Episode XIV: Building a More Ambitious Social Network w/ Visakan Veerasamy

This week just Kevin (no Gordon) talked with internet theorist, writer, and owner of Kevin’s favorite twitter account Visakan Veerasamy. We talk about Visa’s work in building a worldwide social network of friendly ambitious nerds, Sci-Fi’s themes and ideas being stuck in the past, and some current uses of LLM’s.Thanks for listening!EPISODE TIMESTAMPS:0:12 - Introduction and discussion of Visa’s “50 year plan for a global nerd network”6:56 - Explaining this Dominos Image10:26 - People are remarkably unambitious in their social networks14:58 - How do you feel randomly encountering someone in the real world who knows your stuff?16:38 - Encourage people to have their own sense of sovereignty17:21 - Kevin applies the Hegelian Dialectic to the history of Sci-fi20:39 - Has Visa ever considered writing Science Fiction?28:41 - Modern Sci-fi is built on old themes and ideas31:00 - Sci-fi about artificial intelligence has not prepared us for the real thing32:44 - Did you see the effect of AI on social relationships coming?34:44 - What are the most novel things you have used AI for?38:38 - Using ChatGPT as a superior rubber duck40:22 - People's intuitions on what LLM's are useful for are miscalibrated47:08 - It is bad to let your attention be held hostage by the worst thing happening in the world at any given time48:14 - Coining the term Psychofauna to describe modern memetic hazards52:02 - What would the optimal form of social media look like?57:42 - The trouble with making new social media is people are willing to sacrifice a lot to be where the action is58:24 - Conclusion and sci-fi author recommendations of Eliot Peper and Jordan Chase YoungLINKS* Visa’s Substack* Visa’s Twitter* The Library Ethos* Visa’s books: Friendly Ambitious Nerd and Introspect This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit synthesizedsunsets.substack.com/subscribe