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Tim FerrissKevin Kelly — Excellent Advice for Living | The Tim Ferriss Show
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CHAPTERS
- 0:15 – 11:30
Long Bets and the Coming Peak in Human Population
After Tim Ferriss reads Kevin Kelly's list of possible topics, Kelly explains the Long Bets service at The Long Now Foundation and his bet that global population will be no higher in 2060 than at the time of the bet. He argues falling birth rates, not resource scarcity, drive the decline, and that we know surprisingly little about global-scale numbers.
- •Long Bets requires public, accountable wagers with the reasoning stated, with money going to the winner's chosen nonprofit
- •Kelly bet that global population in 2060 would be the same as at the time of the bet in 2003
- •The decline is driven by falling fertility, which he says nothing tried so far has reversed
- •Living standards have historically risen only alongside population growth, and the causal link is unknown
- •At the global level, even population counts may be off by about 10%, and freshwater and electricity totals are unknown
- 11:30 – 15:58
Out of Control, Santa Fe and Complex Adaptive Systems
Asked about the Santa Fe Institute, Kelly explains that his first book, Out of Control, grew from conferences at Los Alamos and Santa Fe in the late '80s. He says biology and technology run on the same dynamics, and the conversation touches on biomimicry and the Wright brothers.
- •Out of Control began with a conference at Los Alamos and visits to Santa Fe scientists
- •Kelly sees the made and the born as two faces of the same dynamic
- •Biomimicry only goes so far, as the Wright brothers' success shows
- •Kelly says Murray Gell-Mann was the prime mover of Santa Fe, and it sat close to Los Alamos
- 15:58 – 21:24
The Silver Cord: An 11-Year Graphic Novel About Angels and Robots
Kelly describes the premise of The Silver Cord, in which disembodied angels envy humans and some cheat by entering robots. He explains why it took 11 years and what he hoped it would do for readers.
- •Kelly wanted a form more immersive than a novel but less costly than a film, and wrote it as a screenplay
- •Collaborators from his church included people from Pixar and ILM
- •The project was made far too big, a 300-page whole, and it was late for its Simon & Schuster advance and finally Kickstarted
- •Its aim was to nudge people to appreciate being embodied
- 21:24 – 27:01
1,000 True Fans: Why It Resonated and What to Add
Ferriss asks why 1,000 True Fans is Kelly's most popular piece. Kelly credits Ferriss's including it in a book and says it offered a viable alternative definition of success. He adds caveats about fan maintenance and burnout.
- •Kelly credits Ferriss's book for lifting the essay beyond his own audience
- •It offered a modest-scale alternative to hit-driven success, written before Kickstarter and Patreon existed
- •With billions of people, even one-in-a-million interests can find 1,000 fans
- •Tending fans is nearly a half-time job and can burn people out, so intermediaries and casual fans are options
- •Fans are gained one by one, and where you start is not where you will land
- 27:01 – 34:36
The All Species Campaign and Stewart Brand
Kelly tells how a dinner conversation led to the All Species Foundation and why it was about 25 years too early technologically. He then explains who Stewart Brand is, covering the Whole Earth Catalog, The Well and The Long Now.
- •The idea was to hire local barefoot taxonomists to catalog all living species
- •Apps like Merlin and iSeek were the kind of technology needed, and didn't yet exist
- •No master list of known species existed, and duplicate names were common; the effort became the Encyclopedia of Life
- •Stewart Brand created the Whole Earth Catalog, co-started The Well and The Long Now with Kelly, and is about 86 and still doing CrossFit
- 34:36 – 36:22
Resurrecting the Woolly Mammoth
Ferriss asks about bringing back extinct species. Kelly describes Revive & Restore, founded by Stewart Brand and Ryan Phelan, and the approach of breeding Asian elephants for cold tolerance.
- •The mammoth was the original totem animal for Revive & Restore
- •The method is accelerated breeding of existing Asian elephants, not hatching a mammoth from a test tube
- •Kelly, Brand and George Church went to Siberia to collect mammoth samples exposed by thawing permafrost
- •Other animals may be easier candidates than the mammoth
- 36:22 – 45:50
Why Optimists Shape the Future: Active vs. Passive Optimism
Kelly argues for deliberate, learned optimism because good complicated things are improbable and must first be imagined. Ferriss distinguishes active from passive optimism, and they discuss selective focus, asteroids, and the reality of progress.
- •Kelly says failure is probable and working complexity improbable, so optimists shape the future
- •He uses a car analogy: brakes are essential, but he emphasizes strengthening the engine
- •Ferriss distinguishes believing you can make things turn out well from believing they will
- •You can't be active about everything, so you can be passive about risks like asteroids that others are tracking
- •Kelly says studying history convinced him progress is real, and illustrates it with an 'Obama test' of choosing a birth era
- 45:50 – 50:48
Population Decline, Degrowth and a New Kind of Growth
Ferriss asks whether progress depends on population growth and whether regression is likely. Kelly responds with the degrowth movement and distinguishes growth as more stuff from growth as increasing complexity and quality.
- •Degrowth advocates see growth as the source of climate and other troubles
- •Kelly distinguishes growth by adding more from growth by increasing complexity, which he calls exotropy
- •A shrinking market could push economies toward better products rather than more units
- •Kelly says GDP doesn't account for quality improvements, so we need new metrics
- •He is optimistic that understanding can change, but says it's not inevitable
- 50:48 – 53:25
The $20 Time Machine Bus Ride in Afghanistan
Kelly recounts a 1975 bus ride in northern Afghanistan that felt like arriving in a different century. He says the main lesson was that technology gives people choices and options.
- •Kelly traveled to a remote town with no electricity, tourists or signage
- •Medieval conditions included a feudal structure, slaves and child brides
- •People's occupations were fated by gender and family
- •Technology's main gift, Kelly says, is choices and options, despite its problems
- 53:25 – 1:06:38
Will AI Take Our Jobs? Tasks vs. Jobs and the Universal Personal Intern
Ferriss challenges Kelly's Wired claim that no human artist will lose a job to generative AI. Kelly responds that AI replaces tasks rather than jobs, frames AIs as universal personal interns, and discusses training data and the limits of bottom-up neural nets.
- •Kelly says AI replaces tasks, not whole jobs, and offers a $200 bounty for a named person who lost a job to AI
- •Ferriss pushes back with the example of logo design studios and junior staff
- •Kelly calls current AIs universal personal interns that need checking and curation
- •About 30 million new images are generated daily, mostly for an audience of one, filling blanks rather than replacing people
- •Current models do only pattern recognition and generation, and likely need some top-down governance, as Wikipedia shows
- 1:06:38 – 1:12:56
Dumbsmarten and Artificial Aliens: Kelly's Take on AI's Future
Kelly predicts a plural world of specialized AIs he calls dumbsmarten, best thought of as artificial aliens, mostly invisible and not conscious. He says AI is under-hyped long term because a conversational interface has suddenly made years-old capabilities accessible, as the web did for the internet.
- •Engineering trade-offs mean AIs will be specialized, with general ones like a Swiss Army knife
- •Treat AIs as artificial aliens that help us think differently
- •Technologies succeed when they become invisible, and consciousness is a liability in a car
- •Today's AI will not be called AI in 30 years, and short-term unemployment fears are overestimated
- •The conversational interface is like the visual web for the internet
- 1:12:56 – 1:24:55
How Kelly Uses AI: Midjourney Art and Chatbot First Drafts
Kelly describes posting AI-generated pictures using Midjourney and compares the process to photography. He explains how he uses chatbots for first drafts and discusses thinkism, wisdom-of-the-crowd outputs, and several scenarios for AI's near future.
- •Midjourney's public Discord interface is an open learning environment
- •Making AI images is like hunting with a camera, and he credits himself as co-creator with the intern
- •Chatbots help him get past the first draft with bullet summaries and talking points
- •Kelly argues that technology must be used to be understood, and prohibition removes the ability to steer
- •Scenarios include AI becoming more pervasive and tailored rather than exponentially better, as with VR
- 1:24:55 – 1:32:18
Origins of Excellent Advice for Living
Ferriss turns to Kelly's new book. Kelly explains that he wrote short, memorable bits of advice to change his own behavior and later gathered them for his kids. He describes how they spread online and became a book, then Ferriss reads several favorites.
- •Kelly compressed lessons into portable handles such as putting things back where he first looked for them
- •He and his wife modeled behavior for their kids rather than giving advice
- •The advice began as a birthday list at age 68 and spread online
- •Kelly aims for practical, actionable, positive and short entries
- •Ferriss cites examples like the six-foot balcony, the bowline knot and the rule of three
- 1:32:18 – 1:36:55
Be the Only, Not the Best: Finding Your Unique Strength
Kelly shares some favorites, starting with doing something crazy in your 20s, and expands on 'don't aim to be the best, be the only.' He and Ferriss discuss self-knowledge and the questions they use to draw out what people uniquely know.
- •Spend time in your 20s on something strange and unprofitable as a touchstone
- •Being the only requires deep self-knowledge, which comes from others and living it out, not thinkism
- •Remarkable lives are full of detours and dead ends
- •Kelly asks dinner companions what they know more about than most people
- •Ferriss asks friends what is easy for him that's hard for others, or for a TED talk topic outside their expertise
- 1:36:55 – 1:48:16
Spending Time with Kids, Family Travel and Troubleshooting Advice
Responding to the advice about spending less money and more time with children, Kelly lists making things together and learning-oriented travel. He suggests following kids' passions on trips and being a tourist in your own town, and Ferriss adds advice about explaining your problem aloud.
- •Making things together, such as go-karts and a Styrobot, lets you watch kids work through frustration
- •Kids may process travel experiences later, so don't be dismayed if they seem unimpressed
- •Family travel followed each child's passions, like dinosaurs or Anne of Green Gables
- •Involving kids in decisions makes them invested
- •Playing tourist in your hometown and explaining a stuck problem to someone are both useful
- 1:48:16 – 1:58:23
Sabbaticals, YouTube and Maximizing Time Spent on What You Love
After a note on what Kelly hopes for the book, Ferriss asks about sabbaticals. Kelly advocates a rest ethic and a sabbatical with a different rhythm, and says YouTube is an underrated accelerant for learning by watching people work.
- •Kelly says a good work ethic needs a rest ethic
- •Six weeks is his rough minimum, and it should differ in rhythm from usual work, such as his book-only sabbatical
- •Ferriss imagines a sabbatical of only watching an expert, not making
- •Kelly watches makers on YouTube, which speeds up learning even among brain surgeons
- •He advises maximizing time on things you never want to stop doing
- 1:58:23 – 2:02:23
Why Kevin Kelly Is Huge in China
Ferriss asks why Kelly is so popular in China. Kelly says it was an accident: a crowdsourced translation of Out of Control reached Jack Ma and other entrepreneurs, making it required reading.
- •Out of Control was ignored in the US but translated into Chinese in the mid-2000s
- •One devoted fan organized a crowdsourced translation
- •Jack Ma recommended the book, and Chinese readers followed
- •Kelly says Chinese audiences acted on ideas such as blockchain rather than just admiring them
- •He is known as KK and has the Chinese name Kaiwen Kelly
- 2:02:23 – 2:05:59
Fully Becoming Yourself and Closing Thoughts
Asked for closing thoughts, Kelly points to the book's final piece of advice about fully becoming yourself before you die. He ties this to his pro-technology stance, and Ferriss closes by recommending the book.
- •Kelly says the goal is to say the day before you die that you've fully become yourself
- •He is pro technology because tools help people express their talents
- •Fundamentals like clean water, education and transportation count as tools
- •Kelly believes everyone has a unique genius
- •Ferriss recommends the book and points listeners to kk.org and the show notes
