The video emphasizes the importance of equality of opportunity, explaining that opening doors to all individuals allows society to benefit from the contributions of the most capable. This is not only a psychological benefit for individuals but also a sociological imperative, as it ensures merit-based selection rather than dynasty and nepotism, which historically leads to inefficiency. Educating the most talented individuals maximizes the potential for societal advancement.

The conversation then shifts towards issues of freedom of speech and online discourse, highlighting the challenges and responsibilities of social media platforms. It stresses that while free speech is essential, it does not entitle individuals to a platform for profit-driven hate speech. The discussion explores the difficulty of regulating online communication with algorithms and the need for human intervention in algorithmic processes to address this.

Main takeaways from the video:

Please remember to turn on the CC button to view the subtitles.

Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. forestall [fôrˈstôl] - (verb) - To prevent or obstruct by taking action ahead of time. - Synonyms: (prevent, hinder, preclude)

And any arbitrary barriers are going to what, forestall that, are going to work against that.

2. merit-based [ˈmerət-beɪst] - (adjective) - Based on the principle of rewarding individuals according to their abilities and accomplishments. - Synonyms: (deserved, earned, vested)

And merit based selection is the best way to ensure that.

3. nepotism [ˈnepəˌtizəm] - (noun) - The practice of favoring relatives or friends, especially by giving them jobs. - Synonyms: (favoritism, bias, partiality)

And there's no productivity in dynasty and nepotism.

4. pursuit of truth [pərˈso͞ot əv tro͞oTH] - (noun phrase) - The ongoing effort to discover facts and understand reality as it is. - Synonyms: (seeking truth, truth-seeking, fact-finding)

All right, so gratitude, not grievance, rule of law, pursuit of truth, focus on outcomes

5. dynasty [ˈdīnəstē] - (noun) - A line of hereditary rulers or people maintaining power in a family. - Synonyms: (lineage, bloodline, succession)

We know, for example, that the alternative to merit based selection historically has been dynasty and nepotism.

6. manipulative psychopaths [məˈnipyəˌlātiv ˈsīkəˌpaTHs] - (noun phrase) - Individuals who use unscrupulous tactics for personal gain, often characterized by a lack of empathy or moral scruples. - Synonyms: (deceitful individuals, schemers, exploitative people)

That's not a good long term strategy for any company or any country. Not unless it wants to be overrun by manipulative psychopaths.

7. algorithmize [ˈalɡəˌriˈmaɪz] - (verb) - To turn a process into a set of rules that can be followed by a computer program. - Synonyms: (codify, systematize, formalize)

The edge of transformation can't be algorithmized

8. outright crime [ˈoutˌraɪt kraɪm] - (noun phrase) - Acts that are clearly illegal and unequivocal in their criminal intent. - Synonyms: (explicit crime, unambiguous crime, clear-cut crime)

Half of online activity is criminal across the board, right? Pornography, outright crime, and then the sort of quasi crimes that constitute trolling and so forth.

9. free marketplace of ideas [frē ˈmärkətˌplās əv īˈdēəz] - (noun phrase) - An environment where ideas and opinions can be shared openly and competed against one another without restriction. - Synonyms: (open forum, marketplace of ideas, intellectual exchange)

They're allowed to peacefully protest. They're allowed to compete in a free marketplace of ideas.

10. algorithmized [ˈalɡəˌrɪməzt] - (adjective) - Turned into or governed by a finite set of rules or instructions. - Synonyms: (codified, programmed, systematized)

The edge of transformation can't be algorithmized.

How Do You Regulate What Can Outthink You? - Gregg Hurwitz

But one of the things we should focus on very briefly with regards to equality of opportunity too, is that we have to understand that opening the door to opportunity for everyone, it's very good for the individuals involved. But you could make a sociological case that that's not the fundamental issue. The fundamental issue is you want to open the doors on the equality of opportunity side because you want the broad culture to be able to benefit from, from the specific contributions of the most able people. And any arbitrary barriers are going to what, forestall that, are going to work against that. Like the reason that you want extremely intelligent, hardworking, creative kids at Harvard isn't so they can have stellar careers. That's part of it. And good for them. That's not the issue. The issue is you want to educate those people like mad because they're going to produce products that are so useful for everyone else that if those particular people have a few privileges along the way, that's just fine. So equality of opportunity is the best sociological solution as well as the best psychological solution.

When I was there as an undergraduate, one of the first things they told us, they gathered everyone in Seaver hall and they said, you're going to learn more here from your classmates than from your professors. And I thought that was a silly kind of old saw that you have heard. And it's absolutely true. And that cohort, which was, I mean, people all over the world, people all over the country. And it was incredible in terms of the strengthening of one's mind to see people from every reach of America, internationally, all trained up under a joint narrative that that's continuing friendships across different states of being, every single country. And merit based selection is the best way to ensure that. So we know, for example, that the alternative to merit based selection historically has been dynasty and nepotism. And there's no productivity in dynasty and nepotism because it means that your right to a position is determined by your birth, by your state of birth, has nothing to do with your competence. You do get good China, though. Yeah, yeah, well, Right, right.

All right, so gratitude, not grievance, rule of law, pursuit of truth, focus on outcomes. Reality is where ideology goes to die. That's like, that's something I wrote and taped to my wall. If you're solving solutions with measurable outcomes. Look, there's a lot of libertarianism has crept into my worldview much more as I've pursued things. Right. Measure something not by its intentions, but its outcomes. In a way, everything's irrelevant. I don't care what your intentions are. That's true on the social intervention side, because you have to ensure that your intervention is producing the consequences that you desired. And it's very unlikely because there's a million ways things can go wrong and generally only one or two ways they can go, right. So concrete steps, uphold free speech, prosecute illegal action. It's fairly easy. If people are breaking laws and throwing bottles at police officers and blocking traffic and making true threats against individuals and vandalizing buildings and people's houses, they can be arrested and actually prosecuted. We don't need to make exceptions for them any differently than were made for the Harvey Milk or the leaders of the civil rights movement. But people are allowed to have their opinions. They're allowed to criticize any state that includes Israel, any leadership which includes Netanyahu. They're allowed to peacefully protest. They're allowed to compete in a free marketplace of ideas. No problem. But we don't break the law.

And we know that. And that's from both sides of the fence, right? We have fringes who do that on both sides. You know, face coverings and masks at protests. If they're being used to menace and terrorize, that should be illegal. That's the purview of the kkk, right? That's not what we do. Stand behind. You can't cover your face to do things that are illegal or to terrorize people. And then the algorithms in social media, that's almost a whole other discussion for. Because you and I have been talking about this a lot about. But there's ways to maintain freedom of speech. But that doesn't mean freedom of reach for profit. Which means if I say the most outrageous, misogynistic or antisemitic or insane thing that the algos should drive that for profit for corporations when the algos are hidden covertly behind firewalls that we don't even know who we're talking to or if they're American.

We should also be aware of presuming that the tech people themselves can solve these problems. Because I see this with Zuckerberg and with Musk and perhaps they're on opposite sides of the political spectrum. They still have the same problem. Corruption aside, no one knows how to regulate online discourse. Like to bring the rule of law in order to online discourse. No one solved that problem. Half of online activity is criminal across the board, right? Pornography, outright crime, and then the sort of quasi crimes that constitute trolling and so forth. And no one knows how to regulate that. And we shouldn't expect the tech engineers to be able to manage that without. But there's, as you've said and we've discussed, there are some concrete steps we can make. One of them is we need transparent algorithms to know if 60% of the people who are screaming about antisemitism and encouraging it are Russian bots. That's a good thing to know. That's not a freedom. Distinguish the human actors from the non human actors

and you discuss. If you're anonymous and don't want to stand behind your words online, you don't need to be censored. There's a whistleblower issue, but you could certainly be in a second tier of comments below, an interface of people who are willing to. That's not much different than stopping masking, because online anonymity is the virtual equivalent of masking. Right. And the other thing is that you pointed to quite sanely is everything, to some extent, needs some degree of human intervention. That's okay. Whether it's a Tesla factory, whether it's. Everything cannot be automated. Well, you can't automate the edge cases. You can't. That's what consciousness. That's actually what consciousness itself is for. Right. Because as we can transform something into an algorithm, neurologically speaking, we become. It's unconscious. Yes, Right. We transformed regulating our heartbeat into an algorithm. You're never conscious of that. It runs on its own. And once you've got something down, it should run on its own. But there's always an edge of transformation. Right. The edge of transformation can't be algorithmized.

That's actually why we have consciousness itself. And part of the mechanism of that consciousness is the thought, the abstract thought that thought itself entails. But that's very tightly associated with free speech. Right. Thought is internalized speech. Yes. And so the way that consciousness navigates that transformative edge that can't be transformed into a algorithm is through the mechanism of free discourse. That's the mechanism. And so. And there has to be a wide variety of opinions because we don't know how to algorithmize the edge. And the edge causes most of the problem. That's Plato distribution. Opportunity is. Yeah, but you said, I mean, I think you said something like 1% of the criminals. Criminals can cause 65% of the damage. Yeah, that's what they do. So there's no reason that we can't go into a private company, can't say, look, we've identified 150 to 250 people who are clearly bent on sowing chaos, terrorizing America. Here they are. Here's the processes that we have undertaken. They're completely Transparent. And it doesn't necessarily mean you even de platform them. But could you perhaps turn down their reach that you're taking advantage of for profit? Because they're driving outrage and hatred and more and more people are turned in a swirl of hatred. That is not a good long term strategy for any company or any country. Not unless it wants to be overrun by manipulative psychopaths. That's right.

And so any platform will get rife with it and people will leave. And look, you and Michaela and Jordan Fuller have solved this. Peterson Academy. Everybody has to have their name, who has comment. There's a social board. People pay a reasonable but low price of entry to have access to the classes. And the discourse on there is entirely sane. We can have interfaces approximating an honor code, which is like, if you act like a jerk, you can have your money back and leave. And you might say, well, who decides that? And well, the answer at the moment is twofold. The community itself is deciding that. But we are watching too, and we've identified three people out of 30,000 who've caused trouble. Three people, right. And the discourse in there, especially as it builds out, we can have these interfaces just like kids. Jonathan Haidt is suggesting limitations on when kids have their phones. Is there any reason we need, like Khomeini to have access to them from 8am or 4 in the morning? If a tweet alerts, we can have limitations on that. Private companies can also make limitations on how they want to conduct their marketplace of ideas. And what's one person in a classroom having a constant temper tantrum that means nobody can learn. I was trying to distinguish the other day between referee and censor. Like there, there are game rules by which civilized discourse has to proceed. A referee makes sure that the rules are being applied fairly and across the board. Everyone knows what they are. A censor is someone who's making arbitrary behind the scenes decisions. And I think we can discriminate between censors and referees, especially if you do it early and you set the ground rules.

Yeah, right, Right. Okay. So American control. This is fascinating. Three and a half or 3.5 more Americans believe that American news organizations and social media platforms should be owned by US entities to prevent the spread of foreign propagation and disinformation. Of course. Like, would Iran allow us to have a major networking effort through social media that goes to their entire populace? Would China allow us to do that? Does Russia? Does Brazil? Right. Yes, most notably and recently. But so it's perfectly acceptable to understand that America is allowed to have a national identity, one that is shared and good and creates a lot of space for people of different groups to compete. Though we have a lot of obstacles, we have to get right to remove those obstacles to equality of opportunity, and that's what's driving a lot of these problems. But the more we can focus on solving those real problems, we are certainly allowed to have ownership of who is educating our kids and driving our discourse in the hands of Americans.

Education, Technology, Harvard, Free Speech, Social Media, Algorithms, Jordan B Peterson