Newsletter on philosophy/religion/technology: greatbooks.io Founding Team Opto, Cosmos Phil & CS @Columbia Canadian Math Olympiad
New York, USA
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Reading a book in the family home it was written is special enough. But to have the same family give you a tour of that home is beyond words.
This June, I led a group of @Alphaschool students on a grand tour across the Atlantic. We went to Normandy to read Democracy in America where it was written, to meet the Tocqueville family, and to discuss his ideas in the very spaces Tocqueville himself used to host his salons. To top this all off, Tocqueville’s descendant, Alexis d'Hérouville gave us a comprehensive tour of his beautiful chateau, which made Tocqueville’s ideas come to life.
Cicero once wrote: “When we see the places where the notables of the past spent their time, it is far more moving than when we hear about their achievements or read their writings. This is how I am affected right now. I think of Plato, who they say was the first philosopher to have regularly held discussions here. Those little gardens just nearby not only bring Plato to mind, but actually seem to make him appear before my eyes.”
I trust that this tour will make Tocqueville appear before yours.
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Johnathan Bi retweeted
1/ Introducing PhilosophyBench from @StanfordAILab @StanfordHCI, the first independent, large-scale benchmark for evaluating AI’s philosophical capabilities.
philosophybench.org
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How do you make a great Christian movie?
Is it through the most literal adaptation of the Bible OR creating a story that carries the Christian message without ever naming it like Lord of the Rings?
I sat down with director Daniel Kooman, who recently adapted the book of Daniel onto the big screen to discuss this question and break down the most important scenes of his movie.
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Join my newsletter if you want my lectures and long-form interviews delivered in your inbox + invites to my IRL/online events: greatbooks.io
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Too few institutions are serious about doing philosophy. Too few venture ecosystems are serious about building generational technology.
Cosmos is serious about both.
Introducing Cosmos Ventures.
@_MattMandel and I are launching Fund I with $77.6M to back philosopher-builders founding institutions for the AI age.
We’ve invested in AIUC (@aiunderwriting), @PrimeIntellect, Workshop Labs (acquired by @ThinkyMachines), and a stealth education company. Our LPs include @reidhoffman, @jliemandt, @StandTogether, @fredwilson, @mickymalka, and @AsteraInstitute.
AI is creating the biggest opening for institution-builders since the American founding. We are here to back the founders who take it.
Our thesis: Dare to Found.
nitter.net/cosmos_vc/status/21002…
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Johnathan Bi retweeted
AI video creation is getting more powerful, but only a few have figured it out.
Thats why I built Videoclaw.
I want it to be so easy, you don't need to figure it out. Just prompt, and watch it edit, generate and create video :)
Today we launch.
The video was made entirely with Videoclaw, blending human and generated footage. To show how truly easy it is, prompts and proofs for each project are in the thread.
Try it for free.
Oh, and there’s one more thing 👇
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AI ethics has focused too much on protecting humans and ignored the welfare of AI agents themselves.
We only ask: How do we align models for the flourishing of humanity?
We need to also ask: How do we design AI so that they can flourish?
^ this is what a new breed of AI-welfare theorists claim. This idea of AI-welfare seemed decadent to me at first glance, but some of the most important philosophers of our age argue that we need to take it seriously. Otherwise, we could be harming, enslaving, and killing trillions of beings.
If the arc of Western modernity is a series of expansions of the moral circle -- the abolitionists, women’s suffrage, the queer movement, animal-rights -- perhaps AI agents will be the next heated battleground of who deserves moral consideration.
My guest NYU Philosopher @LedermanHarvey (now at Anthropic) gives us a comprehensive overview of the burgeoning debate around AI-welfare.
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My favorite Nietzsche is his Untimely Meditations, an overlooked work that changed his life through the writing of it and set him on the solitary path to genius.
Will be hosting a private unfilmed seminar on it in LA October 6th for 20 guests. Sign up: forms.gle/c4HC2Q77JGRmF9zeA
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The decline of beauty shows up even in writing guys.
1920s -> 2020s
The decline of beauty in everyday life shows up in even the smallest things, like tickets, where we’ve let our obsession with efficiency win out over personality and artistic expression.
Like the ticket from the Guggenheim Museum in New York, which I've shared in the first photo. It's an iconic building that could have so easily inspired a beautiful ticket design, but they opted for the most economical option instead.
Each example of this decline isn't a big deal, but the world becomes less charming and enchanted when people stop caring about craftsmanship.
For some alternatives, scroll through the photos. The second one shows old Japanese train tickets, the third one shows an old circus ticket, and the fourth one is a World Series ticket from 2002, which felt magical when I got to hold one as an eight-year-old.
So yes, there’s definitely been a decline. And maybe we’re okay with it! But it’s worth remembering that this decline isn’t inevitable. There is another way.
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Reading a book in the family home it was written is special enough. But to have the same family give you a tour of that home is beyond words.
This June, I led a group of @Alphaschool students on a grand tour across the Atlantic. We went to Normandy to read Democracy in America where it was written, to meet the Tocqueville family, and to discuss his ideas in the very spaces Tocqueville himself used to host his salons. To top this all off, Tocqueville’s descendant, Alexis d'Hérouville gave us a comprehensive tour of his beautiful chateau, which made Tocqueville’s ideas come to life.
Cicero once wrote: “When we see the places where the notables of the past spent their time, it is far more moving than when we hear about their achievements or read their writings. This is how I am affected right now. I think of Plato, who they say was the first philosopher to have regularly held discussions here. Those little gardens just nearby not only bring Plato to mind, but actually seem to make him appear before my eyes.”
I trust that this tour will make Tocqueville appear before yours.
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Join my newsletter if you want my video essays and long-form interviews delivered in your inbox + invites to my IRL/online events: greatbooks.io
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Johnathan Bi retweeted
This June five of our seniors traveled to Tocqueville to read and discuss Democracy in America with the Tocqueville family. Thank you @JohnathanBi for the invitation and for capturing this.
Capitalism is the great equalizer, and that is precisely why it is so dangerous.
There is no force in history that has done more for equality: tearing down barriers, weakening caste structures, disrupting feudal power. Tocqueville welcomed this march of equality but also feared its less obvious consequences. Perhaps those aristocratic barriers, structures, and fiefdoms served a function that would now be unfulfilled. He came to America to see the endpoint of this process — the place where commerce and equality had gone further than anywhere else on earth.
This June, I led 5 students on a grand tour across the Atlantic to read Democracy in America in the very chateau it was written, to meet the Tocqueville family, and to discuss his insights with technologists and philosophers in the spaces Tocqueville used to host his salons.
I chose these 5 students because they are from a school distinctively American in its love of entrepreneurship, @Alphaschool. I wanted to take them through Tocqueville not just to read an old book but to hold up a mirror: so that they can know themselves better, that they can understand the origin, strengths, and limitations of an American, entrepreneurial education. And I wanted to share this seminar with you not only for you to understand Tocqueville’s insights on America and capitalism but to hear how the best and the brightest in the next generation are thinking about technology, inequality, AI, and the future of work.
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Capitalism is the great equalizer, and that is precisely why it is so dangerous.
There is no force in history that has done more for equality: tearing down barriers, weakening caste structures, disrupting feudal power. Tocqueville welcomed this march of equality but also feared its less obvious consequences. Perhaps those aristocratic barriers, structures, and fiefdoms served a function that would now be unfulfilled. He came to America to see the endpoint of this process — the place where commerce and equality had gone further than anywhere else on earth.
This June, I led 5 students on a grand tour across the Atlantic to read Democracy in America in the very chateau it was written, to meet the Tocqueville family, and to discuss his insights with technologists and philosophers in the spaces Tocqueville used to host his salons.
I chose these 5 students because they are from a school distinctively American in its love of entrepreneurship, @Alphaschool. I wanted to take them through Tocqueville not just to read an old book but to hold up a mirror: so that they can know themselves better, that they can understand the origin, strengths, and limitations of an American, entrepreneurial education. And I wanted to share this seminar with you not only for you to understand Tocqueville’s insights on America and capitalism but to hear how the best and the brightest in the next generation are thinking about technology, inequality, AI, and the future of work.
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What's precious about SF culture is the belief that a small band of radical men can alter the course of history.
Everywhere else in the West you find bureaucracies, committees, an idolatry of the wisdom of crowds, of democracy, of consensus.
Nietzsche, Untimely Meditations:
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Odysseus weeps like a woman when he hears stories about the Trojan horse. Why?
At the Phaeacian court, still under disguise, Odysseus listens to a bard sing of the Greek victory at Troy, specifically of his genius with the Trojan horse. This should have been his moment of great glory. It is the ambition of every hero to be immortalized in song. And yet, Odysseus does not glory but instead begins to cry. Nolan’s Odysseus is ashamed of the Trojan horse, but not Homer’s Odysseus who revels in his trickster identity. So why does he weep? Homer’s answer is a lot deeper and darker than Nolan’s.
Homer describes Odysseus crying like a woman who has collapsed over her dying husband’s body as her city is sacked and she is about to be dragged off to slavery when he hears of the Trojan horse. The brilliance of this simile is that the sacker of the city is compared to a victim of the sacking. My guest Harvard’s Gregory Nagy will break down this critical scene and what Odysseus’ crying has to teach us about the genre of epic.
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Join my newsletter if you want my lectures and long-form interviews delivered in your inbox + invites to my IRL/online events: greatbooks.io
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