One Ring to Rule Them All

Oct 6

Recorded October 2 2023

Description

In this Frankly, Nate refers to a favorite timeless book series, “The Lord of the Rings”, to describe ‘the nine rings for mortal men’ -evolutionary behavioral tendencies that are common among humans but become counterproductive within the context of our modern culture. These traits combine to drive the growth of the Superorganism -but they are pulled forward by the ‘one ring to rule them all’, which today is the positive feedbacks of power resulting from the synergy of agricultural surplus, fossil energy, money, and now Artificial Intelligence accelerating it all. Can this out of control power dynamic be broken and redirected away from the influence of this “One Ring”? How do we strategize and prepare for the future given this cultural compulsion to amass power as we approach the Great Simplification? Can ‘wisdom’ counter intelligence?

Show Notes

00:00 - Lord of the Rings

02:27 - Humans are predators

03:03 - Dopamine and motivation

04:08 - Loss Aversion

05:45 - In-group/Out-group dynamics

06:28 - Discount Rate

07:03 - Populism, Consensus Trance

07:52 - Humans avoid uncertainty

08:49 - The Oil Drum

10:30 - Anthropocentrism

13:30 - Superorganism