The Times When Paranoia Fueled Technological Advancement

over believing in conspiracy theory. Alright. This is Dalton plus Michael and today we're gonna talk about conspiracy theories. And I have to be honest and this might be counterintuitive or it might not be. Dalton is the right person to talk to about conspiracy theories. This is gonna be an interesting conversation. Alright. So here's the frame that we wanna take.

I will be making the point that at the extreme, conspiracy theories were responsible for a lot of the most important innovations over the last fifty to seventy five years. And I'm gonna use the term conspiracy theories. Dalton Yeah. You have a slightly different angle. I think my take is.

paranoid thinking is different than conspiracy theories because there is a kernel of truth there. Versus a true conspiracy theory, there's really not much there versus a kernel of realness behind it. So this is a We have a difference of opinion. We have a difference of opinion. Maybe we're arguing semantics.

I think the best conspiracy theories can have need there needs to be a little something to grab ahold So.

we were kind of going through some of the biggest innovations. Right? So we'll start with, the Internet and space and we would both agree that like Fear the Russians. Yeah. Big drivers.

Yeah. You can research those. You can Google those. But basically, the original version of the Internet, I believe, was called ARPANET, was funded by DARPA, which is a defense thing. And the idea was if we got bombed or cities were blown up by nuclear bombs, the internet would still work because you could route around any city that was blown up. That was Yep.

That was the original funding for ARPANET. Yep. Before we got the internet.

Everyone understands why we have rockets. They are great deliverers of, nuclear weapons. What's interesting about this one in my mind is that I'm sure there were people who either believed or who strongly advocated, the idea that the Russians were gonna nuke us any day. Like, any day you wake up is a day you could get nuked.

And I feel as though that level of conspiracy theory paranoia was used to kind of motivate these industries into happening. Yep. Regardless of how like if we were to do the math in hindsight what the real odds were of getting nuked any individual day during the fifties. There's probably a thousand YouTube videos about that. Literally. I don't know.

We don't Well, and they're gonna probably be in the related after this video. Don't go down the rabbit hole. Yeah. Alright. Next one, crypto. This is a big one where,.

you know, you can't trust the government and you can't trust money. Yeah. I mean, when the original Bitcoin white paper came out and the stuff that Satoshi was talking about, it was very directly a reaction to the bank ballots in 02/2008, the financial crisis. Yeah.

And I think there is it was already an existing thought, but the idea that the Federal Reserve would just dilute the USD until it's worthless, and we'd have hyperinflation, and all this other bad stuff would happen. Yeah. And cryptocurrency is the solution to the government's destroying humanity or whatever. And in my mind,.

the conspiracy theory there was just like, you could wake up tomorrow, and your money in the bank is worthless. Yep. The banks all fail. Yeah. It's just the financial system is done. Yeah. And you're gonna look like a fucking idiot for holding USD. Right?

And I think that, once again, I think we can look back and basically say the odds of that happening on any day were actually pretty low. But this pretty incredible thing was invented. Yep. You know? Which is useful. Which is useful. Yeah. And it's still probably going to be even more useful in the future.

Another fun one, you know, clean energy. Clean Energy Electric Vehicles, you know, there is a group of people out there that believe like the earth will die in a hundred years if we don't solve this energy problem. Yes. And they are extreme advocates. And what's interesting about this is that they're extremely good at advocating inside of government as well.

Like government funds a lot of this stuff. The industry is also very good at advocating for this. And so another example of like, hey, we're afraid of the earth dying. Here's an industry.

Let's not look too closely at the.

Yeah. Inputs of this industry, but industry was created. Yep. Creates a lot of value. Last one's AI. Here's the fun one. What's the underpinning.

here? You know, we were around in Silicon Valley during a lot of this boom, so we've had many in person conversations on this with Yes. People. And the argument is AGI, maybe we could think of this as some sort of AI god, superintelligence, way smarter than humans, will be created. And it is likely going to be created and controlled exclusively by Google.

And the idea was we didn't want that to happen. We could have a dystopian future where AI god is controlled by a private company. And instead there needs to be like a nonprofit or some sort of like good for the world thing that that would create AI god Yes. And use it for good Yes. And not for evil. Which you just kind of love that analogy. It's like, I'm gonna use god for good. Well, yeah.

Do want God breaks a little. Do you want Google to own God or do you want someone else? I feel like God owns God. Isn't that like how that works usually? Interesting. Interesting debate, Michael. But Investors prefer a company owned Some of you watching this might say, yeah. No.

That's exactly right, Dolls. And some of you be like, oh, he's exaggerating. AI god? Like, what? No. No. Really, guys. This is what this is actually people really believe that we're gonna get an AI god, and and they might be right.

And this is what's funny about all these things Michael's been discussing is I actually take them more seriously than him, I think. Every one of these where It's helpful for me.

The first three already hap well, guess, no. The first one already happened. Do you fear the nuke every day from Russia? I guess you don't not fear the nuke every day. I.

don't know. Don't know what I You are more paranoid. I think I am. That's fair. I just think there's a tail risk. It's not zero, man. There's not a 0% chance there isn't like an accident or like a I think the world's a better place with a balance of paranoia and Okay. Yes.

And so I I think I take all of those seriously Fair. To some extent. To some extent. Yeah. Include including the AI god one which is like, hey, if you go read all of the stuff about this, maybe. Well, I think the funny thing is is that the extreme version of AI god is similar to the other three which is like not only is this going to happen, it's like semi imminent. Yes.

And we're gonna wake up one day and if you don't prepare, like that's that's what obviously you kind of have in common Yes. Is there's like a prepper aspect Yes. Which is like, hey, here's the secret. You need to know about it Yes. And you need to prepare Today. So that when the moment happens, moment zero happens, you're positioned to like, you know, be uploaded in this the good spaceship.

You're on the you're on the list of of of nice, not naughty list. Now why are we bringing this up? I I I think that one thing is that I don't think that I was surprised that conspiracy theories have become more prominent in politics, that's certainly been the case over the last ten years, but that's also just penetrating the tech world and I think that balance is important.

And, you know, we tried to think about what's a good analogy here that we could use And and I like the one we came up with which is basically like how can you tell whether you are making.

bomb shelters or whether you are making rockets? Yeah. Because like some people made a lot of money selling bomb shelters in the Yes. That was a business and a lot of people have them. Yes.

And some people helped invent the precursors to the landing reusable rockets that's going to make a space industry that can benefit humanity. Yes. And you know, both people had productive energy and those energies were directed in two completely different areas. Yep. How can you tell? Like what advice would you give a founder to make sure that they're on the right side of that balance?

Just to be aware of.

what grift is and what it isn't. In all these examples Yeah. Grifters attach themselves to all of these things and use it a way to get rich from schmucks. Basically convince people, oh, I have this new secret thing Yes. And grifted it because it's a popular thing and you can prey on paranoid people.

People that are inclined to leaving conspiracy theories are usually pretty easy to convince of other stuff.

You know, was thinking about this. One sign of a grifter is how fast you can monetize. Grifters can always monetize way faster. Like Yep. You start making rockets, you don't get SpaceX in a year. Yep. Another thing that came up in the conversation before was this idea of sometimes one conspiracy theory or paranoia can be the gateway drug into all.

Yes. You know, it's like now I'm I don't There is no truth. Can't believe anything. Very hard to be productive when you're in Yeah. This is an unfortunate side effect of the Internet is sometimes people end up going down rabbit holes where you start off watching the History Channel about, you know, the JFK conspiracy and then you're completely fried after spending time on 4chan.

YouTube just grabs you and you can't function. You can't talk to people anymore. That's what is real. You're done. And so I think some folks, just the way their brains work or their natural disposition of this type of thinking Yes. Again, we saw this. We certainly saw this with crypto, and we're seeing this with AI, where people literally can't function as members of society anymore Yes.

Because they're so convinced that, like, this thing is about to happen, and they go into full prepper mode Yeah. And sort of want to become separatists from society.

because they're so convinced that this thing is gonna Yes. Well, I'd argue sometimes they go so far as just, like, even being destructive or non helpful because it doesn't matter. Right? It's like Yeah. If you think nothing matters, you think there's no consequences, why not be a troll? Why not shit on everything? Yeah. Like, doesn't matter.

So say conspiracy theories, paranoia, useful maybe in moderation? Yeah. Well,.

the way it can be useful is to bootstrap a movement. Yes. Yes. And what all these things have in common that we're listing, and there's other examples too, is it did energize a certain subset of people on the Internet or elsewhere Yeah. To be really into something.

And I would say a common trait amongst the people who benefited from these movements were they weren't the most radical. They weren't the dyed in the wool all the way on the extreme believer. Yeah. They were paranoid.

I think if you look at something like Bitcoin, probably the people that benefit the most were people that were nerds that were paying attention to Usenet posts, and when it launched, they just like mined Bitcoin or they bought some Bitcoin. Yep. And they otherwise kept a relatively normal life and Yes. Just kind of set on it Reasonably for a long time. Because by the way That was probably the move.

Yeah. And hedging that the US dollar is gonna go to zero? Why not take that Versus like sell the car, sell the wife, sell the kids. They're like, oh, this is an interesting thing. I'm gonna buy some of this and just not think about it and I'm gonna ignore it. The people that were really into this were probably the ones who sold. Yeah.

And so being curious about things and taking upside bets I think is a good idea. Being skeptical but not Reorienting your entire life and having it occupy all thoughts making it hard to have relationships or hold down a job because you believe in these things might.

not be the best idea. Yeah. And I think the last that I want to leave people with is that conspiracy theories drive clicks. And so what's sad and unfortunate is sometimes when you leave things in media without any controls or any kind of principles, they can go down the kind of Alex Jones road and they they can get to a dark place because it drives clicks. Yeah.

So be careful in your media consumption as well because like sometimes people are saying this stuff because they believe it. Sometimes they're saying because they know it looks good on a YouTube thumbnail. Yeah. They can sell you pills. Yeah.

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