Business

Greg Kieser – Psychedelics role in the emergence of Super-Intelligent Entities

August 13, 2019

Download
In this episode, Kyle sits down to chat with Greg Kieser, Founder of think-tank, Supersystemic.ly and author of Dear Machine, a book written as a letter to a future super-intelligent entity. Topics covered include blockchain, AI, money, Psychedelic Investments and how psychedelics can help humanity prepare for the emergence of super-intelligent entities.

Subscribe Share

Download
In this episode, Kyle sits down to chat with Greg Kieser, Founder of think-tank, Supersystemic.ly and author of Dear Machine, a book written as a letter to a future super-intelligent entity. Topics covered include blockchain, AI, money, Psychedelic Investments and how psychedelics can help humanity prepare for the emergence of super-intelligent entities.

3 Key Points:

  1. Blockchain offers an enormous amount of opportunity, by taking data that would otherwise be protected by government or big corporations, and making it accessible to the general population for a more accessible information source.
  2. Money is this interesting concept, that we are storing our time, our energy and our goods in a piece of paper. Psychedelics can help with this, be rewiring the way we think about money and the overall exchange for goods and services.
  3. Psilocybin is a cure, its use does not need to be continued for it to work, so Compass Pathways is highly incentivized to continue to heal new people, which is what we want, healing at scale.

Support the show

Navigating Psychedelics


Trip Journal                                               Integration Workbook


Show Notes

About Greg

  • Greg worked at a foundation in NYC aimed at reducing the rate of poverty
  • He started an angel investment firm/think tank, Supersystemic.ly
  • He wrote the book, Dear Machine, a letter to a future, super-intelligent entity

Looking to the Past

  • Our nutrition narrowed when we became farmers
    • “The truth is, we can’t go back to where we came from, we have to go to a new place, so how do we do that?” – Greg
    • There is such difficulty with people living in clusters (cities) and transporting all of the food in from the country
    • It’s important for the psyche to get back to nature and even taking on a hobby as simple as gardening can be so healing
    • Children’s immune system has been shown to become stronger when living on farms and playing with animals and in the dirt
  • Psychedelics are helpful in understanding how interconnected everything is

Integration of Technology

  • Blockchains have the capacity to take data and pull it into a place where we have more control over it (can’t be bought or sold)
  • When we combine our knowledge of technology with psychedelics, we will really start to progress as a species

Block Chain

  • The creator of Bitcoin created BlockChain, which is a type of database that lives out on the internet that no one can own
    • It offers an enormous amount of opportunity, by taking data that would otherwise be protected by government or big corporations, and making it accessible to the general population for a more accessible information source
  • Greg mentions a block chain that will be a regeneration of land
    • Maybe all the members donate $50 to the block chain, and those members then can follow the progress of a pond or the growth of a tree, etc
    • Its a good example of a block chain being used for good

Money

  • Money is this interesting concept, that we are storing our time, our energy and our goods in a piece of paper
    • Psychedelics can help with this, be rewiring the way we think about money and the overall exchange for goods and services

AI

  • AI is going to get more and more powerful and corporations and governments are going to want to get their hands on AI for more power
    • In Dear Machine, Greg wrote about a super aware machine that helps us to make super intelligent decisions based on what food to eat (based on our microbes, our genetics, what is the most sustainable for the environment, etc)
    • Greg fears that the government will try to take control of it and have its own agenda, but he thinks that with super awareness for decision making, that good will win
  • Kyle mentions that the Western mind is so obsessed with Apocalypse
  • AI and Superintelligence are going to accelerate whatever systems we already have in place
    • If it happened right now, it would look ugly
    • But, if we create a world that appreciates interconnectedness and the diversity and complexity of our minds and our bodies, then we will be in a much better place
    • Psychedelics have a huge role to play, it allows us to appreciate things, it helps get our ego out of the way, it helps us break addiction
  • Monoculturization has led to a lot of bad things
  • “Don’t try to change the system, just make a new system” – Buckminster Fuller
  • Human well being and environmental stability are two metrics that we need to work on

Interest in Psychedelics

  • Greg’s interest in psychedelics began when we was invited to Psilocybin ceremonies
    • He said it just ‘clicks’
    • “You really don’t understand what psychedelics are until you take them” – Greg
    • He then began to invest in psychedelics, microbiomes, agriculture, etc

Compass Pathways

  • The main problem with the health system is that we get into the idea of patenting molecules
    • Psilocybin is a molecule that can’t be patented, so he’s not worried
  • Greg wants to see psilocybin use at a larger scale, so the medical model is a great way to get there
  • As a part of Compass Pathway’s program, in order to be a therapist and provide the therapy, you have to go through the therapy yourself
  • Psilocybin is a cure, its use does not need to be continued for it to work, so Compass is highly incentivized to continue to heal new people, which is what we want, healing at scale

Looking Ahead

  • Greg is most excited to see healing from opioid addiction
    • Alcohol and tobacco fall under that in his hopes for healing
  • Greg is also really excited about the microbiome and the gut connection to the rest of the body
    • There was an Autism study that gave people with Autism a microbe transplant from healthy people and after 2 years there has been a remission of symptoms
      Microbiome Reddit 

Links

Supersystemic.ly
Dear Machine: A Letter to a Super-Aware/Intelligent Machine (SAIM)


About Greg Kieser

Greg Kieser is founder of Supersystemic.ly, a Brooklyn-based think-tank and angel investment firm dedicated to increasing humanity’s readiness for the emergence of superintelligent entities through the study and spread of “supersystemic” perspectives and innovations. Kieser, whose university and independent studies of complex systems science form the operating thesis of the company, founded Supersystemic.ly after more than a decade overseeing a portfolio of technology initiatives at an NYC-based poverty-fighting foundation. His work at the foundation was driven by a complex set of metrics for measuring the impact of investments on the economic, physical and mental well-being of low-income New Yorkers. Dear Machine, and to a greater extent the company, unites his unique skills and knowledge in technology, social investing and complex systems science.