In this Thanksgiving episode of the No Pill Podcast, I reflect on Elon Musk’s recent claims about AI, humanoid robots, and a future of “universal high income,” contrasting them with Theodore Kaczynski’s observations on the human “power process,” autonomy, and the pitfalls of surrogate activities. From my perspective, Musk’s techno-utopian promises ignore economics, human nature, and the intrinsic need for meaningful work, while the hype around AI often serves as a smokescreen for corporate overhiring and layoffs rather than genuine capability. I also question the inevitability of fully autonomous cars, the real-world usefulness of current AI tools, and the scare narratives that justify regulatory boondoggles, arguing instead for truth-seeking people over “truth-seeking AI.”
I read excerpts from Kaczynski’s writings to highlight how purpose, effort, and autonomy shape fulfillment—and why a work-optional future risks boredom, demoralization, and social decay. I close by sharing personal gratitude for faith, family, community, and work during the Thanksgiving season, and invite listeners to weigh in on whether AI is truly transforming our lives—or just repackaging old technocratic dreams.
Yes, the above slop was written by AI.
[00:00:48]
Unknown:
Hello, everybody, and welcome to the No Pill Podcast episode 23, Thankfulness and Theodore Kaczynski. I'm Andrew Hoffman. I'm podcasting from Piedmont, Oklahoma, and happy thanksgiving to everyone out there. Recording this on Thanksgiving eve as it were, and looking forward to, to a few days off from work and to, you know, watching some football, but definitely wanted to get an episode out now. It's been a couple weeks already. So, thanks for your patience there and and for following along. Thanks especially to, Orwell in the Revelations Radio News Telegram group, posting some good stuff in there, which I'm still going through and will probably incorporate into to future episodes.
So Theodore Kaczynski. Right? That's the first thing you think of, not exactly currently in the news. And I'll tell you what what made me think of Theodore Kaczynski was this recent Elon Musk deal. We'll play the clip here in a few minutes, where he's talking about, oh, you know, the humanoid robots and everyone will have a will have universal high income and and work will be optional. And this is all, it it's some of the stupidest things that has ever been a part of public discourse. It goes against economics. It goes against philosophy. It goes against, you know, any any level of critical thought about the human condition and what it means, what it means to work, what it means to live, what money should represent.
You know? All of those things have just been kind of dissolved through, from from one one supposed side of the political spectrum by indoctrination through, you know, schools, universities, all the woke leftist stuff, which is obviously bad and supposed to be obviously bad. And then you've got Elon coming along with this total technocracy, total garbage, the the exact new world order agenda, and it's now being pushed by people like Joe Rogan and Elon Musk and Donald Trump, and it's the the cool thing. So, if if you haven't been following along with the Truth is Stranger than Fiction on YouTube, I'd recommend his videos. He's covering all these things, very well lately and and putting out a lot of stuff. So kudos to Will on that front.
But the I'm gonna read a little bit from the well, it was the Unabomber Manifesto and More. It's called The The Collected Writings of Theater Jay Kaczynski, a. K. A. The Unabomber. And, so he has reading it's it's not a great book because, it's not recommended reading. He rips off Jockey Luol, but he doesn't go nearly as deep as Luol, and he's not nearly as smart as Elul. And his his logic falls apart, for one main reason. He's a he's an atheist, and he can't he he questions, you know, technology and the direction things are developing from that perspective. But he he just absolutely does not question the idea that, hey. You know? Maybe they lied to me about evolution and they lied to me about other stuff. No. That's a, you know, bridge too far for for old professor Ted there. So, but he does have some interesting things to say, and he would tear apart the Elon Musk clip that we're we're about to read or sorry, we're about to listen to. But here's a couple pages from, from his writings on what he calls the power process.
Okay? Human beings have a need, probably based in biology, for something that we will call the power process. This is closely related to the need for power, which is widely recognized, but is not quite the same thing. The power process has four elements. The three most clear cut of these, we will we call goal, effort, and attainment of goal. Everyone needs to have goals whose attainment requires effort and needs to succeed in attaining at least some of his goals. The fourth element is more difficult to define and may not be necessary for everyone. We call it autonomy, and we will discuss it later.
Consider the hypothetical case of a man who can have anything he wants just by wishing for it. Such a man has power, but he will develop serious psychological problems. At first, he will have a lot of fun, but by and by, he will become acutely bored and demoralized. Eventually, he may become clinically depressed. History shows that leisure aristocracies tend to become decadent. This is not true of fighting aristocracies that have struggled to maintain their power. But leisured, secure, aristocracies that have no need to exert themselves usually become bored, hedonistic, and demoralized even though they have power.
This shows that power itself is not enough. One must have goals towards which to exercise one's power. Everyone has goals, if nothing else, to obtain the physical necessities of life, food, water, and whatever clothing and shelter are made necessary by the climate. But the leisured aristocrat obtains these things without effort, hence his boredom and demoralization. Nonattainment of important goals results in death if the goals are physical necessities and in for frustration if nonattainment of the goals is compatible with survival. Consistent failure to attain goals throughout life results in defeatism, low self esteem, or depression.
Thus, in order to avoid serious psychological problems, a human being needs goals who attainment requires effort, and he must have a reasonable rate of success in attaining his goals. And he's got another section here, section here, surrogate activities. But not every leisured aristocrat becomes bored and demoralized. For example, the emperor Hirohito, instead of sinking into decadent hedonism, devoted himself to marine biology, a field in which he became distinguished. When people do not have to exert themselves to satisfy their physical needs, they often set up artificial goals for themselves. In many cases, they then pursue these goals with the same energy and emotional involvement that they otherwise would have put into the search for physical necessities.
Thus, the aristocrats of the Roman Empire had their literary pretensions. Many European aristocrats a few centuries ago invested tremendous time and energy in hunting, though they certainly didn't need the meat. Other aristocracies have competed for status through elaborate displays of wealth, and a few aristocrats like Hirohito have turned to science. We use the term surrogate activity to designate an activity that is directed towards an artificial goal that people set up for themselves merely in order to have some goal to work toward, or let us say merely for the sake of the fulfillment that they get from pursuing the goal. Here's a rule of thumb for identification of surrogate activities.
Given a person who devotes much time and energy to the to the pursuit of goal x, ask yourself this. If he had to devote most of his time and energy to satisfying his biological needs, and if that effort required him to use his physical and mental faculties in a varied and interesting way, would he feel seriously deprived because he did not attain goal x? If the answer is no, then the person's pursuit of a goal x is a surrogate activity. Hirohito's studies in marine biology clearly constituted a surrogate activity since it is pretty certain that if Hirohito had to spend his time working at interesting nonscientific tasks in order to obtain the necessities of life, he would not have felt deprived because he didn't know all the anatomy and life cycles of marine animals. On the other hand, the pursuit of sex and love, for example, is not a surrogate activity because most people, even if their existence were otherwise satisfactory, would feel deprived if they passed their lives without ever having a relationship with a member of the opposite sex.
But pursuit of an excessive amount of sex, more than one really needs, can be a surrogate activity. In modern industrial society, only minimal effort is necessary to satisfy one's physical needs, and it is enough to go through a training program to acquire some petty technical skill and then come to work on time and exert the very modest effort needed to hold the job. Job. The only requirements are a moderate amount of intelligence and, most of all, simple obedience. If one has those, society can take care of one from cradle to grave. Yes. There is an underclass that cannot take the physical necessities for granted, but we are speaking here here of mainstream society. Thus, it is not surprising that modern society is full of surrogate activities. These include scientific work, athletic achievement, humanitarian work, artistic and lit literary creation, climbing the corporate ladder, acquisition of money and material goods far beyond the point at which they cease to give any additional physical satisfaction, and social activism when it addresses issues that are not important for the activist personally, as in the case of white activists who work for the rights of nonwhite minorities.
These are not always pure surrogate activities since for many people, they may be motivated in part by needs other than the need to have some goal to pursue. Scientific work may be motivated in part by a drive for prestige, artistic creation by a need to express feelings, militant social ask activism by hostility. It's kinda funny. But for most people who pursue them, these sir activities are in large part surrogate activities. For example, the majority of of scientists will probably agree the that the fulfillment they get from their work is more important than the money and prestige they earn. For many, if not most people, surrogate activities are less satisfying than the pursuit of real goals, that is goals that people would want to attain even if their need for the power process were already fulfilled.
One indication of this is the fact that in many or most cases, people who are deeply involved in surrogate activities are never satisfied, never at rest, thus, the moneymaker constantly strives for more and more wealth. The scientist no longer solves one problem, then he moves to the next. The long distance runner drives himself to run always farther and faster. Many people who pursue surrogate activities will say that they get far more fulfillment from these activities than they do from the mundane business of satisfying their biological needs, but that is because in our society, the effort to require required to satisfy the biological needs has been reduced to triviality.
More importantly, in our society, people do not satisfy their biological needs autonomously, but by functioning as parts of an immense social machine. In contrast, people generally have a great deal of autonomy in pursuing their surrogate activities. And the last section we'll read here, autonomy. Autonomy as a part of the power process may not be necessary for every individual, but most people need a greater or lesser degree of autonomy in working toward their goals. Their efforts must be undertaken on their own initiative and must be under their own direction and control. Yet most people do not have to exert this initiative, direction, and control as single individuals.
It is usually enough to act as a member of a small group. Thus, if half a dozen dozen people discuss a goal among themselves and make a successful joint effort to attain that goal, their need for the power process will be served. But if they work under rigid orders handed down from above that leave them no room for autonomous decision and initiative, then their need for the power process will not be served. The same is true when decisions are made on a collective basis if the group making collective decisions is so large that the role of each individual is insignificant. It is true that some individuals seem to have little need for the for autonomy.
Either their drive for power is weak or they satisfy it by identifying themselves with some powerful organization to which they belong. And then there are the unthinking animal types who seem to be satisfied with the purely physical sense of power. The good combat soldier who gets his sense of power from by developing fighting skills that he's quite content to use in blind obedience to his superiors. But for most people, it is through the power process, having a goal, making an autonomous effort, and attaining the goal that self self esteem, self confidence, and a sense of power are are acquired.
When one does not have adequate opportunity to go through the power process, the consequences are, depending on the individual and the way the power process is disrupted, boredom, demoralization, low self esteem, inferiority, feelings, defeatism, depression, anxiety, guilt, frustration, hostility, spouse or child abuse, insatiable hedonism, abnormal sexual behavior, sleep disorders, eating etcetera. So, you know, he he said a lot there, and I actually think he makes a lot of sense through that particular section. Obviously, you know, when when your conclusion was you need to start, mailing bombs to people, you you went through a a wrong turn somewhere along your your thought process there. But but in that particular section, I do I believe there is there's something that is created into humankind where we we have to work.
Or, like he calls it, a surrogate process. We have to do something. Right? And this is is kinda missed by by Elon in the clip we'll play coming up. And, just one quick kinda related anecdote. I mean, in in school, how do you get paid? How do you get rewarded for your work? It's by grades. Right? So you do what you have to do. You you get you get an A at the end, and that is, at some level satisfying. But it is only satisfying if you actually did some work to reach that accomplishment, to get that reward. And, the reason I'm very confident of that is probably the worst class I ever took part in, was a college class, and it was an honors college class. And there were two professors, and they spent the first several classes just talking about their kind of grandiose vision for education in the class and but there was no concrete, like, what you're supposed to do, you know, go read this, or we're gonna talk about this, we're gonna have a test on on this material.
None of that. Right? It was it was all very theoretical out there. So some of the honor students were getting irked. And so they their solution was to say, everyone in this class gets an A. We don't want you thinking about grades. We want you just, you know, participating for the the love of education in this wonderful theory that they couldn't quite explain, but you were supposed to be excited about. Right? So, the result, there were a few people that continued going to the class because they were afraid that they wouldn't really get an a if they didn't go. And it from what I heard, I didn't go. So I and I got an a. So they paid they paid up there in the end of the bargain there. But it was it was an absolutely, you know, kind of worthless experience.
And you you certainly didn't feel good about getting an a in a class you did no work in. Right? So this is, that's a micro example, but now imagine your entire, professional life, you know, as as a man trying to provide for your family, and you don't have to do anything? Like, this is this is not healthy. And you and we've seen people, as mentioned by Kaczynski, you know, the hedonistic aristocrats, stuff gets messed up. I mean, they they go through all sorts of weird tailspins and deviant behavior when they don't have to work. And work has a lot of, you know it keeps you out of trouble for for one thing. So, let's play this Elon Musk clip, and I think many of you will have heard it already. But, I guess I'll play it through the whole way, but there's there's so many elements in here to, to take on. But I will play the whole thing, and then we'll we'll talk about it.
[00:17:53] Unknown:
But but yeah. Like, cars are, cars are gonna be autonomous. But there's there's just so many desk desk jobs where where really peep what people are doing is they're processing email, or they're answering the phone, and and just anything that is that that isn't moving atoms, like, anything that is not physically like, doing physical work, that will obviously be the first thing. But but those jobs will will be and are being eliminated by by AI at a very rapid pace. And, ultimately, I working will be optional, because you'll have robots plus AI, and we'll have, in a benign scenario, universal high income, not just universal basic income, universal high income, meaning anyone can have any parts or services that they want.
[00:18:48] Unknown:
So you But but there will be a lot of trauma and disruption along the way. So you anticipate a basic income from that that the economy will boost to such an extent that a high income would be available to almost everybody, so we'd essentially eliminate poverty.
[00:19:08] Unknown:
In the benign scenario, yes. So, like, the way it's multiple scenarios. There are multiple scenarios. There's a lot of ways this movie can end. Like, the reason I'm so concerned about AI safety is that, like, one of the possibilities is the Terminator scenario. It's not it's not 0%. So, that's why it's like I'm, like, really banging the drum on AI needs to be maximally truth seeking. Like, don't make I don't force AI to believe a lie, like that the for example, the founding fathers were actually a group of diverse women or that misgendering is worse than nuclear war. Because you if if that's the case and then you get the robots and the AI becomes omnipotent, it can enforce that outcome.
And then and then then and, like, unless you're a divorced woman, you're you're out of the picture, so we're we're toast.
[00:20:06] Unknown:
Okay. So first of all, it's not at all a foregone conclusion that cards will be autonomous. And this is actually it's kind of an ironic term after the, the section we just read there. But no, cars are not autonomous. They are either, software controlled or, you know, driver controlled. Those are the two options. So there's all this is and the problem with being software and programming controlled is there's as as good a code as you can write into something. There's always that kind of 1% error rate, which sometimes is not a big deal. But if you are driving on a sunny day and there's a white semi truck turning in front of you and the, autonomous Tesla interprets that as being clear road ahead, and decapitates the driver, which has happened before, that's a bit of a problem. So not at all convinced that we're gonna get you know, that all the cars are gonna be autonomous.
Email. I have quote unquote AI assist built into Microsoft, Salesforce, all these things. So about the best thing that this, quote, AI does is that if you if you click on an address and then you search, you go to utilize an address in a different part of the program immediately after, has to be the next thing you do, it will pull up the last address you looked at. So you can kinda use that to as a as a shortcut, not have to type it all in again, make sure you have the right thing, any of that. So that's about the best thing that works. If you look at an automatic email response, you know, it'll it'll because it's obviously reading the emails, you know, the the AI is reading your inbound emails, it gives you suggested responses.
Like, if you actually use those, you would be just an incredibly dumb sounding person. So it's kind of it switched a little bit. Now it gives you kind of a list of options, like, how do you wanna respond? You know, that looks great or just and even with these very generic simple responses, half the time they're way off. You know, the this is the state of of AI, and and we're supposed to just at any job where you answer the phone and talk to someone or you, are responding to emails or or or writing emails, this is all just gonna be gone because of AI because it's so good. I certainly don't buy it. I think AI is being used as a cover for large corporations that overhired during COVID, because the government was paying for the employees or because they were, businesses like Amazon where they were, utilizing the the supposed pandemic, to take out all the mom and pop competition, small retail, and just create the the giant behemoth.
And it's like, oh, well, you know, at least you can have a job at Amazon, and now they're they're starting layoffs and and no, you can't. Or here in Oklahoma City, Paycom's a big, you know, pretty large employer, and they laid off, I think, 500 people the other, a few weeks or a month or two ago. So and these they interviewed some of the people and it's like, well, yeah. They say it's just because they're using AI, but, like, AI can't do can't do what I was doing. And and I I'm with the people. I mean, no. AI can't do what you were doing. And this it's being used as a smokescreen for layoffs that they they wanted to make anyway. It's like, oh, we don't, you know, we're just all this entry level stuff's going away, yada yada yada. It no. It is not AI it's not because AI is doing everything better or even as well as people were were doing it. Just not not the actual case.
So the other part that he's talking about is this idea, well, you know, don't worry because he, you know, he might be getting a little worried there, citizen, about, not having a job. But don't worry because we'll have universal basic income or, even high high universal income. This so that anyone can have anything they want. That is that goes against every economic law out there. Okay? The economic law of of scarcity. Things have value because they are scarce. If everyone has a billion dollars, a billion dollars isn't worth worth anything because everyone has it. Right? This is and it this is very this is like freshman year level of economics, but Elon Musk is just like, woah. Well, you know, we'll we'll have lots of money because the robots will be so amazing. I mean, they they've had robots and they've been talking about robots for fifty, sixty years. And where's the evidence that there's these humanoid robots that are gonna be worth anything? I mean, they're they're still oh, look. It can jump. It can, you know, walk awkwardly.
And despite all the media pushing it, despite all the investment, and despite it being the next big thing for, you know, decades, we're still we're still at Flippy. Okay? It can sort of flip a hamburger. And I don't even think there's a whole lot of automation going on for for burger flipping. You know, shout out to Canary Cry there. But there's there's still people flipping burgers. So this is this is huge leaps, and there's no evidence that this is actually gonna happen. Much less the Terminator scenario where the AI, you know, takes over everything, you know, let's wipe out the wipe out the people. No. I'm I'm way more worried about the the people and the demonic forces behind the people in charge, than I am robots, the AI taking over. That's that's just where I'm at with it. And, the idea of, oh, we'll make AI be maximum truth seeking, whatever that means.
Okay. Well, how about people be maximum truth seeking and and start, you know, critically examining some of the things that are going on. But, yeah. If if you make me choose between one of those two outlooks, I'll I think there's a lot more wisdom in, you know, in that particular section of Theodore Kaczynski's writing than what Elon Musk is saying. It just and even so part of the AI scam is, you know, oh, it's gonna do these amazing things, the universal income thing. And but the the other part, the taking over a terminator thing is just as much of a that's just as big of a part of the scam because that justifies government intervention, that justifies regulation, that justifies, well, if you got regulation, you gotta have a bunch of money put into it from the government and, you know, limiting competition, all that all that stuff.
So this is it is a a giant government boondoggle. My personal best case is that this is not really about AI. It's about building, building infrastructure, in particular power plants. Like, it's all about electricity. And if you've got these massive power plants all over the place and all, you know, hooked up to these, what they're calling AI data centers, but they're they're data centers. There's a lot of compute power involved. There's a lot you can do with that. It doesn't have to be, you know, even after the AI phase kind of comes and goes, I think there is hopefully, you know, like I said, this is my my personal best case, is that this will turn into something useful. I mean, you can always mine some Bitcoin with it. Right? So, you know, it's a whole lot of billions of dollars for for some Bitcoin mining. But, you know, with with the electricity, maybe we'll make actual stuff again someday.
And maybe it won't be maybe those autonomous humanoid robots won't be the ones, making stuff. So that's that's kind of where I'm at with that. That that whole thing, he's talked about it before, he being Elon Musk. And he's talking to Joe Rogan, and Joe Rogan, Will had another clip of his where he's just once again dropping the, you know, this Epstein stuff. It's so terrible. And when does it end? It ends when, you know, AI runs everything and enforces it. Like, what? No. There is no AI. There is only computer programmers, and, you know, the the technocracy is run by technocrats and by, I believe, spiritual forces there. But this is not, there there is no utopia through AI. There's no utopia through technocracy.
There's only potential destruction, and there's absolutely not universal high income. It just it's a it's a non sequitur. You could have theoretically universal or nearly universal high income in a truly free, capitalistic society where people were, you know, taught from birth to to work and and produce and and actually, you know, become functioning members of society. And, you know, the idea that you learn something that's worth something to other people. You learn to do something that's hard that other people can't do. And that that's where value comes from. The things that God designed you to be able to do, that he didn't design everybody to do. And I think just throwing everyone into, not needed anymore because of AI box is is incorrect on on so many levels there. So it's not just we we want real work to do. And this is UBI does not solve any problems.
And the the reason that people are frustrated and, you know, especially in many cases younger people is because, yes, it can be difficult to get into the the workforce. And I don't think the reason is AI. I think the reason is these corporations hired a bunch of, you know, kind of people that have been indoctrinated, woke, DEI type hires figured out, oh, this is not good at all. And now they're just not hiring anybody. So then now it's like, well, how do we get rid of all these people? Let's just say it's, because AI is taking over. It sounds much better than, we hired a bunch of people that that don't actually want to work.
That sounds a lot better in the in the press releases there. So that's my opinion on it. Let me know what you think. Thanks for listening. Have a happy Thanksgiving. And before I go, I I did, you know, the other half of the the title of the episode there. One of the the holiday traditions that is very much worthwhile is is contemplating what we have to be thankful for. I'm thankful for many, many things. Thankful for, the place where I live now in in Oklahoma. Thankful for that I do have a job, that, you know, AI hasn't replaced me yet. Thankful for my family.
We've been through quite a bit recently and thankful for, the help that we do have and that everybody is still still plugging along there. Thankful for everyone that that listens to this podcast and for the encouragement that that you share with me. So thankful for many, many things and many, many people. So, appreciate all of you out there. Thanks so much for listening, and I will talk to you again soon.
Hello, everybody, and welcome to the No Pill Podcast episode 23, Thankfulness and Theodore Kaczynski. I'm Andrew Hoffman. I'm podcasting from Piedmont, Oklahoma, and happy thanksgiving to everyone out there. Recording this on Thanksgiving eve as it were, and looking forward to, to a few days off from work and to, you know, watching some football, but definitely wanted to get an episode out now. It's been a couple weeks already. So, thanks for your patience there and and for following along. Thanks especially to, Orwell in the Revelations Radio News Telegram group, posting some good stuff in there, which I'm still going through and will probably incorporate into to future episodes.
So Theodore Kaczynski. Right? That's the first thing you think of, not exactly currently in the news. And I'll tell you what what made me think of Theodore Kaczynski was this recent Elon Musk deal. We'll play the clip here in a few minutes, where he's talking about, oh, you know, the humanoid robots and everyone will have a will have universal high income and and work will be optional. And this is all, it it's some of the stupidest things that has ever been a part of public discourse. It goes against economics. It goes against philosophy. It goes against, you know, any any level of critical thought about the human condition and what it means, what it means to work, what it means to live, what money should represent.
You know? All of those things have just been kind of dissolved through, from from one one supposed side of the political spectrum by indoctrination through, you know, schools, universities, all the woke leftist stuff, which is obviously bad and supposed to be obviously bad. And then you've got Elon coming along with this total technocracy, total garbage, the the exact new world order agenda, and it's now being pushed by people like Joe Rogan and Elon Musk and Donald Trump, and it's the the cool thing. So, if if you haven't been following along with the Truth is Stranger than Fiction on YouTube, I'd recommend his videos. He's covering all these things, very well lately and and putting out a lot of stuff. So kudos to Will on that front.
But the I'm gonna read a little bit from the well, it was the Unabomber Manifesto and More. It's called The The Collected Writings of Theater Jay Kaczynski, a. K. A. The Unabomber. And, so he has reading it's it's not a great book because, it's not recommended reading. He rips off Jockey Luol, but he doesn't go nearly as deep as Luol, and he's not nearly as smart as Elul. And his his logic falls apart, for one main reason. He's a he's an atheist, and he can't he he questions, you know, technology and the direction things are developing from that perspective. But he he just absolutely does not question the idea that, hey. You know? Maybe they lied to me about evolution and they lied to me about other stuff. No. That's a, you know, bridge too far for for old professor Ted there. So, but he does have some interesting things to say, and he would tear apart the Elon Musk clip that we're we're about to read or sorry, we're about to listen to. But here's a couple pages from, from his writings on what he calls the power process.
Okay? Human beings have a need, probably based in biology, for something that we will call the power process. This is closely related to the need for power, which is widely recognized, but is not quite the same thing. The power process has four elements. The three most clear cut of these, we will we call goal, effort, and attainment of goal. Everyone needs to have goals whose attainment requires effort and needs to succeed in attaining at least some of his goals. The fourth element is more difficult to define and may not be necessary for everyone. We call it autonomy, and we will discuss it later.
Consider the hypothetical case of a man who can have anything he wants just by wishing for it. Such a man has power, but he will develop serious psychological problems. At first, he will have a lot of fun, but by and by, he will become acutely bored and demoralized. Eventually, he may become clinically depressed. History shows that leisure aristocracies tend to become decadent. This is not true of fighting aristocracies that have struggled to maintain their power. But leisured, secure, aristocracies that have no need to exert themselves usually become bored, hedonistic, and demoralized even though they have power.
This shows that power itself is not enough. One must have goals towards which to exercise one's power. Everyone has goals, if nothing else, to obtain the physical necessities of life, food, water, and whatever clothing and shelter are made necessary by the climate. But the leisured aristocrat obtains these things without effort, hence his boredom and demoralization. Nonattainment of important goals results in death if the goals are physical necessities and in for frustration if nonattainment of the goals is compatible with survival. Consistent failure to attain goals throughout life results in defeatism, low self esteem, or depression.
Thus, in order to avoid serious psychological problems, a human being needs goals who attainment requires effort, and he must have a reasonable rate of success in attaining his goals. And he's got another section here, section here, surrogate activities. But not every leisured aristocrat becomes bored and demoralized. For example, the emperor Hirohito, instead of sinking into decadent hedonism, devoted himself to marine biology, a field in which he became distinguished. When people do not have to exert themselves to satisfy their physical needs, they often set up artificial goals for themselves. In many cases, they then pursue these goals with the same energy and emotional involvement that they otherwise would have put into the search for physical necessities.
Thus, the aristocrats of the Roman Empire had their literary pretensions. Many European aristocrats a few centuries ago invested tremendous time and energy in hunting, though they certainly didn't need the meat. Other aristocracies have competed for status through elaborate displays of wealth, and a few aristocrats like Hirohito have turned to science. We use the term surrogate activity to designate an activity that is directed towards an artificial goal that people set up for themselves merely in order to have some goal to work toward, or let us say merely for the sake of the fulfillment that they get from pursuing the goal. Here's a rule of thumb for identification of surrogate activities.
Given a person who devotes much time and energy to the to the pursuit of goal x, ask yourself this. If he had to devote most of his time and energy to satisfying his biological needs, and if that effort required him to use his physical and mental faculties in a varied and interesting way, would he feel seriously deprived because he did not attain goal x? If the answer is no, then the person's pursuit of a goal x is a surrogate activity. Hirohito's studies in marine biology clearly constituted a surrogate activity since it is pretty certain that if Hirohito had to spend his time working at interesting nonscientific tasks in order to obtain the necessities of life, he would not have felt deprived because he didn't know all the anatomy and life cycles of marine animals. On the other hand, the pursuit of sex and love, for example, is not a surrogate activity because most people, even if their existence were otherwise satisfactory, would feel deprived if they passed their lives without ever having a relationship with a member of the opposite sex.
But pursuit of an excessive amount of sex, more than one really needs, can be a surrogate activity. In modern industrial society, only minimal effort is necessary to satisfy one's physical needs, and it is enough to go through a training program to acquire some petty technical skill and then come to work on time and exert the very modest effort needed to hold the job. Job. The only requirements are a moderate amount of intelligence and, most of all, simple obedience. If one has those, society can take care of one from cradle to grave. Yes. There is an underclass that cannot take the physical necessities for granted, but we are speaking here here of mainstream society. Thus, it is not surprising that modern society is full of surrogate activities. These include scientific work, athletic achievement, humanitarian work, artistic and lit literary creation, climbing the corporate ladder, acquisition of money and material goods far beyond the point at which they cease to give any additional physical satisfaction, and social activism when it addresses issues that are not important for the activist personally, as in the case of white activists who work for the rights of nonwhite minorities.
These are not always pure surrogate activities since for many people, they may be motivated in part by needs other than the need to have some goal to pursue. Scientific work may be motivated in part by a drive for prestige, artistic creation by a need to express feelings, militant social ask activism by hostility. It's kinda funny. But for most people who pursue them, these sir activities are in large part surrogate activities. For example, the majority of of scientists will probably agree the that the fulfillment they get from their work is more important than the money and prestige they earn. For many, if not most people, surrogate activities are less satisfying than the pursuit of real goals, that is goals that people would want to attain even if their need for the power process were already fulfilled.
One indication of this is the fact that in many or most cases, people who are deeply involved in surrogate activities are never satisfied, never at rest, thus, the moneymaker constantly strives for more and more wealth. The scientist no longer solves one problem, then he moves to the next. The long distance runner drives himself to run always farther and faster. Many people who pursue surrogate activities will say that they get far more fulfillment from these activities than they do from the mundane business of satisfying their biological needs, but that is because in our society, the effort to require required to satisfy the biological needs has been reduced to triviality.
More importantly, in our society, people do not satisfy their biological needs autonomously, but by functioning as parts of an immense social machine. In contrast, people generally have a great deal of autonomy in pursuing their surrogate activities. And the last section we'll read here, autonomy. Autonomy as a part of the power process may not be necessary for every individual, but most people need a greater or lesser degree of autonomy in working toward their goals. Their efforts must be undertaken on their own initiative and must be under their own direction and control. Yet most people do not have to exert this initiative, direction, and control as single individuals.
It is usually enough to act as a member of a small group. Thus, if half a dozen dozen people discuss a goal among themselves and make a successful joint effort to attain that goal, their need for the power process will be served. But if they work under rigid orders handed down from above that leave them no room for autonomous decision and initiative, then their need for the power process will not be served. The same is true when decisions are made on a collective basis if the group making collective decisions is so large that the role of each individual is insignificant. It is true that some individuals seem to have little need for the for autonomy.
Either their drive for power is weak or they satisfy it by identifying themselves with some powerful organization to which they belong. And then there are the unthinking animal types who seem to be satisfied with the purely physical sense of power. The good combat soldier who gets his sense of power from by developing fighting skills that he's quite content to use in blind obedience to his superiors. But for most people, it is through the power process, having a goal, making an autonomous effort, and attaining the goal that self self esteem, self confidence, and a sense of power are are acquired.
When one does not have adequate opportunity to go through the power process, the consequences are, depending on the individual and the way the power process is disrupted, boredom, demoralization, low self esteem, inferiority, feelings, defeatism, depression, anxiety, guilt, frustration, hostility, spouse or child abuse, insatiable hedonism, abnormal sexual behavior, sleep disorders, eating etcetera. So, you know, he he said a lot there, and I actually think he makes a lot of sense through that particular section. Obviously, you know, when when your conclusion was you need to start, mailing bombs to people, you you went through a a wrong turn somewhere along your your thought process there. But but in that particular section, I do I believe there is there's something that is created into humankind where we we have to work.
Or, like he calls it, a surrogate process. We have to do something. Right? And this is is kinda missed by by Elon in the clip we'll play coming up. And, just one quick kinda related anecdote. I mean, in in school, how do you get paid? How do you get rewarded for your work? It's by grades. Right? So you do what you have to do. You you get you get an A at the end, and that is, at some level satisfying. But it is only satisfying if you actually did some work to reach that accomplishment, to get that reward. And, the reason I'm very confident of that is probably the worst class I ever took part in, was a college class, and it was an honors college class. And there were two professors, and they spent the first several classes just talking about their kind of grandiose vision for education in the class and but there was no concrete, like, what you're supposed to do, you know, go read this, or we're gonna talk about this, we're gonna have a test on on this material.
None of that. Right? It was it was all very theoretical out there. So some of the honor students were getting irked. And so they their solution was to say, everyone in this class gets an A. We don't want you thinking about grades. We want you just, you know, participating for the the love of education in this wonderful theory that they couldn't quite explain, but you were supposed to be excited about. Right? So, the result, there were a few people that continued going to the class because they were afraid that they wouldn't really get an a if they didn't go. And it from what I heard, I didn't go. So I and I got an a. So they paid they paid up there in the end of the bargain there. But it was it was an absolutely, you know, kind of worthless experience.
And you you certainly didn't feel good about getting an a in a class you did no work in. Right? So this is, that's a micro example, but now imagine your entire, professional life, you know, as as a man trying to provide for your family, and you don't have to do anything? Like, this is this is not healthy. And you and we've seen people, as mentioned by Kaczynski, you know, the hedonistic aristocrats, stuff gets messed up. I mean, they they go through all sorts of weird tailspins and deviant behavior when they don't have to work. And work has a lot of, you know it keeps you out of trouble for for one thing. So, let's play this Elon Musk clip, and I think many of you will have heard it already. But, I guess I'll play it through the whole way, but there's there's so many elements in here to, to take on. But I will play the whole thing, and then we'll we'll talk about it.
[00:17:53] Unknown:
But but yeah. Like, cars are, cars are gonna be autonomous. But there's there's just so many desk desk jobs where where really peep what people are doing is they're processing email, or they're answering the phone, and and just anything that is that that isn't moving atoms, like, anything that is not physically like, doing physical work, that will obviously be the first thing. But but those jobs will will be and are being eliminated by by AI at a very rapid pace. And, ultimately, I working will be optional, because you'll have robots plus AI, and we'll have, in a benign scenario, universal high income, not just universal basic income, universal high income, meaning anyone can have any parts or services that they want.
[00:18:48] Unknown:
So you But but there will be a lot of trauma and disruption along the way. So you anticipate a basic income from that that the economy will boost to such an extent that a high income would be available to almost everybody, so we'd essentially eliminate poverty.
[00:19:08] Unknown:
In the benign scenario, yes. So, like, the way it's multiple scenarios. There are multiple scenarios. There's a lot of ways this movie can end. Like, the reason I'm so concerned about AI safety is that, like, one of the possibilities is the Terminator scenario. It's not it's not 0%. So, that's why it's like I'm, like, really banging the drum on AI needs to be maximally truth seeking. Like, don't make I don't force AI to believe a lie, like that the for example, the founding fathers were actually a group of diverse women or that misgendering is worse than nuclear war. Because you if if that's the case and then you get the robots and the AI becomes omnipotent, it can enforce that outcome.
And then and then then and, like, unless you're a divorced woman, you're you're out of the picture, so we're we're toast.
[00:20:06] Unknown:
Okay. So first of all, it's not at all a foregone conclusion that cards will be autonomous. And this is actually it's kind of an ironic term after the, the section we just read there. But no, cars are not autonomous. They are either, software controlled or, you know, driver controlled. Those are the two options. So there's all this is and the problem with being software and programming controlled is there's as as good a code as you can write into something. There's always that kind of 1% error rate, which sometimes is not a big deal. But if you are driving on a sunny day and there's a white semi truck turning in front of you and the, autonomous Tesla interprets that as being clear road ahead, and decapitates the driver, which has happened before, that's a bit of a problem. So not at all convinced that we're gonna get you know, that all the cars are gonna be autonomous.
Email. I have quote unquote AI assist built into Microsoft, Salesforce, all these things. So about the best thing that this, quote, AI does is that if you if you click on an address and then you search, you go to utilize an address in a different part of the program immediately after, has to be the next thing you do, it will pull up the last address you looked at. So you can kinda use that to as a as a shortcut, not have to type it all in again, make sure you have the right thing, any of that. So that's about the best thing that works. If you look at an automatic email response, you know, it'll it'll because it's obviously reading the emails, you know, the the AI is reading your inbound emails, it gives you suggested responses.
Like, if you actually use those, you would be just an incredibly dumb sounding person. So it's kind of it switched a little bit. Now it gives you kind of a list of options, like, how do you wanna respond? You know, that looks great or just and even with these very generic simple responses, half the time they're way off. You know, the this is the state of of AI, and and we're supposed to just at any job where you answer the phone and talk to someone or you, are responding to emails or or or writing emails, this is all just gonna be gone because of AI because it's so good. I certainly don't buy it. I think AI is being used as a cover for large corporations that overhired during COVID, because the government was paying for the employees or because they were, businesses like Amazon where they were, utilizing the the supposed pandemic, to take out all the mom and pop competition, small retail, and just create the the giant behemoth.
And it's like, oh, well, you know, at least you can have a job at Amazon, and now they're they're starting layoffs and and no, you can't. Or here in Oklahoma City, Paycom's a big, you know, pretty large employer, and they laid off, I think, 500 people the other, a few weeks or a month or two ago. So and these they interviewed some of the people and it's like, well, yeah. They say it's just because they're using AI, but, like, AI can't do can't do what I was doing. And and I I'm with the people. I mean, no. AI can't do what you were doing. And this it's being used as a smokescreen for layoffs that they they wanted to make anyway. It's like, oh, we don't, you know, we're just all this entry level stuff's going away, yada yada yada. It no. It is not AI it's not because AI is doing everything better or even as well as people were were doing it. Just not not the actual case.
So the other part that he's talking about is this idea, well, you know, don't worry because he, you know, he might be getting a little worried there, citizen, about, not having a job. But don't worry because we'll have universal basic income or, even high high universal income. This so that anyone can have anything they want. That is that goes against every economic law out there. Okay? The economic law of of scarcity. Things have value because they are scarce. If everyone has a billion dollars, a billion dollars isn't worth worth anything because everyone has it. Right? This is and it this is very this is like freshman year level of economics, but Elon Musk is just like, woah. Well, you know, we'll we'll have lots of money because the robots will be so amazing. I mean, they they've had robots and they've been talking about robots for fifty, sixty years. And where's the evidence that there's these humanoid robots that are gonna be worth anything? I mean, they're they're still oh, look. It can jump. It can, you know, walk awkwardly.
And despite all the media pushing it, despite all the investment, and despite it being the next big thing for, you know, decades, we're still we're still at Flippy. Okay? It can sort of flip a hamburger. And I don't even think there's a whole lot of automation going on for for burger flipping. You know, shout out to Canary Cry there. But there's there's still people flipping burgers. So this is this is huge leaps, and there's no evidence that this is actually gonna happen. Much less the Terminator scenario where the AI, you know, takes over everything, you know, let's wipe out the wipe out the people. No. I'm I'm way more worried about the the people and the demonic forces behind the people in charge, than I am robots, the AI taking over. That's that's just where I'm at with it. And, the idea of, oh, we'll make AI be maximum truth seeking, whatever that means.
Okay. Well, how about people be maximum truth seeking and and start, you know, critically examining some of the things that are going on. But, yeah. If if you make me choose between one of those two outlooks, I'll I think there's a lot more wisdom in, you know, in that particular section of Theodore Kaczynski's writing than what Elon Musk is saying. It just and even so part of the AI scam is, you know, oh, it's gonna do these amazing things, the universal income thing. And but the the other part, the taking over a terminator thing is just as much of a that's just as big of a part of the scam because that justifies government intervention, that justifies regulation, that justifies, well, if you got regulation, you gotta have a bunch of money put into it from the government and, you know, limiting competition, all that all that stuff.
So this is it is a a giant government boondoggle. My personal best case is that this is not really about AI. It's about building, building infrastructure, in particular power plants. Like, it's all about electricity. And if you've got these massive power plants all over the place and all, you know, hooked up to these, what they're calling AI data centers, but they're they're data centers. There's a lot of compute power involved. There's a lot you can do with that. It doesn't have to be, you know, even after the AI phase kind of comes and goes, I think there is hopefully, you know, like I said, this is my my personal best case, is that this will turn into something useful. I mean, you can always mine some Bitcoin with it. Right? So, you know, it's a whole lot of billions of dollars for for some Bitcoin mining. But, you know, with with the electricity, maybe we'll make actual stuff again someday.
And maybe it won't be maybe those autonomous humanoid robots won't be the ones, making stuff. So that's that's kind of where I'm at with that. That that whole thing, he's talked about it before, he being Elon Musk. And he's talking to Joe Rogan, and Joe Rogan, Will had another clip of his where he's just once again dropping the, you know, this Epstein stuff. It's so terrible. And when does it end? It ends when, you know, AI runs everything and enforces it. Like, what? No. There is no AI. There is only computer programmers, and, you know, the the technocracy is run by technocrats and by, I believe, spiritual forces there. But this is not, there there is no utopia through AI. There's no utopia through technocracy.
There's only potential destruction, and there's absolutely not universal high income. It just it's a it's a non sequitur. You could have theoretically universal or nearly universal high income in a truly free, capitalistic society where people were, you know, taught from birth to to work and and produce and and actually, you know, become functioning members of society. And, you know, the idea that you learn something that's worth something to other people. You learn to do something that's hard that other people can't do. And that that's where value comes from. The things that God designed you to be able to do, that he didn't design everybody to do. And I think just throwing everyone into, not needed anymore because of AI box is is incorrect on on so many levels there. So it's not just we we want real work to do. And this is UBI does not solve any problems.
And the the reason that people are frustrated and, you know, especially in many cases younger people is because, yes, it can be difficult to get into the the workforce. And I don't think the reason is AI. I think the reason is these corporations hired a bunch of, you know, kind of people that have been indoctrinated, woke, DEI type hires figured out, oh, this is not good at all. And now they're just not hiring anybody. So then now it's like, well, how do we get rid of all these people? Let's just say it's, because AI is taking over. It sounds much better than, we hired a bunch of people that that don't actually want to work.
That sounds a lot better in the in the press releases there. So that's my opinion on it. Let me know what you think. Thanks for listening. Have a happy Thanksgiving. And before I go, I I did, you know, the other half of the the title of the episode there. One of the the holiday traditions that is very much worthwhile is is contemplating what we have to be thankful for. I'm thankful for many, many things. Thankful for, the place where I live now in in Oklahoma. Thankful for that I do have a job, that, you know, AI hasn't replaced me yet. Thankful for my family.
We've been through quite a bit recently and thankful for, the help that we do have and that everybody is still still plugging along there. Thankful for everyone that that listens to this podcast and for the encouragement that that you share with me. So thankful for many, many things and many, many people. So, appreciate all of you out there. Thanks so much for listening, and I will talk to you again soon.
