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Lex Fridman Podcast
#331 – Balaji Srinivasan: How to Fix Government, Twitter, Science, and the FDA
Oct 20, 2022
Balaji Srinivasan, an angel investor and author of "The Network State," dives into revolutionary ideas about governance and technology. He discusses the evolution of government towards 'network states' and critiques traditional regulatory systems like the FDA. Balaji explores how cryptocurrencies and digital identities can empower individuals, while also addressing the challenges of anonymity in online interactions. The conversation transcends to health care reform, advocating for personalized diagnostics and community involvement, all set against the backdrop of advancing technology.
07:53:01
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Quick takeaways
- The network state aims to create a new form of government that starts as an online community, gains diplomatic recognition, and operates in the best interest of its members.
- Occupying physical territories allows network states to foster collaboration, innovation, and synergy among community members.
- Network states can gain diplomatic recognition from pre-existing states by demonstrating collective action, economic impact, and alignment of values.
- Decentralized consensus mechanisms, like blockchain, offer potential solutions to bias and manipulation in sources like Wikipedia, enhancing knowledge credibility and transparency.
- Modernizing the FDA's drug regulation system is essential to improve drug reporting, streamline regulations, and incentivize innovation in biomedicine.
- The future of social media may involve decentralization, fragmentation, and tools for internet collaboration, enabling network states and promoting transparency in information sharing.
Deep dives
The Network State: A Highly Aligned Online Community
The network state refers to a highly aligned online community that has the capacity for collective action and crowd funds territory around the world.
Creating a New Form of Government
The network state seeks to create a new form of government that starts as an online community and eventually gains diplomatic recognition from pre-existing states.
Challenges of Current Government Systems
The current government systems lack the ability to easily and peacefully start new opt-in governments, limiting innovation and the potential for new ideas to flourish.
The Network State: Building Aligned Online Communities
The concept of the network state revolves around building highly aligned online communities capable of collective action. These communities come together through a capacity for crowdfunding and eventually move to physical territory. This process involves people living together, creating a network effect and fostering innovation that can only occur in the physical world. The network state aims to gain diplomatic recognition from pre-existing states, similar to how existing states form agreements and deals with companies and currencies. By leveraging the power of online consensus and collective action, the network state seeks to create a decentralized state-like entity that operates in the best interest of its community members.
Crowdfunding Territory: Creating Physical Presence
The network state involves communities coming together to crowd fund and occupy physical territories around the world. This allows individuals to gather and live together based on shared values, promoting collaboration and synergy. Physical presence is vital as it allows for high bandwidth interactions, fostering creativity, innovation, and a sense of belonging. By occupying and developing physical territories, network states can provide a space that aligns with the values and needs of their community members.
Diplomatic Recognition: Engaging with Existing States
While gaining diplomatic recognition from pre-existing states may seem challenging, there are examples of non-traditional agreements between sovereigns and private entities or non-state actors. Sovereigns have shown openness to working with private companies or even recognizing specific cryptocurrencies. By demonstrating the collective action, economic impact, and alignment of values, network states can establish relationships and gain diplomatic recognition from pre-existing states. This recognition can provide legitimacy and further the goals and interests of the network state and its community members.
Decentralization of Truth and Consensus Mechanisms
The decentralization of truth and consensus mechanisms, such as blockchain technology, offers a potential solution to the problems of bias and manipulation in sources like Wikipedia. By using cryptographic consensus and verifiable facts, it becomes possible to reach consensus on digital information in a decentralized manner. This allows for the creation of a library of provable facts that can be audited and validated. While some topics may still be subject to debate and interpretation, the use of decentralized consensus mechanisms can provide a more robust and trustworthy foundation for knowledge and information.
Challenges of Historical and Political Truth
The challenges of determining truth in historical and political contexts are complex and multifaceted. While some topics may have a clear and verifiable truth, others may be subject to interpretation and debate. However, the decentralized nature of consensus mechanisms can mitigate bias and provide a more transparent and auditable process for determining truth. Additionally, the availability of multiple verified sources and the possibility of auditing assertions can help verify the accuracy of information.
The Future of Truth and Decentralization
As technology and decentralized consensus mechanisms continue to evolve, the concept of truth may also evolve. While challenges in determining truth will persist, decentralized systems offer a potential path forward. The ability to verify facts and assertions through cryptographic proof and auditing can enhance the overall transparency and credibility of information. However, it is important to continue exploring and refining these systems to address potential biases and ensure a more objective and accurate representation of truth.
Decentralizing Biomedical Regulation
The current centralized regulatory system, including the FDA, hinders innovation and individual autonomy. Existing alternatives, such as right-to-try laws, lab-developed tests, and compounding pharmacies, provide some exits from FDA oversight. Decentralization and innovation in biomedicine can be achieved through improved user interfaces, like user-friendly package inserts, and leveraging new technologies such as blockchain for data transparency and reproducibility. The future of biomedical regulation should focus on individual choice, decentralized approaches, and incentivizing innovation, similar to the advancements seen in the crypto space.
Challenge Trials and the Need for Innovation
The FDA's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic exposed its bureaucratic inefficiencies and hindered prompt access to life-saving treatments and vaccines. Embracing innovative solutions like challenge trials, where healthy volunteers are exposed to pathogens after vaccination, could have expedited critical research and drug development. These unconventional approaches require changes in regulatory frameworks and a departure from harmonized global regulations. The future of biomedical regulation must prioritize data transparency, patient autonomy, and decentralized decision-making to foster innovation and access to life-saving treatments.
Pharma's Role in Regulatory Capture
The entrenched relationship between big pharma and regulatory agencies like the FDA perpetuates centralization and stifles competition from smaller innovators. Regulatory harmonization enables large pharmaceutical companies to obtain approvals in one country and export them worldwide. Escaping this centralized system requires the development of alternative regulatory pathways, such as network states and decentralized regulatory frameworks that prioritize patient choice, individual rights, and technological innovation. Decentralization and competition in the pharmaceutical industry can pave the way for safer, more accessible, and innovative treatments.
The Need for FDA Modernization
There is a need to modernize the FDA and its drug regulation system. Companies that innovate in healthcare often get acquired, limiting the impact of their innovations. FDA currently has a cumbersome system for reporting adverse drug reactions, and there is a need for a more user-friendly and modern approach. Modernizing FDA's reporting system and exploring global and crowd-sourced reporting could greatly improve the regulation of drugs.
Challenges Faced by the FDA
The FDA faces challenges in its regulatory processes, including the difficulty of enacting meaningful change within the agency. The FDA's power and influence make it hard for the FDA Commissioner to enforce reform. Additionally, the FDA's complex bureaucracy and lack of accountability hinder its ability to adapt and modernize. These challenges limit the potential for meaningful improvements in FDA regulations.
Decentralization and Empowering Individuals in Healthcare
There is a growing movement towards decentralization and empowering individuals in healthcare. Continuous diagnostics and personal health monitoring are becoming more prevalent, allowing individuals to take an active role in their own health. The fitness industry serves as a backdoor to improved healthcare by promoting preventive measures. By decentralizing control and empowering individuals, there is potential to improve the US medical system and reshape the relationship between patients and healthcare providers.
Deplatforming and the Case for it
The case for deplatforming Trump and other major figures is that they pose a threat to democracy, potentially inciting violence or organizing actions that undermine the will of the people.
Deplatforming and the Case against it
The case against deplatforming is that it sets a dangerous precedent of corporate power determining who can say what online, potentially leading to total corporate oligarchy.
Decentralization and Fragmentation
The future of social media and online platforms may involve a move towards decentralization and fragmentation, with individuals and smaller entities regaining more control and autonomy.
Decentralized Social Media and the Network State
The future of social media could include decentralized platforms that allow for directed collaborative work by large groups on the internet. This could involve tools for internet collaboration, such as operational transformation and conflict-free replicated data types. These technologies enable collaboration and coordination among large groups of users. Additionally, there could be a need for decentralized fact-checking platforms that rely on open-source knowledge graphs to provide context and determine the veracity of information. This could help address the challenge of determining truth and promote transparency in information sharing. A repositioning of social media to focus on decentralization and collaborative work could provide new possibilities for network states, where communities can crowdsource resources and collaborate across distributed networks.
The Three Forces: Woke Capital, Communist Capital, and Crypto Capital
The current landscape includes three key forces: woke capital, communist capital, and crypto capital. Woke capital represents the marriage of social justice ideology and corporate power, exerting influence on cultural and political narratives. Communist capital refers to the emergence of capitalist systems orchestrated by communist parties, such as in China, demonstrating the compatibility of communism and economic capitalism. Crypto capital, on the other hand, embodies the ideals of decentralization, individual sovereignty, and trust in cryptographic systems. These three forces showcase a unique fusion of ideological perspectives and challenge traditional political and economic paradigms.
The Evolution of Capital
The evolution of capital is marked by shifts in power and ideology. Throughout history, various groups and movements have risen to power and repositioned themselves within the capitalist system. This includes the transformation of the once-radical Republican Party into a leading economic and political force in the late 19th century. Similarly, the transition of the Democratic Party from a Southern conservative base to a champion of social justice. The recent emergence of crypto capital as a counterforce to woke and communist capital demonstrates the continuing evolution and repositioning within the capitalist landscape. These shifts demonstrate the dynamism and adaptability of capital and highlight the ongoing struggle for power and influence.
The Shift from Wokeism to Statism
The podcast discusses the shift in ideological focus from wokeism to statism. It explains how the US establishment and media are moving towards a more central and moderate position, distancing themselves from extreme positions like defunding the police. The podcast suggests that this shift is a reaction to the contradiction between the domestic propaganda of systemic racism in the US and the international propaganda of being the global champion of democracy. It predicts that the next political divide will be between authoritarians and libertarians, represented by the US establishment and cryptocurrency supporters respectively.
The Role of Crypto in Decentralization and Digital Property
The podcast highlights the transformative potential of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and the concept of decentralization. It argues that crypto provides individuals with digital property rights and grants them control over their digital assets. This decentralization has significant implications for various sectors, including finance, search, social media, messaging, operating systems, and even AR and VR technologies. The podcast also discusses the transformative impact of AI on social media and emphasizes the importance of decentralized AI to prevent centralization and biases. Furthermore, it explores the potential of AR glasses in revolutionizing social interactions and predicts the transition from broad networks to smaller, more tightly-knit communities with shared values and digital identities.
The Importance of Learning Computer Science and Statistics
In the podcast, the speaker emphasizes the importance of mastering computer science and statistics. These skills are considered the new physics of this century, as they form the foundation for understanding and navigating the digital world. With the majority of our waking hours spent looking at screens and the growing influence of artificial intelligence, having a strong background in computer science and statistics is crucial for success in various domains and industries. The speaker highlights that these skills enable individuals to analyze data, understand algorithms, and effectively contribute value to any field they choose to pursue.
Building Your Own Voice and Creating Alternatives
The podcast also explores the importance of creating one's own content and building alternatives to existing institutions. It emphasizes the need for individuals to become creators and tell their own stories, rather than relying on traditional media outlets. With advancements in technology and the rise of decentralized platforms, the speaker encourages individuals to leverage social media and crypto to build their own communities, voice their opinions, and gain monetary independence. Additionally, the speaker advocates for the creation of alternatives to various institutions, including finance, academia, media, and politics. By embracing digital sovereignty and building their own networks and communities, individuals can shape the future and establish a new kind of political leadership.
Balaji Srinivasan is an angel investor, tech founder, philosopher, and author of The Network State: How to Start a New Country. He was formerly the CTO of Coinbase and General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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EPISODE LINKS:
Balaji’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/balajis
Balaji’s Website: https://balajis.com
Books:
1. The Network State: https://thenetworkstate.com
2. Reputation and Power: https://amzn.to/3eyQiF6
3. Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: https://amzn.to/3TpuLNP
4. Seeing Like a State: https://amzn.to/3MJfvcD
Articles:
1. Bitcoin Is Civilization: https://www.commonsense.news/p/is-bitcoin-anarchy-or-civilization
2. Great Protocol Politics: https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/12/11/bitcoin-ethereum-cryptocurrency-web3-great-protocol-politics
3. Regulation, Disruption, and the Future: https://bit.ly/3CKY9Ys
4. The Measured Man: https://theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/07/the-measured-man/309018
5. Secret Document That Transformed China: https://npr.org/sections/money/2012/01/20/145360447/the-secret-document-that-transformed-china
6. Hollywood’s Missing Movies: https://reason.com/2000/06/01/hollywoods-missing-movies
7. New York Times Truth Campaign: https://adweek.com/agencyspy/droga5s-first-big-campaign-for-the-new-york-times-is-all-about-the-truth/126274
PODCAST INFO:
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Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8
RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/
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YouTube Clips: https://youtube.com/lexclips
SUPPORT & CONNECT:
– Check out the sponsors above, it’s the best way to support this podcast
– Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman
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– Medium: 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
(07:23) – Prime number maze
(33:35) – Government
(49:51) – The Network State
(59:55) – Pseudonymous economy
(1:23:41) – Exit
(1:38:23) – Building a network state
(2:26:09) – Wikipedia
(3:03:40) – Fixing science
(3:30:08) – Fixing the FDA
(5:01:16) – Longevity
(5:20:14) – Donald Trump’s ban from social media
(5:49:32) – War
(5:56:41) – Censorship
(6:10:40) – Social media
(6:26:56) – Wokeism and communism
(6:45:44) – Cryptocurrency
(7:03:17) – AI, AR, and VR
(7:15:15) – Advice for young people
(7:48:10) – Regulating logic
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