#119 – Andrew Yang on our very long-term future, and other topics most politicians won’t touch

Dec 20, 2021

Andrew Yang, a former presidential candidate and founder of the Forward Party, dives into unconventional topics often avoided by politicians. He envisions a long-term future where AI reshapes work, discussing how it may impact fulfillment and identity. Yang argues for universal basic income as a solution to job displacement and pushes for voting reforms to enhance democracy. He also explores the moral obligation to represent future generations and the importance of optimism in public discourse, addressing climate change and innovative solutions for a sustainable future.

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ANECDOTE

CNN's Future Of Show

Andrew Yang proposed a show to CNN called "The Future Of".
CNN initially liked the idea but later rejected it, fearing the future might be too negative for viewers.

INSIGHT

Utopianism’s Power

Andrew Yang and Rob Wiblin agree that more public optimism is needed.
A hopeful outlook can motivate progress and unite people around shared goals.

INSIGHT

Two-Party System’s Failure

The American political system, with its two-party structure, is set up to fail, according to Andrew Yang.
He believes this duopoly leads to polarization and prevents effective governance.

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Andrew Yang — past presidential candidate, founder of the Forward Party, and leader of the 'Yang Gang' — is kind of a big deal, but is particularly popular among listeners to The 80,000 Hours Podcast.

Maybe that's because he's willing to embrace topics most politicians stay away from, like universal basic income, term limits for members of Congress, or what might happen when AI replaces whole industries.

Links to learn more, summary and full transcript.

But even those topics are pretty vanilla compared to our usual fare on The 80,000 Hours Podcast. So we thought it’d be fun to throw Andrew some stranger or more niche questions we hadn't heard him comment on before, including:

1. What would your ideal utopia in 500 years look like?
2. Do we need more public optimism today?
3. Is positively influencing the long-term future a key moral priority of our time?
4. Should we invest far more to prevent low-probability risks?
5. Should we think of future generations as an interest group that's disenfranchised by their inability to vote?
6. The folks who worry that advanced AI is going to go off the rails and destroy us all... are they crazy, or a valuable insurance policy?
7. Will people struggle to live fulfilling lives once AI systems remove the economic need to 'work'?
8. Andrew is a huge proponent of ranked-choice voting. But what about 'approval voting' — where basically you just get to say “yea” or “nay” to every candidate that's running — which some experts prefer?
9. What would Andrew do with a billion dollars to keep the US a democracy?
10. What does Andrew think about the effective altruism community?
11. What's one thing we should do to reduce the risk of nuclear war?
12. Will Andrew's new political party get Trump elected by splitting the vote, the same way Nader got Bush elected back in 2000?

As it turns out, Rob and Andrew agree on a lot, so the episode is less a debate than a chat about ideas that aren’t mainstream yet... but might be one day. They also talk about:

• Andrew’s views on alternative meat
• Whether seniors have too much power in American society
• Andrew’s DC lobbying firm on behalf of humanity
• How the rest of the world could support the US
• The merits of 18-year term limits
• What technologies Andrew is most excited about
• How much the US should spend on foreign aid
• Persistence and prevalence of inflation in the US economy
• And plenty more

Chapters:

Rob’s intro (00:00:00)
The interview begins (00:01:38)
Andrew’s hopes for the year 2500 (00:03:10)
Tech over the next century (00:07:03)
Utopia for realists (00:10:41)
Most likely way humanity fails (00:12:43)
What Andrew would do with a billion dollars (00:14:44)
Approval voting vs. ranked-choice voting (00:19:51)
The worry that third party candidates could cause harm (00:21:12)
Investment in existential risk reduction (00:25:18)
Future generations as a disenfranchised interest group (00:30:37)
Humanity Forward (00:32:05)
Best way the rest of the world could support the US (00:37:17)
Recent advances in AI (00:39:56)
Artificial general intelligence (00:46:38)
The Windfall Clause (00:49:39)
The alignment problem (00:53:02)
18-year term limits (00:56:21)
Effective altruism and longtermism (01:00:44)
Persistence and prevalence of inflation in the US economy (01:01:25)
Downsides of policies Andrew advocates for (01:02:08)
What Andrew would have done differently with COVID (01:04:54)
Fighting for attention in the media (01:09:25)
Right ballpark level of foreign aid for the US (01:11:15)
Government science funding (01:11:58)
Nuclear weapons policy (01:15:06)
US-China relationship (01:16:20)
Human challenge trials (01:18:59)
Forecasting accuracy (01:20:17)
Upgrading public schools (01:21:41)

Producer: Keiran Harris
Audio mastering: Ben Cordell
Transcriptions: Katy Moore