my "pragmatic progressive" banner, I am advocating for incremental change. The new social contract I've outlined above might only last 10 to 50 years until we transition to the next phase. By no means is the hybrid model of capitalism/socialism the be-all-end-all final form.

As Ray Dalio put it, the ONLY force of nature is evolution. Economies evolve, nations evolve, religions evolve, cultures evolve, businesses evolve. But, evolution doesn't happen all at once by burning everything down and rising from the ashes like a phoenix. Evolution happens when selective pressure cranks up and forces many incremental changes, as we are about to see.

I just had an amazing Systems Thinking interview with a brilliant engineer that gave me a lot to think about, which will come out on my Systems Thinking channel in a few weeks. We talked about blockchain, crypto, DAOs, economics, incentive structures, and AI. I'm really looking forward to getting this video out.

Now, in order to avoid the above scenario, we need something in place before it gets bad. We need to start transitioning to post-labor ASAP. If we DON'T stick the landing of this transition, we're going to have radical revolution whether we like it or not.

Now, with no further ado, here's the Zoom Webinar info: