indy on optionality collapse ness
indy johar on optionality collapse ness
[my (warning ness) take: the finite set of choices/optionality of decision making is unmooring us.. keeping us from us.. need to try something legit diff.. what i see here is – as always – huge desire/sincerity for diff.. but still stuck in same song]
via michel bauwens tweet [https://x.com/mbauwens/status/2111322271063392455?s=20]:
Nate Hagens says this conversation with @indy_johar is one of his best ever:
* We’re Investing in a Future That Won’t Exist with Indy Johar
notes/quotes from (oct 2026) 90 min video:
We’re Investing in a Future That Won’t Exist with Indy Johar
(Conversation recorded on September 23rd, 2026) Traditional financial management tells us that, if we invest right, we’ll be able to retire and sink into a future of comfort and stability – and even pass on your wealth to your children and grandchildren. *But this vision is built on an anomalous period of stability in which climate, energy resources, and labor markets were all predictable. As ecological breakdown, resource conflict, and AI-driven labor disruption begin to feed into one another, **that predictability is slipping away. ***How can we better position hundreds of trillions of dollars in claims on the future to ****withstand uncertainty in the increasingly volatile world ahead? In this episode, Nate welcomes back Indy Johar, co-founder of Dark Matter Labs, for *****an exploration of how coupled systemic risks are reshaping capital, institutions, and what it means to invest for the future. Indy explains why most financial forecasting – built on linear, siloed models – misses the compounding, coupled crises we will have to face, and argues that “civilizational optionality” is diminishing, threatening the value of our claims on the future (money). Indy presents Expanding Civilizational Optionality (xCO), the initiative he is building at Dark Matter Labs, as a way to protect these claims, while also increasing the ability of societies to adapt, mitigate, and respond to crises from various directions. xCO combines a capital platform that lets money protect the futures it depends on, an option foundry that helps the people exposed to those risks build the demand and capability to act on them, and a learning and organizing infrastructure. Indy and Nate also discuss ******their deeper philosophies about humanity, emphasizing doubt and humility as critical mentalities for anyone attempting to navigate a future that will look very different from the past. How much money is currently being saved for a future that isn’t even available to buy? How might a “civilizational Sharpe ratio” – one that weighs returns against systemic volatility – change the way wealth is allocated, and broaden how we measure the capital returns? And if moments of crisis are when cultural narratives shift, what can each of us do now to cultivate the ideas, relationships, and courage needed to meet them?
*rather – built on myth of normal ness et al.. aka: sea world
**1\ is it? or just shifting to yet another predict\able ness and/or 2\ great.. maybe the too much ness will help us let go.
rather ***how can we try/code money (any form of measuring/accounting/people telling other people what to do) as the planned obsolescence.. where legit needs are met w/o money.. till people forget about measuring..
.. enough.. to.. rather.. ****dance the dance that embraces uncertainty..
ie: whatever for a year.. a legit sabbatical ish transition
otherwise we’ll keep perpetuating the same song.. the whac-a-mole-ing ness of sea world.. of not-us ness.. of part\ial ness.. perpetuating survival triage.. for (blank)’s sake..
the thing we’ve not yet tried/seen: the unconditional part of left to own devices ness
*****cancerous distraction indy.. oof
******not diff if still any form of m\a\p – (warning ness)
now to actual video:
indy: with audacious energy.. invites us to be more human than anything else
if still any form of m\a\p.. then still mufleh humanity law et al
1 min – nate: he calls it civilizational optionality.. best convo i’ve had on this platform.. indy’s energy/ideas.. we talked about importance of fin markets.. this convo is an ie of emergence.. for some pretty academic.. but implications are one of few pathways future
3 min – nate: last time we talked of what you called biggest central question of time – what does it mean to be human.. i’m wondering where you’ve arrived with that
indy: perfect.. let’s start w the simple questions.. that question for me is a systemic knot.. on philo level.. our separation from world.. gave birth to many things.. atomizatoin of world view.. we’re living at apex of that problem of how we understand ourselves.. the deep problem of the future being human..
4 min – indy: so take that logic chain and marry that w what we’re about to see.. the disruption of two key aspects of being human 1\ humans as units of labor 2\ humans as units of cognition.. when you marry those two disruptions w an automized individuated self.. those 2 disruptions from the economy as currently framed.. the commodity theory of being human in terms of cog/labor.. i think we enter a systemic crisis.. a crisis where the econ starts to export people and de expunge them from itself.. in that process.. as humans become in our current unitized labor form become outside the econ.. i think we will create the pathway of war
5 min – indy: i think my biggest change has been that i used to think disruption of say climate breakdown.. would be in advance of this.. i think we’re looking at a 2028 2029 disruption where these crises come into apex.. and that will layout the pathway for conflict w/in nations as nations start to remove people to preserve econ of the nation and in that process set up a pathway to war.. and i think the war scenario cascades us into .. a non retrievalbe position.. because i think once we enter significant war where trauma is intro’d into society as such scale.. and the unit cost of war reduced to such small components.. when actually someone who’s been psych traumatized is 129 iq pts.. has crisper tech.. has capacity to do things of a horrific scale we’ve never imagined.. at that intersection.. we’re in trouble
ooof indy.. not new.. trauma (almaas holes law et al; hari rat park law et al..) as the death of us .. ever since that day so to me.. cancerous distraction
6 min – so in weird way.. one of the things that’s happened since last time we spoke.. that apex problem is now absolutely the nail proble.. where it sits at psych and fundamental bases of externalization.. but also now sits at fundamental basis where we are going to create that crisis
oi.. still not center of problem.. gupta roadblock law
findings (aka: the things i can’t unsee) from on the ground ness deep dive and why we need tech w/o judgment
ie: the dance won’t dance unless/until it’s 1\ all of us 2\ legit free
nothing to date (ever since that day) has gotten to that root of problem
legit freedom will only happen if it’s all of us.. and in order to be all of us.. has to be sans any form of measuring, accounting, people telling other people what to do
we need a problem deep enough to resonate w/8b today.. via a mechanism simple enough to be accessible/usable to 8b today.. in an ecosystem open enough to set/keep 8b legit free
ie: org around a problem deep enough (aka: org around legit needs) to resonate w/8b today.. via a mechanism simple enough (aka: tech as it could be) to be accessible/usable to 8b today.. and an ecosystem open enough (aka: sans any form of m\a\p) to set/keep 8b legit free
7 min – indy: now what i think that means is that *there’s a massive systemic opp in how we redefine the future of being human .. **we need frontier labs and the future of being human is key anchor point both to give capacity to redefine/reimagine future but also to give a north star in that transition..
*indeed.. and we’re missing it
**if want legit being human ness (rather than perpetuating whales ness).. need to let go of redefining ness.. and just let the ‘north star’ be itch-in-the-soul
ie: imagine if we listen to the itch-in-8b-souls 1st thing everyday & use that data to connect us (tech as it could be.. ai as augmenting interconnectedness)
the thing we’ve not yet tried/seen: the unconditional part of left to own devices ness
[‘in an undisturbed ecosystem ..the individual left to its own devices.. serves the whole’ –dana meadows]
there’s a legit use of tech (nonjudgmental exponential labeling) to facil the seeming chaos of a global detox leap/dance
ie: whatever for a year.. a legit sabbatical ish transition
otherwise we’ll keep perpetuating the same song.. the whac-a-mole-ing ness of sea world.. of not-us ness.. of part\ial ness.. perpetuating survival triage.. for (blank)’s sake..
nate: you’ve just distilled how i’m actually thinking about this in better words.. but let me say.. *before we get into the civ fin risk.. what does it mean to be human.. **how is that question diff that what does it mean to be humanity.. you talked about the cog & labor.. is there a 3rd option that humans could be units of regen .. so individual vs all ness
*oi
**the dance
8 min – indy: yeah.. multiple trajectories and all are important.. i think *where i’ve ended up is the idea of consciousness.. the act of being conscious actually might be a fundamental component beyond cog and labor.. i think that space does both things.. invites idea of entanglement as well as dealing w a fundamentally diff way of seeing world.. people like roger premrose and what he was saying.. i think there’s a whole space there.. now i want to leave this space because everything i say will be far too conjectured and **far to easy to dismantle.. but i think there’s something absolutely critical there
to me.. *no one/thing to date has fund diff
rather.. can’t be legit **critical if able to prove (whatever opp of easy to dismantle is)
9 min – indy: in ref to quantum of money going after ai.. capital making claims on ai is justified by disruption of labor.. but it’s not the search.. i would argue that capital is hunting.. touching the mirror or god.. llms and the transformers are what they’re doing.. *taking fragments of consciousness.. abstracted into language.. and language itself is an abstraction of that consciousness.. that is then being computed to the point of constructing a manifold.. a higher dimensional manifold space.. and that manifold is what the search is for.. and from my understanding.. is **mutliple models are reaching/forming at the same geometric shape.. and that is a higher dimensional cog space.. i use the word god entirely to be evocative but you could interpose other things.. it’s ***some civ emerging consciousness behavior we don’t know
oi.. 1\ rather.. *same space.. since all ‘frags of conscious ness to date.. whether worded/languaged/numbered/whatever or not.. are whalespeak.. not legit ie: itch-in-the-soul so the searching ness is itself a cancerous distraction and 2\ of course **forming same shape.. since from same song.. but .. completely diff than coming to problem deep enough.. where there are 2 things (same shape) every soul craves
again.. from on the ground ness deep dive and why we need tech w/o judgment
actually.. ***we do ‘know’.. because it’s same song of whalespeak
11 min – indy: i think best ie is that is what search of for.. best ie i’ve heard – it’s a moment of allocating capital in alchemy in the mid ages.. *the allocation of capital that went into alchemy gave birth to chemistry.. money is not moving in the old commodity theory of value.. it is **moving in a completely diff theory of where value lies.. a whole world starts to emerge..
*science scientifically ness.. as long as any form of m\a\p
**not diff if still seeking value/defn/whatever/knowingness
indy: these are add the edges of my knowledge but existentially critical now.. *if we don’t make some of these moves.. we’re about to displace ourselves in partial cog/awareness of what we’re displacing..
*need diff ‘moves’ indy..
12 min – indy: the 1968 pic of astronaut taking pic of earth was not an astronaut taking pic of earth.. in the long arc of planetary becomings.. that was the *planet becoming self aware.. it was **able to perceive itself.. so when you marry these 3 things together you start to see a **completely diff arc of what is possible
rather.. *planet taking a pic of itself as sea world.. because if **able to perceive self.. not legit free/self **not diff
13 min – indy: i think part of the problem is that our theory of machines is rooted in such low fidelity industrial ideas.. rooted in the objectness of being human so the objectness and certainty of the systems as well.. so there’s a very emergent critical deep code issue.. saying this as invitation for people much smarter than me to *start filling in the holes.. this is civ critical
perhaps.. let’s quit trying (distracting ourselves with) *filling in the holes ness
perhaps.. let’s just fill in these holes: almaas holes law
14 min – indy: predictability gave us framework.. challenge is moving outside predictability..
so why are we spending all our time trying to predict that unpredictability.. rather than embracing it et al
graeber unpredictability/surprise law
24 min – indy: on ai solving this.. eric schmidt: ‘whoever gets recursive intell will have the choice of freedom’.. extension of idea of an agent.. if root agi on that.. start to say.. need to remove x million people because they become surplus.. et al
46 min – indy: what we’re trying to do is root to options on ground.. for risks, markets, diffusion.. ie: cooling a city; stabilizing; river gov; .. how do societies make decisions together..
not deep enough
53 min – indy: w audacious energy of making this future.. invites us to be more human
82 nin – indy: have to create layers of cog of capital.. have to think like that.. and import into.. intentionally designed. where the econ are constructed not in provisional but in asset
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