Podcast Summary: "The Power of Gods with Daniel Schmachtenberger"

Podcast: Conversations With Coleman
Host: Coleman Hughes
Guest: Daniel Schmachtenberger
Episode: S2 Ep.16
Date: May 27, 2021

Episode Overview

In this episode, Coleman Hughes sits down with Daniel Schmachtenberger, a founding member of the Consilience Project, to discuss humanity’s growing existential risks, the adequacy of our problem-solving and governance paradigms, and the modern breakdown of collective sense-making. They engage in a deep, multidisciplinary exploration of technology's double-edged sword, the limitations of democracy, and the need for a new "social technology" to match the power humanity now wields.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Humanity's Catastrophic Risk Landscape

• Technological Progress as Double-Edged Sword (04:31)

  • Two main schools of thought on tech:
    • Progress Optimists: Technology and capitalism, from the Industrial to Digital Revolution, have continually improved life and enabled human problem-solving. New challenges will—optimistically—be solved by human ingenuity.
      • Quote: “Any new problem is just the source of the new challenge that human ingenuity will rise to and we'll figure out solutions.” — Daniel (04:50)
    • Existential Risk Advocates: Modern advancements have introduced new, radically more dangerous categories of risk—AI, biotechnology, distributed catastrophic weapons. Previous frameworks can’t handle these.
      • Quote: “There is an existential risk landscape unlike anything the world ever looked at... It's actually hard to come up with protopian sci-fi.” — Daniel (06:38)

• A Break in History: World War II and Beyond (11:01)

  • Nuclear weapons marked a unique inflection point—previous civilizations failed in ways that were merely local; now, we possess self-terminating capabilities at a planetary scale.
    • Quote: “World War II, we got a weapon that we couldn't really viably use in war... It was the first time of having a really unwinnable war and the ability to actually destroy the biosphere's ability to support life if we used it.” — Daniel (10:29)

• End of Bretton Woods Era / Growing Fragility (12:57)

  • Post-WWII arrangements (economic interdependence, mutual assured destruction) now falter in a world of decentralized catastrophic technologies, fragile interconnected supply chains, and planetary boundary limits.

2. Complexity of Modern Risks: Bombs vs. AI (14:59)

• On the Simplicity of Nuclear Threats vs. Abstract Ones
  • While nuclear risks are terrifying, they are at least imaginable and traceable; yet new threats like AI or biotech are less tangible, harder to forecast, and emotionally abstracted for most people.
    • Quote: “It's easy when you're watching a movie... But the true threats [of AI] are, I think, more abstract than that, but nevertheless scary.” — Coleman (16:46)

3. Breakdown of Sense-Making & Politicization (17:23, 23:41)

• Difficulty of Collective Judgment

  • Daniel notes nations lack a “Manhattan Project” level response to existential risks and are hampered by politicized, fractured information systems. Existing sense-making—how we decide what’s true and important—has decayed, especially through media and education decline.
    • Quote: “We don't have something like a Manhattan Project tending to existential risks of today... Nowhere near that kind of concentration of brain trust, national support, funding...” — Daniel (19:09)

• Epistemic Commons and Media Evolution

  • Functioning democracy requires a shared “epistemic commons.” The collapse of robust journalism and civics education undermines this, making meaningful democracy and governance nearly impossible.
    • Daniel references Jefferson and Washington’s emphasis on education as critical for a functional republic (27:58).
    • Quote: “If the people could all be well educated about what is actually going on in the world, they can make a new government... If the people aren't well educated, they can't possibly be engaged in good choice making.” — Daniel (28:36)

• Politicization Example: COVID-19

  • Coleman shares his first-hand experience of rapidly growing mistrust once COVID became politicized (20:38).

4. Democracy vs. Autocracy vs. Cultural Homogeneity (31:25–44:18)

• Unique American Challenge

  • The U.S. is a multi-tribal nation attempting to remain free and non-autocratic, unlike nations with top-down unity (China) or cultural homogeneity (many European countries, Singapore).
  • Social media worsens polarization by creating echo chambers; people “get a personalized menu of events and opinions that... confirm what you already believe or give you the worst impression of what the other side thinks.” — Coleman (34:06)
  • Daniel: Human groups evolved to work at the Dunbar number (~150), with larger polities historically unified by shared culture or external threat. The U.S. tries to break that paradigm, creating unprecedented strains.

• The Role of Tribalism and Order

  • Emergent order can arise from shared culture or imposed from above (autocracy). Without either, chaos ensues. The vital question: Can order emerge in a pluralistic, high-scale society without coercion or enforced conformity? (41:02)

5. The Scale Paradox & The "Town Hall" Problem (44:18–55:06)

• Scaling Civic Participation
  • Early American democracy was feasible because small towns could meaningfully debate issues. At today's scale and complexity, this breaks down.
  • Daniel highlights Taiwan’s digital democracy led by Audrey Tang as a form of scalable, tech-enabled participatory governance (50:55).

6. Human Nature: Can We Overcome Tribalism? (55:06–69:08)

• Are We Doomed by Rivalry?
  • Both discuss whether rivalry and bias are insurmountable. Daniel argues that while humans have tribal tendencies, culture is hugely plastic—reference to Buddhism, child soldiers, and the range of human conditioning.
    • Quote: “So I see that human nature makes almost everyone a murderer or almost nobody hurts bugs. Both possible under the right conditioning environments.” — Daniel (62:25)
    • This plasticity means humans can potentially evolve greater rationality and universal values, but social conditioning mechanisms will have to be dramatically improved and intentionally designed.

7. Cultural Memes: Why Outliers Stay Outliers (69:08–80:24)

• Short-term vs. Long-term Evolution
  • Some cultural memes (like child soldiers or strict non-violence) may not scale because they are either maladaptive to competition or survive only by avoiding conflict. However, arms race dynamics mean short-term advantages can doom even successful societies.
    • “If we want to make it through that Great Filter, then we have to say how do we have the level of technological power we're developing and be good stewards of it?” — Daniel (71:51)
  • The Fermi Paradox is raised: Do all civilizations self-destruct when reaching high technology through these failure modes?

8. Physical Tech vs. Social Tech: What’s Needed? (80:24–89:29)

• Social Tech Lagging Physical Tech

  • Key thesis: Our rapid progress in material (“physical”) technology demands even greater progress in “social technology”—systems of governance, culture, shared sense-making.
    • Quote: “Our social tech needs to make a jump. To be able to safely guide our physical tech...” — Daniel (78:44)

• Historical Examples

  • The agricultural revolution and technologies like the plow changed social relationships (e.g., gender roles), inheritance, and governance.
  • Printing press enabled democracy by distributing information; now, algorithmically curated social media disrupts collective reality.

• Emergent Cultural Revolution

  • We need a new movement—akin to the Scottish Enlightenment—that can rethink and redesign social systems for an interconnected, existential-risk world. Without this, narrow problem definitions and short-term thinking will fracture societies and fail to address root issues (88:00).

9. Consilience Project and Prototyping Civilization (89:40–93:25)

• What the Consilience Project Does
  • Daniel describes the Consilience Project as an effort to improve collective sense-making, publish in-depth situational assessments, and foster a movement for fundamentally new social systems adequate to the global, existential risk age.
    • Quote: “If we want those new capacities to emerge from the people, it has to be people understanding the issues, working to develop the capacities in themselves, and working to develop the right kind of good faith relationships with others that can prototype these capacities.” — Daniel (91:08)

Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• On Technology’s Double-Edged Sword:
  “There is an existential risk landscape unlike anything the world ever looked at, or tended to... we just don't seem like good enough stewards of that much power.” — Daniel (06:38)

• On the Critical Shift in Modernity:
  “World War II, we got a weapon that we couldn't really viably use in war... It was the first time of having a really unwinnable war and the ability to actually destroy the biosphere's ability to support life if we used it.” — Daniel (10:29)

• On Media Decay and Democracy:
  “If the people could all be well educated about what is actually going on in the world, they can make a new government... If the people aren't well educated, they can't possibly be engaged in good choice making.” — Daniel (28:36)

• On the Necessity of Improving Social Tech:
  “Our social tech needs to make a jump. To be able to safely guide our physical tech...” — Daniel (78:44)

Important Segment Timestamps

• [04:31] – Two schools of thought on technological progress.
• [06:38] – The unique danger and precedent of post-WWII civilization.
• [19:09] – Lack of “Manhattan Project” scale response to existential risks.
• [27:58] – The decay of education and journalism as pillars of democracy.
• [34:06] – Social media’s role in information silos and polarization.
• [41:02] – Emergent order, tribalism, and the conditions necessary for large-scale unity.
• [62:25] – Human nature, positive deviance, and plasticity of culture.
• [71:51] – Short-term evolutionary thinking and the ‘Great Filter’.
• [78:44] – The urgent need for new “social tech”.
• [88:00] – Problems of narrow problem-solving; need for deeper cultural transformation.
• [91:08] – Mission and vision of the Consilience Project.

Tone & Language

The conversation is ambitious, analytic, earnest, and unflinching, with both Coleman and Daniel displaying humility about the scale of the problems yet seriousness in exploring potential solutions. Dialogue is dense with references to history, philosophy, technology, and political theory, often blending systemic critique with future-oriented speculation.

Takeaway

This episode presents a rigorous, systemic critique of the modern world's capacity to govern and survive its own exponentially growing power. Daniel Schmachtenberger and Coleman Hughes illuminate how our tools have outpaced our collective wisdom, and why a conscious reengineering of social systems—grounded in deeper sense-making, education, and coordination—is imperative for navigating the 21st century.

Learn More:

• The Consilience Project: Daniel’s multi-faceted, interdisciplinary initiative to improve public sense-making and civilizational problem-solving.