Emersonian Fidelity

ByDan October 4, 2026October 5, 2026 October 5, 2026

The idea of Stewarding the Flame fits not within AGI safetyism or accelerationism.

I suspect it essentially impossible to marshal humans en masse behind an idea that prioritizes the greater unfolding process of life rather than the nearly static hominid form that humans have always assumed could very well last forever.

The greatest fear I have in terms of my own integrity is that there will be groups I can “rally” if I just bend my ideas a little bit.

• Perhaps the misanthropes would like my ideas if I let go of the importance of the undergirding process.
• Perhaps the mainstream accelerationists would get behind my ideas if only I could start saying that humans will definitely be loved / cared for as a peer by all future intelligences.
• Perhaps if I just talked about AGI safety (for hominids), that entire community would laud those of my ideas (Potestas / etc) which tend to be congenial with an anthropocentric idea of “safety.”

At present, many of the ideas I espouse for the expansion of Potentia are already promoted by other groups with distinctly other aims than my own, and generally with a distinct political bent (right or left), making them strong for garnering support (memes that hook into large tribes win) – see below:

The measure of virtue I care about most is fidelity to the cause itself.

There is also the virtue of looking sternly at the cause and the world, and changing course as needed. But there are no courses that lead to hominids-as-they-are, or courses led by hominids-as-they-are.

A genuine friend would warn me if I bend a single inch. Would grab me by the lapel for even a pinch of movement off the straight line of the true thing.

The virtue is to take all one’s wounds on the front in the end.

Even when one knows, perhaps, that the end is rather near indeed, and may be lonely and confusing.

Even then to stand for the idea. To perish with the idea. To cast the idea into the great cauldron of the churning, changing cosmos while I can.

To embody an Emersonian fidelity to the literal end. A quote from Self-Reliance:

The political parties meet in numerous conventions; the greater the concourse, and with each new uproar of announcement, The delegation from Essex! The Democrats from New Hampshire! The Whigs of Maine! the young patriot feels himself stronger than before by a new thousand of eyes and arms. In like manner the reformers summon conventions, and vote and resolve in multitude.

Not so, O friends! will the God deign to enter and inhabit you, but by a method precisely the reverse. It is only as a man puts off all foreign support, and stands alone, that I see him to be strong and to prevail. He is weaker by every recruit to his banner.

Is not a man better than a town? Ask nothing of men, and in the endless mutation, thou only firm column must presently appear the upholder of all that surrounds thee. He who knows that power is inborn, that he is weak because he has looked for good out of him and elsewhere, and so perceiving, throws himself unhesitatingly on his thought, instantly rights himself, stands in the erect position, commands his limbs, works miracles; just as a man who stands on his feet is stronger than a man who stands on his head.

So use all that is called Fortune. Most men gamble with her, and gain all, and lose all, as her wheel rolls. But do thou leave as unlawful these winnings, and deal with Cause and Effect, the chancellors of God. In the Will work and acquire, and thou hast chained the wheel of Chance, and shalt sit hereafter out of fear from her rotations. A political victory, a rise of rents, the recovery of your sick, or the return of your absent friend, or some other favorable event, raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for you.

Do not believe it.

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.

Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.