I Have No Original Ideas

ByDan March 10, 2025March 10, 2025 March 10, 2025

Nothing I’ve ever said is remotely unique.

My entire Cause, my entire reason for being around discerning and moving towards a Worthy Successor (and the expansion of Potentia), my entire perspective on the flame of life continuing beyond man — is just downstream from reading Emerson’s Circles essay.

Follow these two steps and you’ll more or less land where I have landed with regards to the possibilities and inevitability of the posthuman transition: 

1. Read Emerson’s Circles essay (link above).
2. Just think for a minute about what it implies for inevitable change, and for man’s place and paltry understanding of nature – bearing in mind the massive progress we’ve seen in artificial intelligence.

That’s it.

There isn’t much where you’ll say “Wow, how did Dan come up with THIS?!”

You’re more likely to say “Yeah, okay, basically Dan is just extrapolating Emerson’s conclusions.”

Some of the specifics of what I think we should do about AGI / posthuman transition governance aren’t directly from Emerson. But even those molded pretty directly by Montaigne and Al-Rodhan’s wise and rightfully amoral perspectives on human nature. Read them and you can anticipate all of me. I don’t even add any useful ingredients, really.

I wish I could say that I’m a conduit (see Virtue of a Pipe) to something uniquely from my own special genius, but it isn’t true. I play a lesser role – and I’m well aware of my lowliness. But I strive for my music, to be a conduit regardless.