Read further if you’re interested in learning about Evan Chu as he was on the date of this post.
Perhaps you already have your own idea of who I am, perhaps not at all. I’m going to write a little bit about how I view myself and I hope this gives you a clearer idea of who I am. I’ve chosen to present this as an interview (separated into specific sections to which you can scroll) between myself and myself due to inspiration from “Teaching to Transgress” by bell hooks, my desire to experiment with a writing framework I haven’t used before, and because I believe that I currently communicate more strongly in a conversational style as opposed to a presentational one. Action!
Introduction
EC: I’m here with today’s guest Evan Chu. Evan, I’ll start with one of my typical questions – how’s your energy today?
Evan: Well, I’d say it’s good. I’m a little unsettled-feeling, perhaps. I’ve been slightly anxious regarding my level of productivity recently – and I’m worried I might type the wrong thing here.
EC: I see, I see. Hey, thanks for sharing. And I wouldn’t worry too much about saying the wrong thing. Just let the words flow out naturally and the crew will have plenty of opportunities to fix anything egregious in post, alright? Now, just to give you and the audience a preview of the upcoming conversation, Evan, I’m looking to give you the opportunity to speak on the following subjects: your Background, your Current State, any Short-Term Plans you have, what your Desires are more broadly speaking, and, finally, any Open Questions that you have at this time in your life. Sound good?
Evan: Yeah, sounds good.
Reading time (200 words per minute)
Background: 4 minutes
Current State: 9 minutes
Short-Term Plans: 3 minutes
Desires: 5 minutes
Open Questions: 11 minutes
Total: 32 minutes
Background
EC: Excellent. So, right now we’re here in Montréal, Québec but I am told that you were born in California. Do you mind walking us through how you ended up from the Golden State to here?
Evan: No problem. Well, I was originally born to two Chinese Canadians who had moved down to California for work. I enjoyed a good childhood. I was privileged to not be deprived of food, shelter, or entertainment at any point in my youth. I was an avid reader of fiction (still am to this day), a watcher of cartoons (ditto), and I enjoyed playing with Legos which, for better or worse, did not end up becoming an adult pastime. While I remember certain details I can’t exactly picture any scenes from my childhood and the idea that I have of myself as a child is largely formed by the accounts of how I was from others. So, one of the things I often find myself saying is that I don’t remember too much of my childhood. At the same time, though, maybe my standards are too high for what counts as childhood memories. And I’m possibly overestimating the vividness of what other people are able to remember. Or… perhaps not?
EC: Perhaps not. And, so, why’d you move up to Canada? Family? Work? To get away from the politics down in the States?
[cheeky look to the audience; studio laughter edited in]
Evan: Ah, uh – sorry. Let me backtrack a bit, ’cause it wasn’t just a straight move from California to Québec. First, in middle school, I spent a year in Spain. That was really impactful – helped me learn Spanish which in turn has helped me learn French up here in Québec. Then, for high school, I ended up moving across the States to North Carolina, which is also where I attended college. In those times, I’d say that I was generally lost and pretty uncritical of my aims and also the whole, you know, “arc” of my life. I’m reading the book Atomic Habits right now – really great book, by the way – and, to borrow James Clear’s terminology, I had the double whammy of having neither outcomes nor identity acting as the foundation for healthy habits. Anyways, I didn’t really have any plans for what to do immediately coming out of college, so I ended up moving back in with my mother for a short period. I ended up learning a bit about web development to help her with managing the website of one of her initiatives during that time. And, when I heard that my uncle was getting quite a bit sicker from early on-set dementia and absent any other direction in my life, I ended up moving to Montréal to assist my extended family in giving care to my uncle.
EC: Ah – wow – sorry to hear that happened to your family. … Well, I’m glad that you were able to do that for them at least. And, now that you’re here, how’s life been for you? Are you still a caregiver?
Evan: No, not anymore. At a certain point, my uncle’s condition meant it wasn’t really feasible for him to stay with the family anymore and so he was moved to a residence. When my uncle no longer needed help in his daily routines, I ended up deciding that, while personal caregiving was suitable for my loved ones, I wasn’t suitable for the profession in general. And so… I had to look for other work. Now, at that point in my life, I was pretty into board games and roleplaying games. I went to game-related Meetups and I eventually became friends with the owner of a friendly local game store. He saw me playing solo games of Terraforming Mars in his shop and invited me to join his playing group. So, once I was no longer a caregiver, I offered my services to him and started working at Three Kings Loot. About a year into the job, COVID hit. We rolled with the punches though and, in the process, I became store manager. But, eventually, I decided I wanted to make some changes in my life and also to intentionally pursue directions that I feel contribute more to civilization. You know, there are elements of Elon Musk’s behavior that I find suspect, and I’m sure there are biases in this portrayal, but I honestly took a lot of direction and inspiration from what I consider to be a pretty good article and visual model on how the man thinks. So I left the store at the end of 2021 once I felt it was in a good spot to adapt to future challenges without my help. And so that’s where I am today: I’m looking for work and starting up some other projects – like this blog, for example.
Current State
EC: Alright. So, the current Evan of today is looking for work. How’s that going for you?
Evan: Ah, it’s going “fine.” I’ve been somewhat selective in terms of the organizations to which I’m applying, keeping in mind the words of Warren Buffett: “Go to work for whomever you admire the most.” Now, my mind isn’t anywhere near being made up in terms of whom I actually admire the most, but I have really been taking the time to look into these organizations and to stick to only applying for organizations whose meanings I could actually feel resonate with mine. I could be wrong but I think I’m producing higher-quality applications than I would have otherwise – you know, if I were operating with lower standards? So far, I’ve really just been seeking operations and operations-adjacent positions – not because I’m certain that that’s what would be best for me to do in the long term but because it’s what I can speak to strongly during interviews and I think they’re the functions in which I’ll be most effective in the short term. Based on the job descriptions I’ve been seeing, a good number of the responsibilities do reflect my experience as a store manager and I’m honestly just keen on getting the ball rolling: making immediate and meaningful contributions and building my skills and connections at the same time. Plus, like many, I’m not exactly certain where I want my career to end up so I’m in need of more information and more perspectives from others. Then I’ll be able to better evaluate my own career and steer it in the right directions. The organizations I’ve applied to so far have been Carbon180, the Centre for Effective Altruism, the Aspen Institute – Aspen Digital Program, Rethink Priorities, the Centre for the Governance of AI, the Ford Foundation, Anthropic, and Open Philanthropy. Also, I was meaning to apply to the Clean Air Task Force but the applications ended up closing for the position I was interested in and, honestly, after I saw the person they ended up hiring and how qualified they were, I’m pretty sure I would not have gotten too far in that particular recruitment process. Almost all of these opportunities were ones posted on the 80,000 Hours Job Board but I’m trying to further diversify my search process. All those positions are quite prominent and, as a result, competitive. Some people might say “Evan, have more confidence in yourself” but I’d like to think I’m just acknowledging how well-respected these organizations really are and also recognizing the caliber of the people applying themselves and trying to make the kinds of difference we both agree are positive. At any rate, I’ve had some invitations, some rejections, and, of course, some non-responses. So, yeah, to sum it all up I’d say the job search is going pretty regularly and that I believe I’ve got a decent process – and that it’s improving.
EC: It does sound like you’ve got a pretty solid game plan going on. So, you said your process is improving – how exactly is it improving?
Evan: Yeah, well, I think that it’s improving because I’m putting out more applications and going through them a bit faster. And I feel like I’m still maintaining a high quality of work in my cover letters and answers. Also, the whole process does feel a bit more manageable now that I’m more familiar with writing applications, corresponding with evaluators, speaking in interviews – all that stuff. On that note, I’ve really been helped out by friends and family that have given me some great perspectives and insights about how I can best share my strong points. … Now that you mention it, though, it’d probably be useful to block out some time to evaluate and more deeply consider how my application process is going. I’ll write that down in my calendar to tackle in the next couple of weeks. I can’t really take care of it immediately, even though it’d probably be pretty useful to do, as I’m sorta “busy.”
EC: Oh – what are you busy with? Do you have a part-time job?
Evan: No, no, nothing like that. Well… I’ve started this blog, for one. Uh, running down the list of other stuff I do every week: I like listening to a lot of different types of music; I’ll often be dancing freestyle at the same time (that’s by far my biggest hobby since I spend 10 hours, at least, on it every week); then, to improve my dancing and for general health purposes I also do a little bit of stretching and resistance training; I’ll try to journal pretty much every day in the evening; I read books, manga, and web serials; take some time to learn new stuff – previously it was Python, right now it’s this “Economics of AI” course on Coursera; I’ve been doing a little bit of volunteer work for The Center for Election Science; watch some Youtube and Netflix on occasion; watch movies with friends/family; play games with friends some times; code on the side a teensy bit; and I attend Regeneration Pollination about once a month in order to get to know people doing interesting sustainability/permaculture work.
EC: Those do sound like pretty full days. And, with all that, are you happy with how your life’s going?
Evan: In some cases – yes, in some cases – no. Many more yesses than nos compared to previous years. I think it depends on the day. I believe there are a lot of opportunities for me out there and I do have security in my life thanks to my privileged background. But with those opportunities and security also comes uncertainty. And with uncertainty, there comes a certain level of anxiety. Am I aimed correctly? Am I executing well? Am I working hard? Or am I wasting (too much) time? Am I good enough to (and for) the people around me? Am I in the right spaces and contexts? Just how blind am I, exactly, to the traits and behaviors that I’m unconsciously maintaining and are keeping me from being the person I aspire to be?
EC: Evan, you and I both know I’m not trying to be rude when I say this but we also both know that those questions and underlying doubts aren’t… really that important. They’re only worth the time and energy in pretty specific modes of thought and only up to a certain point. You seem to be pretty far away from either. Anyways, sorry for interjecting. I’m the one who’s supposed to be interviewing you and getting your thoughts. Not the other way around. Back to the topic at hand, do you have anything else you want to share with us about your current state?
Evan: Hey, no, it’s alright. Honestly, I appreciate those reassurances and it’s important for you to be able to be present in this space too. Well, as you might be able to tell from how I’ve been talking, I’m recovering from some previous low self-esteem. I’m making good progress but, sometimes, negative thoughts do pursue me still. Anyways, because of my improved self-esteem, I’m taking the time to speak to my extended family a bit more; rekindling those relationships I’ve neglected. Simultaneously, I’ve been taking the time to have good moments with people that I’ve connected with in Montréal since I’ll be moving this summer back to the States. Ah, before I forget, one critical aspect of my better mental health is that I’m following a pretty good set of protocols I’ve curated for myself from the information shared on the Huberman Lab Podcast: I immediately go outside for some sun and exercise after I wake up to get my daily cortisol kicking in, I drink a daily coffee about two hours after I wake up, I put on white noise while working or learning, I go outside in the evenings to get some more light from the setting sun which is supposed to “lock-in” my circadian rhythm and make me less sensitive to post-sunset light, and at 10 at night I’ll turn off all devices/bright overhead lights in order to encourage my body to get to bed.
EC: Hey, that’s pretty good! So, if you’re going to bed at 10, you gotta be getting up at, like, 6 or so every day, huh?
Evan: Well… I’m still working on making it permanent. I have a few slip-ups here and there with getting those devices off each night. And even when I do, I still stay up until about 11:30-midnight. But instead of doing anything online, I’m either reading physical books with some smaller room lamps or I’ll be stretching or showering. So, actually, around 8 is when I’m really getting up these days.
EC: Huh. Well, not as impressive but still good. Anyways, we’re just about wrapped up with this section but – really quickly – are there any other things that you might like people to know if they were meeting you for the first time or about how to interact with you in general?
Evan: Yeah, sure. First off, you’ll probably have to get used to some amount of puns being generated while talking to me. I love wordplay. Second, I’d like to encourage everyone to be quite frank with me. From what I can tell, I have a pretty good handle on my emotions and I know how to appreciate other people’s honest or raw perspectives. And, if I’m not actually as even-keeled or grateful as I think I am, I’m definitely interested in getting better and it’ll be a good opportunity for me to practice. Another thing about me is that I prefer getting into the details when thinking by myself or in conversations with others. And, related to that, I can sometimes be overly fixated or spend too much time focused on a given detail – that’s something I need to work on for sure. Ah, another thing about conversations with me is that I tend to listen in long stretches and then speak or type for equally long stretches, rather than listening and speaking in short bursts. Final thing: I really like getting reading recommendations from people! Especially if it’s something that will help me understand what their preferences are or their ways of understanding the world.
EC: Mmm – yeah, I certainly get a sense of that preference of yours based on what you’re presenting to others on your Re: Sources page. Going back a bit, you said that you are moving away from Montréal this summer – why is that and where are you going?
Short-Term Plans
Evan: Well, in the short term, I’m moving back to my mother’s to help her out with a couple of things. In the long term, where I’ll be after that will be pretty significantly influenced by my next position. As for why, well, I’m looking for a bit of a change in scenery while transitioning my career. Who knows, though, I might end up applying for and being offered a position at a Montréal organization. Then I’ll be moving right on back after only a short little while. For now, though, I’m looking to help my mom – take things a step at a time.
EC: Fair enough. Anything else you’re looking to put on your plate in the near future? Any other changes you’re expecting?
Evan: I will definitely be putting up some reflections on books and other impactful content that I’m consuming onto this blog. I’ll start writing the first one for Atomic Habits this weekend. I’m mostly interested in doing this so that I can try to better internalize and recall what I learned through the process of thinking about and writing about the content. Plus, then I’ll be able to refer to my own written-down thoughts at some point in the future – even if they’ve long since left my head. Another thing I’d like to spend time on – and I really need to do better to support this – is to maintain or even moderately improve the French I’ve gained here over the years. In relation to doing better at speaking with people, I’m also going to apply to the Better Arguments Ambassador Program when their Fall 2022 Cohort applications open up. I also have two near-term objectives for my coding hobby. The first is to continue to get better at Python by creating a custom profile/relationship manager which will help me better keep track of the wonderful people in my past, present, and future. My inspiration for this comes from the lovely stories of James Farley, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and many others in Dale Carnegie’s best-selling book How To Win Friends and Influence People. The second is to possibly learn the basics of Javascript. From my understanding, the language is currently pretty ubiquitous for interacting with websites. So, having some knowledge of that seems like it could be useful for my future goals. Another thing that would certainly be useful for my future would be to finally invest my money, probably with a relatively attention-free passive investment strategy (as recommended by Vanguard founder John Bogle). However, that’s also something a little difficult to do right now while I’m both “busy” and living off my savings instead of having a current source of income. So, that remains a plan for the near-ish future instead of the present. On that note, if I don’t receive a job offer within the next month or so, I am thinking of changing my career search process up a bit. I will likely apply to more traditional positions in the private and public sectors. I might also take the time to further interrogate my aptitude and personal fit for software engineering (though I’m not sure in which subfield at this time) – see if that’s a potential path forward for me.
EC: Nice. Well, it seems like you won’t be lacking for things to do in the coming months, whether you find employment or not – good luck with that, by the way. Speaking of which, what do you actually want in your life? Even if it’s the kind of thing that’s years off?
Desires
Evan: Well, I’m interested in exploring the idea of influential or educational content that is highly navigable and reader-directed – in other words, it places a high value on the reader’s time – and is furthermore developed with the intent of reaching many different potential readers by shifting according to their morals, axioms, cruxes, etc. Like… content that, while still relatively planned (as opposed to spontaneously generated), is through its structure able to somewhat simulate for the reader how a natural conversation might go with an empathetic counterpart who really pays attention to their particular opinions, concerns, viewpoints, etc. Given that I haven’t seen this style of content in abstract or in practice, I’m not sure if it already has a name or not. Since I don’t have a name for it, I’m giving it one for now; after considering several options, so far, I’m calling it “Considerate Content.” And what I’ve been telling people about the origin of this concept is that it arose from my frustration in “continuously seeing great ideas presented monotonously.” Anyways, if anybody in the audience happens to know someone that’s planning to or already working on promoting or producing this content, please speak to me – I would love to speak with them or support their work somehow.
EC: Absolutely – if I hear anything about this, you’ll be the first to know. What else have you got?
Evan: Well, I’m interested in finding a partner eventually, though I feel like I still have to work on myself quite a bit before I’m able to be the partner I want to be.
EC: Yeah, that’s a pretty natural desire. What type of partner do you want to be, then?
Evan: The best type, I guess? Sorry, I don’t really want to go into specifics here. I know I’m the one who brought it up but this topic is a little bit embarrassing. Um, to answer your question in a more general sense regarding my relationships, I hope to kinda have a Mr. Rogers vibe? I’d like to be able to truly appreciate all those that I connect with. Appreciate them for just being themselves. And I’d like to be able to express that well too – assure them that they do matter. Simply put, I’d like to be kind, including (and likely most impactfully) to myself as well.
EC: Well, I “kind” of feel like saying something sarcastic here but maybe that goes against the spirit of the thing we’ve got going on right now. Any other desires you’d like to tell us about?
Evan: Hmmm… Let’s see… Alright, here’s one, but it needs a bit of background. So, from my perspective, I think the most valuable parts of anyone’s life have nothing to do with the experiences, emotions, or thoughts that remain internal to them. Instead, it’s about the patterns and structures that we manage to produce. The ripples that we leave in the wake of our passing, not the journey of the ship. Those could be any number of things: an excellent paper written, a thriving community garden, the establishment of cheap and resource-efficient access to outer space, improvements to our governance, maybe even just a good impression or influence that our behavior has left within the minds of those we’ve encountered, and so on. So, with all that said, I want to leave behind a humanitarian legacy that includes numerous such structures.
EC: Right – and I suppose this is why you accepted this interview today. You wanted to leave behind a small pattern whose ripple will spread out? But this is something that you chose, a decision on the bearing of your own personal journey. Doesn’t that mean in your metaphor it’s just as much about the journey of the ship as the ripples? Without the ship and the movements it makes, there are no ripples.
Evan: Right, of course – the ripples produced absolutely depend on the course of the ship. I’m just saying that I think what’s actually important is the former and not the latter. And, you know, I mentioned earlier that I’m pretty uncertain in my life currently. So that’s another thing I’m looking for: to be more certain of my ship’s destination and to have a great process of charting a course for myself. Yeah. … I mean, I definitely want to understand myself better. Actually, I’m hoping to find a good therapist to sit down with once I’m more settled in the future. Ideally, we’ll investigate my blind spots together and help shape up my internal narratives. And I’d also like to understand others better too – and to communicate better with them not just verbally but also in writing, which is part of why I’m typing right now and I’m working on this blog.
EC: Evan, I’m gonna have to ask you to back away from that fourth wall and I can just pretend I didn’t see that, alright? So, it’s been good to hear about your desires so far but they’ve been a bit major, I think. Would you happen to have anything – uh – less intense that you want to do? Like visiting Paris or something?
Evan: Oh yeah, of course. In rough order of priority, I think I’d like to continue bouldering – I didn’t mention it before because I only just started and I doubt it’ll be a highly regular thing, maintain at least some plants if not a garden, go scuba diving, get better at voices/accents, and to attend a convention in a decent cosplay at least once.
Open Questions
EC: Alright, nice. Very fun stuff. We’ve just about wrapped up here so if there’s anything else you’d like to put out there, now’s about the time. For our last section, can you tell me about what sort of things you are pondering about or even just distantly curious about?
Evan: Alright, so here’s a list of some of the things which I’m most curious about: storytelling/communication of ideas, alignment/coordination problems that affect humans, employing human bias/irrationality, the design of human groups, resource use/exploitation, and, finally, how new technologies can open up new opportunities in all of those contexts. Now, I doubt I’ll do more than scratch the surface level of more than a couple of those topics, let alone all, either in the personal or professional sense but they are the sorts of things that pique my interest and tickle my brain. Would you like me to elaborate on any of them?
EC: Definitely. I’ll be asking you to elaborate on all of them. In order, I think. Now, you don’t need to really explain what storytelling is to me but can you at least tell me why you’re curious about it?
Evan: Well, I just think that narratives are extremely important. We’re always telling ourselves stories, telling each other stories. And I think it’s something that we humans have been doing for a long time and that we’re immersed in them today. My feeling is that if I want to affect the world and leave behind a nice legacy, stories can certainly be a powerful tool or lever for that aim, among others. And so, I want to make use of best practices in storytelling and to explore new ways of telling stories. Going back a bit, I think this interest of mine is rooted in my love of fictional tales from a young age. Recently, there are a good number of books, mostly mentioned in my Re: Sources, that have influenced this thinking: Man’s Search for Meaning, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, Atomic Habits, The Righteous Mind, and Never Split the Difference. Each of them either talk about the mechanisms that form the foundation for human’s attachment to stories or give strong examples of what the right stories in the right place can achieve.
EC: Alright, that makes some sort of sense. Could you share one of those strong examples, maybe?
Evan: Of course, let’s see… Well, this’ll come from what I’m currently reading, Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss and Tahl Raz. Going off memory here, there was this terrorist group in the Philippines in the early 2000s had captured a young American tourist – from a quite poor socioeconomic background, actually – and their megalomaniacal leader, Abu Sabaya, was demanding a whopping 10 million for the guy. Not only was the sum completely preposterous, it was also based on unreasonable claims – that this was a wartime mediation based on an alleged ongoing anti-Spanish colonialism conflict – but Abu Sabaya absolutely refused to be talked down from those claims. As such, negotiations didn’t really go anywhere over a long period of time and the young tourist was getting to the point of being very much at risk of death based on the whims of the terrorist leader. However, there was a critical point before the hostage’s eventual rescue in which the author’s point man for the negotiations (a local law enforcement officer who was able to communicate with the leader in Tagalog) eventually was able to assuage Abu Sabaya and successfully stall for time. He did this simply by listening attentively and completely to the Abu Sabaya’s narrative and then reiterating it back to the leader, showing that he was paying attention and understood the story that he was being presented. And, actually, that just made me think of something. So, the story before is about how the leader was able to be managed since he felt that he was heard and his vision of the world was being respected. Which goes into why I said what I’m interested in is storytelling and not just stories – the method of delivery and the human connection is very important, both in terms of outcome and just how we feel about things as a whole. How often have we heard the phrase “You’re not listening to me!” being thrown around?
EC: Well, I’d like to think that I’ve heard that less than average in my own life but, yeah, I know what you mean. And do you think you’ll use such storytelling to address your next question… “Alignment and coordination problems that affect humans”?
Evan: Well, it might be able to help – though I don’t think it’s highly like that it will be me using such storytelling. However, my intuition is that that class of problems is enormous in size and complexity. Way too big for just storytelling. A lot more work and other forms of work are needed (and is being done!) to address those by various researchers, public intellectuals, toolmakers, civil servants, etc. So, just so that we’re on the same page when talking about “alignment and coordination problems,” I’ll demonstrate with one of the more extreme and frightening cases within this area. People are worried that, in the pursuit of creating artificial intelligence with a lot of the capabilities of a human plus its own strengths (ability to self-modify, faster replication, greater processing speeds, less limited sensory capabilities, etc.), we end up unleashing a monster. A monster that can cause a lot of suffering and death if not outright extinction or, probably worse, the eternal torture of humanity. This has been termed AI alignment or the AI control problem. If there is going to be an extremely powerful agent (or even agents) created, most people would at least want to make sure that the AI either has humanity’s best interests at pretty close to the top of its priorities or that it’s controllable. If there’s instead a misunderstanding between what we think we’ve designed the system to do or what we’re requesting it do and what it actually ends up doing, then that’s an alignment problem (which affects humans). However, to me, I’m more concerned with what’s definitively going on in the here and now: the development and use of moderately powerful and potentially arcane algorithms that have a lot of influence on society and, if not designed or implemented ethically, could end up exacerbating certain negative conditions further. And, setting programs and artificial intelligence to the side, I also think that while it might be potentially disastrous if machines and humans are not aligned, it’s certainly at least a little disastrous that humans and humans (and the organizations they form) are not aligned in the present moment. There’s also a lot of division in the world, right? Between different companies, intranational political parties, countries, movements, ideologies, religions, socioeconomic groups, etc. To me, there’s a certain portion of all those separations that aren’t exactly healthy. The sum of all those unhealthy divisions, I think of as the “human alignment problem.” Which I guess is more on the “coordination” side of problems, actually, since it’s not really realistic or probably even very useful for all of us to be aligned. Better to be safely and constructively misaligned… I think. Anyways, all of those issues like political polarization, potential great power conflict, inequality, AI alignment… All of that sorta stuff is something that I’m generally curious about, despite the ludicrous complexity and scale of it all.
EC: So, you’re kind of talking about group intelligence, right?
Evan: Ah, right, yeah, that’s the term. Sure, I guess you could say I think that advancing our group intelligence, whether the group includes artificial intelligences or not, at different scales is what I find interesting. What was the next thing again?
EC: You said that employing human bias and irrationality was an open question for you.
Evan: Yes! That was it. So, keeping it short, human thinking and behavior is pretty messy and also good at certain things that maybe don’t make as much sense in certain modern-day contexts. Instead of ignoring that messiness or “specialization,” I think it’s cool to acknowledge it and maybe even try to take advantage of it, either on an individual level or more of a collective level. So, it’s kinda related to improving human group intelligence but a more specific method and it can also just be in relation to how a single person operates as well.
EC: And I imagine it’s also related to the next topic you mentioned: the design of human groups?
Evan: Yeah… Perhaps some or all of these three most recent topics could be better defined and delineated somehow… At any rate, having good design of human groups doesn’t just have to do with accounting for biases and irrationality. Things can be set up to take advantage of our logical side or of the local culture or of the physical space the group operates in or of other preexisting structures/symbols or of what the intended end goal is for the group. And then you have an effective group, with greater group intelligence, which is better able to achieve its aims which, hopefully, are good.
EC: Right – and, so, what exactly do you mean by human group?
Evan: Well, that could be pretty much anything. A thinktank, a religion, an online co-working community of effective altruists, a graphic design department, a share house, a Discord server, the state you live in, your Dungeons & Dragons group, you name it. They all can have at least one thing changed about them and that’s design. I think. I’m not a designer. Especially not of human groups. But I think it’s pretty interesting and depending on my exact responsibilities in the future if I work in operations or otherwise, I might end up being able to satisfy my curiosity a bit.
EC: Alright, calm down there, Charles Manson. Sorry, sorry. Poor taste. No, but seriously, I’d better not hear about you getting suckered into a cult and heading off to live in some isolated commune. Anyways, bringing things back to reality, what’s your interest in resource use and exploitation?
Evan: … Damn it, I’ve been trying to think of a response. But it all sounds like stuff a cultist could say. I’m not a – tch, whatever. *sigh* So. My interest in resource use and exploitation is based on Jason Hickel’s Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World. Nice entry level book into the topic, presents a compelling story. I wish the name of the movement or philosophy was something a bit sexier than “degrowth” but, whatever. I think I agree that it’s better to try to “catch up” or increase the wellbeing of developing nations and its citizens in a more intentional manner rather than just relying on “the rising tide” or the sometimes-philanthopic whims of uber-rich. And also that we shouldn’t just pursue growth for growth’s sake, since the world’s resources, diversity, networks, and ability to regenerate do have a proper limit to them. Anyways, there’s a lot of disagreements in this area on definitions, intentions, politics, rights, the potential for technology to assist… if my flag is planted, it’s planted lightly, with the ability to change after further investigation. All I can say is that I think, however we do it, it’s quite likely that we can be doing a lot better as a species in using the resources we are lucky to have access to. And that I’m interested in this topic because of all that.
EC: So, you mentioned the potential for technology to assist just now and that was also your last point – the assistance or effect, I guess, of technology on resource use, human group design, employing human irrationality, alignment/coordination problems (or increasing group intelligence), and storytelling. Care to go into that?
Evan: Well, sure, but this is one that’s most vague of all since it’s about a specific, difficult to predict aspect of each of those already vague curiosities of mine. Especially when I’m not an especially big technologist myself. Erm, the major thing that comes to mind and I think could be really cool is virtual or augmented reality in combination with all of those things. People will be able to tell their stories in different ways and maybe to previously difficult-to-reach people through those mediums. Maybe it could somehow increase empathy, parochial mentality somehow being able to be better applied to people outside of “the parish,” or make business/pleasure travel a little less necessary and frequent. Oh, and then those brain-machine interfaces too. Those could be very cool or, on the flip side, just absolutely terrible. Really powerful either way, once achievable! And I’d say those are pretty much all the random open thoughts I have at the current moment.
EC: Great, thanks for sharing all of that and I really do hope you’re able to find satisfaction with at least one of those curiosities of yours. It’s been great having you here, Evan, and thanks to the listeners at home for spending your time with us. This has been EC with the Man in the Mirror, signing off.
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