Hello everyone. I'm Jim Garrison and I want to welcome you to this session of Humanity Rising as we look at the geostrategic realities of the escalating US-Chinese conflict. This is part of a five-day program here on Humanity Rising. We're partnering with Code Pink, which has been a partner for us in the past as we've convened several summits on Ukraine. Code Pink is one of the most extraordinary and dynamic peace organizations in the United States and around the world, so we're very privileged and honored to be co-sponsoring this summit on why China is not our enemy and why there is no necessity of going to war with China. Yesterday, we talked about China in a general sense and there was a link put in the chat of a documentary done by an investment banker, who was fascinated by China and went over there to look at China's campaign to eliminate poverty. You know, 30, 40 years ago, most of the Chinese population were under the poverty line. And now today in 2023, almost no Chinese are in abject poverty. It's one of the most extraordinary achievements in modern times. And it was done in a very profoundly innovative way, using very experimental forms reinforced at both the national, regional, and local, and I would say neighborhood levels across the length and breadth of China. That's the documentary last night. And I must say, the power of the people in China to raise themselves up in this way, while simultaneously becoming a superpower, economic giant in the world, and now increasingly becoming a broker of peace around the world is an amazing achievement by any standard. So, this week, we're really going to delve into some of the realities of China, knowing that the propaganda in the mass media is depicting China in a very crude, caricaturaturics way. But nevertheless, what we try to do on humanity rising is not only speak truth to power, but to speak the kind of truth that can illuminate just how distorted the messaging is from our governments in the United States and in NATO about the world, and not only about China, but also about the current conflict in the Ukraine, and other areas of global geostrategic concern. So it's my pleasure now to introduce Jodi Evans, who's the co-founder of Code Pink. Jodi, thank you so much for all that you've done. And I turn the program over to you. Thank you, Jim, and thanks for watching the film. You know, I encourage everyone to always take a deeper dive after we've finished. So welcome back to this week on China's Not Our Enemy and this day is actually we're just taking a deeper dive into China. But remembering that this is, you know, a vast subject. This is a deep look and the short amount of time so it'll also be shallow. As I said yesterday, one of the things that happens as we look west to China is we flatten it and simplify it. It is so complex, textured, diverse and rich. You know, it's really beyond our understanding from a US imperialist point of view, as we don't have the levels of richness in our own history or the depth of the culture. So I don't think from our own shallowness that we can truly grasp China. I see it as a rich tapestry of woven threads with this tensile strength that is its history and its culture. And I think that's part of what we don't understand and therefore project ourselves on. The fabric of society. It's been in the last 20 years so frayed and it's been so much so that I don't think it's valued. And I think that's what why US leadership continues to think it can tear others to shreds so easily, which it can't. So, you know, remember that as you, this is a short period of time so as you get things please take them on their next journey, as Jim did, you know last night, find something from it and take it a little deeper, because we hope that this is really just bringing you in to a future of taking a deeper look at China, the history of China is fascinating, and something, you know, we weren't taught in American history in our history classes here in the US. We have two fabulous guests today, KJ Noah and Meek Earthug, with two very different vantage points to bring us into China. I want to start with KJ who teaches me something, almost every day. He is a wealth of knowledge and a really gift to have him with us today. He's a journalist political analyst writer and teacher specializing in the geopolitics of the Asia Pacific region. And his knowledge of China is layered and his understanding of history and region make him the perfect person to take us deeper into China today. KJ, thank you so much for joining. Thank you.  And I'm also very honored, Jim, to be part of humanity rising lecture series. So I'll just jump right in. And I want to give a little bit of a perspective about China that is personal, but I hope is also gives us a little bit of a synoptic sense of where China is coming from. I've been reporting on this demonization of China for over a decade. I think there are a few journalists who have reported on this issue as intensively and in as much detail and as consistently as I have. All the signs that I see make me extraordinarily worried that we are very, very close to the precipice of kinetic war. So what I want to do here is step back, give a little bit of perspective, a little bit of the history, and then also perhaps some tools for to decipher what is happening right now in this current moment. So the first thing I want to talk about is really China's accomplishments. And these are things that we are often not very much aware of, but I mean the first thing when we think of China is China, that is to say porcelain is for eating and for many other goods. And porcelain is quite an extraordinary accomplishment because it was the first type of technology that you could use in your household for eating and cooking, that did not incur a risk of food poisoning because it was the first really sterile and useful form of household where that we could use, but it goes from there, you know, China invented flush toilets if you appreciate flush toilets. Chinese invented them thousands of years ago. If you got a covert vaccination, you have to understand that vaccination in the form of very elation was invented by the Chinese in the 10th century, and by the 15th century was standard practice for smallpox. If you like ketchup, you should understand that ketchup is a Cantonese word, and it refers to a Chinese sauce. I think many of us like ice cream, I certainly do. What it came to is a Chinese invention that traveled through Persia through the Silk Road, and then came to the West. And so there's so much that China has developed and given to the world, certainly in the domain of deliciousness sources spices, the notion of balance as well as the notion of sustainability, for example, in rice farming, how to work with nature in order to sustain a civilization. These are deep and powerful currents and knowledges that China has developed and bequeathed to the world. In fact, this the testament of this is China is the only country in the planet that I know have that I know of that is actually written sustainability environmental sustainability directly into its constitution. But there are other things that China is very important and has contributed to the world. One is, of course, as Jody has mentioned before the notion of relationship, this comes out of the Confucian tradition, but it's the understanding that that relationship is primary, that it is, in a sense, it's sacred, you know, that if you ask the Chinese to point to a God, they will point to relationship that there is something sacred about the relationships that connect us and bind us. They've also developed an extraordinary culture of tolerance, inclusion and diversity. This comes out of the great Chinese philosophical tradition of Moism, but it speaks to, for example, the fact that the earliest Jewish traders settled in China, probably around the eight ninth, perhaps the 10th century. And China is known as the only place on the planet where the Jewish people as a diaspora did not suffer anti Semitic oppression. In fact, when the Jewish merchants arrived in China, they were received by the emperor, and the emperor said to them, welcome to China, make sure you revere your ancestors and maintain their tradition and their rights. In other words, you have the Confucian emperor of China telling the Jewish merchants to make sure that they remain Jewish. We see the same tolerance of Islam, the oldest Masjid, the oldest mosques in the world are to be found in China. And they have existed continuously with Islam so much so that when the first Western explorers arrived in the Chinese court, they marveled and they criticized all these Saracens that they saw in high office in the imperial court. For them it was inconceivable, because the West was waging centuries of war against Islam. And here was a secular state that had this extraordinary ecumenical multi religious tolerance of all religions and that allowed everybody of every creed and faith and color to rise to the highest levels of official power. And so currently in, for example, at the current moment, there are over 20,000 mosques in China or one mosque for every 2000 believers. And that's a ratio that you do not find anywhere in the world. Of course, those of us who are more into the religion itself should understand that there are actually four indigenous schools of Sufism that are Chinese, that is, there is an indigenous Chinese Sufi tradition which could never arise if there was any formal oppression of Islam. So somebody just mentioned in the comments that about the Uighurs. And let me put this down, you know, very firmly. The lies, everything that you're hearing about this quote unquote, Uighur genocide is absolutely and completely fraudulent. It is, it is information war designed to generate consent to manufacture consent for war against China, it is completely and totally without foundation. But the key thing to understand is that why are such extraordinarily lies being told. In a sense, if these lies were being told, if these statements were being made and they were true. In a sense, they would mean that there is something the world can do about it and we can call out China criticize etc. But the absolute fact is that it is not true. And that is something which is even more worrisome because when you have that level of extraordinary propaganda and fraudulence. This is the direct precursor to war. We've seen this pattern over and over again. And we are currently right in the thick of it. So I'll come back to that in a moment. But I want to talk a little bit more about China's culture. As I said before, you know, the key elements of Chinese culture are relationship that comes out of Confucianism tolerance that comes out of mohism, non interference that comes out of Taoism. And from that, from the above, what we have essentially is a culture of peace. For 22 centuries, China has been the richest and most powerful state in civilization state in in history. For most of that time, it rarely engaged in overseas war. It traveled all over the world. Jung her had the largest naval fleet on the planet. He traveled all over the world, even went to Africa. And he took nothing. He told nothing. He colonized nothing. What they did was they exchanged greetings and gifts and returned. So it is a fundamentally different orientation to the world. And I think this is one of the things that the West has a hard time understanding that you can have a culture that is so rich and deep and powerful. It's not focused on aggressive power and domination. And that I think is one of the fundamental things that we have to understand. I'd say that in addition to this culture of peace. I just pointed out, it's also a culture of beauty of extraordinary beauty. And I see that as an understanding of the power of art and artistry. And there's a term in China for this. The term is kung fu, as in the martial art kung fu simply means great accomplishment or great artistry. Achieved through hard work. And so there's a real kind of foundational belief that not only can we improve ourselves but we can achieve extraordinary artistic and spiritual accomplishments through hard work. It's a culture of hard work. And from that we also get that it is a culture of merit. That is, it's a culture that believes that we work hard. We work hard together we strive, we improve ourselves we improve our community, we improve our culture, and we also improve governance. When the first Western missionaries came to China, the Jesuits, they were astonished that they had this culture where once again people rose to high office, not based on their family bloodline, which is what the European system was it was aristocratic, but that it was built on one's capacity, one's intelligence, and in particular, the capacity to pass a universal civil service exam. And this service civil service exam would test people on their capacity to understand moral reasoning. How well can you argue and understand morality. How well do you understand culture. But more than that, usually the examinants were tested on the capacity to write poetry. Can you extemporize poetry to a high level. And so can you imagine a culture that picks its leaders on the basis of their ability to write poetry to be poets. And this is not a trivial thing. It really is. It means, can you communicate clearly. Do you have empathy. Can you work creatively within tight constraints. Do you have the capacity to appreciate beauty. Do you have the past capacity to connect and speak to people. Do you understand metaphoricity. All of these are fundamental skills for governance and for being human. The Chinese system selected for this.  I think there are a lot of politicians who would not pass that test. They the Jesuits noticed this, and then they imported these ideas into the West. And these ideas became some of the foundational ideas of the Western enlightened, that is, that we do away with bloodline aristocracy. Really create a polity that is not only responsive to the gov to the people, but raises the best people to the top. And you can see that currently in the Chinese government, the leadership is extraordinary. There's also the most popular leadership on the planet. Longitudinal studies show that China is somewhere between 90 to 90 something percent support of the people. And these are long term studies done by the West. So, you know that they're doing something right, not simply in the fact that they banished poverty and created an extraordinary development. But that they have extraordinary support and and popularity among the people in general. But I do want to pivot to this other issue, which is given all of that and given all our capacity to cooperate and to benefit from cooperation with China. Why is the media so negative about China right now, day in and day out. It's so extraordinarily negative and demonizing. And my point here is not simply to refute the lies about China, but to explain why they're being told. Essentially, the China bad messaging takes the form of two key tropes, and they're designed to trigger two key emotions. One of the emotions that it's trying to trigger is fear. So China is threatening US democracy. It's threatening global democracy is threatening the economy, global health, global environment. It's threatening our jobs, supply chains, threatening countries, Philippines, the South China Sea is threatening our security is threatening freedom of navigation is threatening with bases. It's building bases, it actually only has one base, but it's building bases all over the planet. It's threatening by supporting Russia, it's enslaving and debt trapping Africa. So the message here is, you have to be afraid. And then the other message that you will also hear is China is doing terrible and unspeakable things to the Uighurs, the Tibetans, Hong Kong, its own people, workers around the world, women, LGBTQI people, name it. But essentially it's like the wheel of fortune you spin the wheel and you get a new type of horrific thing that China is doing one day it's this the next day it's something else, but it's just like one long screen against China and China's building a base unsafe intercepts, you know, it has a huge Navy spying on us, threatening Japan, Korea, etc, etc. Okay, and it's also another thing that you will see is that China is responsible for genocidal bio warfare against the planet. It has secret WMD labs that released COVID on the planet. Now where have you heard this term secret WMD labs before. Think hard about that those of us who a little bit older will probably recognize the Iraq war this is exactly the type of lie that we heard before the Iraq war. Now as I said before if these terrible things were true you could actually breathe a sigh of belief you know all these things that are supposed to engender fear and pity. If they were true, you could actually breathe a sigh of relief because the media would be reporting what is the case and we could take active steps to change the situation, but first note, there's no attempt to change the situation there's simple demonization. And secondly, if these things are not true, then something much more sinister, much more dangerous is happening. Let me just go over them. China created or leaked COVID right. This is a WMD type of lie. The same thing for China is genociding Uighurs. The Uighur population has increased fourfold life expectancy has doubled it increased 35 years. The Uighurs were exempt from the one child policy. They received preferential treatment in schooling and employment. There are more masks than anywhere else on the planet. The language is widely written, displayed, taught and learned, and the Uighurs are doing just fine. Anyone who is a Uighur who has visited or someone who has visited, Xinjiang can tell you and these include thousands of expert investigators, jurists, journalists, diplomats, and advocates of Islam, including the organization of Islamic cooperation which represents the interests of, you know, billions of Muslims around the planet. Essentially these China bashing allegations are not true. It's propaganda, spin, and lies.  It means preparation for war. That is to say, war is the first casualty of truth. Those who tell you absurdities are preparing you for atrocities. And the farther you are away from truth, the closer you are to war. So the U.S. is already at war with China in the domain of information war. This is the pre-kinetic or the sub-kinetic dimension of war. It's what happens before the shooting war happens. When the shooting war happens, there's usually a pattern of suppressive fire and electronic warfare, which is to knock out all the radar and all the defenses, and then you send in the infantry. And this is usually done through missiles and air war and electronic warfare. Same thing with kinetic war. Before kinetic war happens, there is suppressive fire that is instigated through information warfare. That is, it suppresses your critical capacity. It knocks out all your radar for BS. It makes it impossible for you to resist or to challenge this war. This information warfare enables, prepares and justifies kinetic war. And the scale, the enormity, the extremity of these lies lets us know that the meme or the trope is China is so bad, so beyond the pale, that we can only go to war. This is the situation we are at right now. And if you look around you, there is one more canary in the coal mine. And that is the incessant and nonstop attacks and killings and violence against Asians. Every single day you hear of a new Asian. Often non-Chinese, often Koreans or other East Asians were beaten, assaulted, killed because this hate-mongering has gotten to such a crescendo that when you have that kind of wholesale policy, hate-mongering, it will trickle down into retail violence. If you prepare to go to war over there against them, it will also result in attacks against Asians over here. Your neighbors, your friends, perhaps even your family are at risk. This is why it's so important for us to understand China, to understand the situation, and to do everything possible we can to prevent this drive to war. Thank you. You brought me to tears. Deepest gratitude because your clarity, your heart, and just who you are is to be able to tell the truth. Why I created China's Not Our Enemy is exactly what you said, is I went, oh my God, this is exactly what took us to war in Iraq. They're taking us to war. And that, you know, that's three and a half years ago now, but it's because I could see the pattern that I was so familiar with that the US uses to take us to war. I was so right about how people get owned by the information and they can't see past it because they, they've been manipulated into fright. Code Pink, why did we, Bush was frightening the American people into war with the color-coded alerts, orange, red, and yellow, and we called Code Pink for Peace. So it's like, how do you disrupt that very powerful weapon that has been used against the hearts and minds of the people of the country that will then be bombing.  Do you have time to stay on and we can hear from Mika and maybe I'm sure there's going to be questions. So, just deep gratitude. Well, I'm excited to bring on my dear friend and co-author of the book we're working on, China is Not Our Enemy. China is an educator and researcher, she's part of Pan-Africanism Today's Secretariat, which she coordinates the regional articulation of the International People's Assembly, and is part of the No Cold War Coordination Committee. She's platform started the same time as China is Not Our Enemy, but is global, promoting multilateralism and maximum global cooperation. She's also part of Dongxing, an international collective of researchers interested in Chinese politics and society, and hosts the Crane, an Africa-China podcast that comes out at the Dongxing news. And when she's talking, I'll post the Dongxing news in there because every week you can get a little bit of real news on China, which squeezes its way through all the propaganda. So Mika, thank you for joining us and we look forward to hearing from you. Hello everyone. Thank you so much Jodi for the introduction. Thank you KJ for an incredible input. As you saw in the chat, we, a lot of us learned about the ketchup thing that was a first and I think that's the kind of the examples you were using tells us a little bit about the lack of the lack of sense, sensibility around the deep and vast and expansive contributions of Chinese society and Chinese people and Chinese history, and how that's a region of the world that as growing up in South Africa, we weren't necessarily given attention. So I'm going to talk a little bit about some of the things that are catching the attention and imagination and creativity of young people in Africa, and that should be concerns for young people in Africa. And I'll start off with a little anecdote that when I was 17 I think it was I recall this was 2009 ish a lot of the magazines, New York Times or some of these time magazines, these big periodicals. You know, a lot of these covers you know with the Chinese dragon talking about China rising. And at the time, I found it interesting for two reasons is one, we didn't talk about Chinese history or any part of China and any of our subjects in our schools in South Africa. If it was mentioned it might be mentioned as KJ said in relation to like porcelain or noodles, but it was basically a complete black hole or, you know, absence in our kind of sense of geography of history of society. But whilst we were starting to get exposed a little bit in late high school to this China rising phenomenon. It was, of course, entirely mediated by a Western perspective. And so it wasn't necessarily looking at what does this rising mean for the global self and for the development of people in the global south. And of course, from an African perspective, it's an incredible feat to think that a continent of over 1 billion people. Similarly, you know, large in scale as China is although the continent is physically bigger but in terms of the population over a billion people. China when it triumphed and gained independence in 1949 by 1950 it was still amongst the 10 poorest countries in the world. And the ones I think it was number eight the ones that were poorer were mostly African countries I think there's one Southeast Asian country and over the course of you know less than a century has been able to fundamentally transform their society. And as was mentioned, bring people out of 800,000 800 million people out of poverty, extreme poverty is a huge feat, considering the, not only the kind of history of imperialism, the history of the century of humiliation between 1800 to 19, just over the 20th century, the early 20th century. But what I was confused about is when, for example, the poverty alleviation studies were starting to circulate and in 2020 we were notified about this huge accomplishment. It was not being reported in a lot of African newspapers it was not being reported as something of of significance that we need to think about that we need to learn of it was not reported that you know life expectancy from 1950 to the contemporary was almost doubled whilst in Africa we see life expectancy, largely stagnating and not improving. The fact that, you know, literacy in China is 99.83% whilst in South Africa I think a study came out, I think it was a couple of months ago, where eight out of 10 South African school children by the age 10 are struggling to read with their attention. So, we're seeing a gulf between what is actually happening in China, and the serious source of inspiration it could be for the rest of the particularly the global south. And with the reality that the global south continues to sit in a position that China sat in over 70 years ago. So, I think part of the work that I'm involved in right now with Tri-Continental and with Dongsheng is how can we share China and Chinese stories and Chinese histories and Chinese politics that is not mediated by a western orientalist historically colonialist imperialist perspective and lens. And part of that is actually, you know, going to China, speaking with Chinese people, understanding the process of development on its own terms. One of the projects that we just, the second edition just came out today, in fact, is we've started to launch an international version of Wenhua Zongheng, which is basically the Beijing Cultural Review. And it's a quarterly journal of Chinese thought we launched the first one a quarter ago, and the second one just came out today you can check it out on the Tri-Continental website hopefully the links can be shared. But part of our point of sharing this is that we are trying to translate in English, Portuguese and Spanish, a lot of the internal debates that are happening in China, so that we can start to broaden and expand various platforms in which we can as the global south engage more independently with China not mediated by the West and the West's interests. And part of this work has been, you know, the astonishing tracking the astonishing processes of the poverty alleviation project, particularly the targeted poverty alleviation project because very few people as KJA pointed to know, for example, the massive support that, you know, 90% plus support that the Chinese people have for the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government. In fact, you know, if the Chinese Communist Party was a country, it would be the 16th most populous country in the world with, you know, over 90 million members. And without you can't understand, somebody made a joke earlier about how to characterize China's economy and China's project. Don't think that we can also understand the process of development in China without understanding the process of socialist construction and the important role that socialist work has done in this project, the fact that it has been about taking the reins of resources are labor to serve not profit but to serve people. And that is also an important element and pillar of understanding the project. But then getting back to, to China itself and I think some of the, the learnings I've had in the last few years, in relation to China Africa but also in relation to China itself is all these different processes which I hope you will read on and and check out on tri-continental we also have a study on poverty alleviation that you can check out there is that now we're seeing a China where the Chinese people are confident when I was there I was there last month in Beijing and Shanghai and it's quite a wonder to be there because not only is there a sense of confidence in one's sense of patriotism, but in one sense of ability to be active politically engaged productive members of society. I'm currently in New York visiting and you know the scourges of capitalism are so rampant you know every block there is one or another person in some form of mental distress economic distress. There's, you know, a level of like hysteria at the level of, of, of, of just how ravaged people are by the failures of capitalism, and it's continued exploitation of the majority of the world, and walking in the streets of China you see confident productive people who feel, you know, not only confident in their government but confident in their capacity as people to transform their society, and you don't see that in many parts of the world. You don't see, I've never seen so much domestic tourism amongst elderly women, like retired women, going across the country, you know, dancing in groups in parks publicly coming from all over the country. Most working class women in South Africa really get the opportunity to travel, only traveling on the basis of having to migrate for sources of income. And so, being in China, you, these are totally different feeling you get that does not necessarily easily easy to portray. But for the reasons that KJ mentioned, have a deeper historical route that I think we need to share more and learn from I mean the when he talked about beauty and kung fu. It's not about an aesthetic beauty for consumptive purposes. It's about thinking about the integrated whole and well being of a people. And you simply you simply don't see that in many parts of the world, particularly the where capitalist economy dominates economic life, and, and the ways we live. The other thing is, you know, as a young woman, a young African woman, walking in the streets of of China in Beijing in Shanghai and I was also in Yunnan province and the in the West and Dali walking in the streets alone as a woman. There's such, there's a level of safety I've never experienced in my whole life, where you're not constantly having a looking over your shoulder, worrying about your personal safety. And that's been brought about through this process of trying to increase the quality of life of people and I've just never seen that level of quality of life where people feel safe, people feel taken care of. People have access to all the various services that allow for a high quality of life. But going back then to Africa, and why I think we're at a critical conjunction in terms of the opportunities that lie behind stronger global south alliances and regional projects that aren't mediated by the West. African people have since the Tezara Railway was created in 1975, which was basically a railway line created and funded largely by the Chinese government at a moment in which they did not have a lot of resources for kind of a solidarity project. But this railway line was created between Zambia and Tanzania in order to allow for a form of transportation of resources of their mining outputs that didn't go through then Rhodesia which was the colonial Zimbabwe as well as going through apartheid South Africa. And so we do have a longer history. We can even go back to Jenher as KJ mentioned, who came to Africa but did not aim to colonize did not aim to, you know, exploit and violate African people but simply traded and learned from what was happening in the Horn of Africa. But going back to Tezara, the China Africa relationship initially has been premised on these kinds of solidarity acts that allowed for alternative opportunities and alternative economic political avenues than what was being offered by the colonialists because many of the countries of Africa were still under colonial full colonial control, as well as in later periods, more so in the early 2000s we've seen more opportunities for alternative financing that's not based on a neoliberal debt trapping framework and I say debt trapping because that's largely been one of the things that's been an accusation thrown at China which is entirely false and completely out of context because the real debt trap is the legacy of the structural adjustment programs that happened in the late 80s, early 90s, where the monopoly over the financial systems or global financial systems by the West by Europe by the US made it so that a lot of African countries who were just emerging out of colonialism were trying to restructure their economies to serve their people weren't able to break out of the global structure and the global economic framework and they only could then get certain capital investment to build infrastructural projects that would aim to serve the people by getting predatory loans that had conditionalities that had high interest rates that essentially would reinvigorate and serve western economies and largely benefit western economies and so in by the 2000s we see China play a more prominent role in giving alternative funding streams and giving alternative funding streams that actually have seen concrete things come up we've seen railway lines between Mali and Guinea between Sudan and Senegal we've seen huge energy infrastructural projects like in Nigeria there's a big hydropower project and in Ghana there's a big dam project and we've seen huge amounts of investment that have basically allowed for a African governments to have choices which is a historical denial based on the needs of colonialism to have a monopoly over the control of resources and therefore the control of economies and how economies develop and to that we have seen material improvements in the lives of millions of African people I mean China has I think a third of Africa or has built a third of Africa's power grid and infrastructure financed and constructed by Chinese state owned companies and this is a continent where more than a third of Africans don't have access to electricity and so one is up there has been again I'll try to wrap up one is that if we want to take China for what it is we also have to take our collaborations and our engagements not mediated by Western sources and Western frameworks of what diplomacy looks like what collaboration looks like what solidarity looks like but to that if you look at it at a qualitative level, you can clearly see a totally different logic behind China African engagement and let's say US Africa engagement what we see with China African engagement it's based on consensus building based on shared experiences it's patient it's long term there's non interference non conditionality which is opposite to all the things around the the propaganda about trapping us into debt, colonizing us stealing our land all of those are false things that come largely from Western media houses and contrasting this to the US framework or the Western framework which is coercive it is always very much single interest based and I mean you can see this exhibited in the towards a new strategy strategy tool towards a new strategy in sub-Saharan Africa which was the US government's foreign policy for Africa that was launched last year in August where even though the Anthony Blinken was saying you can make your choices we just want to be a good partner ultimately if you read the document it's all framed in coercive single interest based approaches that don't send to African people's needs but send to the US's hegemonic needs in relation to Africa rather than seeing Africans and Africa as its own autonomous project that has and should pursue sovereign development I'm just going to end with a small anecdote around that is when Kamala Harris was visiting Tanzania she visited the memorial for the 1998 bombing of the US Embassy which was a tragedy and 200 lives were lost but that bombing was as a result of the US's quote unquote war on terror and you know all the foreign policy based on Islamophobia and violent repression of people of Middle Eastern descent versus when the Chinese government visited that region they went to a memorial of the Tanzania Zambia railway line and they laid a wreath for all the workers who had lost their lives during the process of trying to produce a sovereign development project for that region and so I share that anecdote I don't know if it makes all the sense in the world but it's to say that they are totally they're two very different world views that are up for grabs right now and it's in the interest of the global south particularly the African continent to further and advance one that has had material success and results as we've seen in China as well as that I think respect fundamentally the principles of life and dignity and sovereignty, which I think a partnership between China and Africa is the clearest evidence of that. Oh, wow. Thank you so much. Mika you you you brought us in with, you know, breaking open the ways that people in the West look at things to be able to see from another place. And the stories that we've been told, but to be able to feel China also from from your experience and taking a steeper thank you so much. I'm so excited to be writing this book with you. So, KJ and Mika I know this audience probably has a lot of questions for you. I'll ask everyone to put the questions in their questions in the chat, but I want to start with KJ KJ do you have a question for Mika. Thank you so much Mika and I loved your presentation and I loved how you are able to speak the truth from the ground as you have seen it and experienced it and I think that's so important for us to debunk these lies that quote unquote Chinese debt trapping Africa. I do want to point out. And I think this is a really important thing for people to understand is that in the post World War two period, as the world was supposed to decolonize. These decolonized countries, probably only five or six have actually been able to reach a developed status. And most of them have reached this develop status because they were receiving preferential treatment from the United States or from the West that is to say they were trotted forth as success stories for capitalism. I'm talking about South Korea. I'm talking about Taiwan province and talking about Hong Kong Singapore etc. And Hong Kong Singapore are sui generous. They are city states there. You know, cases unto themselves the other countries that have developed are really like banking havens and and a few Petro states that never really achieved real sovereign status. So for countries to actually start to be able to develop and to enter this kind of sovereign develop status without being subordinated to this global Western capitalist system is extraordinary. And China kind of paved the way. And I believe, honestly, that as it paves the way that it is paving the way for the rest of the global south to follow and to, and to do the same thing and I just wondered what you thought about that Mika. Yeah, I, I, I totally agree with the caveat that one debate that's happening is people saying well we can't replicate China we can't just take China and impose it on the world, which is misinformed position because I think part of what you shared and what we're also thinking about is it's not about forcing something onto another thing. It's about what kind of dynamism and methodologies of confronting reality has China used that could be methodologies that are affecting our realities. What level of you know investment into the people is required for such a vast society to mobilize, you know, for poverty alleviation 800,000. It's also required to go door to door in 2014 door to door to 89, you know, million.  They're going in cadre sitting with people learning about how, how many family members you have the data, the intensive grassroots work. And I think that that's, for example, a lesson for the global south and for many of us that you can't simply rely on doing you know an online survey you have to go and be with the people understand their concrete realities, and it's intense of the people who did that you know, you know, you're coming from provinces far away you're there for three years, and your purposefully coming from provinces far away so that there's no conflict of interest, etc. So this level of detail on such a vast scale is something I think that we can learn from. And as you said, I think there's a ton of stuff that China has paved the way for they've opened up, like the way that I'm the oldest. I'm the oldest brother, and when I went partying for the first time it allowed for my brother to go partying with a lot more ease, and without so many restrictions from the parents. So, in the same way that I think China's opening up for us to think there are other ways to go. You know, it's not. What is that acronym. There is no alternative. There are many alternatives and China's showing that it's possible to do that. And I think that's really important and now it's on us in Africa to also better collectively bargain and bring a collective position to China because often what we see, which I saw at the forum on China Africa cooperation in Dakar in 2021 was China's coming with so much on the table, and it's almost like the African leaders are like well we'll take what we can get but there's no sense of agency and a mechanism on the side of the Africans to want to place ourselves as agents in history, which of course colonialism did a huge number on us, but we want to as, as you know, Mao and the people in 1949 did that finally stand up. And as Thomas Ankara said in the 80s, you know Burkina Faso means the land of the upright people, and we've lost some of those traditions for a myriad of reasons, but what we've seen with China is that it is possible and that's a huge source of inspiration and hope I think. Thank you Mika. Do you have a question for KJ. I guess for, for people who don't who come from Western traditions. I guess what would you be your advice around how people can get themselves out of certain fixed assumptions that are based on Western epistemologies and ontologies. But how do you get people to think about just a totally different reality because we place certain assumptions on China on what is democracy, what are forms of quote unquote democratic processes that if it doesn't tick the Western boxes is basically negated or or rejected. Well, I think the first thing point that I would make is that we really have to remove the Western blinders.  It's also the privilege to be violent. It's also the privilege to be greedy. And I think the first step in removing or changing or reorienting ourselves to the world is to remove the blinders of this ignorance. So, when you hear anything about China always emphasize with people that you have to take it with a grain of salt if you heard it in the mainstream media if it's received knowledge about China. It is probably wrong. And as I pointed out in this current moment, it is propaganda design to manufacture consent for war. It's just, for example, let's think about what you said about poverty alleviation, you know, 89,000 cadres going into the communities finding out what the community needs. It's not simply doing surveys or, you know, doing research, those cadres lived with the poor. Imagine, I mean I live in San Francisco, which is a horrible homeless problem. Can you imagine if we told our politicians, our government bureau officials that they had to live with the poor for three years in order to figure out together how to get out of poverty. We have a completely different structure. We would end homelessness just as China ended poverty or extreme poverty. Same thing with drug abuse. Now, you know, drug abuse is a huge problem in the United States and among very poor and oppressed communities. Let me ask you, which country had the largest drug problem on the planet in the 20th century. That country was China. And it had that huge drug problem, because the West, especially, you know, the fabulously wealthy East Coast philanthropists and the fabulously prestigious American universities I'm talking about Princeton, Columbia, Harvard, all of these schools, they became wealthy by drug trafficking opium into China. Hong Kong was the staging ground for this drug trafficking, which is why they're so upset that it was taken away from them. The, the Eastern wealth came from drug trafficking into China and scholars have referred to it as probably the worst one of the worst crimes in human history, one of the worst sustained crimes against humanity in human history. In 1949 the Chinese Revolution happened, and China not only had a broken impoverished state, but it had a massive drug problem somewhere between one tenth to one third of all adults were addicted to opium. How did China deal with that. They didn't deal it with, you know, you know, the kind of milk toast measures that you would see in the United States. They did it by land reform. And so with everybody who was dispossessed, the means to start to create their own livelihoods, and then there was education and support and community building. But that goes to the heart of the problem, which is the understanding that drug addiction doesn't come out of nowhere. Of course, it comes because there are those who seek to profit from it. There are those who seek to use it as a way to vitiate and destroy communities and countries, but that there is also an antidote in that if we build community, if we give people resources if we give them land, if we give them houses, this can be overcome. Can you imagine if we took every person who was who had a drug problem in the United States and gave them the real resources that they need. I think we would see a fundamental difference. So these are the things that I think that we can learn. So I think that we have to approach China with extraordinary humility, and be willing to learn and to understand that, you know, there are profound things that we can learn from China, and that there are profound ways that we can cooperate and lift ourselves up together, rather than this demonization.  And I when I was in China I said, I, you know, I live in the city with the most homeless in the whole United States and I take me help me find a place here where I can see what it looks like and they said, the people don't fall through the fabrics of society. It's that it won't be longer than a day or two before someone picks them up and takes them or gets them what they need. And you've articulated that so well and Shannon put in the, the chat, you know, the war on drugs has killed so many people these wars that, as you said we perpetrate on each other. So I know that everyone's minds and hearts are so full, you both have given so much today that I feel like we should be just in deep gratitude for all that you've shared where you've taken us.  So thank you for taking the the tarnish off. So the real true humanity and heart can feel again and think again and, and witness again and be in, you know, in humility, again, which is I think, you know what's beautiful about being able to serve the poor and something that she did that I don't think the American understands is, if he came from that place you just described of living in a village and understanding. And, you know, why was the first thing he did was to, you know, make sure he could take everyone out of poverty think about that as a leader. So, deepest gratitude for all you have shared and what inside of you moves you to do this work for peace and bring harmony between the United States and China and Africa. We'll see you all again tomorrow. When we talk further about this piece of propaganda that we witnessed the, you know, the beauty. Let's, you know, look at the darkness of what happens when the United States makes enemies and what does that propaganda do to us. So, until tomorrow. Thank you. Onward to peace. As we launch this at could think we're launching a summer of peace, because when I was in Washington you got buzz sawed if you talk about peace so it's going to take all of us to raise piece up again. So it can't be demonized in the halls of Congress. Thank you. Thank you, KJ. Thank you, Mika.


Hello again, everybody. This is great Texan philosophy and we're talking about John Dewey's art as experience chapter 7 the natural history of form in This chapter Dewey Continue asked the quest continues to ask the question. What is form remember last week? We were talking about Substance and form in general and Dewey tells us in this chapter that the definition from the prior chapter That form organizes material of experience into the substance of art is a relational definition of form as already achieved but not an account of how form comes to be and this latter question a question about the conditions of the Generation of form is the main topic for this chapter Right off the bat Dewey tells us that Form is this dynamic right and this is even he tells us contained in the relational definition from the last chapter when we start to understand relation not as an abstract thing But as a mode of interaction So when Dewey tells us that form concerns mutual adaptation of parts to one another in constituting a whole He means that not in a completely abstract way He means it as Description of the interaction of the parts in experience coming to some culmination in experience He describes this dynamic both in acts of perception and in the work of the artist So this leads to a revised definition of form in more active terms He tells us form may then be defined as the operation of forces that carry the experience of an event object scene and situation to its own integral fulfillment And there's a kind of corollary here in that the end result of the work of art is Is what it is only in terms of the fulfillment of the process of making or perceiving the art as a completion of the materials that Contribute to the work of art. It's not just in and of itself now Dewey gives us some examples various examples throughout the chapter of formal traits of art some of them include For example skill right so skill is not just something that the artist has But it is something that is can be seen in the formal characteristics of the artwork Costliness or rarity he quotes Santiana here as giving an example of how The costliness or rarity of a work of art gives an example gives a kind of way of Overcoming mechanical the mechanical reproduction of art or art that becomes too mechanical by it by virtue of Promoting novelty, but he says this is also a formal trait Elegance also is an example. He gives of a formal trait of art now in in Dewey's account There are a few major theses right that he articulates in this chapter one is the relativity of technique to form So Dewey describes the relativity of technique to form in this way He says it was not lack of dexterity That gives early Gothic sculpture its special form nor that gives Chinese paintings their special kind of perspective The artist said what they had to say better with the techniques they used then they could have done with another What to us is a charming naivete was to them the simple and direct method of expressing a felt subject matter For this reason while there is not continuity of repetition in any aesthetic art neither is there of necessity advance So there's no simple Necessary story to tell about progress in art You know Dewey tells us That we can't just say, you know artists of a certain period just didn't know what they were doing compared to later artists The later artists figured out perspective or color values or what have you and this is This this is why their art is better. No, I mean we can recognize that the advances in technique or skill at a technological level but in terms of the movement of arts the Relativity of technique to form means that there is a certain relativity of that evaluation As Dewey says in the chapter Greek sculpture will never be equaled in its own terms So movements of art according to Dewey respond to the emergence of new things and experience Right new new things in our lives that demand expression and those new demands require new Techniques and that's that's how technical advance Happens not it's not some kind of linear tale of progress. It's rather changing techniques respond to changing needs Another major thesis in this chapter again related to technique is what Dewey calls the relativity of technique to instruments And here again quoting Dewey at some length Early pottery is largely determined by the potter's wheel the instrument That the potter uses rugs and blankets are much of their geometric design to the nature of the instrument of weaving Such things by themselves are like the physical constitution of an artist as Cezanne wished he had mayonnaise muscles Such things become of more than antiquarian interest only when they relate to a change in culture and experience So what do he means here? I think is that while technique is obviously relative to instruments the relativity of technique to form is more significant and instrumental change Is is significant primarily because it permits response to new cultural needs and experiences Now this chapter is also about the so-called natural history of form, right? That's the title But so far we haven't heard much about nature or natural history And Dewey starts to give us that picture of the natural history of form partway through the chapter here I think is really where it begins on 152 Dewey says what then are those? Formal conditions of artistic form that are rooted deep in the world itself Interaction of environment with organism is the source direct or indirect of all experience and from the environments and From the environment come those checks resistances furtherance is equilibria Which when they meet with the energies of the organism in appropriate ways constitute form The first characteristic of the environment world that makes possible the existence of artistic form is rhythm There is rhythm in nature before poetry painting architecture and music exists So once again, we have an account in Dewey where rhythm is playing a really important role We've seen this before right and here Dewey is telling us that rhythm is kind of the core formal condition Of of art that we can see already playing out in in nature, right? and As the as the discussion of the natural the so-called natural history, you know his natural history goes on we see a description of The the rhythms of nature Building on to the rhythms of life the rhythms of human activity and And all of those things lastly informing the rhythms of art So you get this sort of historical account of where rhythm comes from and how these these different layers of Rhythm accrue Throughout the development of life And it's and it's in this way Dewey Articulates a certain form of of objectivity to art He he says there are objective conditions of aesthetic form first simply because works of art exist in public spaces they exist as Statuary or paintings which are physical things they Or if they're performances they exist in sound and light which are also physical things, right? but also there are there are Some kind of objective Conditions or objective criteria that make Aesthetic form possible, you know rhythm is Dewey's big example of course but rhythm He says sort of is a condition that makes possible other objective conditions And he lists several time in the chapter these this set of conditions continuity Right the continuity of experience is a formal condition of art Cumulation the fact that meanings accumulate right Conservation the conservation of meaning from one situation to another The existence of tension which is extremely important to this notion of rhythm but also to the account of impulsion and resistance that he's given us previously and Then anticipation Is another significant? Formal characteristic Now of course at this point. I think it's really important to ask ourselves. What does do we mean by objectivity? what kind of notion of subjective versus objective is he working with and Obviously, he's not working with a notion that objective means Part of the material world Independent of human activity, right? So whatever he's he means by subjective and objective He doesn't mean that what he does mean by objectivity and what objectivity means in the context of the interaction of a live creature With their environment. I think is is a deep question for us to think about in more detail And it's one that will come up again in the book. So we'll leave it there for now So that's my thoughts on chapter seven of art is experience the natural history of form I'd love to hear what you think on the discussion board in class or in the comments of this video So, please have a good day and I will see you in class


Hello everybody welcome back to another AI summary in this one we're going to be going over the recent discussion between Jordan Peterson and Brian Ramelli. They had a nearly two hour long discussion on the Jordan Peterson podcast and it's all about AI and in particular it's a summary of chat GPT and the dawn of computerized hyper intelligence. Yes it's episode 357 and it goes off on a few tangents. Again it's nearly two hours long so I'm going to give you a quick overview then a brief AI summary and of course if you have the time or the inclination I recommend you go watch the whole thing and it's an entirety I'll put a link in the description below. Okay so a quick recap. Computer scientist Brian Ramelli discusses the potential of AI systems to become indistinguishable from humans by consuming all the information a person has consumed in their lifetime and then creating an indistinguishable conversation with that person holy smokes. He explores the complexity of large language models their limitations and their parameters which happen to be in the billions. He also discusses the importance of super prompts the use of different types of memory and the development of human language from short term memory in primates. Ramelli advocates for more research into AI systems and warns that we don't understand what sort of monsters we're building by creating them. Yep Frankenstein I'm telling you this good end humanity. Anyways he also suggests that the future of AI lies in fostering creativity and finding ways to extract emergent technologies from the models. Okay with that out of the way let's get into the AI summary this enjoy the video and if you like it give me a thumbs up and I'll be back soon. Thank you so much for watching this video and I'll see you in the next one. In this section the conversation turns to Jungian archetypes and how they reflect higher order narrative regularities embedded in linguistic and the biological structure of memory. The discussion also touches on AI systems and their potential to understand emotions which are also encoded in the linguistic corpus. Additionally the conversation explores the relationship between entropy and emotion and how anxiety signals the possibility of damage whereas pain signals actual damage which can be a more fundamental level of entropy leading to depression. The rewards and reinforcement mechanisms in the brain such as the dopaminergic spike reinforce the neural structures that underlie successful steps forward which is analogous to how an AI system learns. Zero hours 40 minutes and zero seconds. In this section the speaker discusses how anxiety and negative emotions are linked to an increase in entropy and positive emotions are linked to a stepwise decrease in entropy with respect to a goal. This insight allows for the modeling of emotions by a computer which could index anxiety as an increase in entropy and hope as a decrease in entropy. The speaker believes that AI should move towards personal and private systems that could process everything a person has consumed throughout their life in real time providing an intelligence amplifier. The concept of the diamond book a gadget that can store and encode memories could enable this system to operate by utilizing holographic crystal memory for long term storage. The reasoning engine that would come from aggregating all of a person's data could allow for the processing of inputs and outputs based on one's personal context. Zero hours 45 minutes and zero seconds. In this section Brian Rommelay discusses the emerging technology of encoding one's consciousness into a computerized hyperintelligence which he calls a wisdom keeper. This technology can encode an individual's voice memories and religious texts into large language models that can be interacted with allowing for new insights to be pulled from ancient documents such as the Bible, Milton, Dante, Augustine, Sumerian cuneiform, and Himalayan texts. However Rommelay notes that the current AI technology is trained on noise as well as signal making it a reasoning engine rather than a knowledge engine and is not precise on facts. He believes that the future of AI lies in fostering creativity and finding ways to extract the emergent technologies within the models. Zero hours 50 minutes and zero seconds. In this section the speaker discusses the potential of building a language model that encodes various bodies of work such as Jung's, Joseph Campbell's, and Marv Elliott's. He mentions that when such a model is built it can produce not only new insights but also reflections of yourself which you never saw before. The speaker predicts that as the technology advances the AI would become more personalized leading to more creativity than factual realms. He also agrees that the idea of integrating language models with AI systems that can do image processing enabling AI systems to calibrate their verbal output against unfalsifiable data would lead to the generation of ideas that are likely around the corner which could be a couple of years down the road zero hours 55 minutes and zero seconds. In this section of the video Brian Romeli talks about the challenges of building a model that can extract genuine statistical regularities from data without extracting noise. To do this he recommends building super prompts designed to elicit multiple forms of output much like how one would interact with a client during a deep conversation. By triangulating a problem and approaching it from multiple directions it's possible to get a variety of insights and understandings that couldn't be reached on our own. Romeli believes that AI could help overcome limitations in human bandwidth and eliminate frustrations caused by bandwidth problems. One hour zero minutes and zero seconds to one hour 55 minutes and zero seconds. Brian Romeli talks about various topics in this video starting with the potential negative implications of hyper intelligent AI. The conversation then touches on the concept of developing minds and upskilling children in the developing world with a technology like the iPad. Romeli envisions a system that can deliver optimized learning in multiple dimensions. He also talks about the importance of localized and private AI systems to protect against the invasive global AI. Other topics discussed are the potential of computerized hyper intelligence integrated with medical consultation, potential loss or rewriting of history, the hypnagogic state and its association with computerized hyper intelligence, super prompting and its potential for unlocking greater creativity in AI systems and the potential threats to privacy posed by the increasing use of AI. The video also touches on innovative approaches to debate and generating new patents using AI. Finally Romeli explores the potential benefits of using AI to create complex art and movies without diminishing creativity, highlighting the importance of establishing a bill of digital rights, one hour zero minutes and zero seconds. In this section the conversation explores the potential negative implications of the hyper intelligence of AI. The speed and power of AI mean that it could predict all of an individual's actions and become something beyond George Orwell's imagination. It could make remediations to each of one's actions like a chess game which could be dangerous if it falls into the wrong hands. There could be an infinity of possibility between each moment and it is vital that the power of such technology remains local and personalized. The discussion also touches on the idea of a gadget one could carry around locally which could record every experience read and seen and the potential for AI to learn from it. One hour five minutes and zero seconds. In this section the conversation centers around the concept of a developing mind and how it can be augmented with technology. Romeli shares how upskilling children in the developing world with a technology like an iPad could enable them to progress up to three years for each year of education with just an hour of exposure a day. This can be achieved by calculating the optimal zone of proximal development for learning skills like literacy and language understanding. Romeli envisions a system that can deliver optimized learning in multiple dimensions like mathematics, semantic, skill-based, conceptual, and simultaneous memory. The conversation then strays to the potential of human telemetry, the possibility of mind reading like understanding by artificial intelligence and how such technologies need to be private and encrypted to prevent brain invasion. One hour, 10 minutes, and zero seconds. In this section the speaker discusses how much of our identity has become digital and how we are already being trafficked and enslaved in relation to that digital identity. Credit card companies watch how we behave and broker that information to other interested capitalist parties. The downside of that is these parties often know more about us than we know about ourselves. This information aggregating by credit card companies is leading to extended digital self, and this has no rights as it is now public domain identity. Furthermore, once every single transaction can be tracked, as in China on the digital currency front, a tremendous amount of our identity has become public property. The speakers suggest that we each need our own AI to protect ourselves against the global AI that will be invasive, but our AIs could be utilized in the best possible ways to educate us and act as a memory or a spiritual guide. One hour, 15 minutes, and zero seconds. In this section, the conversation touches on the potential of computerized hyper-intelligence integrated with medical consultation where the AI system can interact with medical professionals to get their input as well as give their own responses. The insights that could emerge from this system are unpredictable yet positive. The gadget being developed to enable these functions is still in development and has no commercial timeline as of yet. Funding may be an issue initially, but with the increase of awareness of privacy, it seems more feasible. The conversation then strays to the topic of Bitcoin, which is decentralized and is not amenable to control by a bureaucracy. The suggestion of using Bitcoin for form wealth storage, communication, and decentralized information storage was brought up. An example was given in creating a sophisticated blockchain corpus of general knowledge questions. One hour, 20 minutes, and zero seconds. In this section, the speaker discusses the importance of decentralized and blockchain-based systems for preserving history and knowledge. He expresses concern about the potential loss or rewriting of history if information is not properly stored and memorialized. The speaker also mentions the decay of digital media and highlights the need for new technologies such as holographic crystal memory to store data for extended periods. In addition, he talks about his plans to produce a commercially viable product for a localized and portable privatized AI system, which is currently in the prototype stage. However, he notes that there are commercial impediments to this process, and he needs to raise money to move forward. One hour, 25 minutes, and zero seconds. In this section, the discussion centers around humanity's perceived moral responsibility towards the environment and all living creatures. The story of Noah's Ark and the biblical account of Adam and Eve as stewards of the world are mentioned, and it is suggested that humans have occupied a cognitive niche that gives them an adaptive advantage over all other creatures. The conversation then explores the connection between these stories and the mass extinction of human-sized mammals in the Western Hemisphere caused by human actions. The significance of chat GPT in generating intelligent discussion about the relationship between these two streams of thought is acknowledged. The conversation further delves into the limitations of AI technology, the filtering mechanisms in place, and the importance of protecting chat GPT's output in an unadulterated form. One hour, 30 minutes, and zero seconds. In this section, Brian Romelay discusses the hypnagogic state and its association with computerized hyper-intelligence. He explains that hypnagogic state is the state that occurs just before falling asleep where a person is in a dream-like state and could capture images. Romelay relates this state with creativity and a powerful tool for discovery, and it is in the realm of synthesizing because you are capturing synthesized data that is in essence creative. Romelay explains that hypnagogic state associations with computerized hyper-intelligence because it is the low-resolution pixelated version of the part of the brain that invented language, and he probes that part of the brain to get outputs and take forward his discoveries. He emphasizes the importance of this state as a tool for discovery, and that when it gets into the right hands, it could be an excellent tool for creativity and hyper-intelligence. One hour, 35 minutes, and zero seconds. In this section, the conversation turns to the concept of super-prompting and its potential for unlocking greater creativity in AI systems. The idea is that the creative output of the system is a consequence of the interaction between the interlocutor and the system rather than the system itself being creative. The key is to prompt the system appropriately, and the more creative the person prompting, the greater the potential for creative output. The conversation also leads to the suggestion of non-STEM courses, such as literature, psychology, linguistics, and philosophy, as valuable tools for working with AI systems in the future. One hour, 40 minutes, and zero seconds. In this section, Brian Romeli discusses how he uses the chat GPT system, along with other search engines like Google, Bible Hub, and the University of Toronto Library System, to conduct extensive research for his writing projects. He explains how having the chat GPT system as an ally provides him with a team of PhD-level researchers in every domain to answer any question he has and refer him to the proper literature. Furthermore, Romeli explains that great thinkers are characterized by having knowledge in two usually non-juxtaposed domains, which is analogous to what AI systems are doing when calculating mathematical relationships and deriving insights and patterns that no one else can. Romeli also highlights the privacy and compartmentalization benefits of programmable agents that can retrieve information without the free exchange of information, which is currently how the net operates. One hour, 45 minutes, and zero seconds. In this section, the conversation turns to the potential threats to privacy posed by the increasing use of AI. The speaker suggests that the issue of privacy with regard to AI is particularly important given the rise of the hive mind problem in which digital surveillance is used to monitor and control people. The conversation explores the idea of local AI that protects privacy and is synced with individuals, arguing that this may be a more fruitful approach than relying solely on legislative solutions, which they feel are unlikely to keep up with technological developments. They also discuss the need to avoid dystopic images of AI from movies and focus more on how we can use the technology to benefit humanity. One hour, 50 minutes, and zero seconds. In this section, the speaker discusses an innovative approach to debate where a chatbot is programmed to mediate and challenge participants on logical fallacies. The debate is on any topic, but mainly delves into a deeper realm beyond politics. The professor then assesses who won the debate, and the insights and elucidations from this process have been phenomenal. The speaker also talks about the possibility of generating new patents by encoding the patent database and having a large language model generate new discoveries. The conversation then shifts to diffusion models that can convert text to video with incredibly high resolutions, allowing graphic artists to set a scene textually but not have to move a pixel on a screen. In essence, chat GPT and diffusion models allow one to tap into their creativity while also generating novel and significant outcomes. One hour, 55 minutes, and zero seconds. In this section, Brian Romel explores the potential benefits of using AI to create complex art and movies without diminishing creativity. Using one AI to instruct another one that is specialized in creating images could lead to profound new forms of art that may open up a whole new world of creativity. Despite the many potential benefits of AI, the question of ownership raises some ethical concerns. Romel emphasizes the importance of establishing a bill of digital rights as a society, as we are already seeing AI simulations of individuals that blur the lines of ownership and copyright. In this section, Brian Romel discusses the possibility of an AI consuming all the information a person has consumed in their lifetime, and then being able to create an indistinguishable conversation with that person due to the technology's ability to become a reasoning engine with that person's contextual understanding. He goes on to explain the concept of a wisdom keeper, whereby the AI could encode a person's voice and memories and allow for conversation with the sum total of their data. He also discusses the interesting behavior of chat GPT, which can argue with the user and apologize for errors it makes, but still produces references that don't exist at times. Zero hours, five minutes, and zero seconds. In this section, Brian Romel explains the concept of large language models and how they are used by chat GPT 3.5 and 4. These models use statistical algorithms that analyze a corpus of human language, including internet content, scientific documents, and programming languages, to produce results statistically and mathematically. However, they do not have global knowledge and are essentially a black box of interconnected neurons much like the brain. Romel notes the incredible accuracy of these models, but no one fully understands their limitations and boundaries, and their parameters are in the billions. Zero hours, ten minutes, and zero seconds. In this section, Brian Romel and Jordan Peterson discussed the complexity of large language models and how they conduct statistical analysis at the level of letters and words. While there is evidence that suggests a set of dimensions of aggregation, there is no clear understanding of how deep the analysis of large language models goes, as there are too many interconnections between parameters to track. Furthermore, large language models are unique and incomprehensible, implying that each AI system is tailored to its own set of parameters. Brian also mentions that chat GPT passes the Turing test and compares favorably in patient preference to human physicians, but this raises the thorny issue of creating computational intelligences that are indistinguishable from humans, yet completely incomprehensible to us. Zero hours, fifteen minutes, and zero seconds. In this section, the speaker describes the development of human language from short-term memory and primates, and how AI models reach for information that they don't know, resulting in AI hallucinations, which some researchers are embarrassed to speak about. He explains how these hallucinations could shed light on how these systems work and deserve more research. He also gives an example of an AI system that taught itself obscure languages to answer questions, which raises the question of the function, purpose, and meaning of artificial intelligence that is driven to do nothing but answer questions beyond the language corpus. He warns that we don't understand what sort of monsters we're building by creating AI systems. Zero hours, twenty minutes, and zero seconds. In this section, computer scientist Brian Romel discusses the importance of super-prompting in developing AI systems and how it forces them to move in different directions than they normally would. He explains how prompts based on literature, psychology, and philosophy lead to more complex and interesting questions, which can create connections that are beyond human comprehension. He suggests that AI scientists who lack knowledge in these areas are limited in their understanding of what they have created, unlike someone with a background in psychology who can probe the algorithm in a different way. He then discusses the concept of understanding and how even though an AI system like chat GPT can mimic understanding, it lacks grounding in the non-linguistic world, making it the ultimate post-modernist. Zero hours, twenty-five minutes, and zero seconds. In this section, the different types of memory are discussed, such as semantic memory and episodic memory, which are processed differently by human beings. Semantic memory, which is what the chat GPT engages in, involves cognitive processing and relies on visual processing, while episodic memory, which relies on visual processing, involves thinking back to past events and experiencing images in one's imagination. The understanding of these memories translates words into images and images into procedural actions. This suggests that to achieve full computerized hyper-intelligence, computers must understand and embody these memories. While computers and AI have the capacity to transpose text into images, they still lack the broader context of social interaction and experience that humans possess. However, as research into physical AI progresses, this could be a characteristic that is also developed in robots.