#191 – Daniel Schmachtenberger: Steering Civilization Away from Self-Destruction

Daniel Schmachtenberger is a philosopher interested understanding
the rise and fall of societies and individuals. Please support this
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LINKS: Daniel's Website: https://civilizationemerging.com/ The
Consilience Project: https://consilienceproject.org/ PODCAST INFO:
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https://medium.com/@lexfridman OUTLINE: Here's the timestamps for
the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click
the timestamp to jump to that time. (00:00) - Introduction (08:05)
- Aliens and UFOs (26:50) - Collective intelligence of human
civilization (34:46) - Consciousness (46:08) - How much computation
does the human brain perform? (49:47) - Humans vs ants (57:04) -
Humans are apex predators (1:04:08) - Girard's Mimetic Theory of
Desire (1:24:05) - We can never completely understand reality
(1:27:29) - Self-terminating systems (1:37:52) - Catastrophic risk
(2:08:04) - Adding more love to the world (2:35:29) - How to build
a better world (2:52:41) - Meaning of life (3:00:23) - Death
(3:06:04) - The role of government in society (3:23:29) -
Exponential growth of technology (4:09:10) - Lessons from my father
(4:14:46) - Even suffering is filled with beauty