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- [00:01]
A
This episode is brought to you in part by openphone. If you're running a business, you know that every time you miss a call, you're leaving money on the table. When every customer conversation matters, you need a phone system that keeps up and helps you stay connected 24, 7. That's why you need OpenPhone. OpenPhone is the number one business phone system that streamlines and scales your customer communications. It works through an app on your phone or computer, so no more carrying two phones or using a landline. With OpenPhone, your team can share one number and collaborate on customer calls and texts like a shared inbox. That way any teammate can pick up right where the last person left off, keeping response times faster than ever. Plus say goodbye to voicemail. Their AI agent can be set up in minutes to handle calls after hours, answer questions and capture leads, so you never miss a customer. So whether you're a one person operation drowning in calls and texts, or have a large team that needs better collaboration tools, Openphone is a no brainer. Openphone is offering search engine listeners 20% off your first six months at openphone.com search that's O P E N P-H-O-N-E.com search and if you have existing numbers with another service, Openphone will port them over at no extra charge. Openphone. No missed calls, no missed customers. This episode is brought to you in part by Robert Half. Need contract help for those workload peaks and backlogged projects? You're not alone. Robert half found that 67% of companies surveyed said they will increase their use of contract talent. That's why their recruiters leverage their experience and use award winning AI to quickly find the skilled candidates they want learn about their specialized talent in finance, accounting, technology, marketing, legal and administrative support at Robert Half. They Know Talent. Visit robert.comtalent today. Sam, can you just introduce yourself?
- [02:18]
B
Yeah. Hi, I'm Ayla and I am a sex worker, researcher, writer, among other things.
- [02:24]
A
What do you think of as your primary thing that you are on the Internet? I mean?
- [02:29]
B
Well, I mean, I think it depends a lot, right? Because like usually you identify as whatever is sort of most distinct about you or like has the greatest social impact. And that is either sex worker or writer slash researcher, depending on what circle. Simon.
- [02:48]
A
Ayla is one of the, there's no perfect word for this, but one of the characters of this chapter of the Internet, one of its personalities, she's a writer. She writes mainly on her substack which is called Knowing Less. Sometimes she writes about her life as a Professional sex worker. Sometimes she conducts surveys about sexuality, polling Internet strangers to find out about their habits and desires. She ran one survey about people's fetishes that garnered over 700,000 responses. Sex worker who does online surveys about sex. Frankly, to me, sounds like a description of a person I would ordinarily find pretty boring. People who talk a lot about sex publicly to me often just sound like they're strenuously working overtime to remind me that they've had it. But I deeply enjoy Ayla's writing. She provokes, but she reads to me as someone who is sincere about her beliefs, who genuinely has looked at the big questions how to find meaning, how we're meant to live, and discovered for herself some strange and unusual answers, some of which challenge my own. But there's a specific reason I wanted to talk to her this week. She'd made a big and to me weird life decision, and she'd gotten there through a process I was curious about, which had to do with her rationalist beliefs. Rationalism is an intellectual subculture, a group of people who hang out and influence each other, largely based in the Bay Area. These are people who try, through various methods, some smart, some silly, to just think more rigorously, to try to catch their own brains being biased or stupid or wrong. In the mainstream press, when you read about rationalists, the coverage is often pretty negative. That's partly because there are culty splinter groups of rationalists who are legitimately insane, sometimes even violent. But mainstream rationalists, to me, read as overthinking nerds who overthink themselves to conclusions that sometimes seem very reasonable and sometimes seem a little nutty. In a way that delights me. The conversation that follows, truly one of the more surprising ones I've had in a while. It's about Aella, about rationalism, about how in a world where a lot of people have lost faith in institutions or religions, someone just figures out how to make their own life decisions almost from scratch. What is rationalism?
- [05:14]
B
Well, it depends on what you mean. The community is like a scene, but usually it's around some principles, around what does it look like to actually try and figure out what's true? Because a lot of people really want to, and they sort of include it as a side effect of a lot of their thinking. But it's rare to have a very concrete how do we actually think more accurate thoughts? And so it's just like various strategies and techniques to try and figure out how to do that.
- [05:37]
A
And so it's funny, I mean, if you asked most people do you care about finding out what's true? There's not that many people who would say that they don't. They. But for rationalists, it's a group of people who have really decided they are gonna care about this in a more deliberate, consistent way.
- [05:53]
B
Yeah, that's a great way of putting it.
- [05:55]
A
Were you raised in a rationalist household?
- [05:57]
B
No, I was raised very religious.
- [06:00]
A
Which type of religious?
- [06:01]
B
I was Calvinist, an evangelical homeschooled. It was a professional evangelical family. My dad is a career Christian debater. So I learned a lot about, like, debate and reason, but through a very Christian lens. And it was generally quite warlike because realistically, Christians aren't that curious if they're wrong. The whole strategy is more how do you defend how right you are? Which I think trained a lot of sort of poor rationalist techniques into me, or rather a lot of rationalist sins, if you will.
- [06:30]
A
And just. I don't want to pretend like I know this. I know that Calvinism is like a severe, in my mind, branch of Christianity, but what does it mean to be a Calvinist Christian?
- [06:39]
B
Yeah, it generally is associated with more severe social technology. But the five points of Calvinism are tulip, which is total depravity, which means that you are born sinful. Like babies are inherently sinful. For example, unconditional election, which means that God picks you to be saved not based on anything that you do or any aspect of yourself, but rather to his unknowable decisions, limited atonement, which means that Jesus died only for the elect. He did not die for the unelect, irresistible grace, which means that if God decides to save you, you cannot say no. And perseverance of the saints, which is once saved, always saved.
- [07:11]
A
These things have been programmed into you pretty thoroughly.
- [07:14]
B
Yeah, I go to the grave with those things in my brain.
- [07:18]
A
And so what did it look like, if you don't mind my asking? Like your dinner table in a professional Calvinist household as a kid, being somebody who's trying to figure out what's true and what's not true and what's right and what's wrong. Like, what were those conversations like?
- [07:33]
B
It was a lot of, like, training for war, I would say. We would have Bible study every night when I was a child at our family dinner where we would read the Bible and then my dad would drill us on theological concepts and then give us, like, a lot of examples of what, you know, enemies of the faith would say. And the correct answer to respond to this. So there's a lot of what the arguments are and how to recite them, in a sense. And there was a lot of lip service given to like, true doubt and figuring out what's going on. It's like, oh, we are actually interested in the truth is what people would say. But this was not realistic.
- [08:05]
A
But at the time, for a while it felt realistic to you?
- [08:08]
B
Yeah, and I think that's part of the reason why I'm no longer Christian. Like in it, I remember being quite young and then realizing, wait a second, there's a bunch of other religions and they all seem very convinced about it themselves. Should I be worried? I noticed that I am in a religion that I'm very convinced about. And so I remember like promising to myself, okay, the only way that I can make this fair and like truly believe that the other people are wrong is, is if I myself am open to being wrong. So I really promise that within myself. And it took a very long time for me to actually figure out that I was wrong still, because social incentives make it very difficult to figure out what's going on often.
- [08:44]
A
How old were you when you were making that promise to yourself?
- [08:49]
B
Like, probably early teens.
- [08:53]
A
And so what would your, like when you say that you were being prepared for war, it's like you were being prepared for intellectual war with people who, who didn't believe. And the idea was that, like, you're being given like an operating manual. Like, they'll say this, but then you'll say this. And if they say this, then you do this. It's almost like law school.
- [09:10]
B
Yeah, very much. Do you know the great atheist wars of the 2010s where everybody was on forums being angry at each other about this?
- [09:16]
A
A bad chapter in Internet, I would say.
- [09:18]
B
Yeah, well, that was very much. We were like training for the atheist wars, although I didn't really know it at the time. And like, this was my dad's profession. He would, you know, make these arguments very easily available online. You'd go to his website and you would download like, oh, somebody says this thing. You can copy paste these argument singers to say in response.
- [09:34]
A
So when did you realize that you were going to go on a different path? Like, what happened to make you drop out of this?
- [09:39]
B
It took sort of an embarrassingly long time. I think it was very difficult to actually think properly because I had such massive social incentive to not think properly. Like, I didn't know anybody who wasn't Christian. I was homeschooled. Like, I was in a bubble and everything I knew about the world was filtered through this thing. And So I would always think like, oh, I could not believe if I thought it wasn't true. But I don't think I actually had that option available to me. Like my brain just wouldn't let me consider it because the consequences would have been massive. And so it was only after I got old enough and left home and for the first time was surrounded by a bunch of people who weren't Christian that I think this started to give me a little bit of space in my mind to think that possibly I could disagree in some way, especially seeing other people who weren't Christian and they had functioning lives because we'd always been sort of told that, oh, I mean there are good people who aren't Christian but you know, their goodness isn't deep in some way and they don't actually have any sort of moral guiding light. It's going to actually be hard and you can't really trust them. And so to finally start interacting with people who seemed normal or kind or even kinder than a lot of the Christians I knew, I was like, huh, that's not what I expected.
- [10:45]
A
And was this college?
- [10:47]
B
Yeah, it went very briefly for like three months before I couldn't afford it, but it was like college. And then also when I had jobs around college and the factory and stuff.
- [10:56]
A
Like that and wait, I knew that you dropped out of college. I didn't know why. It was just financially. You couldn't afford to be there.
- [11:02]
B
Yeah, my parents made too much money for me to qualify for any aid, but they also refused to help or co sign any loans so I couldn't go. Like my whole childhood they made it very explicit that they would not help me financially whatsoever after I turned 18 and I was completely on my own.
- [11:18]
A
And so how did you support yourself?
- [11:20]
B
I worked at a factory on a factory assembly line floor.
- [11:25]
A
What was the factory making?
- [11:26]
B
This was in Pullman Troitstra Engineering and I made electrical relays.
- [11:32]
A
How is that?
- [11:33]
B
It sucks, man. We had to wake up at like 4:00am and go in for, you know, nine, ten hour shifts and work weekends. It was really awful.
- [11:40]
A
And what would you think about when you were on the line?
- [11:43]
B
I think I tried very hard to be happy with my situation, which I kind of was because being out of my upbringing was kind of great in some ways, but I definitely was in some absolute amount of pain about it and I wanted to get out.
- [11:59]
A
And was the pain like those are hard jobs and you seem like a person with an unusually active mind. Like was the pain boredom? Was the pain, the hardness of the Job. Like, what was the pain?
- [12:10]
B
Yeah, I think it was just the fact that it sucked up your whole life. It was just so many hours. I basically just lived to work, and it was really sad. And I sort of had some sense that I could do something more. Like, I felt very motivated. I was, like, a vibrant, creative person who just like, really filled my life with a bunch of cool shit. And I loved learning. And I kept thinking, like, okay, well, if I do super, super well, maybe I can race through the ranks and, like, be a cool engineer or something. But I didn't know that you had to go to college to get off the factory floor. There was no way to actually become successful in that system at all. And so I felt, like, trapped, and I didn't really know what to do about it.
- [12:46]
A
And so what did you do?
- [12:48]
B
I moved back down to Boise and got into sex work. I was became a cam girl, which was great. I loved it.
- [12:56]
A
How did that idea occur to you?
- [12:57]
B
I was dating a guy made off of Cupid, and he. I guess he had done some sex work, and then he was like, well, I'm a camboy. You can sort of join me and make some money. That way you can, like, ride on my coattails a bit. But then I ended up breaking up with him before we tried that. And so I was sitting there, I'm like, man, well, I need money. And he told me about this camming thing, so I guess maybe I'll try that. And then I had no idea I was doing. And I logged on and I got drunk because I was scared. And then I showed my boobies and whatever. And then I made $60 my first night, which was insane money for me for that kind of work. And then I just got addicted. I was like, ah. All this vibrancy and energy, like, desire to build something, finally had an outlet. I was like, I can channel it into this thing. I can work on it, and actually, like, my efforts will have payout. And then I became really obsessed with it.
- [13:40]
A
Were you. You were doing something that was very against the, like, moral instruction you'd been given as a kid? Just the first time you ever, like, disrobed for a camera for Internet strangers. Did you have fear? Like, did you have, like. Did you feel like you were overriding something? Or was it just like, I'm not going back to the factory? Like, how did it feel?
- [14:02]
B
Weirdly, no. I think I sort of have a very sociosexual disposition and.
- [14:06]
A
Wait, what's his sociosexual disposition?
- [14:08]
B
It's like a Type of personality metric that measures sort of how prone you are to basically casual sex. Like, how easy it is for you to separate, like, emotion from sex. That kind of thing.
- [14:17]
A
I see.
- [14:18]
B
And so, for me, I think that's just sort of the way that I'm wired. It's like a kind of a biological thing. And so a lot of, like, my training to, you know, be sexually not promiscuous was very ingrained and social, and I followed it really well, very religiously. But, like, once I left my religion, I sort of had to throw everything out. I was like, okay, religion gave me a script for how to deal with, like, morality and family and, like, my personal body and my job and my life. And I know that the religion is wrong. So I have to start from scratch. I have to throw everything out, forget everything. It told me I need to figure everything out from first principles. And that involved throwing out, like, everything I knew about sex. And so I didn't have, like, the secular conditioning, and I threw out the religious conditioning. So from first principles, I was like, hmm, I noticed I am horny. I noticed I would like to have sex with someone. I will then go have sex with someone like that. It was just very basic and simple. And. And so I got pretty promiscuous pretty fast. So by the time I was camming, it wasn't that hard. Like, men had seen me naked by that point, and it was definitely scary to do it publicly. But I was always very good at, like, taking risks and doing things, even though I was terrified.
- [15:23]
A
And wait. The way you're describing your interior monologue sounds like a person who has already become a rationalist. Like, I imagine that at that point in your life, a phrase like first principles was not in your internal monologue. That's true, but you were thinking that way. Like, it was just like, that's the way your mind works for whatever reason.
- [15:44]
B
Yeah. I mean, I think I am well suited towards rationalist thinking in this way.
- [15:49]
A
Okay, so you. You do this, and it's like, you've been this ambitious person trying to figure out the world, struggling with the low ceiling of a factory job. You don't enjoy the. This blows that ceiling away. And now you're just on the Internet, a place where you can try things and test them and notice what happens. And you're applying your intellectual curiosity and your curiosity about the world and your curiosity about the Internet to camming. What does it look like to do that? What does it look like to go in front of a camera that's attached to your computer and be naked. But to do that analytically, well, I.
- [16:27]
B
Was very bad at it for a long time. It turns out that applying analytics to things does not always turn out to be sexy, as many men probably figured out. And also, like, I came from a very isolated world where like, my parents didn't want us to watch movies that had too much romance in it, for example. So like, I didn't really see a lot of what flirting or seduction was. And so I didn't really know how that worked at all. I would get on cam and I'd be like, well, I got boobs. Look at them. Please give me money. And that didn't go super well. But so it took a lot of trial and error.
- [17:06]
A
Did you feel like an alien?
- [17:08]
B
I think a lot of other people described me as an alien.
- [17:10]
A
You didn't feel like one, but people were reacting to you as if you were one?
- [17:13]
B
Well, I didn't know that I was out of place. I knew that I had like come from this other world and now I was in the outside world because those were very separate when I was growing up. So it was very difficult for other people to understand how alien I was, even though I could feel that I was alien to them. And so that communication, like the one way thing was really hard for me and people just thought I was like really weird for a while.
- [17:35]
A
But so you're both learning camming and you're learning flirting and you're learning like secular social interactions and you're trying to do it analytically. Like what did your misfires look like with Kami?
- [17:46]
B
You get money per hour basically, or you see tips come in and so you can sort of figure out over time, like if you engage in this kind of body language, do you get more or less money? So I did a lot of iteration and eventually I figured out that I made more money when I talked slowly and I used simpler words and I just smiled a whole lot. So like, I basically had to go into sort of a gentle, feminine, slow sort of Persona to earn. And my big mistakes in the beginning were just being exactly the way that I was, which is like talking really fast and then talking about, you know, kind of conceptual things or something.
- [18:20]
A
Wait, how conceptual? What were you talking about?
- [18:24]
B
I don't know. I would talk about whatever I wanted. I mean, camming is like, it's like twitch streaming, just that, you know, the girl gets naked a bit. So there's a lot of time where you're just chatting at the camera. It's just anything I don't know, philosophy, religion. I used to do, like a religion role play. Cause I was super good at it. I would just quote Bible verses of people while I'm getting naked. But I was also really goofy. And so I did a whole bunch of performance shows like Miming or gnomes. And then this is eventually what led to the gnome photo set, which was very famous on Reddit for some period of time.
- [18:51]
A
Wait, sorry, what's the gnome photo set?
- [18:54]
B
I just. I really like the Internet. So I was a big Redditor and they had a subreddit called Gone Wild where girls posted sexy photos. And then I'm like, well, nobody's posting sexy naked photos that are also funny. So I did a photo set where I was like, getting striptease, which was common, taking my clothes off, and then I got abducted by gnomes that slowly invaded. That's the photos progressed. It was like, silly and dumb, but it was like the 11th top post of all time on Reddit for some time.
- [19:16]
A
Wow.
- [19:17]
B
Yeah.
- [19:18]
A
Was that the first time, like, you had viral success?
- [19:22]
B
That is, yes, that is correct.
- [19:24]
A
What did it feel like?
- [19:25]
B
Well, it was great. I pulled my pants the day I posted it, though.
- [19:29]
A
Is this related or is this a thing that happened?
- [19:31]
B
It was just. It was like a nice combination of me trying to get home and then shitting myself while my phone was blowing up as I, like, went viral.
- [19:39]
A
We don't understand the significance of you shooting yourself. You're like. Was the lesson for you, like, don't pay so much attention to your phone or is just another interesting thing that happened?
- [19:47]
B
No, it was just extremely memorable day because I was, like, experiencing a stressful, humiliating thing as well as, like, becoming famous and everybody loving the art that I had made, like, simultaneously. It was lovely.
- [20:00]
A
Okay, okay, okay.
- [20:02]
B
It got me, like, a good fan base, but it was not a very vast fan base that paid me a lot of money, unfortunately. And that was, like, something I had to come to terms with over time, which was very sad to me. It was like, it doesn't matter how much, like, effort or intelligence or creativity I put into my show. I will never, ever make as much money as I do if. As if I just am like a kind of dumb, sweet woman who, like, masturbates. Well.
- [20:27]
A
Okay, so you'd grown up with a religion that was also, like, here as a map for how to look at the world. That map was no good for you threw it out. You were camming. You were figuring it out. It was getting boring. So what do you do with that?
- [20:40]
B
Well, I did A whole bunch of acid like when I was 22. And that completely changed me. And I didn't do very well camming because I lost my motivation to cam. And then the year after that, I got into rationality.
- [21:00]
A
After the break, what happens when a former Calvinist turned cam girl discovers an unusual new process for making decisions? This episode is brought to you in part by Quince. As the air turns crisp and the leaves start to change, I am thinking about layering pieces that feel cozy but still look put together. And Quince Quince is where I'm looking. They have 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters which are unbelievably soft and warm. Perfect for layering under jackets or over a shirt. And they start at just $60. I've been also eyeing their denim. It fits right, holds its shape and works for everything from errands to casual nights out. And I'm very curious about their real leather jackets, which are classic, stylish and surprisingly affordable. What sets Quints apart is their quality. Quality and the way they do business. By partnering directly with ethical factories and skipping the middlemen, they deliver fabrics and craftsmanship you'd expect from luxury brands, but at roughly half the price. It's easy to build a fall wardrobe that looks high end but feels smart for your budget. Keep it classic and cool this fall with long lasting staples. From quint's. Go to quinte.com searchengine for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q U I-N-E.com search engine to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quint.com search engine.
- [22:26]
B
Thanks for selling your car to Carvana. Here's your check. Whoa.
- [22:29]
A
When did I get here?
- [22:30]
B
What do you mean?
- [22:31]
A
I swear it was just moments ago that I accepted a great offer from Carvana online. I must have time traveled to the future.
- [22:37]
B
It was just moments ago. We do same day pickup. Here's your check for that great offer.
- [22:41]
A
It is the future.
- [22:43]
B
It's insta the present and just the convenience of Carvana. Sorry to blow your mind. It's all good.
- [22:48]
A
Happens all the time.
- [22:50]
B
Sell your car the convenient way to Carvana. Pickup times may vary and fees may apply.
- [23:05]
A
Welcome back to the show. Okay, so you were already getting bored with camming. Taking a lot of acid. Which if you don't like your job, seems to underline for people the meaninglessness of their job. Acid gets you to rationalism.
- [23:20]
B
No? Well, I did the acid. I lost my motivation to cam. And then I was dating A guy who read Less Wrong and then what's Less Wrong? Less Wrong is a website that Eliezer Yudkowski originally wrote the sequences on, which is like a series of blog posts or sequences about, like how to think more clearly. And I usually say the Rationalist is like a scene of people who really like reading Less Wrong. Like right now, Less Wrong is no longer just the sequences. It's a forum. It's like pretty active and pretty good forum where people post general, like research or science or rationality takes or opinions about emotions and people comment on it and it's great.
- [24:01]
A
Last Wrong is set up like an old school message board text, heavy, dense. The premise of the website is that you can get better at thinking you can be Less Wrong. If podcasts attract a certain kind of overthinker, Less Wrong is another place they might find a home, A place for overthinkers to overthink together and find new vocabularies for their overthinking. People here love a Bayesian probability. They're always updating their priors, working from first principles past the jargon. That just means they're doing what overthinky people usually do, puzzling out the answers to questions about life and meaning and whether AI is going to kill us all. It's like if one of the message boards where people obsess about bodybuilding was instead devoted to people obsessed with figuring out how to think and how to live, but without the guidance of a religion. When I read Less Wrong, the part of me that reacts to things gets very confused. Like, my brain actually doesn't know whether to make jokes about all this or admire one community of people online that seems to be earnestly trying to better itself instead of just finding new ways to become mutually insane. But when Ayla found Less Wrong to her, it felt like a new home.
- [25:17]
B
And so I started reading that. And then I knew that there were meetups and there was a local meetup, and so I went and I tried it and I fell in love and I kept going and I've been going to rational meetups ever since.
- [25:29]
A
Huh.
- [25:34]
B
It feels so different from religion to me. Like, I know a lot of people describe rationality as a religion, but, like, I've been part of a religion. This is nothing like it. Like, partially because religion is curiosity stopping. It's like we're giving you a set of answers and you have to, like, adhere to this set of beliefs, otherwise you are no longer part of a religion. But for rationality, it was more like a process. And it's like, how do we arrive at the answers? And so you get a pretty wide variety of, like, disagreeing beliefs inside of people who like rationality. Like, people will disagree with each other about, like, very important things like politics or, you know, existentialism or AI or something. That the shared thing is, like, how do you arrive at these beliefs in, like, a consistent and rigorous way? And the thing that really caught me for rationality, the thing that I really liked is I remember because I had been trained in this really war, like, religion thing, and I had a lot of identity wrapped up in my beliefs. Like, I had identity wrapped up in my politics. And I was like, okay, I believe this thing and I'm kind of cool, and if you don't, I'm going to kind of dunk on you that sort of view.
- [26:32]
A
Yeah.
- [26:32]
B
And then I remember going in and then being like, kind of like subtly antagonistically trying to initiate a conversation about feminism. Because at this point I was like an anti feminist, which I'm not anymore. And then I remember asking somebody like, well, are you a feminist? And then they said, quote, what do you mean by feminist? It's just such a simple thing. But they meant it earnestly. They were like, oh, I just really want to understand what you mean. And I'm not thinking about the label or the identity. I just, like, want to understand the concepts you're pointing to so I can, like, pick out the concepts that I think are sensible and the things that aren't. And there was just something in that specific interaction that for me, like, suddenly I saw a different way of being. I was like, oh, my God, they're not playing a game that I suddenly now realize that I'm playing. And then that just completely transformed my relationship to thinking and to thoughts at all. And I loved it.
- [27:23]
A
But so it wasn't a point they made. It was that the way that they spoke and the way that they thought, it was like, literally psychedelic for you. It was mind opening. And it made you realize that even though you'd stop believing the tenets of Calvinism, the style of thinking and the style of working out ideas, instead of arguing, you had just kind of brought with you. And in the way this person asked questions, you saw a different way to think.
- [27:45]
B
Yeah, basically. I mean, it's not even just Calvinism. It's like a lot of people do this with politics at all or any kind of identity.
- [27:51]
A
Yeah, I. It's funny, I'm not a rationalist. I read. And like a lot of rationalist writers, the experience you're Describing having. I've had that experience where you're talking to someone and they just start asking questions in a way where you feel like they're, like, slightly, like, moving some part of your brain that was on tracks somewhere else and that it's not that you're trying to figure out what they believe, more like they have a mode of inquiry, the team's more careful, and you're trying to learn how to follow it.
- [28:22]
B
Yeah, basically, it's like you try and throw a grenade at somebody and they don't even notice that you threw a grenade. And you're like, oh, I don't have to be in a world where you are watching out for grenades.
- [28:34]
A
Yeah, okay. So it's like you had this community that didn't work for you. You wandered in the world for a while. You found a process that worked for you and a community that was attached to it of people you liked back then. When you're going to these meetups, like, what is it a park? Is it at somebody's house? Is it a bar?
- [28:48]
B
At the time, it was at the Seattle University. One of the attendees was a student there and, like, had the gate pass things. So we just went into one of the public buildings. But eventually we started making group houses and people started moving in together. And then the meetups turned into those houses. But it eventually ended up becoming a potluck where we'd all bring food and then have a group dinner afterwards. It was like, very community vibe. And then we would read some of the sequences or adjacent blog posts. I think at one point we read one of my blog posts even, and discuss them. And I don't know, see if we agreed or disagreed. How would we have done it better?
- [29:22]
A
It's funny, it sounds like the parts of college people like, yeah, or like, Bible study, if the answers aren't already figured out in advance.
- [29:30]
B
Yeah. I remember I was walking around Berkeley, like, last year sometime, and I really had to poop. This is a recurring problem for me is clearly the emergency pooping. But I was having one of those emergency pooping elements, and I was walking around with my friend, and my friend was like, oh, well, we should stop by somewhere to poop if you need. And then he started, like, pointing out all the rationalist group houses that were around. Like, well, down this block is this group house. And then we go up two blocks in this group house and, like, people in these group houses, like, I don't actually know them really, but it's a rationalist group house, which means that, like, if you're part of the rationalist community. I could be like, hey, I'm a rationalist. Can I use your bathroom? That was really cool. That actually did remind me of Christianity a bit because there's like a big communal atmosphere, like, oh, if you're part of the church, we sort of know you and trust you, and we're part of the same social scene such that there's a reputation network that lets me trust you. And that was really nice.
- [30:17]
A
And so it's almost like it's weird. Like, I've been trying to understand, like, who are these people and where did they show up from? And like, I feel like one way you could think of it is, oh, it's a new school of thought or motive thinking. One way it gets sort of poorly caricatured is like, oh, this is like some sort of Bay Area cult. Another way to think about it is it's a website that has a community attached to the website.
- [30:38]
B
Yeah, that sounds about right, huh?
- [30:44]
A
I am not a rationalist. I don't think I'll ever be one. But as you can probably tell, I am curious about what they're trying to do. They are trying to solve a problem I often find myself tripping over in my own mind. Something I notice in myself when I try to figure out what's true or how to live is how many of my beliefs are just a product of the people I spend my time with. If what you believe is also part of your identity, a Christian, an atheist, a Democrat, a Republican, changing your mind is very expensive because on some level you suspect you will suffer social consequences. All of us are social people, intensely so. But we also want to think of ourselves as independent thinkers, which I think means sometimes we tell ourselves that it's just a coincidence how much we happen to agree with the people we know or tell ourselves that we agree with them because all of us just happen to have gotten to the right answers independently. Rationalists or the people they influence, they really seem to be trying to find a way to get to their own individual ideas for real. You don't have to have the same answers to be in their club. You just have to have the same commitment to a process. That's the theory anyway. Although in practice, like any group, the rationalists tend to resemble each other. They usually worry a lot about AI. They tend to think hard about philanthropy, they're very into animal welfare. And there was another trait they seem to share that for a list tastes was kind of annoying, in her opinion. Rationalists throw lousy parties.
- [32:15]
B
This is My ongoing complaint with the rationalists, who I love dearly, the rationalists are fucking wonderful, but they drive me up the wall sometimes with not being very bodied and then not having very good parties. So I'm like, okay, I will design a party that will maximize how weird the environment is, such that they must act differently somehow. Let's see if we can shock them out of it. And so I was like, what if we did a naked party where everybody has to be naked and maybe that will somehow break the rationalists out of whatever fucking rationalist vibe they're bringing. And so I just picked, like, the most insane idea I could think of, and it did not work.
- [32:48]
A
So it's like you were like, these people live completely in their minds. I'm gonna try to create a party structure where they cannot help but be interesting in a non in their minds way. And they were like, yes, you're thinking for why this party should exist or why we should attend. It is sound. And yet they attend the party and they still just do the same thing that they would always do, but just naked.
- [33:09]
B
Yeah. It was so funny. I couldn't believe it. I was just so, like, damn it, foiled again.
- [33:16]
A
And what was like, the like for me, every time I've thrown a party, the first fifth is kind of difficult because I'm worried that people are not gonna show up, or if they show up, they're not gonna have fun, or everyone's kind of in their corners, or they're, like, clustered around me. Like, what did conversation look like at the naked party?
- [33:35]
B
People felt awkward. It was stilted. And then I was trying to make jokes. And then at some point, it just became like, a long debate about global politics. That's mostly all I remember.
- [33:46]
A
Okay.
- [33:46]
B
I think I tried to put on music and make them dance, but it didn't work.
- [33:49]
A
Okay. So I think I'm seeing it. It sounds like you're a person where you were enjoying the Bay Area's many countercultures. Rationalists were a part of that. Their sort of brainy insistence on living in their own minds was sometimes annoying. It sounds like part of your role in that community is to push them towards fun, embodiment things like that.
- [34:15]
B
Yeah. As like, the local sex weirdo.
- [34:17]
A
Right. In the Bay Area rationalist community, which is like a very funny local sex weirdo to Bay.
- [34:21]
B
Yeah, very much.
- [34:26]
A
Ayla said that at her naked rationalist party, the attendees wore masks. The idea being that the anonymity might make people more comfortable or the party more interesting. And so some night in the Bay. There were nude philosophy fans wearing animal masks, paper bags, paper mache discussing trade policy while their host looked on in real disappointment that things had not turned out differently. I spend a lot of time wondering what the world would have been like without social media. What we'd believe, who we'd follow. These days I mostly notice what we've lost instead of what we've gained. But I wonder also about Ayla in the social medialess world. Is she still stuck at the factory making electrical relays? Is she still an uncomfortable Calvinist? Does she even know that somewhere out there there's actually a tribe for her? A tribe too scattered and weird to find each other without a disruptive new communications technology that'll also bring us rising authoritarianism and very convenient e commerce? Probably not. After a short break, the local sex weirdo in the Bay Area rationalist community decides to do the most normal thing in the world. Find someone to have kids with.
- [35:48]
B
When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans, send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom 60th and never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end to end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp message privately with everyone. Learn more@WhatsApp.com this episode is brought to you by State Farm. Checking off the boxes on your to do list is a great feeling. And when it comes to checking off coverage, a State Farm agent can help you choose an option that's right for you. Whether you prefer talking in person on the phone or using the award winning app, it's nice knowing you have help finding coverage that best fits your needs. Like a good neighbor. State Farm is there.
- [36:41]
A
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B
Raise the sails.
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A
Captain, an unidentified ship is approaching.
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B
Over. Roger, wait.
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A
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B
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A
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- [37:19]
A
Welcome back to the show. So the specific reason I wanted to talk to Ayla this week of all weeks was because I'd seen her posting about what I thought was, even by her standards, a very unusual project. Was a project even the right word? She'd been trying to find a partner to have a Kid with. But Aella had been pursuing that goal with the same home brewed deductive logic that she routinely pursued life's questions with. So I'm curious about the current mission that you are on. How do you as a rationalist, apply the principles of rationalism to your goal, which is that you want to have a kid and you want to find a partner who you can have a kid with.
- [37:59]
B
I mean, rationality is not winning is the common phrase.
- [38:03]
A
So what does that mean? Rationalism is about winning?
- [38:05]
B
I think it's like a lot of people have debates over what kind of beliefs are true, but generally the correct beliefs are winning. And I don't mean like fighting other people. I mean like, if you build a car, does it run? You know, have you won at your goal of like trying to build the car? It's like demonstrable change in the world.
- [38:24]
A
Got it. Okay. Sometimes how I think about it is it's people who are trying to figure out how to behave correctly without religion. But it sounds like a more accurate way to view it would be people who are trying to optimize.
- [38:34]
B
How do you achieve your goals?
- [38:36]
A
And so how do you apply that mode of thinking to this goal of procreation?
- [38:43]
B
I mean, there's lots of things I've made prediction markets about dating to see what the market thinks about my love life.
- [38:49]
A
A prediction market is a place where strangers can bet on the outcomes of anything. You have opened up markets into what is going to happen to your love life?
- [38:57]
B
Yeah. Cause I like, I broke up with my partner a while back and then I'm like, well, I get back together seriously with my partner. And then people get to bet on that because often when you're inside of a thing, it's like hard to see straight.
- [39:06]
A
Well, what did you learn by doing it?
- [39:09]
B
Well, I think the market was higher than I thought it was. I was like, I am. I'm never going to find anyone. I'm not going to get back together with him. And the market was like 60% like, yes, you are. And, uh, I'm not back with him seriously, but I'm back to him with him casually. And it seemed like a good chance that might become serious. So maybe the markets were wiser than me.
- [39:27]
A
I've had that experience. There was somebody I had like broken up with. I was like, I'll never talk to them again. And a friend of mine was just like, I'll bet you 40 bucks. And then immediately I was like, oh, I'm lying to myself.
- [39:39]
B
Yeah, there's something about having Money on the line. That just really causes your brain to cut through the bullshit.
- [39:45]
A
Yeah. Okay, so one thing you're doing is you're inviting other people to make bets on what's gonna happen with you as a way to better understand yourself, what you're doing, what you're looking for, et cetera. What else?
- [39:59]
B
I met my current partner through a survey or. Well, I originally met him at that naked party, but I didn't talk to him. I didn't know who he was. And so I actually met up with him. Cause I made a survey to date me where I had people fill out a form about a bunch of stuff that was important to me. And then I scored them secretly on the backend. And then I contacted the highest scorers.
- [40:17]
A
I saw you post this. You made a post that was just like, if you are interested in dating me, answer these questions. But I didn't read the survey. What type of questions were on the survey?
- [40:27]
B
Yeah, the survey split into three sections. One is like, basic demographics. Like, are you the right age range in the same location in the world? Are you poly? Do you want kids? And then another section is like, sexual compatibility. And then the third section is like personality values kind of stuff. And so I sort of weighted those three equally. And then inside of those, I had a whole bunch of questions that I thought were important and a lot of decoy questions. And then I spit out a score.
- [40:54]
A
At the end, and it found you a person you like. So presumably in this case, your method was winning.
- [41:01]
B
Yeah, yeah, it was the. I ended up talking to him, like briefly at a party to circle. And I knew about his existence, but I never seriously considered him. I was just like, I was just a random dude. I don't particularly feel attracted to him. They don't have chemistry or whatever. But then he scored so high on the survey, I was like, well, I guess I have to give him another shot. And so our first date was three days in an Airbnb. And then it worked out, huh? I think a lot of the world sort of shies away from optimizing things that are supposed to be magical. Like, oh, you're supposed to have this almost like mystical quality when you meet cute, your boyfriend and then fall for him. And it's like, not about anything really specific or cold, hard traits about him. There's just something about him. And sort of rationalists don't really ascribe to the mythology kind of thing. They're like, no, you can optimize anything. Is there just a better way to look for love? And often this runs up against people's sense of romanticism. But, like, a traditionally rationalist approach to this sort of thing is to sort of disregard their romanticism in favor of, like, actually succeeding.
- [41:59]
A
Okay, so Ayla has been using open to all surveys to select people to date. She's been inviting Internet strangers to bet on her future romantic choices, partly as a way to just test whether she could be kidding herself. But the really unusual choice she'd made is that she put up a cash prize to anyone who could help her in her quest. A large cash prize. A decision unusual enough that it had made me want to talk to her in the first place to understand what kind of thinking had led to that decision, which I had never heard of anyone making before. So can you tell me about this post that you wrote?
- [42:32]
B
Yeah, I'm looking for something like a husband and offering a bounty 100k if anybody recommends someone that I ended up marrying. And I am looking for someone who wants kids and is poly and. Yeah, I don't know. This is sort of the thing.
- [42:47]
A
Yeah, this is the thing. This is the thing. The thing you're describing. You're describing it like, in a very, like, well, obviously way or something. But it's an interesting and unusual thing that you've chosen to do, in my opinion.
- [43:01]
B
Yeah, I guess so. Everything's kind of weird and unusual when I do it the first time or have the first thought. But then after a while, it feels like the normal thing and I forget what it's like to find it weird.
- [43:11]
A
So where were you? I assume you were somewhere where you had to poop, but where were you when you were like, oh, I should put a bounty on this? What was going on?
- [43:19]
B
Well, what happened is I signed up for, like, a matchmaking thing.
- [43:22]
A
Yeah.
- [43:23]
B
And they had a system where if you. If they match you, you pay them a hundred thousand dollars. And I was like, that. It means, sure. Like if I. If they fail, whatever, and if they succeed, I've made a husband, and then I will have, in hindsight, said it's worth it. Then after a while I was like, dude, why am I just paying them 100k if I'm actually, like, willing to part with 100k for a husband? Should I not crowdsource this? Should I? Don't let anybody have this option. So I posted it publicly.
- [43:49]
A
I read it and was like, 100k, do I know anybody? It definitely worked on my brain.
- [43:55]
B
That's the goal.
- [43:57]
A
And how did you decide on 100,000? It's a lot of money.
- [44:00]
B
I mean, that's what the original matchmaker people were asking for. And this feels high enough to be incentivizing. Pretty meaningfully incentivizing, especially since social circles are sort of stratified. I'm sort of interested in somebody who's roughly equivalent to me in maybe visibility or money or something, which means that, like, you're selecting for slightly higher income, higher wealth people.
- [44:21]
A
Yeah.
- [44:21]
B
And those people tend to know each other, and then those people are incentivized by lower amounts of money. So you really have to, like, raise the total money to like, catch their attention.
- [44:28]
A
And then there was, if I remember, there was an additional part about pregnancy.
- [44:33]
B
If you get me impregnated. Yeah. So it would like someone to pay me $10 million to have and raise their child as a single mother, which, I mean, seems kind of unlikely, but, you know, why not? You should always, like, say the trades you're willing to make just in case. And then if you hook me up with this person, then I'll pay you 300k.
- [44:51]
A
And is this something, like, in my imagination, I'm like, okay, that seems like an advertisement for Elon Musk. Are there other people who are like, yes, I want to pay someone to raise my kid, but I don't want to meet or interact with my kid? Or are you just like, maybe that person exists, and if so, this money will summon them? Like, how did you decide this?
- [45:08]
B
Well, I had kind of slightly offhandedly tweeted a while ago that, like, if you pay me 10 mil, raise your baby. LOL. And then somebody messaged me about it, and then we were in somewhat serious talks about it for a while. It ended up not working out. But I went through the whole process of talking to lawyers, and you were.
- [45:24]
A
Talking to lawyers to draw up what this would look like as a formal agreement?
- [45:28]
B
Yeah. How would this work legally? How would child custody work? How would it work with the fertility clinic and stuff like that?
- [45:34]
A
I think what I so appreciate about this strange plan is, I mean, a lot of things, it's. You're making an unusual choice in a very deliberate way. But also it's like the thing you want, which is like, find a mate and have a kid is so conventional, but you want it on your very specific terms in your very specific way. It's such a combination of a very old idea and a lot of new ideas.
- [46:03]
B
Yeah. I'm a super weird person, which I know that everybody sort of thinks that they're weird, but I suspect that I maybe actually weird, even adjusted for that. Bias. And I've been having like, problems finding people that I'm attracted to in general. So I think it takes like, if I'm that unusual, then I probably cannot go about mate finding in the usual way.
- [46:23]
A
And how has it gone so far?
- [46:26]
B
Not great. I've looked at the submissions to the form and nobody sort of has jumped out. There's been a couple direct recommendations that caught my interest, but none of them have quite worked out yet.
- [46:38]
A
And do you. It's weird. I can kind of make the argument that, I don't know, it's such a normal thing to be at the part of your life where you're like, monogamous, polyamorous, whatever, where you're like, I am trying to find my person, whatever that means, even if your person's persons. And I feel like a lot of people struggle with this at some point. And the thing I'll typically say to people, which is because it's true, not as lies, I'll be like, you know, most people find somebody, you kind of only have to find one person who really suits you. But in the meantime, it's really. The uncertainty is really hard. Is your brain struggling with the uncertainty the way everybody else's does?
- [47:14]
B
Yeah, sometimes I'm sad. I'm like, oh man. I think there's like a reasonable chance that I might live my life without ever finding a guy that I want to have kids with. And that's like, pretty narratively sad. I'm like, oh, does this mean I'm a failure in some way? But I mean, I think I'm like, fundamentally okay.
- [47:33]
A
These questions Ayla's wrestling with are core human ones. Who should I partner with and how should I procreate, and if so, the conventional way or one of the myriad new ones. Time and time again in the past few years, I've met people with some new to me or weird to me answers to those questions, and then they've talked about how they got to those answers or how seen their lives up close. And almost always the unconventional paths to family have seemed just as workable as the conventional ones. Which is really a way of saying that partnership is hard, families are hard, and we're only here once. So we study our friends choices and then we guess. We guess about who to be with, whether or not to have a kid, and if so, how. And if so, when, and if so, how many. We guess and we hope we're right. What makes Aila different to me is not her answers, it's her process and how public it is to Write in public that you are looking for a mate is to invite comments about why you will never find one. To say you think you found an unconventional answer to the question of family is to invite people to tell you why you're dangerously wrong. But it's also a kind of gift. You're sharing data. You're letting other people try to learn from your experiment.
- [48:51]
B
And I'm just. I really have a lot of value in trying new things. Like, even if it fails now, you have the value of, like, understanding what it was like to do it. And I think a lot of people will avoid trying the new thing because they're like, oh, it's going to have a downside, or if it's going to fail. I'm like, yeah, but you don't know that. And how much money would you pay to know that?
- [49:06]
A
I think a lot of people don't like being wrong. And I think a lot of people don't like being seen to be wrong. I think some people would rather not be embarrassed than find out what is true or what they really believe. I think that's, like, a really, really normal thing.
- [49:19]
B
Oh, yeah. Everybody knowing you're wrong sucks.
- [49:23]
A
Yeah. But it doesn't seem to, especially. Either it doesn't bother you or you choose not to let it bother you.
- [49:29]
B
Oh, it definitely bothers me. Often my brain will refuse to let me think clearly because I'm sort of subconsciously avoiding the fear of social penalties. And sometimes I notice it and sometimes I don't. I think a lot of the rationalist community tries, in theory, to make it such that we reward people who admit being wrong to sort of help our primate brains be less afraid. If somebody changes their mind, we're sort of like, yes, good job. Fantastic. Admitting you're wrong. This is a virtue.
- [49:59]
A
Okay, well, we're doing our part by airing this interview.
- [50:01]
B
Yeah, I appreciate it.
- [50:02]
A
Have you figured out, if a search engine listener recommends somebody, is there some kind of revenue sharing deal that the show would participate in?
- [50:11]
B
I mean, I could probably work something out.
- [50:13]
A
Okay. I mean, we're still trying to find a business model for podcasts. Um. This is wonderful. I am so happy to get to talk to you. Enjoy the rest of your day.
- [50:25]
B
Okay, you too. Bye. Bye.
- [50:26]
A
Bye. If you or someone you know think you might be a good match for Ayla, you can find her post about all this on her substack, which is called Knowing Less. Search Engine is a presentation of Odyssey. It was created by me, PJ Vogt, and Shruti Pinamaneni. Garrett Graham is our senior producer. This episode was fact checked by Claire Hyman. Theme, original composition and mixing by Armin Bazarian. Additional production support from Emily Moltaire. Our executive producer is Leah Rhys Dennis. Thanks to the rest of the team at Odyssey, Rob Morandi, Craig Cox, Eric Donnelly, Colin Gaynor, Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Kurt Courtney, and Hilary Schaeff. Our agent is Oren Rosenbaum at uta. If you'd like to support our show, get ad free episodes, zero reruns, and the occasional bonus audio. Please consider signing up for each incognito mode. You can learn more at Search Engine Show. You can sign up there or directly in Apple Podcasts. Follow and listen to Search Engine wherever you get your podcasts and thank you for listening. We'll see you in a couple weeks. SA.