Daniel Schmachtenberger: Steering Civilization Away from Self-Destruction | Lex Fridman Podcast #191

ℹ️ EPISODE INFO

Released

June 14, 2021

Duration

4h 15m

Channel

Lex Fridman Podcast

Watch on YouTube

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📝 EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Daniel Schmachtenberger is a philosopher and founding member of The Consilience Project. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:

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EPISODE LINKS: Daniel's Website: https://civilizationemerging.com/ The Consilience Project: https://consilienceproject.org/ PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ Full episodes playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOdP_8GztsuKi9nrraNbKKp4 Clips playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOeciFP3CBCIEElOJeitOr41 OUTLINE: 0:00 - Introduction 1:31 - Aliens and UFOs 20:15 - Collective intelligence of human civilization 28:12 - Consciousness 39:33 - How much computation does the human brain perform? 43:12 - Humans vs ants 50:30 - Humans are apex predators 57:34 - Girard's Mimetic Theory of Desire 1:17:31 - We can never completely understand reality 1:20:54 - Self-terminating systems 1:31:18 - Catastrophic risk 2:01:30 - Adding more love to the world 2:28:55 - How to build a better world 2:46:07 - Meaning of life 2:53:49 - Death 2:59:29 - The role of government in society 3:16:54 - Exponential growth of technology 4:02:35 - Lessons from my father 4:08:11 - Even suffering is filled with beauty SOCIAL:

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🎤 SPEAKERS

• Lex Fridman

  host

• Daniel Schmachtenberger

  guest

• Narrator

  other

🧾 EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of Lex Fridman Podcast, featuring Lex Fridman and Daniel Schmachtenberger, Daniel Schmachtenberger: Steering Civilization Away from Self-Destruction | Lex Fridman Podcast #191 explores daniel Schmachtenberger on Saving Civilization from Exponential Self‑Destruction Lex Fridman and Daniel Schmachtenberger explore how exponential technologies, fragile global systems, and primitive social structures together create a self-terminating trajectory for civilization. They contrast physical technology’s explosive growth with the stagnation of our “social technology” — governance, economics, media, and education — and argue we must rapidly upgrade the latter to safely steer the former. Daniel proposes principles for better sense‑making, participatory governance, and cultural conditioning, centered on empathy, compersion (joy in others’ joy), and long‑term thinking. Throughout, they weave in aliens, consciousness, cellular automata, markets, and personal meaning, grounding civilizational questions in both systems thinking and intimate human experience.

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