7 Levels of Coronavirus Attack on Our Society and How We Can Fight Back

00:00:00.000 | The coronavirus pandemic is a global crisis,

00:00:03.480 | but I think it's also a moment that unites us,

00:00:06.440 | that gives us an opportunity

00:00:08.200 | to show the strength of our community,

00:00:10.080 | to be compassionate to our fellow human beings,

00:00:12.900 | and to work hard to fight this thing.

00:00:15.080 | And I think we will, and I think we'll beat it.

00:00:17.320 | So I wanted to make a video about, in my view,

00:00:20.720 | seven different levels at which the coronavirus

00:00:23.480 | is attacking the fundamental nature of our society,

00:00:27.920 | and how we can fight back,

00:00:29.720 | and how we can emerge stronger together.

00:00:34.080 | The seven levels of attack are biological, medical,

00:00:36.840 | level number one, that attacks the individual human life

00:00:40.200 | and death, and the biology, the wellbeing,

00:00:42.640 | the health of an individual human being.

00:00:45.180 | Psychological, which is attacking the emotional stability,

00:00:48.520 | the fear, and the ability to love and be compassionate

00:00:51.760 | towards our fellow human beings

00:00:53.160 | in the individual psychology of a person.

00:00:56.280 | Level number three is social,

00:00:57.960 | which is attacking the collective cognition,

00:01:00.320 | the collective intelligence of our species,

00:01:02.540 | instilling panic, the spread of misinformation,

00:01:05.240 | the spread of conspiracies.

00:01:06.960 | Level number four is economic,

00:01:08.800 | attacking the financial stability of our global markets,

00:01:13.480 | the employment of individuals, productivity,

00:01:16.480 | and generally the financial burden,

00:01:18.480 | especially the imbalance of the financial burden

00:01:21.280 | carried by individuals.

00:01:22.920 | Level number five is political,

00:01:24.680 | exacerbating the partisanship,

00:01:26.960 | and the ability to make effective policy

00:01:28.840 | and respond to the virus at the federal,

00:01:30.960 | at the global scale.

00:01:32.440 | Level number six is existential,

00:01:34.440 | which is taking perhaps a step back

00:01:36.360 | from the concerns of the current natural pandemic,

00:01:40.080 | and looking at civilization level extinction,

00:01:42.400 | looking at existential threats that may be among us today,

00:01:45.840 | and may be posed to us in this coming century,

00:01:49.160 | from artificial intelligence, to nanotechnology,

00:01:52.360 | to engineered pandemics and other concerns.

00:01:55.820 | And level seven is really taking a step back

00:01:58.440 | and looking at the philosophical.

00:02:00.380 | The test the virus presents to us,

00:02:03.400 | to consider the fundamental fabric of the human condition

00:02:07.040 | at the individual level and the societal level.

00:02:09.900 | What are we supposed to be together?

00:02:12.280 | How are we supposed to live?

00:02:14.600 | What is the meaning of it all?

00:02:16.820 | And what is the best path forward for us as a society

00:02:20.240 | in the coming decades, in the coming centuries?

00:02:24.800 | The meaning of life, as silly perhaps,

00:02:28.580 | and unanswerable the question is,

00:02:30.680 | is also perhaps the most important question of all.

00:02:34.080 | And if there's ever a time to consider, to ponder,

00:02:36.600 | to try to answer that question, it is now.

00:02:39.140 | It's an opportunity that the virus presents.

00:02:42.000 | So if you allow me, I'd like to talk

00:02:43.380 | to the seven different levels of attack from coronavirus

00:02:46.820 | in a video that's a little bit different,

00:02:48.500 | perhaps than some of the videos out there,

00:02:50.300 | and certainly from the videos that I'm used to making.

00:02:52.740 | I've been doing a lot of data aggregation and analysis,

00:02:55.640 | a lot of simulation for forecasting purposes,

00:02:58.220 | even simulation for revealing the mathematical patterns

00:03:01.080 | in the spread of a pandemic.

00:03:03.000 | There's a lot of interesting ideas there

00:03:04.720 | that I hope to explore either privately

00:03:06.760 | or publicly through the video format,

00:03:08.640 | or blogs, or even papers.

00:03:10.480 | But this video is higher level.

00:03:12.280 | It's thinking of the big picture of this virus.

00:03:15.820 | So if you allow me, I'd like to talk about three things

00:03:18.040 | for each of the levels.

00:03:19.480 | One is the pain we're likely to feel.

00:03:21.780 | Two is the challenge for us to overcome.

00:03:25.500 | And three is the hope, the silver lining,

00:03:28.500 | the light at the end of the tunnel.

00:03:30.340 | It's really important to mention that if there's any errors

00:03:32.800 | or expansions possible on something I say in this video,

00:03:35.460 | please let me know.

00:03:36.540 | I will add corrections and expansions into the description.

00:03:39.760 | So please also read the description to this video.

00:03:42.720 | The burden I carry with making a video like this

00:03:44.940 | and future videos on the coronavirus

00:03:47.500 | is mistakes here could cost lives.

00:03:50.820 | So I'm very cognizant of that.

00:03:52.700 | I'm very careful.

00:03:53.540 | Please read the description

00:03:54.900 | and please let me know if there's any errors in the data

00:03:57.820 | or just even the wording of the things I say.

00:04:00.980 | So looking at level one first,

00:04:02.580 | at the biological and the medical,

00:04:04.060 | the direct attack of the virus on the human body.

00:04:06.500 | It's very difficult to make projections

00:04:09.420 | about the number of cases that we're likely to observe,

00:04:13.300 | at least in the first wave,

00:04:14.740 | and the number of deaths that we're likely to observe.

00:04:18.700 | Many people, including myself,

00:04:19.980 | are carefully looking at the data,

00:04:21.300 | aggregating it, analyzing it,

00:04:23.460 | but it's still not a good time to make a good projection.

00:04:26.540 | It is perhaps a good hopeful message

00:04:28.220 | to consider the best case scenario.

00:04:30.320 | If the government's response swiftly,

00:04:32.700 | if we all do our part,

00:04:34.260 | if the hospital resources don't become overwhelmed,

00:04:37.180 | it's possible that the level of deaths that we observe

00:04:40.860 | is at or below the levels of annual influenza deaths,

00:04:45.060 | which is still a tragic, a tragic number.

00:04:48.580 | Now, if the response is not swift from governments

00:04:50.400 | and individuals doing our part,

00:04:52.180 | then the worst case number of deaths

00:04:54.740 | could count in the millions.

00:04:56.680 | Still too difficult to tell,

00:04:58.340 | but this virus from everything we see

00:05:00.500 | on the biological side is much more dangerous

00:05:03.100 | than the influenza virus, than the flu.

00:05:05.640 | So this level is one that there's already been

00:05:07.680 | a lot of great information on,

00:05:09.180 | blogs, papers, videos, the CDC.

00:05:12.560 | You should make sure you're paying attention,

00:05:15.100 | but the message is clear.

00:05:17.000 | For individuals, you should stay home,

00:05:19.800 | social isolation, social distancing,

00:05:22.300 | wash hands, don't get infected, and don't infect others.

00:05:25.620 | For the medical infrastructure,

00:05:28.240 | the people really fighting,

00:05:30.060 | really heroes fighting on the front lines

00:05:32.460 | are the healthcare workers and the service workers,

00:05:35.320 | making sure our society still runs,

00:05:36.960 | making sure people who are sick are getting help.

00:05:39.320 | The thing that I've seen is I understand

00:05:41.980 | that works really well is the testing quickly,

00:05:45.420 | testing early, and treating when treatment is needed.

00:05:49.260 | And also for people who are sick,

00:05:50.780 | tracing to see who are the other individuals

00:05:52.820 | they interacted with,

00:05:53.720 | so they can be properly socially isolated.

00:05:56.740 | Of course, on the science side,

00:05:57.820 | a lot of brilliant people are working on a treatment,

00:06:00.580 | on antiviral drugs, on vaccines,

00:06:02.860 | and on the engineering, manufacture, logistics side,

00:06:07.640 | people are working to manufacture ventilators,

00:06:10.020 | test kit, protective equipment like masks.

00:06:12.660 | This is a huge global effort.

00:06:14.900 | Now, the hope is we, in this immediate response,

00:06:18.500 | we flatten the curve,

00:06:19.740 | we don't overwhelm healthcare resources,

00:06:22.460 | and we minimize the loss of life.

00:06:24.660 | One of the most difficult things here

00:06:26.140 | is for doctors to make life and death decisions.

00:06:29.600 | I would like to recommend a book

00:06:31.680 | called "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder,

00:06:33.780 | which tells the story of Paul Farmer.

00:06:35.380 | It's the first time I realized,

00:06:37.980 | and it might be cliche to say,

00:06:39.640 | but it really is true that doctors, nurses,

00:06:43.360 | and healthcare workers are heroes.

00:06:45.820 | And that book was the first time I realized

00:06:48.300 | that many of the decisions we make are beyond reason.

00:06:52.660 | They're some of the most complicated ethical decisions

00:06:55.380 | you have to make.

00:06:56.220 | You have to listen to your heart,

00:06:57.180 | and those are the decisions,

00:06:58.940 | deeply human decisions that doctors have to make.

00:07:01.620 | And at this biological, this medical level of life,

00:07:06.240 | of human life and human death,

00:07:08.460 | doctors are really, and nurses and health workers,

00:07:12.300 | are really at the front lines

00:07:14.580 | of making those most difficult decisions.

00:07:17.500 | That is such an important fight.

00:07:19.380 | They truly are heroes.

00:07:20.760 | I recommend the book highly

00:07:22.440 | to highlight the burden that these folks have to carry.

00:07:25.540 | Now, the hope is, if the response is swift,

00:07:27.700 | and we all do our part,

00:07:29.180 | that this turns out to be

00:07:30.260 | as close to the best case as possible.

00:07:32.580 | And then it serves as a dress rehearsal

00:07:34.540 | for a much worse pandemic

00:07:36.340 | that could cost a lot more,

00:07:38.300 | both economic impact and the loss of human life.

00:07:43.300 | And that means we can now look into the future

00:07:46.700 | and invest in science,

00:07:47.980 | invest in the healthcare infrastructure,

00:07:49.940 | such that future responses can be much more swift,

00:07:52.260 | and we're much more prepared

00:07:53.620 | for something catastrophic, truly catastrophic.

00:07:56.860 | And finally, the hope is

00:07:58.860 | that we can discuss the role of technology

00:08:00.980 | in all of this in the years to come.

00:08:03.220 | Information truly is power

00:08:05.160 | in controlling the spread of a pandemic,

00:08:07.920 | but information, data,

00:08:10.100 | is something that requires

00:08:11.300 | that we strike a balance between privacy and health.

00:08:14.900 | And that requires a discussion about who controls,

00:08:17.460 | who manages, who regulates the technology

00:08:20.540 | in terms of how privacy is preserved.

00:08:22.820 | The second level of which the virus is attacking our society

00:08:26.100 | is the individual human emotion.

00:08:28.460 | Fear is real.

00:08:29.700 | Fear of losing your job,

00:08:31.060 | fear of losing your health

00:08:32.100 | or the health of the loved ones,

00:08:33.820 | fear of losing basic resources

00:08:35.220 | like water and food and power.

00:08:37.900 | And there also could just be fundamentally

00:08:39.900 | a fear of uncertainty,

00:08:41.060 | which can lead to tensions within the family

00:08:43.520 | and within the small inner social circle.

00:08:46.740 | Now, the key there is to stay calm.

00:08:49.460 | It's so important for reason to override emotion,

00:08:54.460 | especially in decision-making.

00:08:58.340 | So stay calm, stay informed.

00:09:02.020 | This might be difficult to say,

00:09:03.180 | but this is also a good time

00:09:05.520 | to reevaluate your life journey,

00:09:07.780 | to ask the question,

00:09:08.900 | am I living my dream?

00:09:10.780 | Am I living my passion?

00:09:12.240 | This is a good time as any for a personal revolution

00:09:17.900 | to start over,

00:09:19.060 | to do the thing you've always wanted to do,

00:09:21.380 | to start writing, to start reading,

00:09:23.080 | to learn, take an online class,

00:09:24.900 | to pivot in your own personal journey.

00:09:27.220 | If you're a business owner,

00:09:28.540 | to pivot the structure of your business,

00:09:31.000 | the thing it's doing,

00:09:32.180 | the underlying ideas behind the business,

00:09:35.120 | the scale of the business,

00:09:36.740 | rethink everything.

00:09:38.140 | This is a good time for a personal revolution.

00:09:40.900 | Now, this can be extremely painful,

00:09:42.620 | especially for people living paycheck to paycheck

00:09:44.780 | who have to support a family.

00:09:46.420 | But this is the time.

00:09:47.820 | If there's ever a time,

00:09:48.660 | this is the time to do it,

00:09:50.180 | to rethink what are the coming days,

00:09:52.940 | weeks, and months look like?

00:09:55.100 | How can you change your life

00:09:56.460 | so you can truly live your dream, your passion,

00:09:59.600 | and provide for your family,

00:10:01.020 | provide for yourself, provide for your family,

00:10:03.140 | and be the best person you can be?

00:10:04.900 | This is the time for that personal revolution.

00:10:07.180 | Again, it might be very painful,

00:10:09.120 | but this is the time for it.

00:10:11.180 | My hope at this level,

00:10:12.460 | at the psychological level of the individual,

00:10:15.020 | is that we use this opportunity

00:10:18.260 | to reevaluate our lives,

00:10:20.880 | to take a leap forward

00:10:21.940 | in something you've always wanted to do.

00:10:24.540 | And in general, my hope is that we overcome fear,

00:10:29.540 | the natural fear of uncertainty,

00:10:32.420 | and lean in, lean into love,

00:10:35.660 | compassion for our fellow human beings.

00:10:38.520 | Resist the desire to be afraid.

00:10:41.180 | Lean in to being compassionate towards others.

00:10:45.240 | Level three is social.

00:10:46.960 | Social distancing,

00:10:47.980 | really should be called physical distancing,

00:10:49.820 | that we're all practicing,

00:10:51.380 | has led us to lean in to rely on social media

00:10:55.280 | for connection, for basic human connection,

00:10:58.660 | and for information.

00:11:00.620 | So it has served as a gradual replacement

00:11:02.660 | of our own individual thinking,

00:11:05.320 | which is much easier to practice in the physical world,

00:11:07.800 | and more reliance on the kind of collective cognition,

00:11:12.800 | the hive mind that's represented by social networks.

00:11:16.860 | And what that results is,

00:11:18.260 | is a magnification of level two attack of the virus,

00:11:22.740 | on the fear and panic that can spread,

00:11:25.620 | like contagion on social networks.

00:11:27.800 | So social networks are much more effective

00:11:30.100 | at spreading an individual human emotion,

00:11:34.260 | such that it becomes a mass human emotion

00:11:37.800 | of our collective cognition, of our collective mind.

00:11:40.660 | And again, that also applies to not just fear and emotion,

00:11:44.220 | it applies to misinformation,

00:11:46.100 | non-scientific, anti-scientific information,

00:11:49.140 | and of course, conspiracy theories.

00:11:51.860 | So that's another level

00:11:52.860 | at which the virus attacks our society,

00:11:55.500 | and due to the efficiency of social media,

00:11:58.680 | it's perhaps one of the most novel aspects of this pandemic.

00:12:02.500 | Now, the challenge for us at the individual human level

00:12:05.740 | is self-reflection meditation, detach yourself.

00:12:10.740 | Yuval Harari in "21 Lessons for the 21st Century"

00:12:13.500 | talks about this in the last chapter for meditation,

00:12:16.620 | is to detach ourselves from this hive mind,

00:12:19.540 | to think on ourselves, to do the self-reflection,

00:12:23.620 | to hear our own inner voice, inner thoughts,

00:12:26.540 | not allow the wave of information, of panic

00:12:29.960 | that can travel through social media to impact us fully.

00:12:34.660 | It should be something we can simply observe

00:12:37.200 | as opposed to deeply internalize.

00:12:40.500 | Again, the really important thing here

00:12:42.640 | is looking, finding, digging for facts.

00:12:46.300 | That means looking at source information,

00:12:48.700 | source scientific information,

00:12:50.380 | as opposed to derived opinion pieces on that information.

00:12:55.380 | And most importantly, think critically on your own.

00:12:58.700 | Just because the group that you're supposed to belong to,

00:13:01.140 | whether that's political or social, thinks a certain way,

00:13:04.040 | doesn't mean you should think that way.

00:13:05.920 | Remove the power of the hive mind by thinking on your own.

00:13:10.180 | Now, my hope is that this level,

00:13:12.020 | this becomes a jarring wake-up call

00:13:15.100 | of how we use social media as a society.

00:13:17.920 | One, in terms of controlling the spread of misinformation,

00:13:21.020 | and two, in terms of the way we connect

00:13:25.560 | with other human beings on social media,

00:13:28.140 | as opposed to giving in to the drug,

00:13:30.200 | the dopamine-fueled drama of social media,

00:13:33.300 | of clicking likes and tracking likes

00:13:36.240 | and getting angry at the drama and the tension and so on,

00:13:39.460 | more seeing it as another medium

00:13:41.060 | in which we can encourage deep connection

00:13:42.940 | with other human beings, friendships,

00:13:45.460 | real, positive, good vibes.

00:13:48.620 | It might be naive to say,

00:13:49.660 | but I think it's actually possible.

00:13:51.020 | It's both a technology problem

00:13:52.880 | and it's a society problem of how we define the standards

00:13:57.100 | of how we behave in the social world.

00:13:59.260 | And this is a good wake-up call to look at that.

00:14:01.140 | In a time of panic, we come together,

00:14:03.100 | and there's no reason we can't stay together

00:14:05.120 | in this kind of way online.

00:14:07.100 | Now, level four is economic,

00:14:08.660 | and this could be the most painful

00:14:11.580 | of the impacts of the virus.

00:14:13.740 | Day by day, the projections are getting worse and worse

00:14:17.420 | from the economists.

00:14:19.100 | Some economists, more and more,

00:14:21.620 | are predicting double-digit drops in GDP

00:14:24.580 | in the second quarter.

00:14:25.660 | The real pain that people are already feeling

00:14:30.200 | and will feel more and more is the loss of jobs.

00:14:34.120 | Many economists are predicting millions,

00:14:36.100 | three to seven millions of US jobs lost before the summer.

00:14:40.100 | Now, these are jobs in the service industry,

00:14:43.940 | hotel, travel, restaurants.

00:14:47.420 | Many folks are already living paycheck to paycheck.

00:14:49.940 | This is real pain and burden

00:14:53.100 | that a lot of families will have to carry.

00:14:55.860 | And on the small business side,

00:14:57.180 | this is difficult to measure,

00:14:58.260 | but surveys of business owners are saying

00:15:01.100 | that in just three months,

00:15:03.620 | 50% of them did not see a way to avoid bankruptcy.

00:15:06.660 | So that's a much longer-lasting impact

00:15:10.900 | on the fabric of our,

00:15:13.620 | the United States capitalist society,

00:15:16.180 | where small businesses in many ways

00:15:17.700 | are the backbone of our society.

00:15:19.340 | The challenge for us as a citizen

00:15:23.420 | is to hold politicians accountable

00:15:25.100 | as they develop a fiscal stimulus package.

00:15:28.500 | It's really important,

00:15:30.300 | drawing lessons from the 2008 financial crisis,

00:15:33.820 | that the bailout, that the fiscal stimulus that passes

00:15:38.820 | is one that benefits the people that need it.

00:15:41.900 | The workers who lose their job,

00:15:43.980 | the small businesses on the verge of bankruptcy.

00:15:46.940 | As a consumer, at least in the United States,

00:15:50.860 | consumer spending is a big part of the US economy,

00:15:54.260 | the 70%.

00:15:56.260 | So if you can afford it,

00:15:58.260 | continuing spending money on things you need,

00:16:00.900 | especially to support local and small businesses.

00:16:03.420 | And finally, as a business, as a small business,

00:16:06.660 | this is an opportunity to reinvent,

00:16:08.340 | to add an online component, to diversify, to pivot.

00:16:12.340 | Now that might be really painful and difficult to say.

00:16:14.940 | I recently left my job,

00:16:17.700 | I was facing a bank account with nothing in it,

00:16:21.500 | and there's a lot of reinvention and pivoting

00:16:23.700 | that was required to do.

00:16:24.700 | I'm working on building a startup that brings in no money,

00:16:27.860 | so I had to figure out how can I make money in the meantime?

00:16:31.020 | Now that kind of thing could be exceptionally painful,

00:16:33.220 | especially if it requires learning skills

00:16:35.340 | that you don't have.

00:16:36.500 | But I think if you face this fear,

00:16:39.620 | taking this step where you reinvent the business

00:16:41.740 | could be the best decision you've ever made.

00:16:43.580 | It could be very painful in the short term,

00:16:45.900 | but exceptionally profitable and liberating in the longterm.

00:16:50.900 | So this is the time, as I mentioned before,

00:16:53.300 | for if you're a small business owner,

00:16:55.500 | for a personal revolution.

00:16:56.980 | Now, my hope is, as it is for everybody else,

00:17:01.180 | that once we reopen our society,

00:17:03.340 | that the fiscal stimulus that not just carries us through,

00:17:06.500 | but allows us to resume consumer spending

00:17:09.140 | as quickly as possible,

00:17:10.380 | so that the recovery is, as they say, a V versus a U,

00:17:14.620 | that it's an immediate and aggressive and quick recovery.

00:17:18.940 | And also, it's a very dark

00:17:21.500 | and perhaps a little bit Russian of me

00:17:23.580 | to think of the silver lining of this,

00:17:25.420 | but one of the positive aspects of the pain

00:17:28.700 | that people are feeling

00:17:29.780 | is that a lot of people are feeling that pain together.

00:17:34.140 | We're in this together.

00:17:36.580 | Majority of the lower class and the middle class

00:17:39.140 | will be feeling the pain of shutting down the economy.

00:17:42.620 | We're in this together.

00:17:44.160 | There's something, if just a little bit comforting,

00:17:47.900 | that the pain you feel

00:17:49.100 | is the pain that's also felt by your neighbors.

00:17:51.940 | Again, the hope is that it brings us together.

00:17:54.980 | Level five is political.

00:17:56.940 | I think it's not an exaggeration to say

00:17:59.620 | we're living in one of the most divided times politically

00:18:04.300 | in the history of the United States, of our country,

00:18:07.220 | and especially on the heels

00:18:09.420 | of the United States president being impeached

00:18:12.740 | and an election coming up.

00:18:14.740 | It leads to the politicization of everything,

00:18:17.460 | including the virus, and that's a huge pain,

00:18:20.820 | and that's a really damaging attack vector

00:18:24.980 | along which the virus can exploit our society,

00:18:27.300 | at least this nation.

00:18:28.500 | And also, outside of the partisanship,

00:18:32.000 | this is a time for the government to pass policy,

00:18:34.940 | to respond to the virus,

00:18:36.420 | and there is, as always through history,

00:18:39.060 | through wars, through pandemics,

00:18:40.780 | through big global crises,

00:18:42.660 | there's a diminishment of our rights and freedoms,

00:18:46.140 | and that is another attack of the virus

00:18:49.420 | on the fabric of our society.

00:18:51.660 | The challenge for our citizen

00:18:53.260 | is to not let charlatans in the government

00:18:57.060 | of any party affiliation capitalize on our fear,

00:19:01.220 | as I described in level two,

00:19:02.700 | the psychological, the emotional,

00:19:04.880 | by overreaching power.

00:19:06.740 | So this could look like anything.

00:19:08.380 | It could look like mass surveillance,

00:19:11.000 | it could look like martial law,

00:19:12.340 | individual cities, states, federal,

00:19:15.300 | it could look like detaining people without trial,

00:19:17.620 | which we're already starting to see,

00:19:19.540 | and God forbid, canceling elections,

00:19:23.900 | so really attacking the fundamental nature of democracy.

00:19:27.900 | We have seen this throughout history.

00:19:29.740 | As citizens of this democratic nation,

00:19:33.380 | we have to stay vigilant to this threat.

00:19:35.380 | On the scientific front,

00:19:37.920 | I think it's really, really important

00:19:39.980 | that we do not look at the coronavirus

00:19:43.100 | through a political lens.

00:19:44.260 | It should not be a red and blue issue.

00:19:46.380 | It should be something where we trust the expert,

00:19:48.500 | the scientific information,

00:19:50.140 | the best data available,

00:19:51.780 | should not be seen through a lens of the partisan divide

00:19:55.060 | that has driven so much of our public discourse

00:19:58.420 | about federal policy,

00:20:00.780 | because the one plus trillion dollar stimulus package

00:20:04.040 | that Congress is trying to pass

00:20:05.740 | is something that can make or break this economy,

00:20:08.660 | or rather, it can make the difference

00:20:10.480 | between the V and the U shape recovery,

00:20:13.340 | fast recovery or delayed multi-month recovery

00:20:16.280 | where a lot of people will suffer.

00:20:18.220 | It's exceptionally important to get this right,

00:20:19.820 | and politics should not come at all into play

00:20:22.740 | into the decisions being made by our policymakers.

00:20:26.240 | So the hope is, once we beat this thing,

00:20:28.560 | is that we rethink the federal infrastructure,

00:20:33.220 | the response to global threats,

00:20:35.180 | really invest back into it,

00:20:37.020 | try to see government in this one regard

00:20:40.460 | as something that could really unite the people

00:20:43.700 | in an effective, timely, quick response.

00:20:47.140 | The hope is we're reminded of the importance of government,

00:20:50.180 | and then we reinvigorate the basic unit of a democracy,

00:20:55.060 | which is the citizen,

00:20:56.700 | and remind us that we can accomplish a lot of things

00:21:00.780 | if we work together,

00:21:02.740 | so not through divisiveness,

00:21:05.820 | but on really big, important issues

00:21:07.620 | and things we really should all agree on working together.

00:21:11.280 | This is a good reminder,

00:21:12.840 | just like going to the moon was a good reminder

00:21:14.880 | of what science and engineering could do at a large scale,

00:21:19.220 | this is what's needed now.

00:21:21.360 | This virus, perhaps, should serve as a good reminder

00:21:24.860 | that good science, good engineering at scale

00:21:27.660 | is essential for us to work together on,

00:21:30.220 | to respond to these kinds of things in the future,

00:21:32.420 | and just to create, progress forward

00:21:35.620 | to make a better world in a lot of different dimensions.

00:21:38.780 | It continues to be a huge surprise to me

00:21:40.940 | that science, not always,

00:21:42.620 | but sometimes, enters the world of politics,

00:21:44.940 | and politicians play games with scientific facts.

00:21:49.020 | They question the validity of findings

00:21:51.020 | of individual personalities in science.

00:21:54.300 | I think people, my hope is that they understand

00:21:57.280 | that, especially the most important questions,

00:22:00.260 | there's thousands of scientists

00:22:01.700 | trying to disprove each other.

00:22:03.180 | This kind of collective mechanism

00:22:04.960 | is really good at cutting out all the BS

00:22:07.780 | and getting to the core, the truth of things.

00:22:10.020 | Science cannot answer all questions.

00:22:13.580 | There's, to me, some of the most important questions

00:22:15.980 | about ethics is impossible for science to answer,

00:22:19.920 | but the basic questions of the mechanism

00:22:24.920 | that threaten our well-being,

00:22:27.940 | especially in the biological, chemical, and physical world,

00:22:31.400 | science is really well-equipped to answer,

00:22:34.960 | and we should not politicize

00:22:36.660 | that extremely powerful mechanism

00:22:39.200 | that can protect us, that can build big, amazing,

00:22:42.640 | cool things that make our life easier, better,

00:22:45.680 | just create a better world.

00:22:47.920 | And I hope that we emerge as a society

00:22:51.600 | that can bicker and politicize everything else,

00:22:54.160 | but science and scientific experts is something we trust.

00:22:57.720 | Level six is existential.

00:22:59.700 | You can say evolutionary, even.

00:23:03.240 | The human species has not always existed,

00:23:06.680 | and there's no guarantee it will always exist.

00:23:09.800 | Perhaps this is not the right time

00:23:11.100 | to be deeply thinking about this question.

00:23:13.400 | We wanna deal with the threat at hand,

00:23:16.080 | but I recommend a lot of excellent work

00:23:18.600 | been written on existential risks

00:23:21.160 | from Nick Bostroms and others

00:23:23.000 | at the Future of Humanity Institute and other institutions

00:23:26.680 | in general, considering what are the different threats

00:23:29.880 | that our human civilization is facing

00:23:32.760 | in the next hundred years that could lead to extinction

00:23:37.120 | or lead to a large number of people

00:23:39.020 | being either displaced or killed.

00:23:41.980 | Now, this goes everything from global warming

00:23:44.320 | to nuclear war to nanotechnology accident

00:23:48.320 | to molecular nanotechnology weapons,

00:23:50.200 | so different kinds of weapons,

00:23:51.680 | to things that I've spoken a lot about,

00:23:54.040 | think a lot about is superintelligent AI,

00:23:56.360 | artificial general intelligence systems.

00:23:58.480 | And then there's pandemics,

00:23:59.900 | the natural pandemic of coronavirus

00:24:01.720 | that we're experiencing now.

00:24:03.160 | And then there's a lot of concern

00:24:04.200 | about engineering pandemics,

00:24:05.480 | the kind of risk they pose to our civilization.

00:24:08.120 | The pandemic we're experiencing now

00:24:09.940 | is unlikely to be a species extinction level event,

00:24:14.940 | but it serves as a dress rehearsal,

00:24:18.120 | something that reveals the fragility of our species,

00:24:22.040 | things that feel in the moment, totally unexpected,

00:24:26.900 | and yet are completely expected

00:24:29.300 | if you listen to the experts.

00:24:30.900 | Experts on pandemics are predicting

00:24:35.260 | that there will be a much worse one coming for sure.

00:24:39.300 | For me personally, I work in artificial intelligence.

00:24:42.680 | I embody a lot of different views,

00:24:46.700 | but certainly because I program and build a lot of systems,

00:24:49.700 | what you call narrow AI systems,

00:24:52.160 | there's a clear awareness of how far we are

00:24:55.860 | from creating superintelligent AI systems.

00:24:58.780 | And I can talk at length about why I see

00:25:02.660 | that as an exceptionally difficult problem on many levels,

00:25:06.140 | especially the kind of AI systems

00:25:08.260 | that could destroy human civilization.

00:25:11.580 | But I think at this level,

00:25:12.780 | the coronavirus pandemic has really changed my mind.

00:25:16.340 | It's given me a wake up call to think more clearly

00:25:19.660 | about the unexpected, that the things that threaten us

00:25:23.340 | may come in ways we don't expect.

00:25:24.860 | So we have to be exceptionally careful,

00:25:26.540 | especially when we work in that particular field.

00:25:30.300 | I'm not an expert in pandemics.

00:25:32.260 | I'm not an expert in molecular nanotechnology,

00:25:36.300 | nor nuclear terrorism, but I am, I hate the word expert,

00:25:40.460 | but I'm somewhat knowledgeable in the world of AI.

00:25:43.140 | And so it's my responsibility to look bigger,

00:25:46.020 | to think bigger about the things that are totally unexpected

00:25:50.140 | that may threaten the wellbeing of many of our,

00:25:53.860 | especially most vulnerable members of our society,

00:25:56.940 | but really everybody.

00:25:58.220 | And so the challenge for us as a society

00:26:00.980 | as we emerge from this pandemic

00:26:02.920 | is to invest in scientific research on all of these avenues,

00:26:06.500 | to be prepared way ahead of time

00:26:08.200 | to some of the threats posed here.

00:26:11.180 | Especially what research does

00:26:13.500 | is it doesn't only reveal mechanism

00:26:16.240 | of how we can protect us,

00:26:17.580 | but it reveals the possible vectors of attack

00:26:20.640 | that could be expected.

00:26:21.940 | So just investing in research,

00:26:23.680 | getting more people to think about this problem,

00:26:25.740 | I think is exceptionally important to prepare society,

00:26:29.740 | to prepare scientific minds and the tooling,

00:26:32.120 | the engineering, the infrastructure required

00:26:34.620 | to respond to a problem before it kills

00:26:37.940 | a billion or more people.

00:26:40.700 | And finally, level seven, philosophical,

00:26:42.980 | really taking a step back.

00:26:44.940 | It's much more difficult to be eloquent about this,

00:26:47.020 | so I'll mention a book that had a big impact on my life

00:26:51.300 | and rings true in many of its lessons

00:26:55.180 | is "The Plague" by Albert Camus.

00:26:58.820 | Now, in the world that Camus paints in "The Plague,"

00:27:02.000 | suffering seems to be something that's just a part of life.

00:27:08.460 | And the question that life poses to us

00:27:12.140 | is how do we respond to that suffering?

00:27:14.360 | How do we deal with that suffering?

00:27:15.980 | And at least to me, the lessons I draw from it

00:27:19.140 | is that love for our fellow human beings,

00:27:23.740 | compassion for others is the way we conquer that suffering.

00:27:27.700 | The natural inclination perhaps at first

00:27:30.600 | is to turn into yourself because everything in life,

00:27:34.180 | in your existence, is going to be a source of pain,

00:27:37.460 | a source of loss, a source of suffering.

00:27:41.000 | And so you want to isolate yourself,

00:27:42.640 | you want to separate yourself,

00:27:43.720 | you want to run away from that.

00:27:45.220 | But the reality is somehow that seems to be part

00:27:48.160 | of the human condition is that going into yourself,

00:27:52.080 | hiding from life, running away from life

00:27:54.360 | is from others, from society,

00:27:57.480 | is actually not a way to remove suffering from your life.

00:28:02.320 | That somehow stokes the fire of pain, of dread.

00:28:07.220 | And so the way to overcome that,

00:28:10.200 | the meaning of life I guess you could say for Camus

00:28:16.080 | is to love others.

00:28:18.480 | And the book itself serves as an allegory for World War II

00:28:22.360 | and my relatives, the society of the Soviet Union

00:28:25.520 | in which I was born in, raised in,

00:28:28.120 | is so deeply grounded in the story of World War II

00:28:32.080 | and the pain of World War II.

00:28:34.000 | And the lessons that emerged there

00:28:36.440 | is that as painful it is to say,

00:28:39.100 | all that suffering, all that death,

00:28:41.920 | what emerges is that love for each other conquers all.

00:28:50.580 | Love of community.

00:28:52.500 | And that's my hope is that we emerge from this

00:28:56.960 | at the highest level from this virus

00:29:00.340 | with a greater sense of community,

00:29:03.820 | with a greater sense for the value of community,

00:29:07.180 | for the love of our fellow human beings,

00:29:10.660 | for the compassion for our fellow human beings.

00:29:14.260 | My hope is that this virus is a reminder

00:29:18.900 | that love is the meaning of life.

00:29:23.620 | Thank you for watching this video.

00:29:26.780 | I hope it's of value for some people.

00:29:29.460 | I hope it helps.

00:29:30.860 | And again, I love you all.

00:29:32.860 | (upbeat music)

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00:29:50.920 | (SILENCE)

7 Levels of Coronavirus Attack on Our Society and How We Can Fight Back

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