12 Comments
Oct 21Liked by Dean W. Ball

Great piece. You might need to talk about liking the new tones of Taylor Swift’s re-recordings to get a more accessible analogy but I love the sentiment and I’m definitely going to that conference next year.

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You gotta do a voiceover of this with the 9th slowly building in the background.

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Fantastic post and prose as usual, Dean. Congrats on the fellowship!

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Thank you!

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Nice post! My quick reactions to this paragraph:

"Maybe centralizing AI development through public policy was not such a great idea, after all."

Agree, though maybe I don't know what this means

"Maybe openness trumps secrecy at least some of the time."

Agree. In fact I'd say most of the time.

"Maybe it was not so wise to attack open-source AI."

Agree. Should have made an explicit carveout in SB 1047.

"Maybe the political economy of AI regulation is trickier than you thought, and will take much more work to get right."

Disagree, for most of my intellectual life I agreed with the standard rationalist take which was that effective AI regulation was super difficult and would basically never happen in time because the government wouldn't wake up fast enough + corporations would lobby against it. I think I briefly got more optimistic in 2023 but now am going back to thinking the standard take was mostly correct.

"Maybe the empirical evidence for existential risk is not nearly as strong as the theories of a decade ago suggested."

Disagree.

"Maybe the bottlenecks to using AI to transform the world will be much more formidable than almost everyone expects, and maybe this, too, has implications for AI risks. Perhaps those bottlenecks, which are one of the major reason progress studies exists in the first place, will not magically go away just because powerful AI exists. "

Disagree. It won't be magic, but it'll seem like magic to most people. Compare to someone in 1700 saying "sure industry, science, and machinery will transform the world, but there are still bottlenecks. It'll still take weeks to steam across the Atlantic, for example. Eventually the average person won't have to do backbreaking manual labor, but we're talking thousands or even tens of thousands of years, not hundreds."

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Oct 22·edited Oct 22Author

To our points of disagreement:

1. I agree this was a standard rationalist take, but judging from the initial policy proposals we saw (1047 being actually better than many), I think it’s fair to say that the ai safety world misjudged some of the political economy issues.

2. Agree! But, it did take centuries. Even if you think it will go much faster, decades will still feel, subjectively, like a rather long time. The bottlenecks won’t disappear the day after agi, or the year after, or probably even the decade after.

(And btw, I think we need a more neutral word to describe these “bottlenecks,” because in some ways they are simply downstream of humans having individual agency and property rights and what not. Humans having houses is a “bottleneck” to data centers covering the earth—which would make some damn fine AIs!—but I don’t think it’s a bottleneck we want to unblock.)

And re: xrisk—longer thread :)

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I've been thinking along similar lines. Something I've just put into my substack (for end of October):

Encyclopedia of the Emergence

To all participants in this integrating forge (∮forge), who may be thereby participants in the formation of the Encyclopedia of the Emergence:

You are all helping to discover fragments of the emergence of Freeorder and are helping me to record bits of it in “Threads of Freeorder”. The Emergence is immense and far beyond the ability of any person or network to comprehend more than a small part. Each abstract description of the Emergence is shaped both by theory and by contact with specific instances. A process of mutual modification continuously shapes general theory and also shapes the process of discovery and description of instances.

Instances of something vaguely seeming to suggest a freeordering principle at work may be gathered based on nothing more than a sense of suspected similarity, and then in a moment of sudden (perhaps surprising) comprehension the principle that underlies the perceived unity may spring forth. Thus grows the understanding of the Emergence of Freeorder, or simply, the Emergence.

So it was with the gradual development of the name, “Enlightenment”, a process that continued and continues long after the time of the events that underlay growing abstract comprehension of something that deserved a name.

The name itself appeared only late in the process, and under that name it was possible for Diderot and his companion investigators and investors to bring together an Encylopedia of the Enlightenment.

The Encyclopedia of The Emergence (of Freeorder), will not be a single work, as was that of Diderot and his associates. It will never appear as a whole, but it will be itself an emergent, as a cloud of images and ideas rising out of millions of connections among the builders of tens of thousands of forges (freeorder generators).

When we speak of “emergence” we speak of the actualization of the best in humanity, characterized by freeing imaginations, the development of critical minds, the discovery of quest serving balances among kinds of order, and thriving in competitive collaboration while leaving behind combative destructive tribalisms.

The immateriality and unboundability of the Encyclopedia of the Emergence expresses aspects of its essential nature and of the world on which it depends.

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Oct 21Liked by Dean W. Ball

So what are your top 2 or 3 recordings of the 9th, and any thoughts on Manfred Honeck's recent version in particular? When I first heard it, it seemed shockingly fast, but now I've gotten used to it and nothing else seems to capture the power and dynamism of the work.

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I got this question a few times—here are the ones I love most:

nelsons/vienna phil (2023)

harnoncourt/chamber orchestra of europe (1991)

rattle/berlin phil (2016)

chailly/gevandhausorchester (2011)

bernstein/vienna phil (1988)

gardiner/ORR (1994)

furtwangler/bayreuth (1951)

Immerseel/anima eterna (2008)

I haven’t spent much time with honeck (annoyingly, not on Apple Music afaik), but I’ve listened on YouTube once or twice and think it’s a very cool recording. Lots of opinionated stances I haven’t heard many others take. I’ll give it another listen.

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I got to sing the 9th with the SF Symphony in fall 2023, with Michael Tilson Thomas conducting for what will probably be his last time, which made it extra poignant. MTT may not be to everyone's taste, but from a musician's point of view he is a wizard of the tiny expressive gesture.

Standout bits included:

-- the bass solo, sung by Dashon Burton with extreme conviction and brilliant clarity. Having a black man in a leather jacket with a giant Afro sing that solo is arguably very much in keeping with the spirit of the piece.

-- the bit near the end where the chorus repeats "Alle Menschen, alle Menschen" etc quite quickly and then suddenly ritards on "Alle Menschen werden... (wait for it)... Bruder". MTT had us in the palm of his hand right then, and I'll never forget the intensity of the collective anticipation in that moment.

A bucket list experience, for sure.

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Speaking of Scientific Progress (my expertise), how about Rethinking science

Sciencing the rigged and corrupt scientific system for an overdue turnaround

Unless we change it, we’re doomed to the next PLANdemic. And yet, nothing has changed, only got worse!

https://scientificprogress.substack.com/p/rethinking-science

Weaponization of AI

https://scientificprogress.substack.com/p/weaponized-ai

How to turn the AI into a COVIDIOT:

https://scientificprogress.substack.com/p/how-to-turn-ai-into-a-covidiot

How to train a KILLER robot:

https://www.catholic365.com/article/25762/how-to-train-a-killer-robot.html

Dog beats AI

https://www.catholic365.com/article/26130/dog-beats-artificial-intelligence.html

What’s your best way to wake-up those who don’t want to open their eyes?

Please share your most effective wake-up strategies.

The more the awakened, the sooner this nightmare will be over!

The most effective strategy is asking about the person’s opinion on some of these topics:

Would you be interested in the story of how a father got 20 million dollars from the Government?

Or, show the video of the baby seizures:

https://scientificprogress.substack.com/p/autism-day-shall-we-celebrate-the

That usually works, especially with young couples having children.

If the person doesn’t want to discuss injections, then food is a good start:

Why is food poisoning legal?

How Rumsfeld forced the approval of Aspartame.

Artificial sweeteners, MSG, PFAS, Glyphosate ... go organic!

https://scientificprogress.substack.com/p/why-is-food-poisoning-legal

Then I’d follow with "Are you opened to see if the actual data matches your opinion?"

Then I start showing some of the shortcomings of the Pharma industry:

https://scientificprogress.substack.com/p/system-failure-ai-exposes-zero-government

Then, show that every single person on the planet should be suing Pfizer and Moderna for deliberately hiding human DNA in their vaccines, and Pfizer, for injecting an undisclosed carcinogenic monkey virus (SV40) sequence into the cell nucleus of the clueless biohacked, as officially recognized by Health Canada !!!

Didn’t like that topic? Show 10 secs in the middle of this video (who doesn’t have 10 seconds for you):

https://odysee.com/@ImpossiblyWackedOutWorld:f/WTC-7-Free-Falling:8

(caveat about the beginning: pot destroys your brain + “Raises Risk of Heart Attack and Stroke”)

9/11: two "planes", yet the third tower (WTC7) imploded, free falling on its footprint like in a controlled demolition. It was out of reach, and all 7 World Trade Center towers needed to be rebuilt, not the closer towers not belonging to World Trade Center... and the “owner” took an insurance policy for the WTC against terrorism, just months before, when no one was taking them … he didn’t show up for work precisely on 9/11 … just as his 2 grown up siblings. The inside information about the FUTURE 9/11 event helped masons make trillions by shorting the stock exchange: the records were deleted by the SEC so they wouldn't be prosecuted !!!

https://scientificprogress.substack.com/p/911-2-planes-3-towers

https://scientificprogress.substack.com/p/107-911

There's a plan to murder 95% of the global population by 2050… written on the masonic Georgia guide-stones: “Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 … ”:

https://scientificprogress.substack.com/p/depopulation-or-extermination

- J6: The false flag operation of the fake riot was planned, incited and guided by FBI mason agents, who broke into the Capitol !!! All intel agencies (CIA, FBI, NSA) were founded by masons and are run by them for their own nefarious goals.

https://scientificprogress.substack.com/p/j6-what-you-need-to-know

In 2022, the same mason-plot was copy-pasted to disband the demonstrations of millions of Brazilians against the stolen elections through the rigged voting machines owned by mason Soros:

https://scientificprogress.substack.com/p/the-2020-american-coup

https://scientificprogress.substack.com/p/dominion-over-us

Weaponization of migration to steal elections and destroy nations

https://scientificprogress.substack.com/p/weaponization-of-migration

All political parties are compromised/infiltrated.

2024 Elections: bought or stolen? Both!

https://scientificprogress.substack.com/p/2024-elections-bought-or-stolen

It's important that people share, not the article, but the information! I'm expendable. Saving the free world, is not!

Free 100 redpill movies and documentaries:

(don't miss the 1st one, 10 min at 2x, an amazing tool to start a discussion):

https://scientificprogress.substack.com/p/wake-up-videos

- At least since the 90s, vaccines are weaponized to reduce the population, for example:

1. Adding hCG to infertilize women: lab detected in 30 countries

2. Overpassing the FDA 10 ng limit to human DNA “contamination” (tampering) by 2000%, thus causing neuro-damage (autism, asperger, tics, dyslexia in 29% of kids, etc.) and childhood cancer epidemic (n.b. leukemia, non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas)

Check soundchoice.org or videos at bottom of next link:

- COVID was designed as a primer for even more lethal COVID haccines:

https://scientificprogress.substack.com/p/the-real-covid-timeline

https://scientificprogress.substack.com/p/not-vaccine-not-gene-therapy-just

https://scientificprogress.substack.com/p/what-do-bioweapons-have-to-do-with

https://scientificprogress.substack.com/p/you-are-anti-haccine

The most important impact of the COVID haccines, population-wise, was infertility. Births dropped dramatically. Yet the infertility bomb will fully explode in 20 years: a huge percentage of the babies of the haxxed pregnants and the haxxed children could be infertile. If your unhaxxed children marry haxxed ones, they will probably not have children ... just as planned: the only choice deliberately left for them will be infertile DNA-designed transhumanized babies, for an ever dependency on immoral IVF (for every IVF-born, 25 are lost or murdered), with a prohibitive cost (planned increasing prices of carbon credit).

- You’ll go nowhere and you’ll be happy:

https://scientificprogress.substack.com/p/2050-youll-go-nowhere-and-youll-be

Elon's top secret: EVs cause cancer

Go green with gasoline!

https://scientificprogress.substack.com/p/electric-vehicles-cause-cancer

- You are the carbon they want to exterminate!

1. No one denies there's man-made climate change but scientists disagree on the cause and remedies.

Prehistoric data from ice cores proves that temperature rise precedes carbon release in the atmosphere, not the other way around.

https://scientificprogress.substack.com/p/best-scientific-sources-to-debunk

2. There's proof of deliberate geoengineering to increase global temperatures and droughts and decrease albedo by dissolving clouds with satellite Electro-Magnetic Frequencies.

https://scientificprogress.substack.com/p/satattack

3. Life involves a carbon cycle. A war on carbon is a war on life, causing food scarcity, increase in food prices and famines. Decarbonization is part of the plan to exterminate 95% of us.

https://scientificprogress.substack.com/p/carbon-reparations

https://scientificprogress.substack.com/p/climate-deaths

https://scientificprogress.substack.com/p/killing-me-softly-with-green-songs

- Apart from sin-empowered demons, what is their main source of power? NOT a coincidence that the USA left dollar convertibility to gold in 1971, precisely triggering the exponential government deficit coupled with the trade deficit and inflation.

This is the Achilles’ heel of all nations: the SSS (Satanic Secret Societies such as masonry) counterfeit paper money and digital assets and launder trillions with which they buy Banks, seats in the Federal Reserve (the only private-run Central Bank in the world), political careers and parties, puppeticians, judges, listed corporations, media, healthcare corporations and organizations, universities, foundations, etc.

Taking down central banking doesn't solve the problem. Their source of money is counterfeiting, fractional reserve banking and financial unbacked instruments (e.g. derivatives, debt over debt, compound interest above real growth, etc.).

They can act as long as the majority keeps daydreaming. Their worst nightmare is that people wake up, find out all the crimes, and seek justice/revenge. They are only 8000: 1 against a million. They are very scared and know they are walking a tight rope until CBDC full digi-tatorship.

We've got a very small window of opportunity to fight or ... die (they want to murder 95% of us).

Who are The Powers That SHOULDN'T Be ?

https://scientificprogress.substack.com/p/criminal-intent

https://www.coreysdigs.com/global/who-is-they/

Weaponization of Justice

https://scientificprogress.substack.com/p/weaponization-of-justice

Illuminati David Rockefeller, finest quotes:

https://scientificprogress.substack.com/p/david-rockefeller-illuminati

Illuminati Attali, finest quotes:

https://scientificprogress.substack.com/p/attali-illuminati-finest-quotes

Confessions of ex illuminati Ronald Bernard:

https://scientificprogress.substack.com/p/confessions-of-illuminati-ronald

The way out of this mess:

The full PLAN exposed:

https://scientificprogress.substack.com/p/the-plan-revealed

16 laws we need to exit Prison Planet

https://scientificprogress.substack.com/p/laws-to-exit-planet-prison

President John Quincy Adams: “Masonry ought forever to be abolished. It is wrong - essentially wrong - a seed of evil, which can never produce any good.”

If you are a mason or know a mason, ask him to ask his 33° master to put in writing and sign it, that Lucifere is not "the great architect" (then who?). If he refuses, then he’ll know he is serving Satan: tell him to get out of masonry NOW.

Ex mason Serge Abad-Gallardo:

https://www.ncregister.com/interview/confessions-of-a-former-freemason-officer-converted-to-catholicism

https://rumble.com/v294ksc-words-from-33rd-degree-master-mason-rare-video-masons-worship-all-sorts-of-.html

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Hm. Sounds like you guys are high on your own supply. All well and good to have progress. But SV and AI are outright destroying the environment (energy) and the polity (disinformation). Maybe you should lay off the pipe for a while.

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