Bay Area Secular Solstice 2024 Script

by me!

Here is the complete script of the 2024 Bay Area Secular Solstice, which was by me. If you’d like to watch it, a record of the livestream is available here.

I’m including links to recordings of the songs and to the original versions of each speech that I didn’t write. However, I made edits to every song and speech in this Solstice, so the text won’t match up exactly.

Bonfire

Uplift

(By Andrew Eigel. Link.)

Hands chip the flint, light the fire, skin the kill
Feet move the tribe track the herd with a will
Human-kind struggles, on the edge of history
Time to settle down, time to grow, time to breed…

Plow tills the soil, plants the seed, pray for rain
Scythe reaps the wheat, to the mill, to grind the grain
Towns and cities spread to empire overnight
Hands keep building as we chant the ancient rite…

Coal heats the steam, push the piston, turns the wheel
Cogs spin the wool, drives the horses made of steel
Lightning harnessed does our will and lights the dark
Keep rising higher, set our goal, hit the mark…

Crawl out of the mud.
Ongoing but slow.
For the path that is easy
Ain't the one that makes us grow

Light push the sails, read the data, cities glow
Hands type the keys, click the mouse, out we go!
Our voices carry round the world and into space
Send us out to colonize another place.

Hands, make the tools, light fire, plant the grain
Feet, track the herd. Build a world. Begin again…

Welcome

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the 2024 Bay Area Secular Solstice. It’s on the actual Solstice this year! Welcome to our local friends, and to friends who have traveled here from far and wide, and to everyone on the livestream all around the world, and to the kids in the kids’ room. Hi, Vasili, I told you your baba would be a famous person on YouTube someday. Welcome to all people whom I’ve been sharing Secular Solstice with for years, and to people who normally attend other Solstices. And a very special welcome to everyone for whom this is their first Solstice.

So let’s talk a little bit about what we’re doing here.

Throughout most of human history, winter was one of the most dangerous times for everyone. If we ran out of food, we would starve. If we had inadequate clothing or shelter, we would freeze. In cities, epidemics sometimes spread in the winter, as people huddled closer together.

It’s traditional at this point to say that Winter Solstice is historically a default holiday, where people celebrate the moment that winter starts to go away. I’ve always been kind of skeptical of this, and certainly lots of cultures in temperate and arctic climates don’t celebrate the Winter Solstice. But I do think it’s true that a lot of cultures looked at this season of dreariness and death and came up with an excuse to join together as a community, to put on nice clothes and feast and share stories and sing and decorate their homes with color and light.

Max Roser, the founder of Our World In Data, my favorite website, says the most important facts about the world are these: “The world is awful. The world is much better. The world can be much better.” The world is awful: globally, 1 in 25 children die before they’re fifteen years old. The world is much better: through most of human history, until the nineteenth century, about half of all children died before they were fifteen. The world can be much better: if all children were as well-off as children in the European Union are today, only 1 in 200 children would die before they’re fifteen.

I, and a lot of people in this room tonight, would add a fourth fact: the world is in danger. We face a number of threats our ancestors couldn’t have imagined: nuclear war, bioengineered pandemics, artificial intelligence, new threats we haven’t dreamed of. If we fail–and there’s every chance we might–one hundred percent of the children will die, and so will everyone else.

Unlike our ancestors, most of us watching this have no need to fear starvation, exposure, or smallpox. But we have our own fears. And our Winter Solstice is, also, about responding to them by joining together as a community, to put on nice clothes and feast and share stories and sing and fill our world with color and light.

Please do sing. Most of the songs are singalongs, and the lyrics will be projected up here. I know you’re worried you can’t, but I can’t sing at all, and every year people come up to me all “it was so great to see you singing along in the audience, you’re so enthusiastic” so I think the standards are low.

This is a long Solstice. The dress rehearsal clocked in at almost two and a half hours. So please feel free to get up and stretch your legs or go to the bathroom if you need to, as long as you get up in the transition between pieces.

Our next song will be a celebration of one of the coolest things we as a society have done together.

Fire In The Sky

(By Jordin Kare. Link.)

Prometheus, they say,
Brought God’s fire down to Man,
And we’ve caught it, tamed, it, trained it
Since our history began
Now we’re going back to Heaven,
Just to look him in the eye
And there’s a thunder ‘cross the land,
and a fire in the sky

Gagarin was the first,
Back in 1961
When, like Icarus, undaunted,
He climbed to reach the sun.
And he knew he might not make it,
For it’s never hard to die,
But he lifted off the pad,
and rode a fire in the sky

Yet a higher goal was calling,
And we vowed to reach it soon,
And we gave ourselves a decade
To put fire on the moon.
And Apollo told the world
We can do it if we try
There was one small step,
and a fire in the sky

Then two decades from Gagarin,
Twenty years to the day,
Came a shuttle named Columbia
To open up the way.
And they said she’s just a truck,
But she’s a truck that’s aiming high.
See her big jets burning,
See her fire in the sky

Yet the gods do not give lightly
Of the powers the have made,
And with Challenger and seven,
Once again the price is paid.
Though a nation watched her falling,
Yet a world could only cry
As they passed from us to glory,
riding fire in the sky

Now the rest is up to us:
There’s a future to be won!
We must turn our faces outward,
We will do what must be done.
For no cradle lasts forever,
Every bird must learn to fly,
And we’re going to the stars,
See our fire in the sky

Yes, we’re going to the stars,
See our fire in the sky!
I’ll remember until I die
A fi-ire in the sky
A fi-ire in the sky…

Thanksgiving Prayer Introduction

Sometimes I imagine my ancestors watching me, full of glee about my unimaginable wealth. I can press a button to be warm in the winter! Nice clothes cost half a day’s wages and not half a year’s work! I have never in my life used a drop spindle! I don’t have to eat potatoes, and yet sometimes I choose todo anyway! My ancestors are particularly in awe of the glorious sugar-salt-fat-caffeine superstimulus known as salted cheese boba milk tea.

My wealth didn’t happen by accident. It is the result of thousands of years of technological progress and billions of people working together to create global supply chains.

Thanksgiving Prayer

(By Eliezer Yudkowsky. Link.)

One year at Thanksgiving, my girlfriend remarked on how this was her first real Thanksgiving dinner away from her family, and that it was an odd feeling to just sit down and eat without any prayer beforehand.

And as she said this, it reminded me of how wrong it is to give gratitude to God for blessings that actually come from our fellow human beings putting in a great deal of work.

So I at once put my hands together and said,

"Dear Global Economy, we thank thee for thy economies of scale, thy professional specialization, and thy international networks of trade under Ricardo's Law of Comparative Advantage, without which we would all starve to death while trying to assemble the ingredients for such a dinner as this. Amen."

Landsailor

(By Vienna Teng. Link.)

Landsailor
Landsailor, sail on time
Rain or shine, I know you can
Cloudraker
Cloudraker, share your finds
All your wonders at my demand

Lightbringer
Tamer of night
Blossom of hours unleashed
Make me a lawbender
All equalized
Saved from the chill and heat
Your power flows through me, transformed
Here's where I was born

Landsailor
Deepwinter strawberry
Endless summer, ever spring
A vast preserve
Aisle after aisle in reach
Every commoner made a king

Earthbreaker
Noble and prized
Feed me beyond my means
Hello, worldmaker
Never denied
Build all my wildest dreams
But there's a storm outside your door
I'm a child no more

Headless and faceless
Tireless and seamless, behind these walls
This is my progress
When you don't notice my lines at all
Split the world open
Delve ever deeper in my alchemic arts
Crack the ciphers to free up your mind
Your life, your heart

Landsailor (I'm your landsailor)
In the bed that we've made (In the bed that we've made)
May every nail be shown (May every nail be shown)
Great lifebringer (Great lifebringer)
The price that we pay (The price that we pay)
Time that you made it known (Time that you made it known)
I want to be your bride in full (Oh be my bride in full)
Shield my eyes no more (Shield your eyes no more)
Oh, I am altered now for good (Altered now for good)
Shield these eyes no more (Shield these eyes no more)

Song of the Artesian Water Introduction

But not everything we do together is as grand as space exploration or global supply chains. Sometimes our projects are as small–and as important–as making sure that the cattle have enough water to drink.

Song of the Artesian Water

(Lyrics by Banjo Patterson, music by Anna Tchetchekine.)

Now the stock have started dying, for the Lord has sent a drought,
But we're sick of prayers and Providence -- we're going to do without,
With the derricks up above us and the solid earth below,
We are waiting at the lever for the word to let her go.
Sinking down, deeper down,
Oh, we'll sink it deeper down:
As the drill is plugging downward at a thousand feet of level,
If the Lord won't send us water, oh, we'll get it from the devil;
Yes, we'll get it from the devil deeper down.

Now, our engine's built in Glasgow by a very canny Scot,
And he marked it twenty horse-power, but he didn't know what’s what.
When Canadian Bill is firing with the sun-dried gidgee logs,
She can equal thirty horses and a score or so of dogs.
Sinking down, deeper down
Oh, we're going deeper down:
If we fail to get the water, then it's ruin to the squatter,
For the drought is on the station and the weather's growing hotter,
But we're bound to get the water deeper down.

But the shaft has started caving and the sinking's very slow,
And the yellow rods are bending in the water down below,
And the tubes are always jamming, and they can't be made to shift
Till we nearly burst the engine with a forty horse-power lift,
Sinking down, deeper down,
Oh, we're going deeper down:
Though the shaft is always caving, and the tubes are always jamming,
Yet we'll fight our way to water while the stubborn drill is ramming-
While the stubborn drill is ramming deeper down.

But there's no artesian water, though we're passed three thousand feet,
And the contract price is growing, and the boss is nearly beat.
But it must be down beneath us, and it's down we've got to go.
Though she's bumping on the solid rock four thousand feet below,
Sinking down, deeper down,
Oh, we're going deeper down:
And it's time they heard us knocking on the roof of Satan's dwellin',
But we'll get artesian water if we cave the roof of hell in-
Oh we'll get artesian water deeper down.

But it's hark! the whistle's blowing with a wild, exultant blast,
And the boys are madly cheering, for they've struck the flow at last:
And it's rushing up the tubing from four thousand feet below,
Till it spouts above the casing in a million-gallon flow.
And it's down, deeper down-
Oh, it comes from deeper down:
It is flowing, ever flowing, in a free, unstinted measure
From the silent hidden places where the old earth hides her treasure-
Where the old earth hides her treasure deeper down.

And it's clear away the timber and it's let the water run,
How it glimmers in the shadow, how it flashes in the sun!
By the silent belts of timber, by the miles of blazing plain
It is bringing hope and comfort to the thirsty land again.
Flowing down, further down:
It is flowing further down
To the tortured thirsty cattle, bringing gladness in its going;
Through the droughty days of summer it is flowing, ever flowing-
It is flowing, ever flowing, further down.
It is flowing, ever flowing, further down.

I Have Seen The Tops of Clouds Introduction

A friend raised some questions about questioned my decision to include Song of the Artesian Waters. She pointed out that it takes millions of years to replenish that artesian water that feeds the cattle for only a season; this song glorifies environmental devastation and colonialism. You know it’s a real holiday when we’re singing songs we don’t really endorse because they’re incredible bangers.

I kept it, because many of the grand and glorious things we do together have their dark sides. The backdrop of the space race was the Cold War—the closest humanity has ever come to nuclear armageddon. After the United States won we never put a person on the moon again. It seems like this bird only wants to learn to fly if there’s a nestling we can beat to the sky we have a nestling we can beat to it. The global economy that brings me my deep-winter strawberries has caused mass extinctions and climate change, and far too many don’t experience its benefits.

Landsailor asks that our eyes no longer be shielded from the price we’ve paid. The next speech is about the ambiguity of technology: its costs and its comfort.

I Have Seen The Tops of Clouds

(By Quinn Norton. Link.)

There are the nights full of invective and hate and days I can only see the flaws in our world, and feel my own flaw from within. And there is so much fear, as I turn my daughter out into a sick, denuded, and dying world. The land will drown. The seas could turn acid and burn us from above while starving us from within. At any moment we could still be consumed by a nuclear fire, an accidental holdover from the Cold War we’ve failed to wrap up, like a binge drinker or a gambling addict who gets sober, but can’t face the past, and lets it fester.

All these grown-up monsters for my grown-up mind, they are there in the nights I wake up terrified and taunted by death. When I feel so small and broken, when despair and terror take me, I have a secret tool, a talisman against the night. I don’t use it too often so that it doesn’t lose its power. I learned it on airplanes, which are strange and thrilling and full of fear and boredom and discomfort. When I am very frightened, I look out the window on airplanes and say very quietly:

I have seen the tops of clouds

And I have. In all the history of humanity, I am one of the few that has seen the tops of clouds. Many would have died to do so, and some did. I have seen them many times. I have seen the Earth from space, and spun it around like a god to see what’s on the other side. We are the only consciousness we’ve ever found that has looked deep into the infinite dark, and instead of dark, we saw galaxies. Galaxies! Suns and worlds beyond number. We have looked into our world and found atoms, atomic forces, systems that dance to the glorious music of the universe. We have seen actual wonders that verge on the ineffable. We have coined a word for the ineffable. We have coined thousands of words for the ineffable. In our pain we find a kind of magic, in our worst and meanest specimens we find the flesh of a common human story. We are red with it.

I know mysteries that great philosophers would have died for, just to have them whispered in their dying ears. I can look them up on my smartphone. I live in the middle of miracles, conceptions and magics easily worth many lifetimes to learn, from which I can pick and choose. I have wisdom and knowledge poured around me like a river, more than I could learn in a thousand lifetimes, and I am still alive. It is good that I am alive, it is good that we are alive. Even if we kill ourselves off with nuclear fire, or gray goo, or drown ourselves in stinking acid oceans, it is good that we have lived, that we did all of this, and that we grew into what we are, and learned to dream of what we could be. The only thing we can say for sure is that we will die, but we will die having gone so far above our primordial ponds and primate forests that we saw the tops of clouds.

It is good that in the body of this weak and tender African animal a piece of the universe has gazed upon itself, this tiny appendage of existence looked on everything its eyes and tools could drink in and experienced the most pure of wonder, the most terrible of awe. It is worth it, all of it, to even for a moment be the universe gazing upon itself. We reached so far above our biological fate that we spoke love to life, all life, and to its dark universal womb.

That takes away the fear for me. Not all of it, but enough so that I can give my sleeping daughter a cuddle, and fall asleep, to dream dreams of what we’ll do next, how we’ll live this hope.

Embers

One Damn Thing Introduction

The world is awful. The world is better. The world can be much better. The world is in danger.

One way or another, we all have to come to terms with those four facts. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s come to terms with it through doomscrolling. Swipe! Children dying for want of a five-dollar medication. Swipe! Chickens trapped in cages the size of a sheet of paper. Swipe! Thousands of people sleep on the street in one of the wealthiest metro areas in the world. Swipe! My friend’s life is a wreck in a way I can do nothing to help. Swipe! Rise of global authoritarianism. Swipe! Imminent robot apocalypse. Swipe! My favorite author just got MeTooed.

It’s just one damn thing after another.

One Damn Thing

(By Zoe Mulford. Link.)

One damn thing after another
Troubles gotta stand in line
Stick with me, we'll get through this together
Takin' one damn thing at a time

There was the thing with the ceiling
There was the thing with the floor
There was the thing with the funny kind of feeling
And the ambulance at quarter to four

One damn thing after another
Troubles gotta stand in line
Stick with me, we'll get through this together
Takin' one damn thing at a time

There was thе thing with the plumbing
There was thе thing with those guys
There was the thing that we kinda saw coming
And the thing that was a total surprise

One damn thing after another
Troubles gotta stand in line
Oh, stick with me, we'll get through this together
Takin' one damn thing at a time
One damn thing
One damn thing
We can make it if we take it
Just one damn thing at a time

There was the thing with the really bad decision
And the thing that just gave us the blues
The thing with the thing that wound up on television
And every damn thing in the news

One damn thing after another
Troubles gotta stand in line
Stick with me, we'll get through this together
Takin' one damn thing at a time
One damn thing, one damn thing
We can make it if we take it
Just one damn thing at a time
One damn thing, one damn thing
We can make it if we take it
Just one damn thing at a time

One damn thing after another
Don't you let it get you down
Any day that brings another damn thing
Is a day that we're still above ground

One damn thing after another
Troubles gotta stand in line
Oh, stick with me, we'll get through this together
Takin' one damn thing at a time
One damn thing, one damn thing
We can make it if we take it
Just one damn thing at a time
We can make it if we take it
Just one damn thing at a time

Self-Compassion Introduction

I think this is the part where I’m supposed to tell everyone to take heroic responsibility and make an impossible effort and save the world. What would Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres do?

If you don’t get that reference, ask someone at the afterparty, they’ll tell you. And tell you. And tell you.

But I’m not Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres. If I were in Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, I’d be the random Ravenclaw who says two sentences in chapter 72.

The problems are very big, and I am very little, and I am not very good at things. In the face of all those damn things that come right after another, I feel… completely helpless.

I think a lot of people here are in the same boat as me. Maybe you’re also facing down world problems of unimaginable scope; maybe your problems are small and personal. But I think a lot of us have problems that we could fix, or at least make progress on, if we were smarter or harder working or more determined or kinder or more self-controlled or just. Better.

If you are in this position, please be kind to yourself.

Self-Compassion

(By Nate Soares. Link.)

Self-compassion is not the same thing as self-pity, and nor is it the same thing as making excuses for yourself. It is well possible to feel self-compassion even while thinking that you are not moving fast enough. It is perfectly possible to feel self-compassion even as you notice that you're completely failing to act as you wish to.

For example, imagine someone going through boot camp in World War II, filled with resolve and determination to become a soldier and defend the free world — except they are a small person, and a weak one. Imagine them working their heart out, trying as hard as they can, and failing anyway. Imagine them failing to make the cut. Now, can you imagine feeling compassion for them, feeling warmth towards them, and maybe feeling a hint of sadness for their loss, without feeling any sense of pity? Compassion for yourself can be similar, without any hint of pity.

Or imagine another person going through the same boot camp, who really wants to go defend the free world with all their peers (on some level), but who lacks the deep drive. They want to feel the same passion and fire as their diminutive counterpart, but instead they feel resistance and suffer from depression — and every day they drag themselves out of bed (slightly too late), and every day they force themselves through the obstacle courses (but not quickly enough), and they aren't going to make the cut, and they're sick with guilt about it. Can you imagine feeling compassion for them in their plight, while making absolutely no excuses for their performance? Again, self-compassion can be the same way. You don't need to make excuses for yourself, to take the outside view and feel the same warmth for a monkey that's trying to try, against the gradient of depression and doubt.

Now imagine someone else doing what you're trying to do. Imagine them working on hard problems, and putting in what effort they can muster — sometimes it is enough, sometimes it isn't; sometimes they are highly motivated, other times they are blocked by their own mind and unable to act as they wish. Look at them and see the fragile monkey trying to build a satisfactory life, trying to improve their world. See if you can feel compassion for them. You don't need to pity them, you don't need to make excuses for their failures, you don't need to find ways they could improve: simply see if you can feel some warmth, for a fellow lost monkey — and then shift your gaze to yourself, and see if you can feel a similar sort of warmth.

Humankind As The Sailor Introduction

We’re approaching the moment of darkness, so please hold your applause until the end of Ballad of Smallpox Gone. I also want to give a content note that our darkness speech this year involves very explicit discussion of suicide, so if that bothers you, or you’re not up for darkness tonight for any reason, please feel free to head outside now. We’ll send someone out to fetch you when it’s all over.

You can always try. And if you can’t try, you can try to try. And if you can’t see your way to trying, and you can’t see your way to trying to try, you can at least try to try to try.

This isn’t a technique for all problems. In fact, it isn’t a technique for most problems. The art of giving up is important. But if something really matters to you–your kids or your company or your art, being happy when everything in the world is stacked against you, or God help us saving the world–you can keep going.

If you can’t full-ass it, half-ass; if you can’t half-ass, quarter-ass. If you can’t do it the normal way, try a weird way. Grit your teeth and keep going, and if you can’t do that, grit your teeth and keep going at being the kind of person who can grit theiyour teeth and keep going. Drag yourself out of bed even if it’s too late and force yourself through the obstacle course even if it’s too slow and neverdon’t cut yourself from the team before the team cuts you.

As Samuel Beckett said, “‘Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

Our next song is a song about trying. You can try to sing it! Good luck.

Humankind As The Sailor

(By Rasputina. Link.)

Ties that bind,
Knots that fail or
A scrimshaw carved in soap instead of bone
Humankind as the sailor
Embarking without hope of a safe way home

Keep in mind the moon makes paler
What is dark and what is soaked by the sea alone
Humankind as the sailor
Embarking without hope of a safe way home

The size of the storm that is buffeting us
Is absolutely huge and enormously dangerous
We who rescue others,
Lovers, sons and mothers
Now we feel like the orphans ourselves

Ties that bind,
Knots that fail or
A scrimshaw carved in soap instead of bone
Humankind as the sailor
Embarking without hope of a safe way home

Keep in mind the moon makes paler
What is dark and what is soaked by the sea alone
Humankind as the sailor
Embarking without hope of a safe way home

If we don't keep up the grind,
I will surely fall behind,
Wave after wave
Right into my face
Humankind
Of one mind,
Set adrift to ride the storm

Ties that bind,
Knots that fail or
A scrimshaw carved in soap instead of bone
Humankind as the sailor
Embarking without hope of a safe way home

Keep in mind the moon makes paler
What is dark and what is soaked by the sea alone
Humankind as the sailor
Embarking without hope of a safe way home

What Resembles The Grave But Isn’t

(By Anne Boyer. Link.)

Always falling into a hole, then saying “ok, this is not your grave, get out of this hole,” getting out of the hole which is not the grave, falling into a hole again, saying “ok, this is also not your grave, get out of this hole,” getting out of that hole, falling into another one; sometimes falling into a hole within a hole, or many holes within holes, getting out of them one after the other, then falling again, saying “this is not your grave, get out of the hole”; sometimes being pushed, saying “you can not push me into this hole, it is not my grave,” and getting out defiantly, then falling into a hole again without any pushing; sometimes falling into a set of holes whose structures are predictable, ideological, and long dug, often falling into this set of structural and impersonal holes; sometimes falling into holes with other people, with other people, saying “this is not our mass grave, get out of this hole,” all together getting out of the hole together, hands and legs and arms and human ladders of each other to get out of the hole that is not the mass grave but that will only be gotten out of together; sometimes the willful-falling into a hole which is not the grave because it is easier than not falling into a hole really, but then once in it, realizing it is not the grave, getting out of the hole eventually; sometimes falling into a hole and languishing there for days, weeks, months, years, because while not the grave very difficult, still, to climb out of and you know after this hole there’s just another and another; sometimes surveying the landscape of holes and wishing for a high quality final hole; sometimes thinking of who has fallen into holes which are not graves but might be better if they were; sometimes too ardently contemplating the final hole while trying to avoid the provisional ones; sometimes dutifully falling and getting out, with perfect fortitude, saying “look at the skill and spirit with which I rise from that which resembles the grave but isn’t!”

Night

Hymn to Breaking Strain Introduction

Samuel Beckett, originator of the line “fail better,” was a very depressing person. Essayist Ned Beauman said, “watching a liturgy from such a gloomy and merciless author getting repurposed to cheer up mid-level executives is like watching a neighbour clear out their gutters with a stick they found in the garden, not realizing the stick is in fact a human shinbone.”

In its context, “fail better” didn’t mean “keep trying and you’ll succeed.” It meant “your failure is inevitable, all human activity is futile, and yet we keep struggling on grasping at whatever shards of desperate hope we can muster.”

The universe is not a third-grade teacher or a video game designer: it is under no obligation to give us problems we can solve or goals we can achieve. The world is awful; we may not be able to fix it. The world was once worse; we can do nothing about the suffering that has past. The world could be better; there is no guarantee it will be. The world is in danger; we may not be able to save it.

And the universe is not a video game designer or a third-grade teacher: it is under no obligation to make sure that all the fighters are balanced and everyone can contribute equally to the group project. These problems we’re facing may require skills and abilities that are not yours and will never be.

And yet–

We can try, or try to try, or try to try to try. We can pick ourselves up out of that which resembles the grave but isn’t. And when we can’t win, we can fail better.

Hymn to Breaking Strain

(Lyrics by Rudyard Kipling, music by Leslie Fish. Link.)

The careful textbooks measure, let all who build beware
The load, the shock, the pressure material can bear
So when the buckled girder lets down the grinding span
The blame of loss or murder is laid upon the man
Not on the steel, the man

But in our daily dealing with stone and steel we find
The gods have no such feeling of justice towards mankind
To no set gauge they make us, to no laid course prepare
In time they overtake us, with loads we cannot bear
Too merciless to bear

The prudent textbooks give it in tables at the end
The stress that shears a rivet or makes a tie-bar bend
What traffic wrecks macadam, what concrete should endure
But we poor sons of Adam have no such literature
To warn us or make sure

We hold all Earth to plunder, all time and space as well
Too wonder-stale to wonder at each new miracle
Till in the mid illusion of Godhood 'neath our hand
Falls multiple confusion on all we did or planned
The mighty works we planned

We only in creation (how-much luckier the bridge and rail)
Abide the twin damnation, to fail and know we failed
Yet we by which sole token we know we once were Gods
Take shame in being broken, however great the odds
The burden or the odds

Oh veiled and secret power whose paths we seek in vain
Be with us in our hour of overthrow and pain
That we by which sole token we know thy ways are true
In spite of being broken or because of being broken
Rise up and build anew
Stand up and build anew

Doctor’s Note

(by Elliot Lindsey Hall)

When I was 14 years old I wanted to be a biomedical engineer. I was going to solve aging.

I’d just read the Sequences and I knew death was the most important problem in the world. Old age is by far the leading cause of death. If nothing else in the world gets you, your own failing body will get you in the end.

I wasn’t wedded to biomedical engineering, of course. Maybe uploading would save us, or cryonics. So, y’know, I had a lot of possible futures.

All I had to do was force myself through a lot of labs, learn engineering, possibly get a medical degree, – and it was worth it, right? This is the most important thing in the world. Of course it’s worth it.

High school was hell. Not in a high-octane way. I can’t remember a lot of it, actually. Wake up, skip breakfast, do homework in class, skip lunch to do homework, doze off in class, go home, sleep until dinnertime, eat, screw around online until dawn, get maybe an hour of sleep. Have panic attacks in class. Have panic attacks at home. Get a lecture about how bad my grades are and how I really need to apply myself.

Believe it or not, I was in the honors program. Three years of this.

And then one day we had an assignment. I barely remember what it was. Write a paragraph about the recent class trip, or something.

I failed to write it. I pretended to be sick and stayed home. And still didn’t write it. Two, three days I went, refusing to go to school, not writing that paragraph. I fantasized about breaking my own fingers. I fantasized about checking into a mental hospital. I fantasized about ending up in a coma and skipping the entire rest of high school.

I was on antidepressants at the time. I wasn’t allowed the whole bottle, just my weekly pill container, which was smart of them, because that night I took everything in it at once.

I woke up feeling nauseous. At the time this felt like the worst possible outcome.

Fast-forward a few years. I started what would be my last semester of college with a 1.5 GPA, which was something like an accomplishment. I spent all my time in my room or the library, except to attend a once-a-week Linguistics class that didn’t demand homework or tests, and to get tea on Fridays with the Hillel student advisor who was at that point my only friend.

I slept through my alarm enough that my roommate asked me to get rid of the alarm. After that, I slept through the afternoon every day, and then went to the library at night. My roommate complained that opening the door late at night woke her up, so I started pulling all-nighters at the library and coming back when the sun came up. I found out I was going to lose my scholarship. I didn’t know how to get a job. I didn’t know what to do, so I took the only way out I could find.

There’s something clarifying about a suicide attempt. You know in a way you can never know otherwise where the line is. I had slipped accidentally from life into death, and then again accidentally back into life.

It’s like a doctor’s note. Sorry, I can’t save the world today. I’m allergic.

Fast-forward a few more years. A few months ago, I was reminded that there are effective altruist organizations that recommend careers. I remember lying in bed, staring at the listing for “undercover investigator at a factory farm.” You secretly film the animals at a factory farm to document animal abuse.

For once in my life, I was looking at an important job and I fit the profile almost perfectly. No math, no paperwork, no complex decisions, just working long, hard hours, tanking moral damage over and over again. I was basically doing that already. I worked at a school.

And everyone would agree that I was the coolest and bravest and most bad-ass person they knew.

I watched the video. It made me want to vomit.

So no factory farm exposes, at least, not for now. For now, I got a better job, as an assistant teacher. Part time, minimum wage, teaching kids to read and do math on a good day, keeping them from killing each other on a bad one. I do not make a visible change in the quality of our world.

And, all around me, every minute, thousands of humans die, billions of animals are tortured, the world gets warmer, we are poised on the brink of annihilation half a dozen different ways. I do what I can. It is not very much. It is not nearly enough. I can only hope that I’m doing the very best I can.

Moment of Silence

I Shall Not Live In Vain

(lyrics by Emily Dickinson, music by Rob Dietz. Link.)

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

Dawn

500 Million But Not A Single One More

(by Jai Dhyani. Link)

We will never know their names.

The first victim could not have been recorded, for there was no written language to record it. They were someone’s daughter, or son, and someone’s friend, and they were loved by those around them. And they were in pain, covered in rashes, confused, scared, not knowing why this was happening to them or what they could do about it — victims of a mad, inhuman god. There was nothing to be done — humanity was not strong enough, not aware enough, not knowledgeable enough, to fight back against a monster that could not be seen.

It was in Ancient Egypt, where it attacked slave and pharaoh alike. In Rome, it effortlessly decimated armies. It killed in Syria. It killed in Moscow. In India, five million dead. It killed a thousand Europeans every day in the 18th century. It killed more than ten million Native Americans. From the Peloponnesian War to the Civil War, it slew more soldiers and civilians than any weapon, any soldier, any army. (Not that this stopped the most foolish and empty souls from attempting to harness the demon as a weapon against their enemies.)

Cultures grew and faltered, and it remained. Empires rose and fell, and it thrived. Ideologies waxed and waned, but it did not care. Kill. Maim. Spread. An ancient, mad god, hidden from view, that could not be fought, could not be confronted, could not even be comprehended. Not the only one of its kind, but the most devastating.

For a long time, there was no hope — only the bitter, hollow endurance of survivors.

In China, in the 15th century, humanity began to fight back.

It was observed that survivors of the mad god’s curse would never be touched again: They had taken a portion of that power into themselves, and were so protected from it. Not only that, but this power could be shared by consuming a remnant of the wounds. There was a price, for you could not take the god’s power without first defeating it — but a smaller battle, on humanity’s terms.

By the 16th century, the technique spread to India, then across Asia, the Ottoman Empire and, in the 18th century, Europe. In 1796, a more powerful technique was discovered by Edward Jenner.

An idea began to take hold: Perhaps the ancient god could be killed.

A whisper became a voice; a voice became a call; a call became a battle cry, sweeping across villages, cities, nations. Humanity began to cooperate, spreading the protective power across the globe, dispatching masters of the craft to protect whole populations. People who had once been sworn enemies joined in a common cause for this one battle. Governments mandated that all citizens protect themselves, for giving the ancient enemy a single life would put millions in danger.

And, inch by inch, humanity drove its enemy back. Fewer friends wept; fewer neighbors were crippled; fewer parents had to bury their children.

At the dawn of the 20th century, for the first time, humanity banished the enemy from entire regions of the world. Humanity faltered many times in its efforts, but there were individuals who never gave up, who fought for the dream of a world where no child or loved one would ever fear the demon ever again. Viktor Zhdanov, who called for humanity to unite in a final push against the demon; the great tactician Karel Raška, who conceived of a strategy to annihilate the enemy; Donald Henderson, who led the efforts in those final days.

The enemy grew weaker. Millions became thousands, thousands became dozens. And then, when the enemy did strike, scores of humans came forth to defy it, protecting all those whom it might endanger.

The enemy’s last attack in the wild was on Ali Maow Maalin, in 1977. For months afterwards, dedicated humans swept the surrounding area, seeking out any last, desperate hiding place where the enemy might yet remain.

They found none.

Forty-five years ago, on December 9th, 1979, humanity declared victory.

This one evil, the horror from beyond memory, the monster that took 500 million people from this world, was destroyed.

Ballad of Smallpox Gone

(by Leslie Fish. Link)

Old king plague is dead
The smallpox plague is dead
No more children dying hard
No more victims living scarred
With the marks of the devil's kiss
We still may die of other things, but we will not die of this

Raise your glasses high
For all who will not die
To all the doctors, nurses too
And all the lab technicians who
Drove it into the ground
If the human race does nothing else, we cut this terror down

Now scarce the headlines said
The ancient foe was dead
Then they spoke of curses new
AIDS and SARS, Ebola too
And COVID rages on...
Ten new plagues may take its place but at least this one is gone

Old king plague is dead
The smallpox plague is dead
No more children dying hard
No more victims living scarred
With the marks of the devil’s kiss
We still may die of other things, but we will not die of this
Oh no!
We still may die of other things, but we will not die of this!

Introduction to Dawn Speeches

There are no heroes of smallpox eradication.

Oh, we can try, and 500 Million does. But it’s difficult to get around the fact that most of the people it names are not grand visionaries or noble paladins, but kind of boring bureaucrats, the sort of people who in a different world would be defining exactly what percentage of strawberries a dessert needs to legally label itself as a ‘strawberry pie.’ And most of the work wasn’t done by any named individual. It was done by Healthcare Worker #246 and CDC Employee #73 and Vaccine Factory Worker #4745. You did a great job, #4745! Huge fan of how diligent you were about quality control, that stuff’s going into people’s arms and we don’t want to cut corners.

Novels and movies and TV shows have heroes. In a Marvel movie, the world is saved by Captain America alone, and if it’s a really big problem he calls in the other five Avengers. This is because we are monkeys, and we like reading about other monkeys and their monkey problems, and we get a bit confused if there are more than about twenty important names.

Real life sometimes has heroes. We actually might not have mRNA vaccines right now without Katalin Kariko’s work. But, in real life, we most often achieve greatness because an enormous number of normal, ordinary people worked together. Smallpox was eradicated by bureaucrats! And epidemiologists and, healthcare workers and PSA writers and, contract tracers and syringe manufacturers. The global supply chain is maintained by truck drivers and airplane mechanics, warehouse managers and logistics engineers, sales forecasters and sysadmins. The Apollo program required scientists and engineers and human computers and manufacturers and the guy that swept the goddamn floors.

Here are the stories of some ordinary people.

RMS Carpathia

(by mylordshesacactus. Link)

Carpathia received Titanic’s distress signal at 12:20am, April 15th, 1912. She was 58 miles away, a distance that absolutely could not be covered in less than four hours.

Carpathia’s Captain Rostron had rolled out of bed instantly when woken by his radio operator, ordered his ship to Titanic’s aid and confirmed the signal before he was fully dressed. The man had never in his life responded to an emergency call. His goal tonight was to make sure nobody who heard that fact would ever believe it.

Carpathia had three dining rooms, which were immediately converted into triage and first aid stations. Each had a doctor assigned to it. Hot soup, coffee, and tea were prepared in bulk in each dining room, and blankets and warm clothes were collected to be ready to hand out. By this time, many of the passengers were awake–prepping a ship for disaster relief isn’t quiet–and all of them stepped up to help, many donating their own clothes and blankets.

And then he did something I tend to refer to as diverting all power from life support.

Here’s the thing about steamships: They run on steam. Shocking, I know; but that steam powers everything on the ship, and right now, Carpathia needed power. So Rostron turned off hot water and central heating, which bled valuable steam power, to everywhere but the dining rooms. He woke up all the engineers, all the stokers and firemen, diverted all that steam back into the engines, and asked his ship to go as fast as she possibly could. And when she’d done that, he asked her to go faster.

I need you to understand that you simply can’t push a ship very far past its top speed. Pushing that much sheer tonnage through the water becomes harder with each extra knot past the speed it was designed for. Pushing a ship past its rated speed is not only reckless–it’s difficult to maneuver–but it puts an incredible amount of strain on the engines. Ships are not designed to exceed their top speed by even one knot. They can’t do it. It can’t be done.

Carpathia’s absolute do-or-die, the-engines-can’t-take-this-forever top speed was fourteen knots. Dodging icebergs, in the dark and the cold, surrounded by mist, she sustained a speed of almost seventeen and a half.

They damn near broke the laws of physics, galloping north headlong into the dark in the desperate hope that if they could shave an hour, half an hour, five minutes off their arrival time, maybe for one more person those five minutes would make the difference. Three people had died by the time they were lifted from the lifeboats. For all we know, in another hour it might have been more.

This ship and her crew received a message from a location they could not hope to reach in under four hours. Just barely over three hours later, they arrived at Titanic’s last known coordinates.

In total, 705 people of Titanic’s original 2208 were brought onto Carpathia alive. No other ship would find survivors.

At 12:20am April 15th, 1912, there was a miracle on the North Atlantic. And it happened because a group of humans, some of them strangers, many of them only passengers on a small and unimpressive steam liner, looked at each other and decided: I cannot live with myself if I do anything less.

Malaria Vaccine

(by Ozy Brennan, main sources Why we didn’t get a malaria vaccine sooner and Behind the Malaria Vaccines: A 40-year quest against one of humanity’s biggest killers)

The first malaria vaccine was invented in 1967. The first malaria vaccine was approved in 2021. The same team that invented a vaccine in 1967 shepherded it all the way to 2021– at least, depending on your opinion of the ship of Theseus problem.

They spent a decade figuring out how to make a vaccine that was delivered through a shot, instead of through being bitten by tens to hundreds of X-ray-weakened malaria-infected mosquitoes. The team went through so many human challenge trials that they ran out of potential subjects at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and had to start recruiting in the local community.

Thirty years later, in 1997, the first functional vaccine that didn’t involve being bitten by mosquitoes was invented. It turned out that it only worked on children, who have a stronger immune response than adults. Glaxo Smith Kline, which was funding the vaccine development, wouldn’t make a profit off a vaccine for children. A malaria vaccine for adults would be given to developed-world travelers; one for children, only kids in some of the world’s poorest countries. Glaxo Smith Kline agreed to continue the research, but only if philanthropists agreed to fund it– which the Gates Foundation did.

And then for twenty years, from 2001 to 2021, dozens of scientists from around the world and innumerable healthcare workers and clerks and vaccine manufacturers–not to mention every person who volunteered for the studies–conducted Phase Two and Phase Three trials before the vaccine was finally approved.

And meanwhile a British team, taking advantage of twenty years of research advances since 1997, invented a modified version of the vaccine that was twice as effective, which was approved in 2023.

Even 1997 isn’t the beginning of the story. You can begin it when the malaria parasite was discovered, in 1880. Or in 1948, when two scientists spent two years in the Congo catching wild rats until they found one infected with a species of the malaria parasite that could serve as an animal model. Or in 1964, when other scientists finally realized that the reason they couldn’t make the animal model work in the lab was that the relevant species of Plasmodium was only transmitted to rats in relatively cool temperatures. All along, the labs had been too hot.

We often think of scientific advances as being made by a lone genius. We want to know who really invented the steam engine, who really discovered plate tectonics, who really created the Internet. And sometimes there is a lone genius. But more often, especially today, important discoveries are made bit by bit by dozens or hundreds of people. It doesn’t feel grand or heroic if your contribution is testing dozens of malaria vaccines that don’t work, much less ‘oops, the reason our animal model isn’t working is that our laboratories have been the wrong temperature for the past sixteen years.’ But all the contributions are necessary.

No one discovered the malaria vaccine, not really. But it was discovered all the same.

Battle Hymn of the Republic of Letters

(by Scott Alexander. Link)

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the works of humankind
We have lifted up whole countries through the labors of the mind
Faiths and empires rise and crumble, in the end we always find
The truth is marching on!
Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory hallelujah!
Glory, glory hallelujah!
The truth is marching on!

They murdered Archimedes with his circles still undone
How much loftier now the circles where his children's children run
They arrested Galileo, but they couldn't arrest the Sun
The truth is marching on!
Glory, glory hallelujah! Glory, glory hallelujah!
Glory, glory hallelujah!
The truth is marching on!

They tore down Alexandria, of libraries the first
And the Mongol hordes razed Baghdad, and its learning was dispersed
But now there’s Wikipedia, so Genghis,¹ do your worst!
The truth keeps marching on!
Glory, glory hallelujah! Glory, glory hallelujah!
Glory, glory hallelujah!
The truth is marching on!

So despite the many setbacks we encounter on our way
We still believe tomorrow can be brighter than today
The quest is not forgotten, we continue, come what may
As truth goes marching on!
Glory, glory hallelujah! Glory, glory hallelujah!
Glory, glory hallelujah!
The truth is marching on!

Abolitionism

(by Ozy Brennan, main source The Beautiful Soul of John Woolman, Apostle of Abolition)

The 18th century Quaker John Woolman was one of the most extra historical figures I’ve ever heard of. As a teenager, he stewed in guilt because, unlike all the great Quaker martyrs of old, he hadn’t once stormed off to Massachusetts to get tortured to death by Puritans for his beliefs. He didn’t even WANT to get tortured to death. So, you know, we’ve all met that guy.

As an adult, he devoted himself to traveling from Quaker meeting to Quaker meeting, urging people to oppose slavery. He was the all-time champion of convincing people to free their slaves. . As just one example, someone asked him to write their will and instead he convinced them to free all the people they’d enslaved. Twice.

It’s difficult to overstate how much Woolman hated doing anti-slavery activism. For most of the last decade of his life, he was clearly severely depressed. He hated traveling: the harshness of life on the road; being away from his family; the risk of bringing home smallpox, which terrified him.

But most of all he hated what he felt called to do. He was naturally gentle, soft-spoken, and agreeable. All he wanted was to be able to have friendly conversations with people who were nice to him. But instead, he felt, God had called him to be an Old Testament prophet, thundering about God’s judgment and the need for repentance.

His successes were hard-earned and isolated, and they did nothing to stem the growth of slavery in America. He wrote pamphlets, gave speeches, participated at Quaker meetings, and everyone nodded along and said that it was interesting food for thought and went home and beat their slaves. He died in 1772, believing himself a failure.

Four years later, Woolman’s home meeting in Philadelphia, banned Quakers from owning slaves. Four more years later, Pennsylvania would become the very first polity in the history of the world to completely ban slavery. Woolman’s writings and speeches persuaded people in Britain and France, who went on to found anti-slavery movements in their own countries. Woolman’s writings were instrumental in convincing Tsar Alexander III to free the Russian serfs.

The anti-slavery movement was made of hundreds of thousands of Woolmans, most of whom didn’t write books, so we don’t remember their names. It was made up of preachers and politicians and writers and activists and, of course, the slaves themselves, who resisted domination in a thousand thousand ways. It was made up of every participant in the late 18th century sugar boycott, one of the largest boycotts in history. It was made up of those who risked arrest smuggling slaves to freedom on the Underground Railroad. It was made up of soldiers who fought and killed and died for others’ freedom. And it was made up of ordinary people who voted against slavery and talked to their friends about abolitionism and didn’t eat sugar and didn’t think they were doing much at all, really.

Today, there are still tens of millions of slaves, often slaves whose slavery is de facto endorsed by their governments. But since 1981, slavery of nonprisoners has been abolished on every inch of dirt in the entire world–something that was never before true in recorded human history. There is still work to do. But John Woolman didn’t die a failure. John Woolman won.

Morning

Somebody Will Introduction

Sometimes I imagine an enormous tower built by everyone who is trying to make the world better. Some people contribute thousands of bricks; other people, working as hard as they can, only manage a pebble or two. Some people put on one brick, and then go do something else with their lives. A lot of people care about the tower for itself, but a lot of them are just in it for money or status or their passion for brickmaking. Some people put their bricks somewhere that certainly helps, but that isn’t where we’d be putting them if we wanted to get this tower built as fast as possible. And some people, sad to say, are confused about the building plan and put their bricks somewhere that topples an entire wall and we’re set back years trying to fix it.

And yet in spite of everything, it keeps growing, this tower, year by year. We’re pretty high up now. Someday it’s going to touch the sky.

Somebody Will

(by Sassafras. Link)

Our new world is so close.
Mars has treasures we’re only just starting to find.
Frozen mountains and crimson dust
Waiting for footprints that will not be mine.

A hundred years to run the first tests
Another to raise the first dome.
The moon, then Mars, then Titan next,
A lifetime to touch each new home.

And I want it so much.
Close my eyes, I can taste the Mars dust in the air.
In the darkness the space stations shimmer
In orbits that I will not share.

But I’ll teach the student who’ll manage the fact’ry
That tempers the steel that makes colonies strong.
And I’ll write the program that runs the computer
That charts out the stars where our rockets belong.

It will never get easy to wake from my dream
When the future I dream of is so far away.
But I am willing to sacrifice
Something I don’t have
For something I won’t have
But somebody will someday

And it feels like a waste.
All this working and waiting and battling time,
And all for a kingdom that all of my efforts will never make mine,
But brick by brick the Pyramids rose,
With most hidden under the sand,
So life by life the project grows
In ways I might not understand.

I am voyaging too,
We will need the foundation as much as the dome
For those worlds to come true,

And I’ll clerk the office that handles the funding
That raises the tower that watches the sky.
And I’ll staff the bookstore that carries the journal
That sparks the idea that makes solar sails fly.

It takes so many sailors to conquer an ocean
And so many more when it’s light-years away,
But I am willing to sacrifice
Something I don’t have
For something I won’t have
But somebody will someday.

And I know we won’t stop.
We’ve planned too many wonders for one little star.
Though often the present may seem too complacent to take us that far.

But I’ll mind the children and I'll make the phone calls
And I'll speak the words that will challenge the doubt
And I’ll host the Solstice that summons the family
That carries the fire that never burns out

There are so many chances to give up the journey,
Especially when it’s so easy to stay,
But I am willing to sacrifice
Something I don’t have
For something I won’t have

And not only me,
But we are willing to sacrifice
Something we don’t have
For something we won’t have
So somebody will,

So somebody will
So somebody will someday.

Somewhere To Begin Introduction

I donate 10% of my income and I write my silly little blog posts and I take care of my kid and I try my best to be kind, and it seems so small in the face of all the problems there are in the world. And then I look around and see all the people in the world working to make this world better: building startups, researching AI safety, raising children, writing books, treating patients, donating to the Against Malaria Foundation or the Humane League or their local homeless shelter, just trying to survive until tomorrow.

There’s an interesting fact about numbers that my son keeps telling me, which is that if you take a small positive number, and you multiply it by a large positive number, you get a very large number indeed.

Somewhere To Begin

(by Sara Thomsen. Link)

People say to me, “Oh, you gotta be crazy!
How can you sing in times like these?
Don’t you read the news? Don’t you know the score?
How can you sing when so many others grieve?”
People say to me, “What kind of fool believes
That a song will make a difference in the end?”

By way of a reply, I say a fool such as I
Who sees a song as somewhere to begin
A song is somewhere to begin
The search for something worth believing in
If changes are to come there are things that must be done
And a song is somewhere to begin

People say to me, “Oh, you gotta be crazy!
How can you dream in times like these?
Don’t you read the news? Don’t you know the score?
How can you dream when so many others grieve?”
People say to me, “What kind of fool believes
That a dream will make a difference in the end?”

By way of a reply, I say a fool such as I
Who sees a dream as somewhere to begin
A dream is somewhere to begin
The search for something worth believing in
If changes are to come there are things that must be done
And a dream is somewhere to begin

People say to me, “Oh, you gotta be crazy!
How can you love in times like these?
Don’t you read the news? Don’t you know the score?
How can you love when so many others grieve?”
People say to me, “What kind of fool believes
That love will make a difference in the end?”

By way of a reply, I say a fool such as I
Who sees love as somewhere to begin
Love is somewhere to begin
The search for something worth believing in
If changes are to come there are things that must be done
And love is somewhere
And a dream is somewhere
And a song is somewhere to begin

Parable of the Talents

(by Scott Alexander. Link)

People hate the idea of talent. If everything is hard work and positive thinking, then anyone who does those things can be the coolest person in the world. If there’s such a thing as talent, what about the people who don’t have it?

There’s a proverb that says: “Everyone has somebody better than them and somebody worse than them, with two exceptions.” I think this helps put the idea of talent into context. When we accept that we’re all in the “not the coolest person in the world” boat together (with one exception) some status games start to lose their sting.

Every so often, somebody who is overly kind praises my writing and says they feel intellectually inadequate compared to me, that they wish they could be at my level. But at my level, I spend my time feeling intellectually inadequate compared to Scott Aaronson. Scott Aaronson describes feeling “in awe” of Terence Tao and frequently struggling to understand him. Terence Tao – well, I don’t know if he’s religious, but maybe he feels intellectually inadequate compared to God. And God feels intellectually inadequate compared to John von Neumann. It’s tempting to fantasize about being John von Neumann and not having to feel inferior to anybody. But any system where only one person in the world is allowed to feel good about themselves at a time is a bad system.

So what percent of people in the world should be allowed to feel good about themselves? Ask the question this way, and it becomes obvious that something is wrong with the premise.

Ozy once said that Ricardo’s Law Of Comparative Advantage was one of the most inspirational things he’d ever read. This is an economic theorem which says that under ideal frictionless capitalism, even if you’re the worst person in the world at everything, you can do the thing you’re relatively least worst at, trade with other people, and be guaranteed to make nonzero money. Maybe not very much money, but nonzero. It will mean that your actions have made other people nonzero better off, and they are nonzero grateful to you.

I find this nonzero inspirational. I’m never going to be John von Neumann, or a star alignment researcher, or Dustin Moskovitz. Maybe I’m not even the best at my own profession. But if I pursue my relative comparative advantage, I can still make money. And if I want, I can donate that money to physics research, or alignment research, or the same people Dustin Moskovitz donates his money to. They will use it to hire smart people with important talents that I lack, and I will be at least partially responsible for those people’s successes. Even someone with an IQ of seventy, whose comparative advantage is in ditch-digging, can do this and make nonzero difference.

The Jews talk about how God judges you for your gifts. Rabbi Zusya once said that when he died, he wasn’t worried that God would ask him “Why weren’t you Moses?” or “Why weren’t you Solomon?” But he did worry that God might ask “Why weren’t you Rabbi Zusya?” If everything comes down to hard work and positive attitude, then God has every right to ask me “Why weren’t you John von Neumann?” or “Why weren’t you Dustin Moskovitz?” If everyone is legitimately a different person with their own set of talents and abilities, however humble, then all God gets to ask me is whether or not I was Scott Alexander. This seems like a gratifyingly low bar.

Brighter Than Today Introduction

The world is awful, but once it was worse. And it didn’t get better by accident, and it didn’t get better because we were saved by Captain America or Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres. It got better because a whole lot of scared, sad, weak, helpless people like you and me did their damnedest to try to make it better. The world could be better, and is in danger. And if we’re going to make it through the next century alive, we need every bit of help we can get. Sure, we need more Dustin Moskovitzes, if you’ve got any going spare. But if you’re Scott Alexander, we need you to be the best damn Scott Alexander you can. And if you’re a ditchdigger, we need you to be the best damn ditchdigger you can. And if you’re a failure, in the name of God and Samuel Beckett, fail better.

This is not our mass grave, and we will get out of this hole together, hands and legs and arms and human ladders of each other, and we will make! Tomorrow! Brighter! Than! Today!

Brighter Than Today

(by Raymond Arnold. Link)

Countless winter nights ago,
A woman shivered in the cold.
Cursed the skies, and wondered why
The gods invented pain.
Aching angry flesh and bone,
Bitterly she struck the stone
Till she saw the sudden spark
Of light, and golden flame.

She showed the others, but they told her
She was not fit to control
The primal forces that the gods
Had cloaked in mystery
But she would not be satisfied,
And though she trembled, she defied them
Took her torch and raised it high
Set afire history.

Tomorrow can be brighter than to-day,
although the night is cold.
The stars may seem so very far away...
But courage, hope and reason burn,
In every mind, each lesson learned,
Shining light to guide our way
Make tomorrow brighter than today...
Oh... Brighter than today.

Ages long forgotten now,
We built the wheel and then the plough.
Tilled the earth and proved our worth,
Against the drought and snow.
Soon we had the time to fathom
Mountain peaks and tiny atoms,
Beating hearts, electric sparks
So much more to know.

Tomorrow can be brighter than today,
Although the night is cold.
The stars may seem so very far away...
But courage, hope and reason grow
With every passing season so we’ll
Drive the darkness far away
Make tomorrow brighter than to-day...
Oh... Brighter than to-day.

The universe may seem unfair.
The laws of nature may not care.
The storms and quakes, our own mistakes,
They nearly doused our flame.
But all these trials we’ve endured
The lessons learned, diseases cured
Against our herculean task
We’ve risen to proclaim.

Tomorrow can be brighter than to-day,
although the night is cold.
The stars may seem so very far a-way...
But courage, hope and reason bloom
Across the world and one day soon, we’ll
Rise up to the stars and say:
Make tomorrow brighter than today

Tomorrows

Do You Hear The People Sing? Introduction

In June 1832, about three thousand Parisians staged a rebellion against the French monarchy in the name of freedom, equality, and brotherhood. They almost immediately lost, and even if they hadn’t the track record of French revolutions at this point involved more guillotines than liberty.

Thirty years later, Victor Hugo made the failed June Rebellion the centerpiece of Les Miserables, a novel about poverty, injustice, compassion, and redemption that soon came to be considered one of the greatest novels of the 19th century.

Over a century later, as all great novels must, it received a musical theater adaptation. Shortly after, the musical was translated into English. The concluding song was Do You Hear The People Sing? and it developed a bit of an unusual audience.

You could hear it in Hong Kong to protest Xi Jinping, and in Turkey to protest Erdogan, and in the Philippines to protest Rodrigo Duterte. You could hear it in protests of corruption in South Korea and in Ukraine, and of economic mismanagement in Sri Lanka. You could even hear it in Australia to protest the opening of a McDonalds, although I’m not sure those people understood the assignment.

To me, this song says that, even though we are separated by centuries and continents, we recognize the kindred words in each other’s hearts: “the world is awful. We will make it better.”

In 1800, about half of all children died before they were fifteen. Today, only four percent of children do. In 1800, we had never eradicated a disease. Today, we can say that beautiful phrase, “smallpox was.” In 1800, no countries were true liberal democracies. Today, 19% are. In 1800, about three-quarters of people lived in extreme poverty. Today, 9% do.

The universe is under no obligation to give us problems that are solvable. But it’s also under no obligation to give us problems that aren’t.

Do You Hear The People Sing?

(by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Herbert Kretzmer. Link)

Do you hear the people sing?
Singing the song of angry men?
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!

Will you join in our crusade?
Who will be strong and stand with me?
Beyond the barricade
Is there a world you long to see?
Then join in the fight
That will give you the right to be free!

Do you hear the people sing?
Singing the song of angry men?
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!

Will you give all you can give
So that our banner may advance?
Some will fall and some will live
Will you stand up and take your chance?
The blood of the martyrs
Will water the meadows of France!

Do you hear the people sing?
Singing the song of angry men?
It is the music of athe people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes

Do you hear the people sing
Lost in the valley of the night?
It is the music of a people
Who are climbing to the light
For the wretched of the earth
There is a flame that never dies
Even the darkest night will end
And the sun will rise

They will live again in freedom
In the garden of the Lord
We will walk behind the ploughshare
We will put away the sword
The chain will be broken
And all men will have their reward

Will you join in our crusade?
Who will be strong and stand with me?
Somewhere beyond the barricade
Is there a world you long to see?
Do you hear the people sing?
Say, do you hear the distant drums?
It is the future that they bring
When tomorrow comes!

Will you join in our crusade?
Who will be strong and stand with me?
Somewhere beyond the barricade
Is there a world you long to see?
Do you hear the people sing?
Say, do you hear the distant drums?
It is the future that they bring
When tomorrow comes!

The Circle Introduction

There is an itch that drove the RMS Carpathia to defy the laws of physics. That drove the research team to try a fourteenth malaria vaccine when the thirteenth failed. That drove John Woolman to convince a slaveowner to free his slaves in a single conversation. That drives people to make liberal democracies and sanitation programs and the phrase “smallpox was.”

We, scared and weak and imperfect as we are, try in our faltering way to care for each other.

The Circle

(by Taylor Smith. Link)

Raise a song, and so commence
Circle, grow and grow.
in praise of all Benevolence!
Circle, grow and grow.
Once a cold and silent night
did the loveless stars pervade;
yet we here, of star-stuff made,
cast a circle of warmer Light!
Circle, circle, grow and grow.

So will we bring our families in,
Circle, grow and grow.
those whom Nature made our kin?
Circle, grow and grow.
Countless likenesses we find,
by our common blood bestowed.
What a debt of care is owed;
what a blesséd tie that binds!
Circle, circle, grow and grow.

And will we bring our neighbors in,
Circle, grow and grow.
our expansion to begin?
Circle, grow and grow.
Bounty of the harvest sun,
shelter from all hazards dire,
share with each, as each require,
doing as you would be done.
Circle, circle, grow and grow.

And will we bring the stranger in,
Circle, grow and grow.
every state and speech and skin?
Circle, grow and grow.
Think upon the mystery:
how alike is Humankind!
Tho' manifold in face and mind,
conspecific sisters we!
Circle, circle, grow and grow.

And will we bring the far ones in,
Circle, grow and grow.
all who distant-born have been?
Circle, grow and grow.
For the hands you'll never hold,
for the names you'll never learn,
for all far-off hearts that yearn,
let compassion boundless roll!
Circle, circle, grow and grow.

And will we bring all creatures in,
Circle, grow and grow.
feather, fur, or silicon?
Circle, grow and grow.
Though their unseen thought beguile —
strange the substrate they employ —
all who suffer or enjoy
are brother soul, in body wild.
Circle, circle, grow and grow.

And will we bring the future in?
Circle, grow and grow.
All of time is ours to win!
Circle, grow and grow.
Will our children rise in power?
overwhelm the starry deep?
Lights unborn, for you we keep
will and hope, though dark the hour.
Circle, circle, grow and grow.

Five Thousand Years Introduction

One of the more interesting books I’ve read is Looking Backward, a novel from 1888 about the distant utopian future of 2000. It proposes that we will eliminate positional goods by paying everyone the same salary, and then get people to work terrible jobs by reducing their work hours. Clever idea, but no.

But Looking Backward also predicts that, in 2000, professional music would be available in your house, on demand, at the press of a button. Everyone could listen to music so beautiful that in 1888 it was reserved for the nobility alone. Not only was Looking Backward right about what would happen, it was right that it’s awesome.

Many people here wonder a lot about what the better world would look like. I imagine our speculations will end up looking like Looking Backward: half prescient and half hopelessly confused. The better future will look as strange to us as a smartphone would to a participant in the French Revolution. We don’t yet know the final design of the tower we’re building.

Five Thousand Years

(By Raymond Arnold. Link)

A possible child,
Dreaming through the longest night,
A possible smile,
Waking to a distant light,
A whole world of possibilities
Tell me what you wanna see,
Where's that child going, tell me
Who's that child gonna be…

In five thousand years
Whatcha want to do, whatcha wanna see, in another
Five thousand years
Where we want to go, who we want to be, in another

Five thousand years
If we boldly set our sights,
And journey through the coldest night
In five thousand years

Five thousand years
We could build ourselves a brand new home,
We could raise the glass domes high.
And in a century or three
Our children might look at the sky
And then at last they'd see
That distant yellow sun.
The cradle of humanity,
And all the things we might become

In five thousand years
Whatcha want to do, whatcha wanna see, in another
Five thousand years
Where we want to go, who we want to be, in another

Five thousand years
If we sailed across the stars.
Unimaginably far
In five thousand years…
Oh… five thousand years

And maybe good folk still might die,
But maybe not, we gotta try
I don't quite know what shape we'd take
I don't quite know what world we'd make
I don't quite know how things might change
I don't quite know what rules we'd break
Our present selves might think it strange
But there's so many lives at stake…

Entropy is bearin' down
But we got tricks to stick around.
And if we live to see the day
That yellow fades to red then grey,
We'll take a moment, one by one
Turn to face the dying sun
Bittersweetly wave goodbye--
The journey's only just begun...

In five thousand years
Whatcha want to do, whatcha wanna see, in another
Five million years
Where we want to go, who we want to be, in another
Five billion years
When all that we once knew is gone
Our legacy will carry on
In five billion years…

Five billion years
Whatcha want to do, whatcha want to see
Five billion years
Where we wanna go, who we wanna be?

In five billion years
Where we wanna go?
In five billion years
Who we wanna be?

The Gift We Give To Tomorrow Introduction

But there is one thing I know about that strange thing, a better world. However odd its social structures or alien its inhabitants, however large its Dyson spheres or super its intelligences–people care for each other. A future without that isn’t worth being called better.

Gift We Give To Tomorrow

(by Eliezer Yudkowsky. Link)

Love has to begin somehow.
A complex pattern must be explained by a cause
that’s not already that complex pattern.
For love to enter the universe,
it has to arise from something that is not love.
If that weren’t possible, then love could not be.

Perhaps your children’s children will ask,
how it is that they are capable of love.
And their parents will say:
Because we, who also love, created you to love.

And your children’s children may ask:
But how is it that you love?

And their parents will reply:
Because our own parents,
who loved as well,
created us to love in turn.

And then your children’s children will ask:
But where did it all begin?
Where does the recursion end?

And their parents will say:

Once upon a time,
long ago and far away,
there were intelligent beings who were not themselves intelligently designed.

Once upon a time,
there were lovers,
created by something that did not love.

Once upon a time,
when all of civilization was a single galaxy,
A single star.
A single planet.
A place called Earth.

Once upon a time,
Far away,
Ever So Long Ago.

Closing

The world is awful. The world is much better. The world could be better. The world is in danger. And at the end of this Solstice, I’ll add a fifth thing: at least right now, we’re all in it together.

I love you guys. When I started to spend time with the rationalists and effective altruists and various adjacents, I felt like I’d come home for the first time. All of us weird, flawed, broken people got together, and we made something that makes us stronger and better and much, much more annoying about study methodology. And I believe, if we’re going to navigate safely through this time of troubles, it’s going to be in part because of all of you in the audience today—and the community we’ve made together.

A lot of this Solstice is about how everything good is a group project, and this Solstice is also a group project. I’d like to thank Misha Gurevich, the logistics lead. Whenever I couldn’t stand to think about something for one more minute, I would say “Misha, you do it” and it got done by magic. Thank you to Anna Tchetchekine, the music director. I kept saying “I want this thing” and she said “that’s impossible and you don’t know it because you don’t know anything about music” and then she’d come back three days later and say “never mind, I figured it out.” Thanks to our musicians, Buck Shlegeris, Aric Floyd, Lydia La Roux, and Anna again. They learned to play fifteen songs in like two weeks, they’re incredible. Thanks to all our speakers, all our songleaders, and the entire Bayesian Choir, without whom Solstice would be me standing up here yammering by myself and everyone begging me to shut up. Choir didn’t get any applause after I Shall Not Live In Vain so let’s give them a round of applause now! Thanks to all of our wonderful volunteers, who so often go underrecognized. And thanks to the Freight and Salvage, a wonderful venue.

If you’d like to spend more time with the community, there’s an afterparty! It is at Lighthaven, which is at 2740 Telegraph Avenue. You can get there by car or bus or walking if you really like walking. If you're taking an Uber or Lyft, I recommend splitting it with someone else going to the party, so there are enough rideshares for everyone. There will be pizza and drinks. Again, that’s 2740 Telegraph Avenue. I hope to see you all there.

And before then, let’s sing a last song, to join together as a community in this time of dreariness and death, to put on nice clothes and feast and share stories and sing and fill our world with color and light.

Lean on Me

(by Bill Withers. Link)

Sometimes in our lives
We all have pain
We all have sorrow
But if we are wise
We know that there's always tomorrow

Lean on me
When you're not strong
And I'll be your friend
I'll help you carry on...
For it won't be long
Till I'm gonna need somebody to lean on

Please swallow your pride
If I have things you need to borrow
For no one can fill
Those of your needs that you won't let show

So just call on me brother when you need a hand
We all need somebody to lean on
I just might have a problem that you'll understand
We all need somebody to lean on

Lean on me
When you're not strong
And I'll be your friend
I'll help you carry on...
For it won't be long
Till I'm gonna need somebody to lean on

So just call on me brother
When you need a hand
We all need somebody to lean on
I just might have a problem that you'll understand
We all need somebody to lean on

If there is a load you have to bear
That you can't carry
I'm right up the road
I'll share your load
If you just call me

Lean on me
When you're not strong
And I'll be your friend
I'll help you carry on...
For it won't be long
Till I'm gonna need somebody to lean on

1. It has come to the Solstice’s attention that Baghdad was sacked by Genghis Khan’s grandson, Hulegu Khan, not by Genghis Khan himself. In fact, Genghis Khan advanced science, as his empire led to the spread of ideas across Eurasia. We apologize to any steppe nomads who are offended.