Asmongold Is Right About People

[Music] I don't think a lot of people do and the truth is that I don't think that Society at large sees a large difference the reason why I don't think that people see a large difference is that I've never seen a large scale consumer shift to where consumers are purchasing something that is more in convenient or more expensive because of the way that it's produced now some people do this I'm not arguing that nobody does this but the biggest companies in the world are often times the most immoral ones and I think that there's a

reason for that it's because people don't really care where their products come from like nobody really cares about Amazon workers pissing in bottles you care about it but would you want to pay twice as much for Amazon Prime to fix it no probably not and the same thing's true with phone batteries the same things the same thing is true with uh electronic car batteries the same thing is true with clothes and everybody just foros morality to participate in these things now that was in case you didn't recognize the voice asmin gold addressing a certain issue

for the full context and I normally cover e drama but I think this topic goes well beyond e drama Asen gold made some statements to the effect of as you just heard that consumers just don't care where their art comes from and expanded a little bit beyond that to the extent that he talked about Amazon workers pissing in bottles and whether or not people would want to pay twice as much for the same service and the reason I'm covering this is because it touches upon some deeply evolved evolutionary principles which I'll get into later but

let me see at the outset that I have a great deal of admiration for Asen gold he was born with a fantastic personality in as much as he's incredibly resilient and intelligent though it's his resilience that I admire the most he shrugs everything off as if it were nothing his mother died and despite being close to her he got back to work relatively quickly afterwards and never bad at an eyelash he just takes blows and nothing really affects him and that's not a quality I have so I admire him for that but I think at

times people can perceive that as a certain harshness and indifference and or a brashness that a lot of people don't like but the reality here in his statement and more broadly is that he is telling it like it is human beings operate a certain way and often times we as human beings would prefer that we be different that we behave differently that the world might be different very few of us want to die for example but eventually we all have to go there are enumeral examples of things that we wish were different but unfortunately are

not and asmin gold hardened as he is simply States the truth but what I really want to focus on is the human psychology here and what's at play namely people's indifference to the source of their products and you could go as far as pretty much anything but an example I like to bring up and something I talk about n 10 years ago in fact was the example of conflict minerals now conflict minerals in case you're not aware are these minerals largely in Africa but not exclusively we talk about in a bit and sometimes they refer

to as the three T's tin tungsten tantalum and gold which doesn't start with a t but nonetheless is part of that and all these minerals are used for very important products and objects in the world that we inhabit namely things related to electronics phone batteries which he brought up various forms of circuitry motherboards computer components and so on and so forth and so inevitably your computer your phone your device will require the addition of some of these minerals in order to make it work and be the thing that you've grown accustomed to and appreciate the

problem is that it's almost impossible to know as a consumer where these minerals are being sourced from whence the name conflict minerals the term deriving from the fact that the profits made from these minerals in many countries say in Africa and Congo are used for nefarious purposes such as the prosecution of war the exploitation of Miners and the we ones in the form of Labor that used to exist way back in the day where you have no choice or forc to participate if you get my drift theft the slaying of human beings and general destruction

and it's not always the case there are other places that have these minerals in the Iberian Peninsula for example I.E within Portugal and Spain you will find copious amounts of tungsten useful in Australia in the west of Australia specifically you have a lot of gold and so many of these minerals can be sourced from places that would not be subject to the conflict mineral definition but you don't know that and you cannot know that meaning there's some unknown percentage a non-zero chance that that the minerals that have gone into your device your phone your computer

your battery whatever it might be have been taken and sourced from a place like Congo a place where there is a lot of conflict where actually in order to procure some of these minerals yous and Wei ones are exploited in the worst way possible if you can imagine what I'm talking about so that we in the west might enjoy our fancy products and and I made the point almost 10 years ago that people are essentially piously indifferent to the situation and to get back not just to asma's point here but a broader point he's made

throughout the years is that people don't really care about something unless it affects them and so you bring up the example of Amazon employees pissing in bottles a couple years ago or the harshness of say clothing manufacturing overseas and the reality is as he says wholly in agreement and it's factual it maps on to human reality it maps on to human behavior that the vast majority of us aren't really bothered by that would you rather pay $10 for a shirt or $20 for a shirt would you rather pay $50 for a product at Amazon or

100 and here's the real kicker the real question would you rather have a smartphone or a PC or based on the nonzero chance SL probability that some people including adults youths and Wei ones were exploited in ways you can scarcely imagine and that these products that you're using have the trickle down effect that it fuels conflict in places like Africa leading to Untold misery death and destruction would you rather not have your fancy phone and your computer or alternatively pay an incredibly High premium say on ethically sourc minerals that sort of thing does exist it's

a bit complicated or would you in the west be it in Europe be in North America rather accept the consequences of the products that you're enjoying and appreciate namely that you are potentially causing indirectly contributing at the very least to some of the worst forms of human exploitation that exist and to the general destruction of the people in that area how many people how many people do you think would actually forego their people PCS their mobile phones in order to prevent that non-zero chance that such a thing occur I think the number of people there

will be some is vanishingly small because ultimately this all goes back to this notion that people don't care about where their art comes from with respect to Ai and there's a small contingent of artists online this is mostly virtue siging as it always is who are calling people who don't care about about this unethical my question to them would be how many of them would forgo the use of their phones and computers and technology in order to prevent the worst forms of human exploitation you can imagine in a place such as Congo no I'm not

talking about pissing in bottles use your imagination there are far worse things because the only way you can guarantee that that's not happening is by not using these products will they or is this just particular to their own nothing wrong with that self-interest if you're an artist a human artist that is you have a self-interest to be in theory in theory because there are other ways artists can make use of an exploit AI separate discussion you have the self-interest to be against Ai and to prevent its spread the KnockOn effects of chastising other people for

making use of this are Frankly Speaking silly we all make use of products that we would otherwise not want to forego using for the simple reason that we want to have them yes I will state I am perfectly okay with a nonzero chance that people I don't know on a different continent are being exploited and suffering in some of the worst ways humanly possible as long as I get to keep my PC that might make me seem monstrous but at least I'm being honest the vast majority aity of people out there are the same they

don't care now the real question is why they don't care well it seems obvious but every explanation you would give in this context would be a proximal explanation meaning it makes sense asmin gold has cited the example of some 38-year-old with a stressful job and a million different problems he's not going to be worried about games being overpriced or AI art or this sort of thing yes that's a proximal explanation but in order to understand the deeper roots of this our piess indifference to the plight of others far away or even those not so far

away we need to understand what we ultimately are we are animals that seek to propagate our DNA and from this all things follow we have a primary interest in our kin and our sense of obligation to them usually those who are genetically related to us this is is not Universal because you can have strained relations and sometimes blood turns out to be not very thick indeed there are examples of this we're talking about exceptions though generally speaking people are interested in those related to them and their immediate friend circles now friends might not be directly

related to you but they can Aid you in survival in theory they can Aid you in moving along in life and propagating your DNA now the most recent explanation for this offered by the British Anthropologist Robin Dunmar is something called dunbar's number I talked about dunbar's number unsurprisingly almost 10 years ago and I've talked about on occasion on this channel but that is a limiting factor in terms of the number of people you can know I be familiar with and actually care about and he through a combination of observation of other primates human beings and

neuroimaging came to the conclusion that it's about 150 individuals that we can know and care about to some degree but even within that 150 there are different layers so he might say something like the tightest circle of people being your kin your genetic relatives your brother your sister your mother your father maybe your cousin in some cases friends and then the layers that follow it say your good friends very close friends maybe then you have more superficial friendships then you have maybe a bunch of so-called meaningful contacts then you have acquaintances and then you have

another bunch of people that you kind of vaguely recognize now somewhere Within These different layers is a limit and to be more specific the hard limit of how many individuals within that Circle of vague to extreme familiarity you can actually care about meaning you care about their well-being their welfare their state of mind etc etc so a theoretical example to use this sort of by five PR principle is there are five people say your kin your brother your sister your grandmother your mother your father that you're quote unquote closest to and they mean the most

to you then there might be something like 10 to 15 really good friends 50 to 100 more superficial friends and then you start getting into this meaningful contact area where you don't really care about them but they're useful to you and that's how it kind of works now some people contest this number 150 some people claim it's as high as 300 but there's no contention in the sense that we are limited by our cognitive capacity in how many people we can know be familiar with and most importantly care about so the vast majority of us

would accept the worst forms of human exploitation out there if that exploitation was only being applied to strangers we don't know on a different continent in order to enjoy our electronic products our games our PCS and so on and so forth but if it were a sister or brother we'd be very disturbed so here's hypothetical let's say every time you buy a PC component or you want to build a PC or you buy a phone there is a 25% chance that some of the parts that went into this product were sourced from conflict minerals and

that the proceeds went to some local warlord that did the worst things possible to human beings what if there were a 25% chance that your sibling your brothers sister could suffer a similar fate again imagine the worst forms of exploitation and suffering and put it in the context of your family if you bought PC components or a smartphone every time you did that there was a 25% chance most people would think twice about that most people would be very concerned that that risk even though it's not that high it's only 25% at the end of

the day day 75% chance nothing happens most people I think I maintain would be concerned if it were about their sister or brother and perhaps in similar fashion maybe slightly less if were a close friend one of that inner circle of friends the further you move away from this the less concerned you are now here's another hypothetical let's say there's an Amazon warehouse in Texas but you live in Wisconsin or New York or Maine and there's a similar practice there there's a 25% chance that in various warehouses in Texas Amazon employees were being similarly exploited

and suffering in ways similar to those human beings in Conflict mineral areas how many people do you think in these other states far away would be so concerned about their welfare that they would either be willing to forego the product entirely or pay something like triple or quadruple the price on said products I think most people still would want the product even if there were a chance that their so-called fellow Americans were being exploited in ways that only exist in third world countries such as Congo in the context of conflict minerals now in the context

of the United States there would be legal action obviously because that would be a violation of law but would people really be bothered by it probably not unless they were related to them they were friends maybe neighbors again we're talking about the capacity to know be familiar and actually care about people which is a function of our brain our brain size and limitations of our brain there's only so much space in our brains to be familiar with such people had we evolved in a different situation in a different environment where we had different brains and

we had tens of thousands of individuals that were connected to society would look very very different today as I say constantly and I've said for over a decade we are the byproducts of a very long evolutionary process we are animals we have not changed that that much you've changed somewhat but not that much and the core principles that informed our Behavior say 50 100,000 years ago are still very much present right now and they are constantly being reiterated I'll be in a different context that is often as I've stated many times as well veiled by

the comfort of modernity veiled by the illusions that we weave within the context of our so-called Society everyone would like to think of the M themselves as a virtuous good person but the vast vast vast majority of us are not I'm not a particularly ethical person like I said I don't care enough about strangers in Africa such that I'm willing to forgo my PC or similar products and I'm going to assume you might be offended that you're quite similar as well I think most of us are like that and the same holds true for AI

art it is a small contingent of people who are claiming the moral High ground but ultimately consumers don't care and it all goes back to our evolutionary origins we are not wired to care about people in distant lands people we don't know or their welfare the illusion that we do is a byproduct that has been manufactured online in places like X formerly known as Twitter of people who want a virtue signal but the reality is is that I'm willing to bet money that almost none of those artists complaining about people's use of AI or companies

use of AI for art would be willing to forego their PCS their Electronics in order to save a couple of children in Africa they would not they're willing to buy the products despite the almost certainty that some of those components were sourced Vis of conflict minerals I.E some of the worst forms of human exploitation out there and imagine words that I am frankly not allowed to say on YouTube imagine that that happens in these areas and they would be willing to countenance that I am 99% sure of it those artists who are claiming that the

rest of us are immoral for using AI etc etc do all kinds of things that are immoral are all of them like that no there might be people out there I'm very skeptical that there are who are willing to foro every product that seems even vaguely unethical somebody finds out today that their PC has been sourc using conflict minerals and they just forsake using a PC for the rest of their lives right those people exist the numbers though of such people are vanishingly small 99% plus of people are not like that asmin gold is right

about people and this is simply a matter of people not liking reality reality can at times be deeply deeply unpleasant and this is one of the many unpleasantries in the world if I'm suffering as an individual and there's some problem I have I cannot reasonably expect strangers to care about me I can't even reasonably expect my friends to care about me and that's just how it is so dunbar's number that upper limit cognitive limit to be very specific of how many people we can know and care about and the general self-serving nature of human beings

being DNA replicators like any other animal on earth we care about what we care about and that's just the way it is as always thank you for tuning in many special thanks to my patrons and people on PayPal who donate you guys are the best to keep the channel alive without you all would be dust and Ash as for everybody else if you can leave a comment share subscribe if you've not yet subscribed be much appreciated apparently it helps out with the channel yet to be proven if I'm still live I'll check you out next

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