
Changing the World Panel -- Singularity Summit 2009 -- Peter Thiel, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Aubrey de Grey
2 years ago
This panel is a discussion between venture capitalist Peter Thiel, AI researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky, and biogerontologist Aubrey de Grey on their thoughts on philanthropy, being pro-active, and changing the world for the better.
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In Wittgenstein's "red book" there is a talk on Freud. Wittgenstein lays out for his students some fundamental entanglements in the linguistic framework of Freudian theory, entanglements which make reasoning about Freudian theory from within Freudian theory undesirable. He exposes the stylistic stupidity of the logic of the theory and then, simply, he says, "Now, then -- I'm going to stop being confused and convince you to do something different."
And that's the key. You cannot dwell in confusion with other people. If you want to make a difference, you have to reach out to them; but if they are lost in the entangled linguistic frameworks of some popular consciousness, you MUST wield the thunderbolt. Aubrey de Grey wields the thunderbolt. He is going to convince you to do something different.
As Coldplay chants on their latest record, "No -- I don't want to battle from beginning to end / I don't want a cycle of recycled revenge / I don't WANNA follow death and all of his friends."
If you want to make a difference, stop being confused and convince yourself to do something different. And that's the he and the she of it.