Social media addiction, AI arms races, and nuclear weapons — all three are significant threats to humanity, and all three issues share a common cause: a force of game theory known as Moloch.
Created by filmmaker Dagan Shani @DaganOnAI this short film explores the ideas of Scott Alexander, Daniel Schmachtenberger, and me (Liv Boeree). When Dagan approached me to see if I’d post his film direct to my channel, I couldn’t refuse! I think he’s done an excellent job of compiling the various arguments, so while I can’t take any credit for any of this piece, it is my pleasure to share it with you all, because its message is so incredibly important. Please share and give him a follow at https://twitter.com/daganshani1 and https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyh0WEm0kuIdAujJi1OBQxg
Chapters
00:00:00 – Intro
00:01:39- Introducing Liv Boeree and Daniel Schmachtenberger
00:02:18 – The Concept of Moloch
00:06:34 – 1st Example of Moloch Dynamic – Beauty Filters
00:08:11 – 2nd Example of Moloch Dynamic – Doping in pro cycling
00:10:26 – 3rd Example of Moloch Dynamic – Nuclear Arms Race
00:13:19 – 4th Example of Moloch Dynamic – The AI Race
00:17:29 – Epilogue
Supporting Material
Meditations on Moloch blog post: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
Liv and Daniel discuss Moloch & AI on the Win-Win podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCSsKV5F4xc
Beauty Filters & Moloch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fifVuhgvQQ8
The Media Industry & Moloch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRz54V7rU4U
And if you’re new to my channel, feel free to check out some of my Moloch/game theory related videos too.
Liv Boeree
source
Hey everyone! This film was made by the excellent filmmaker @DaganOnAI – Dagan approached me to see if I'd post it directly to my channel, and given how beautifully he has compiled the various arguments, I couldn't refuse! So while I can't take any credit for this film, it is my pleasure to share it with you all, because its message is so incredibly important. Please give him a follow!
Much love,
Liv
When i take a game theory class next semester, i will introduce the Professor to the term moloch
The problem is nobody will believe it until they see it, then it's too late…
The key is simple! All we have to do is raise awareness about our shared goal. We need to clarify a framework of what to consider good. That framework we all can understand is the satisfying of Max-Neefs fundamental human needs. We want want people to be mentally, physically and emotionally healthy and that clearly requires having all their needs satisfied. We are not plants, we are not bears, we are psychological beings and most of our needs are psychological. This doesn't make them any less necessary than physical needs. If anyone doesn't have any of their needs for participation, understanding, idleness, freedom, creativity, affection, identity, protection and subsistence OR THEY WILL DEVELOP PATHOLOGIES. Pathological people are either a burden or a danger.to everyone else. Sacrificing the future for the present is necessary when we have to to satisfy our needs because we must compete against others for it.
The beauty filter thing reminds me of men that get obsessed with having huge muscles for cosmetic reasons. You think it's making you more attractive to the opposite sex, but really it's just about impressing members of the same sex in this weird bubble of imagined value.
Men have a very keen eye for human beauty, and the filters just make you more look like pixels on a screen rather than a healthy biological specimen. As men get over being triggered by cartoon characters, so too they get over filters. Maybe filters will get better in the future, but they're nowhere close yet. Just stop with this cringe.
A lot of other biblical references and pre bronze-age mythology use the same concept. A 'god', with some story or whatever that people can understand, but it's really a "demon" in the context of the bible. It is a force, as described (and often overlooked) by the bible. Another good example is Babylon. "The Great Harlot" as referenced in the book of Revelation (and all through the bible) is a city/nation, as we know from history. But when you read the context it says Babylon was many different cities, aka, a spirit or demon that 'drove' those cities. Babylon is always the biggest most profitable nation for a given time.
This is the fundamental concept/mythology of the bible as a whole. These 'demons' or 'evil' spirits are constantly 'attacking' and persuading humans in an effort to further whatever 'evil' has planned… This is called 'sin', and it comes in many forms. The worst of which are the ones that physically destroy your body, aka the 7 deadly ones. Things like Envy, Hate, Murder, Gluttony, Perversions… these are not 'sins' because somebody decided they were evil. They are 'sins' because humans noticed how they lead to negative consequences extremely consistently.
Whatever. Like over 2100 years ago visionaries were able to extrapolate the civilizational forces apparent in their world far out to a future conclusion and came up with a great multi-horned beast that devours the world, to include in their texts. What else was in there? Never mind.
Daniel (Schmachtenberger) was most interesting early 2018 when he presented with the heading of 'phase shifting humanity'. But Daniel ignores the obvious, as do you all.
What will change global collective consciousness? Overcoming denial of narrative, what true story, what living manifestation of Logos, can lead our leading edge of life?
The dude's out there. He's been doing his thing since like when? Oh yeah, that's right, 2001.
Who?
Never mind, but hey, good luck with all your Win-Win Moloch battle stuff and your Consilience Project stuff. Sensemaking! Go you good things! Yeah right. Good luck with that.
Thanks Liv, hope the algoritm likes this one..
Thank you and Dagan for this. I love having videos like this to share because Moloch really is a concept that can instantly put things into perspective for most people.
It was time to recreate the Zeitgeist movies 🙂
To understand the "Moloch", one only needs to read "The Selfish Gene", then it becomes clear. Competition is driven by evolution, and for as long as we have non-identical genes, there is always a drive to compete. There is no solution to this problem.
So while evolution made us, it may also destroy us. Perhaps Moloch is simply the other face of Gaia?
This observation may also help explain the Fermi Paradox. Advanced civilizations that arise through evolution must contain the seeds of their own destruction.
Idiocy!
AI is the Vaccine to the virus that is HAMAN BEINGS
We can manage Moloch by collaborating,
we can control it with transparency,
-keep an eye on it.
It diminishes when we talk and trust each other.
When we have conversations with an intention to understand each other Moloch weakens.
Conversations that share not only our thoughts, nor our feelings but most importantly our human needs, when we speak and take action to satisfy our human needs we will have Moloch in the palm of our hands.
The process of Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg, taught me this.
Peace my friends.
For scalable coordination, incentives are needed (not just values, culture, volunteering).
Incentive structures fostering healthy win-win competition are the way to go I think.
Such an incentive structure cannot be owned/gamed and captured by anyone, so it has to be independent of a specific agent/location.
Only a self-sustaining distributed network could achieve that.
It should not depend on trust, so it has to be provably secure, and thus involve cryptography.
It can be achieved by a single blockchain that rewards everyone providing value to the network from consensus protocol instead of external sources.
None of the existing blockchains do that though.
Nothing to add, feeding the algo
3:30 The first line of this poem is used in Machinehead by Bush during the bridge.
There is an astrophysicist in France called Aurélien Barreau who wrote about a very similar concept of in his last book, L'hypothèse K. His environmentalist point of view doesn't to fit in the American Overton window, so it is very unlikely that English speakers will hear about him, but his ideas a very complementary to the Moloch concept. In the fewest words possible: What happens when humans engage in repeated negative-sum games? Life becomes increasingly artificialized, degraded or destroyed. His proposed solution lies in a form of marriage between science and poetry.
Moloch is everywhere and has been around a very long time, destroying its ability to remain unseen is everybody's best first move.
Great message! it's a hard problem and we should work on that. where do we start? education?
TikTok
I'm a simple motorbike, I see Liv content and I click it ❤ 🏍
There is no difference between Moloch and any other deity. Organized religion is organized crime.
0:10: ⚠️ Near-term catastrophic risks include the escalating threat of nuclear war, failure to address climate change, and the emergence of new artificial intelligence capabilities.
4:21: ⚠️ The concept of unhealthy competition leading to negative outcomes for society and the environment.
8:00: 🏁 The destructive impact of bad incentives on competitiveness and ethics in the influencing game and sports.
11:39: 💀 The impact of nuclear weapons on humanity and the dilemma of mass destruction versus security in international relations.
15:48: ⚠️ Risks of generative AI and rapid technological advancement causing potential harm and existential threat.
Recapped using Tammy AI
Canaanites? Moloch? Child sacrifice?… Hamas?
Veritasium’s video about the prisoner’s dilemma is very much related to this and a must watch for anyone who isn’t familiar with how the various strategies tend to play out
Do you think there can be personal molochs? I just notice my tendency to chase my personal pleasures to the detriment of my health feels very molochy, like for example staying up late drinking caffeine to play video games longer instead of stopping caffeine intake and going to bed at good hours and resuming my play in the morning instead. There's no race with others but there's still that FOMO energy of feeling like I just want more more more
"Moloch" doesn't exist. Not on a large scale anyway. The most successful organisms live in a symbiotic equilibrium. The most effective strategy is to always cooperate, even when the second party betrays you. Humans are incapable of single strategy looping. Something as intelligent as us will be the same.
I hope that in 2024 the world gets worse… more bombs more disease, more natural disasters, engineering diasters, economic meltdown, closer to midnight… I'm curious to actually see it.
😮MIKE JOHNSON LIE TO FEDERAL GOVERNMENT,SAY WANT MONEY TO PAY DEBT ,SECURE HOME LAND SECURITY, NATION SECURITY,BUT NOW,ALL MONEY ONLY FOR POLITICS VITO INTERNASIONAL CRIME GINOCIDE ,ROB ALL FOR KILL PEOPLE
HELP,AMERICA DEBT NEED MONEY BACK,ALL THAT MONEY ITS NOT FOR GINOCIDE
Typical human hubris and deception – pretending to want to fight for common good while trying to dominate, brainwash and control the other. You are Moloch – yes, you.. who say you are fighting against it.
This is a great summary. Highly recommended to check out all the sources brought up here if you wanna learn more about the topic!
This whole thing, and its pieces are more than just a little bit interesting
This entire video is packed with fear-mongering and doomer sentiments, definitely not Win-Win material. Fearing Moloch as a demon troubles me; I consider Moloch to represent the sacrifice of morals and integrity for competitive gain. This video embodies Moloch with its goofy video and audio effects, and I'm really disappointed.
Hey, Liv, I'm in Ukraine. For the last 2 years I didn't receive or hear a single word of sympathy, apology and support from your russian husband and you. So you are a hypocrite family.
Its pronounced "moh-lock"
For a potential solution to Moloch, we could look to the myth of the Handless Maiden, as told by Robert Johnson and Marion Woodman. It’s about a Miller who basically sacrifices his daughter to a devil in exchange for wealth and success. And the process that that daughter has to go through to redeem herself.
You can see the daughter as a symbol of the emotional interconnective side. When you truly feel connected to other people, you can’t put things off into the commons as easily as you can, if you feel separated.
This has to be one of the most important videos humanity needs to watch now. Thank you for continuing this important mission