The Impact of Conspiracy Theories on Innovation

Conspiracy theories can spark innovation, but excessive paranoia hinders productivity and relationships.

### The Role of Conspiracy Theories in Innovation and Society
* 🧠 Dalton and Michael introduce their discussion on conspiracy theories, suggesting that they can sometimes lead to **significant innovations** over the past several decades.
* 💻 They agree that the **fear of the Russians during the Cold War** played a crucial role in the development of the internet, originally funded by DARPA to **ensure communication despite potential nuclear attacks**.
* 💰 The emergence of cryptocurrency is linked to **distrust in government and financial institutions**, particularly after the 2008 financial crisis, where **fears of hyperinflation** drove the creation of Bitcoin.
* ⚡ Clean energy advocates often argue that without **urgent action**, the Earth faces **dire consequences**, which has spurred the growth of industries focused on **renewable resources**.
* 🤖 The conversation shifts to artificial intelligence, where concerns about **superintelligent AI being controlled by private companies** raise questions about **ethical oversight and societal impact**.
* 📉 They caution against the dangers of **extreme paranoia leading to unproductive behaviors**, emphasizing that while some level of **skepticism can be beneficial**, it should not **dominate one's life**.
* 📰 The duo warns that conspiracy theories can generate **sensationalism in media**, driving **clicks and profits**, which may lead to **misinformation and exploitation**.
* In a humorous twist, they conclude with a fictional promotion of "**brain pills**" designed to protect against **over-believing in conspiracy theories**, playfully highlighting the **absurdity of such claims**.

We're here to announce our pills, yes, brain pills, yes, make you smart. Dalton plus Michel pills.com brain pills, yes, smart guy brain pills. They will protect you from over-believing in conspiracy [Music] theor. Alright, this is Dalton plus Michael, and today we're going to talk about conspiracy theories. And I have to be honest, and this might be kind of true or it might not be. Dalton is the right person to talk to about conspiracy theories. This is going to be an interesting conversation. Alright, so here's the frame that we want to take. I will be making the point that at the extreme, conspiracy theories were responsible for a lot of the most important innovations over the last 50 to 75 years. And I'm going to use the term conspiracy theories, and Dalton, yeah, you have a slightly different angle. I think my take is paranoid thinking is different than conspiracy theories because there's a kernel of truth there versus a true conspiracy theory. There's really not much there versus a kernel of

realness behind it. So, this is a we have a difference of opinions. We have a difference of opinion. Maybe we're arguing semantics. I think the best conspiracy theories can have need. There needs to be a little something to grab a hold on to. So, we were kind of going through some of the biggest Innovations, right? So, we'll start with the internet and space. And we would both agree that fear of the Russians, yeah, big drivers. Yeah, you can research this. You can Google this. But basically, the original version of the internet, I believe, was called ARPANET, was funded by DARPA, which is a defense thing. And the idea was if we got bombed or cities were blown up by nuclear bombs, the internet would still work because it could route around any city that was blown up. And that was the original funding for ARPANET. Yeah, yeah, got the internet. Everyone understands why we have rockets. They are great deliverers of nuclear weapons. So, what's interesting about this one in my mind is that I'm sure there

were people who either believed or who strongly advocated um the idea that the Russians were going to Nuke us any day like any day you wake up is a day you could get nuked and I feel as though that level of conspiracy theory paranoia um was used to kind of motivate these industries into happening yep regardless of how like if we were to do the math in hindsight what the real odds were of getting nuked any individual day there's probably a thousand YouTube videos about that topic I don't know we don't well and they're going to probably be in the related after this video don't go down the rabbit hole yeah all right uh next one crypto this is a big one where you know you can't trust the government and you can't trust money yeah I mean I when the original Bitcoin white paper came out and the stuff that Satoshi was talking about about it was very directly a reaction to the bank bouts in 2008 the financial crisis yeah

and I think there's, you know, it was already an existing thought, but the idea that the Federal Reserve would just dilute the USD until it's worthless and we'd have hyperinflation and all this other bad stuff would happen, and cryptocurrency is the solution to the government's, you know, destroying humanity or whatever. And in my mind, the, you know, the conspiracy theory there was just like, you could wake up tomorrow and your money in the bank is worthless, yep, and yeah, like banks are, you know, the financial system is done, yeah, and you're going to look like an idiot for holding USD, right? And I think that, once again, I think we can look back and basically say the odds of that happening on any day were actually pretty low, but this pretty incredible thing was invented, you know, which is useful, which is useful, yeah, and it's still probably going to be even more useful in the future. Another fun one, you know, clean energy, clear energy, electric vehicles, you know, there is a group of people out

there that believe like the Earth will die in 100 years if we don't solve this energy problem. Yes, and they are extreme advocates, and what's interesting about this is that they're extremely good at advocating inside of government as well. Like, government funds a lot of this stuff. The industry is also very good at advocating for this. And so, another example of like, Hey, we're afraid of the earth dying. Here's an industry. Let's not look too closely at the inputs of this industry. But industry was created, yep, creates a lot of value. Last one's AI. Here's the fun one. What's the underpinning here? You know, we were around in Silicon Valley and during a lot of this boom, and so we've had many in-person conversations on this with, yes, people. And the argument is AGI, which maybe we can think of this as some sort of AI God, superintelligence, way smarter than humans will be created, and it is likely going to be created.

controlled exclusively by Google, and the idea was, yeah, we didn't want that to happen. We could have a dystopian future where AI God is controlled by a private company, and instead, there need to be like a nonprofit or some sort of like good for the world thing that would create AI God, yes, and use it for good, yes, and not for evil, which you just got to love that analogy. It's like, I'm going to use God for good. Well, yeah, breaks a little. You want Google to own God, or do you want someone else? Feel like God owns God. Isn't that like how that works usually? I, that's an interesting, it's an interesting debate, Michael, um, but investors prefer a company. You know, some of you watching this might say, yeah, no, that's exactly right. Do some of you be like, oh, he's exaggerating AI God, like what? No, no, really, guys, like this is what, this is actually, people really believe that we're going to get an AI God, and they might be right, and this is what's

funny about all these things Michael's been discussing is I actually take them more seriously than him. I think every one of these where it's helpful for me for the first three already ha well I guess no the first one already happen. Do you fear the nuke every day from Russia? I guess you don't not fear the nuke every day huh. I don't know. I don't know what I you are more paranoid than I think I am. That's fair. I just think there's a tail risk. It's not zero man. There's not a z% chance there is like an accident or like a I think the world's a better place with a balance of paranoia and yes and so I I think I take all of those seriously fair to some extent to some extent yeah incl including the AI God one which is like hey if you go read all stuff about this maybe well I think the funny thing is is that the extreme version of the I God is similar to the other three which is like not only is

this going to happen. It's like semi-imminent, yes, and we're going to wake up one day, and if you don't prepare, like, that's what all these things kind of have in common, is there's like a prepper aspect, which is like, Hey, here's the secret you need to know about it, and you need to prepare so that when the moment happens, moment zero happens, you're positioned to, like, you know, be uploaded in this good spaceship. You're on the list of nice, not naughty list. Now, why are we bringing this up? I think that one thing is that I don't think that I was surprised that conspiracy theories have become more prominent in politics, and that's certainly been the case over the last 10 years, but that's also just penetrating the tech world, and I think that balance is important. And, you know, we tried to think about what's a good analogy here that we could use, and I like the one we came up with, which is basically like, How can

you tell whether you are making bomb shelters or whether you are making rockets. Yeah, because like some people made a lot of money selling bomb shelters in the 50s. Yes, that was a business, and a lot of people have them. Yes, and some people helped invent the precursors to the landing reusable rockets that's going to make a space industry that can benefit humanity. Yes, and you know both people had productive energy, and those energies were directed into completely different areas. How can you tell? Like, what advice would you give a founder to make sure that they're on the right side of that balance? Just to be aware of what grift is and what it isn't. In all these examples, grifters attach themselves to all of these things and use it as a way to get rich from schmucks, basically convince people, Oh, I have this new secret thing, and grifted it because it's a popular thing, and you can prey on paranoid people. People that are inclined to believe in conspiracy theories are

usually pretty easy to convince of other stuff. You know, I was thinking about this one sign of a grifter is how fast you can monetize. Grifters can always monetize way faster. Like, you start making rockets; you don't get SpaceX in a year. Um, another thing that came up in the conversation before was this idea of sometimes one conspiracy theory or pinaria can be the gateway drug to all. Yes, you know, it's like now I'm a... I don't... there is no truth. I can't believe anything. Very hard to be productive when you're in this. This is an unfortunate side effect of the internet, is sometimes people end up going down rabbit holes where you start off watching the history channel about, you know, the JFK conspiracy, and then, like, you're completely fried after spending time on foreign YouTube. Just grabs... you're just like done. You can't function. You can't talk to people anymore. What is real? You're done. And so I think some folks, um, just the way their brains work or their natural disposition

of this type of thinking. Yes, U again. We saw this. We certainly saw this with crypto. We're seeing this with AI, where people literally can't function as members of society anymore. Yes, because they're so convinced that like this thing is about to happen, and they go into full prepper mode. Yeah, and sort of want to become separatists from society because they're so convinced that this thing is going to happen. Well, I'd argue sometimes they go so far as just like even being destructive or non-helpful because it doesn't matter, right? It's like if you think nothing matters, you think there's no consequences, why not be a troll? Why not on everything like it doesn't matter? So, say conspiracy theories, paranoia, useful maybe in moderation. Yeah, well, the way it can be useful is to bootstrap a movement. Yes, yes, and what all these things have in common that we're listing, and there's other examples too, is it did energize a certain subset of people on the Internet or elsewhere, um, to be really into something, and I would say a common trait.

Amongst the people who benefited from these movements were they weren't the most radical. They weren't the died-in-the-wool, all-the-way-on-the-extreme believer. Yeah, they were paranoid. I think if you look at something like Bitcoin, probably the people that benefited the most were people that were nerds, that were paying attention to uset posts, and when it launched, they just mined Bitcoin or they bought some Bitcoin. They otherwise kept a relatively normal life and just kind of sat on it for a long time. CU, by the way, that was probably the move. Yeah, and hedging that the US dollar is going to go to zero. Why not take that HS, like sell the car, sell the wife, sell the kids? Basically, they're like, Oh, this is an interesting thing. I'm G to buy some of this and just not think about it, and I'm going to ignore it. The people that were really into this were probably the ones who sold. Yeah, um, and so being curious about things and taking upside.

bets. I think it's a good idea to be skeptical, but not to reorient your entire life and have it occupy all thoughts, making it hard to have relationships or hold down a job because you believe in these things. That might not be the best idea, yeah. And I think the last thing that I want to leave people with is that conspiracy theories drive clicks. And so what's sad and unfortunate is sometimes when you leave things in media without any controls or any kind of principles, they can go down the kind of Alex Jones road, and they can get to a dark place because it drives clicks, yeah. So be careful in your media consumption. Well, because like sometimes people are saying this stuff because they believe it, sometimes they're saying it because they know it looks good on a YouTube thumbnail, yeah, they can sell you pills, yeah. Speaking of which, uh, we're here to announce our pills, yes, brain pills, yes, make you smart, Dalton plus Michel pills.com, brain pills, yes, smart guy brain pills. They will protect you from overb believing in

conspiracy theory. We've developed the anecdote. Only 9.99. Awesome. Great chat. Dton. All right. That was a joke by the. There are no pills. No brain pills. But someone please buy that domain. All right. Thank you. [Music]

How Paranoid Thinking Can Fuel Technological Advancement

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Dalton and Michael discuss the role of conspiracy theories in driving important innovations over the last 50 to 75 years.

They highlight the fear of the Russians as a major motivator for the development of the internet and space technology.

The conversation also touches on the impact of paranoid thinking and the 2008 financial crisis as a catalyst for the rise of cryptocurrency.

Conspiracy Theories and Their Impact on Innovation

The idea that the Federal Reserve could devalue the USD and cause hyperinflation has fueled the popularity of cryptocurrency.

Extreme advocates for clean energy and electric vehicles are driving government funding and industry growth, despite the potential negative impacts.

The fear of a dystopian future controlled by a private company is driving the debate around the creation of a superintelligent AI, with investors favoring company control over a nonprofit approach.

Balancing Paranoia and Progress: A Discussion on Conspiracy Theories and Tech

The speaker takes Michael's concerns more seriously, believing in the importance of balancing paranoia and preparation for potential risks.

They discuss the common theme of preparing for imminent crises, drawing parallels between bomb shelters and rockets as two different responses to fear.

The conversation highlights the presence of grifters who exploit people's paranoia and belief in conspiracy theories for personal gain.

The Impact of Grifting and Conspiracy Theories

Grifters tend to monetize their ventures quickly, often leading people down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories.

This can result in a loss of focus and functionality in society, as individuals become obsessed with impending events.

Paranoia and moderate conspiracy thinking can energize movements, benefiting those who take a balanced approach rather than extreme beliefs.

Conspiracy theories can lead to skepticism, but obsessing over them can harm relationships and job stability.

Media outlets often promote conspiracy theories for clicks, leading to a dark and dangerous path.

It's important to be cautious with media consumption, as some promote these theories for profit, while others genuinely believe in them.