Advanced Superintelligence as the next level of reliance on systems the lie at the fringe of our understanding

One of the more curious concepts to emerge from the world of AI is the idea of artificial superintelligence (ASI): a system capable of generating powerful insights that may lie beyond our understanding - like a five-year-old trying to follow Einstein explaining relativity. At that point, humanity will face a fascinating dilemma: Do we trust the recommendations of an intelligence we don’t fully understand and potentially benefit enormously - or do we dismiss it and risk missing out on a better life?

In a way, this isn’t a new problem. Humanity has long depended on systems we didn’t fully comprehend. We awoke to a world of natural forces - weather, seasons, disease, the movement of game - too complex to explain, yet essential for survival. We built myths, rituals, and early sciences to navigate these mysteries, gradually improving our health, harvests, and longevity.

Later, we came to rely on governments and markets - systems no individual could fully grasp but that shaped our prosperity and freedom. And again, we developed theories—some insightful, some inadequate - to guide how best to engage with these forces, even as democracies and dictatorships alike sometimes smoothed and sometimes amplified the chaos of economic life.

There is always a cost - whether we embrace or reject the systems that exceed our understanding. One might argue that Donald Trump’s rejection of global trade is rooted less in policy than in a basic distrust of a system too complex to fully grasp. But turning away from these systems carries a price: diminished prosperity, missed opportunities, isolation. His supporters distrust what they cannot understand. And yet, much of modern life depends on precisely that - trust in systems larger than us.

In this sense, ASI may simply be the next layer in a long human tradition: benefiting from systems we do not fully comprehend. Like nature, like markets, it may become essential before it becomes fully understood. Perhaps acceptance - grounded in results rather than full explanation - isn’t a surrender, but an acceptance of the realities of an interdependent, complex world.

The Limit in an Information Economy is Attention (or why you need to act rather than react in deciding on where to focus)

In an information economy, the limit is attention. If Trump and Musk can capture the attention of the pundits on their Friday wrap up of the week and of the citizenry in their consumption of social media and news ... Americans are not talking about a budget that simultaneously- Increases the deficit by record amounts,
- While offering a huge tax cut to the richest,
- And slashes support to the poorest - many of whom are kids

Know this about the next 3.5 years of Trump's presidency: he will shamelessly, recklessly, and incessantly say and do increasingly egregious things that will outrage, amaze and - most importantly - distract the American pundits and public. You can focus on that. You can be manipulated. Or you can focus on his agenda that is like Putin's wet dream, and push your representatives to resist cashing in our future for his strange impulses, instincts and greed. Even more importantly? Spend time thinking about and arguing FOR the policies that you think will create a better future.

You need to act - rather than just react - in how to direct your attention. 

Trump and Musk - A Collision Between Two Win-Lose Forces

Trump and Musk owe their success to a few things:

1. the ability to fascinate audiences in this information age in which information is unlimited and attention is not and the reward for fascinating people is massive. (TSLA has been a good company but its price has been inflated because it is a meme stock.)
2. shamelessly willing to try anything that feeds into 1.
3. measuring success without regard for any social norms or quaint sense of morality.

The fight between them that will spill over the next while seems as likely to destroy Musk's wealth and Trump's power as it is to result in Musk ending up with Trump's power or Trump ending up with Musk's wealth.

What happens when two win-lose guys go to war? My bet is on a lose-lose outcome.

The Deadly Cost of Living Under a Dictatorship

Estimates are that Russia has hit 1 million casualties in its Ukrainian war (about 100,000 to 150,000 of those are deaths). This is one of the few "advantages" to a dictatorship: in a democracy, ruthlessly throwing this many of your men into the meat grinder of war would lead to a big backlash in public approval and pressure to negotiate peace or even your ouster from office. Given Putin can't be safely challenged within Russia, he can continue to wage a war with devastating consequences for his people with no consequence for him.

Under a dictatorship, it's not just your right to protest and speak out that are compromised. So is your right to a full and healthy life.

Ukrainians Spend Hundreds to Destroy Billion Dollar Bombers

Yesterday Ukraine made a massive drone attack on Russian bombers deep in Russia.Ian Bremmer claims that the drones used to attack cost about $300 to $400 each, as opposed to about one $BILLION each for the Russian advanced bombers Ukrainians attacked (which the Russians no longer have the military capability to build more of). This is - in the odd calculation of war budgets - a 100,000X return on investment.

So many bizarre scenarios that could come from this.

The Virtual World Includes Multitudes ... of realities

The virtual world brought with it millions of parallel experiences. It didn’t just expand our access to information - it partitioned our lives.

One person is lost in Dungeons & Dragons, another in Friends reruns, another defines their reality through three friends - each of whom sees the group differently. Another orbits a band, a Twitch stream, a Reddit thread, a symphony.

Once upon a time, America was divided into 13 colonies, later 50 states. Now, in the age of virtual immersion, the United States is divided into 335 million personal realities - each fed by its own feed, its own curated symbols, memories, and narratives.

In this world, the idea that one political ideology - left, right, libertarian, socialist, populist - can command, convince, or unify more than a sliver of these realities seems less like ambition and more like delusion.

At best, a political ideology today can annoy a majority.
Commanding consensus? That’s not just unlikely - it’s based on an outdated map of a country that no longer exists in one place at one time. Jefferson's world had borders. This world does not.

The Deceit of the Internet and the Honesty of the Library

One of the ways a library was more honest than the internet is that it showed you the truth up front: rows and rows of shelves, a vast sprawl of knowledge that made it clear you could never consume it all. You knew your limits. So you focused on the book in front of you.

The internet, by contrast, only shows you a screenful at a time, and in doing so creates a subtle illusion: that infinite knowledge is within reach, just a few more clicks away. So we scroll. And scroll. Deluded by the tidy edges of our screens, we think we’re almost there - almost caught up - while the sprawl behind those edges grows exponentially.

The library was humble. The internet is seductive.

The library told you: this is more than you can ever master - so choose wisely, and dig deep.
The internet whispers: you’re almost done - just one more link, one more scroll, one more tab.

We are drowning in an ocean of information disguised as a mirage, a manageable pool. And unless we learn to recognize the shore—real conversations, deliberate thinking, quiet presence - we risk losing ourselves in the illusion of knowing, without ever truly understanding.

The Politics of Theater and Democracy's Intermission

The information economy is about getting attention and that is mostly about theater. The Greeks invented democracy and theater about 2,500 years ago and after 250 years we Americans have apparently decided we can only choose one.

Schrödinger’s Cash

Meme in circulation:
15 years ago, a man spent 10,000 Bitcoin on 2 pizzas, worth $41 at the time. Today, that number of Bitcoin would be worth more than one billion dollars.

Of note: this remains the last transaction ever made with bitcoin.

Commentary:

I know, I know - my "of note" is a lie. But think about what’s being communicated here:

You should invest in bitcoin because it’s the currency of the future… and only a fool would ever use it as actual currency.

It’s Schrödinger’s cash:

If you never spend it, it might be worth billions.

If you do spend it, it won't be worth much.

A Brief, Almost Plausible Theory of Memes

Perhaps you’ve been told that meme comes from a variant of gene - a unit of cultural information, replicating through the human hive mind the way genes carry DNA. That’s part of it.

Meme shares an etymology with mesmerize. They connect with our subconscious mind, the part that puts aside skepticism and is greatly susceptible to ideas that cozy up to our preconceptions. Memes mesmerize, hypnotize, captivate, bedazzle and affirm our priors in the most gratifying way. They are to the mind what junk food is to our gut.

Memes are partly like genes. They’re also partly like magic spells.

They don’t spread by reason - they spread like pop songs with catchy tunes, images, messages, variants on themes.

They’re less evolving ideas than mesmerizing daydreams, less reliant on a well-supported argument than a well-supported feeling, the Muzak of concepts.

The Priest and the Jester

What do the priest and the jester have in common?

Their wardrobe doesn’t let you confuse them for a member of the audience.

They both stand slightly apart.
Not because they’re better, but because they’re playing a role:
One to reveal the sacred, the other the ridiculous.
Both let you see the routine -
One as part of some profound mystery,
The other as part of some strange prank.

They don’t offer certainty, exactly.
They offer perspective.
One through reverence, the other through ridicule.
And if they’re good at what they do,
You leave the room slightly less sure of how things must be - 
And slightly more aware of how many possibilities remain.

So if this blog sometimes sounds like a sermon and sometimes like a setup for a punchline…
That’s because I’ve always felt the priest and the jester had more in common than they’re usually allowed to admit.

Crypto Fundraisers - Bake Sales Give Way to Block Chains

I’m launching my own cryptocurrency.

I'm calling it Fiat Money.

Backed by central banks. Unlike yours.

Another, targeted at fans of a particularly vivid world: "Tolkien Tokens"

• You call it crypto.
• We call it currency for a strange new world.

Whether you're bartering with hobbits, investing in elven startups, or escaping Mordor's inflationary spiral, Tolkien Tokens travel farther than fiat ever could.

Backed by myth, meme, and mild delusion.
Spendable anywhere dreams outrun reason.

Finally, as government spending continues to erode and the odd fascination with crypto continues, it is (weirdly) easy to imagine a world in which school fundraisers come in the form of issuing some odd crypto called "Baker Elementary Crypto Coin!" Crypto as the new bake sale.

“Instead of a bake sale, we’ve issued 10,000 $BKR tokens—buy now and help us replace the gym floor!”

You can almost hear the PTA meeting now:

• “Should we mint an NFT of Principal Ramirez doing the Chicken Dance at last year’s talent show?”

• “What if we offer staking rewards in the form of homework passes?”

• “Is anyone else worried that our bake sale is now subject to SEC regulation?”

Neighborhood schools could leapfrog from cookie dough to crypto wallets. It’s like merging Little House on the Blockchain with Silicon Valley.

A Man of Many Apps

He was the most literal man I knew. All of his apps were actual appliances - he just called them apps to sound contemporary. He had a rotary phone app. A radio app. A tea kettle app. A rice cooker app. A fire alarm app. A fireplace app. An easy chair app.

To be fair, his apps were - in some ways - more advanced than the ones cluttering his friends’ smartphones. “Do you have an app that can make toast?” he’d ask. “No? Well, I do.” And then he’d bring out his butter knife app and prepare the toast with a flourish.