Atheists

"When I say that you can change the world with relatively little intelligence: Humans have already done much of the hard work for the AIs. ...[I]f you drop an AI in the middle of the African and tell it, "Take over the world!" It can't. ...But, if first you have these apes who build all these bureaucratic systems, like the , and then... drop the AI into the existing financial system.., that's... much easier. ...You don't need motor skills. You don't need even to understand the world. ...The financial system is the ideal playground for AI. It's... purely informational."

"The only god that the Romans long refused to tolerate was the monotheistic... evangelising god of the Christians."

"[T]o train AIs to make a million dollars, create a million AIs. Give them some seed money. ...[I]f ...a few AIs succeeded.., replicate them."

"Christians slaughtered Christians by the millions to defend slightly different interpretations of the religion of love and compassion."

"In Hindu polytheism, a single principle, Atman, controls the myriad gods and spirits, humankind, and the biological and physical world. Atman is the central essence or soul of the... universe.., of every individual and every phenomenon."

"[T]he lesson from the history about intelligence: You don't need a lot of intelligence to change the world and potentially to cause havoc. You can change the world with relatively little intelligence. ...I'm not referring to anybody in particular."

"What happens to the world if more and more of the financial system is shaped by AIs..? Even though they can't walk down the street, they know how to invest money better than humans. It's a... very limited intelligence..."

"For thousands of years after the Agricultural Revolution... consisted mainly of... sacrificing lambs, wine and cakes to divine powers... [for] promised abundant harvest and fecund flocks."

"[H]ow do we build a self-correcting mechanism so if we make the wrong bet, this is not the end?"

"These polytheistic] religions understood the world to be controlled by... powerful gods... Humans could appeal to these... to bring rain, victory... health."

"[T]he fact that AIs... cannot cooperate so far... is wonderful news. I hope it's true. I hope it will remain like that, otherwise we are in very... deep trouble."

"Gautama... attained nirvana... fully liberated from suffering. Henceforth... as 'Buddha'.., 'The Enlightened One'.., spent... his life explaining his discoveries... in a single law: ...to be ...liberated from suffering is to be ...liberated from craving; and the only way ...is to train the mind to experience reality as it is."

"[I]t's completely different from the human mind. The whole question of "when will AI reach the same level... as human intelligence?" This is ridiculous. It's like asking, "When will airplanes finally be like birds?" They will never, ever be like birds.., and they can do many... things that birds can't. ...AIs and humans ...are not on the same trajectory behind us. They are on a completely different trajectory, for better or for worse."

"[M]onotheistic brainwashing... caused most Westerners to see polytheism as ignorant and childish idolatry."

"The religious wars between Catholics and Protestants that swept Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are... notorious. ...[T]hey disagreed about the nature of... [Christ's] love."

"Yugoslavia in 1991 had more than enough... to feed all... and... disintegrated into a... bloodbath."

"If you want millions... cooperating.., create some... mythology or ideology and convince... people... [B]ombard then with... stories and images.., and this is how you gain power. ...[I]n this balance, how much truth ...and how much fiction and delusions do you need ...to construct the Soviet Union? ...a little truth and a lot of fiction. ...[T]his is true of most of the large scale s... throughout... history."

"This () was a collection of laws and judicial decisions whose aim was to present Hammurabi as a role model of a just king, serve as a basis for a more uniform legal system across the Babylonian Empire, and teach future generations what justice is and how a just king acts."

"[[Totalitarianism|[T]otalitarianism]] and democracy... are different information networks."

"[F]ood surpluses... with... transportation technology... enabled... more people to cram together... into large villages, then... towns, and finally... cities, all... joined... by new kingdoms and commercial networks."

"[[Religion|[R]eligion]] has been the third great unifier... alongside money and empire."

"Religion can... be defined..[:] a system of human laws... founded on a belief in superhuman laws."

"Unless we... construct institutions that invest in truth, we'll be flooded by fiction.., illusion.., delusion and junk information."

"According to the science of biology, people were not 'created'. They... evolved. And... not... to be 'equal'. ...Advocates of equality and human rights may be outraged by this... Their response is likely.., ‘...if we believe that we are all equal in essence, it will enable us to create a stable and prosperous society.’ I have no argument with that. ...[B]elieving in it enables us to cooperate effectively and forge a better society."

"[T]he modern Indian state is a child of the British Empire. The British killed, injured and persecuted... but... also united... warring kingdoms, principalities and tribes, creating a... national consciousness and a country that functioned... as a single political unit."

"Democracy is a conversation. ...Imagine a large group of people... and... a group of robots... start talking... loudly.., emotionally and persuasively, and you can't tell who is a human... That is... what we are now living through."

"The... money in the world is about $60 trillion, yet... coins and bank notes is less than $6 trillion. More than 90% percent of all money... [>]$50 trillion... in our accounts... exists only on computer servers."

"Ancient scribes learned not merely to read and write, but also to use catalogues, dictionaries, calendars, forms and tables. They studied the internalised technique of cataloguing, retrieving and processing information very different from those used by the brain."

"Most past cultures have... fallen prey to the armies of some ruthless empire, which... consigned them to oblivion. Empires... ultimately fall, but... tend to leave behind rich.., enduring legacies."

"[T]he majority of ancient religions were local and exclusive.., believed in local deties and spirits, and had no interest in converting the... human race."

"Nationalism is not about hating foreigners and wanting to kill the others. It's about loving our compatriots... and... paying taxes honestly..."

": 2: Increasing the variety of processors."

"[T]he democratic conversation is breaking down all over the world because the algorithms are hijacking it. ...We are losing the ability to hold a reasoned conversation... [W]e need to ban bots [fake humans] from the conversation. AIs should be welcome... only if they identify as AIs."

"In many societies women were simply the property... Rape, in many legal systems, falls under property violation... [i.e.,] the victim is not the woman... but the male who owns her. The Bible decrees... 'If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes... and lies with her, and they are found... the man... shall give... the father... fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife'... Deuteronomy 22:28-9... Raping a woman who did not belong to any man was not considered a crime..."

"[I]nformation isn't truth. Most information is not truth."

"American plantations in places such as Virginia, Haiti and Brazil were plunged by malaria and , which had originated in Africa. Africans had acquired over the generations a partial genetic immunity to these diseases."

"In our time, 'imperialist' ranks second only to 'fascist' in the of political swear words."

"[I]f we... flood the world with information and expect the truth to float up, it will not. It will sink."

"The followers of Christ and... Allah killed each other by the thousands, devastated fields and orchards, and turned prosperous cities into smouldering ruins..."

"But liberalism has no obvious answers to the biggest problems we face: ecological collapse and technological disruption. Liberalism traditionally relied on economic growth to magically solve difficult social and political conflicts."

"Money is not coins and bank notes. Money is anything that people... use... to represent... value... for... exchanging goods and services."

"Money... is most universal and most efficient system of mutual trust ever devised."

"Money is more open-minded than language, state law, cultural codes, religious beliefs and social habits. Money... can bridge almost any cultural gap, and does not discriminate on the basis of religion, gender, race, age or sexual orientation."

": 4: Increasing the freedom of movement along existing connections."

"[T]here is no mechanism to correct the text of the Bible."

"The U.S. constitution originally... enabled slavery, but... had an amendment.., a self-correcting mechanism... to forbid slavery."

"[T]here is nothing wrong about it. Nationalism and patriotism have been one of the... best inventions ...All other social animals ...care only about a small [intimate] circle ...This was ...true of our ancestors ...The miracle of nationalism and patriotism ...makes us care about millions of strangers ..."

"The whole of science... is a self-correcting mechanism. ...[S]cientific journals publish ...corrections to previous publications.., to past mistakes or past lacuna."

"Seventy thousand years ago, homo sapiens was still an insignificant animal... in... Africa. ...[I]t transformed... into the master of the... planet and... terror of the ecosystem.., on the verge of... eternal youth... [with] divine abilities of creation and destruction."

"[M]y... recommendation is to go on an information diet... Information is the food of the mind. ...[I]t is not good for the body to eat too much food or... . ...More information isn't always good for you. ...[T]ake time for information fasts. ...[W]atch the quality of the information we feed our mind."