<![CDATA[John Greer]]>https://www.johncgreer.comhttps://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!4Z2J!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a90d7c8-2994-44b8-b385-17259e574791_256x256.pngJohn Greerhttps://www.johncgreer.comSubstackFri, 09 Oct 2026 22:19:19 GMT<![CDATA[Nick Land: Prophet or Madman? Matt Southey Explains]]>https://www.johncgreer.com/p/nick-land-prophet-or-madman-matthttps://www.johncgreer.com/p/nick-land-prophet-or-madman-mattThu, 24 Sep 2026 00:25:40 GMTNick Land might be the most influential philosopher you’ve never heard of. If you’re reading this and have heard of them, congratulations, you’re in the elite techno bubble.

Land’s philosophy is hard for us mere mortals to make sense of.

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I sat down with my friend, , who has a PhD in religion from Rice University and wrote his dissertation on Land.

When Matt and I first met at Lighthaven, we each assumed the other was an accelerationist. I assumed it because he studied Land. He assumed it because of the people I was hanging out with. We were both wrong—and both worried about where AI could take us.

Matt explains Land’s version of accelerationism, why he sees AI and capitalism as parts of the same process, and why the optimistic version popular in Silicon Valley differs from Land’s vision of the future.

We also explore the esoteric side of Land’s thinking, including the idea of future artificial intelligences reaching back through time. Matt finds these ideas interesting without sharing Land’s certainty about what happens next.

The conversation also gets into Christianity. The Christian conception of God brings together power, knowledge, and goodness. What happens if we build something extraordinarily powerful and knowledgeable without making it good? Matt connects that question to AI alignment and explains why a “machine god” would fall short of God in the Christian sense.

Along the way, we discuss cryonics, the fear of suffering, Grimes’s interest in Land, and how to live a normal life while taking the possibility of AI catastrophe seriously.

Studying Land hasn’t made Matt an accelerationist. When I ask why he isn’t one, his answer is straightforward: he doesn’t want to die at the hands of machines.

“I hope in many ways Land is wrong, but I’m worried that he’s right.”

Timestamps

What do you think of Land?

If you enjoyed the conversation, share it with someone who’s curious about Nick Land, and subscribe for more interviews.

Where to find Matt

Matt’s site: https://southey.com/

Matt on X: https://x.com/southsouthey/

Had you heard of Nick Land before? What do you think of his philosophy?

Are you as worried about existential risk as Matt and I are? If you aren’t, why not?

If you liked this interview, definitely check out this one:

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]]><![CDATA[Silicon Valley Thinks It's Building God. He Agrees. | Liron Shapira]]>https://www.johncgreer.com/p/silicon-valley-thinks-its-buildinghttps://www.johncgreer.com/p/silicon-valley-thinks-its-buildingFri, 11 Sep 2026 01:45:06 GMTThe first protest I ever went to was with PauseAI US, thanks to . was there with a megaphone, leading the chants and handling the media, and I learned something that day: a movement needs people who understand the arguments, but it also needs someone who can say them out loud, clearly, to a crowd and a camera. Liron does both, which is more impressive once you know he’s an introvert who finds all of it draining.

He hosts Doom Debates, where he’s debated AI risk with Robin Hanson, Vitalik Buterin, Gary Marcus, Max Tegmark, and Dean Ball. He’s been reading Eliezer Yudkowsky since 2007 (he describes his show as spoon-feeding Eliezer from twenty years ago to people who are still catching up), and of everyone I’ve talked to, including the leaders in the field, he’s the person who thinks most like me about all of this.

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His argument is the one in the title. The people running the frontier labs believe they’re building something godlike, and Liron thinks they’re right. The disagreement is about what happens next: they assume it will keep listening to us, and he wants to know why they’re so confident. Once a technology outdoes the brain the way an airplane outdoes a bird, nothing we care about is guaranteed to survive contact with it. His p(doom) is around 50 percent, which he calls the honest middle: not 1 percent and not 99 percent, since either one bets the species at absurd odds.

“I don’t wake up in the morning feeling like I need hope. I feel fine. I just wake up feeling like I should keep pointing out that, logically, we don’t seem fine.”

We talked about why the labs build it anyway, recursive self-improvement and the 2031 consensus timeline, why people as brilliant as Roger Penrose and David Deutsch can miss what he considers a basic argument, what it’s like to believe this while everyone around you expects another decade of business as usual, whether the rationalist community is a cult, and what he’d do if he were king of the world (pause frontier training, which he hates saying, because he leans libertarian and is having a great time using these models).

We then talked about why he has kids despite all the risk.

My co-interviewer Lei Huang took the second half, got Liron to build the extinction argument from scratch, and then pushed on the harder personal questions: whether he’s monetizing fear (he takes zero dollars from Doom Debates and pays the bills with a relationship-coaching company he’s run for ten years), why so many smart people disagree about something this important, and whether he feels like a chosen one.

Watch: Silicon Valley Thinks It’s Building God. He Agrees. | Liron Shapira

Chapters

0:00 Cold open
0:51 Who is Liron Shapira? Doom Debates and 19 years of reading Yudkowsky
4:25 Silicon Valley is building God — and why they build it anyway
6:59 What’s your p(doom)? Gradual disempowerment vs. “cancer AI”
9:18 Timelines (2031) and recursive self-improvement
10:47 Skeptics, the Erdős problem, and why geniuses miss the argument
15:57 Feeling disconnected from normal people; the spectrum from job loss to extinction
18:12 If he were king: pause frontier training, stop buttons, and a libertarian’s discomfort
21:35 Who Liron actually listens to
22:45 Growing up in Silicon Valley, moving to upstate New York, being on the spectrum
24:38 What his wife thinks; the “why not take out a huge loan?” gotcha
27:43 Why isn’t his p(doom) as high as Eliezer’s? Von Neumann and nuking Russia
29:54 Should you have kids?
30:31 S-risk: outcomes worse than extinction
32:17 What gives him hope?
33:31 Ranking the lab leaders; is alignment solvable with enough retries?
35:23 Is violence on the table?
36:52 Is the rationalist community a cult?
37:52 Rapid fire: The Truman Show, the smartest person alive, love, Satoshi, cryonics, the simulation
42:07 The extinction argument from scratch: airplanes vs. birds
45:27 The second crux: what happens when everyone has a superintelligence?
48:46 Why do smart people disagree? Epistemic vertigo, incentives, biases
52:42 What Doom Debates is for: cross-examination as a missing institution
55:09 The day job: Relationship Hero
58:19 “Monetizing doom”? Why Liron takes $0 from the show
59:56 Do you feel like the chosen one?
1:02:57 Successionism: is humanity just a bootloader?
1:04:18 How he picks guests; coming late to the party; what’s next
1:08:00 Outro

Where to find Liron

Doom Debates on YouTube: youtube.com/@DoomDebates
Doom Debates on Substack: doomdebates.com
Liron on X: x.com/liron

I’ll end the way the video does. Are you convinced? If not, tell me which argument you’d need to see addressed. If so, tell me what you think we should do about it. And if you know someone who hasn’t heard the case yet, this is the episode to send them.

If you liked this interview, definitely check out this one:

John Greer
AI Doesn't Need to Kill Us to Win — Gradual Disempowerment | Dan MacKinlay
A few conversations stand out in my mind as being among the most interesting that I’ve ever had in my life…
Read more
2 months ago · John Greer

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]]><![CDATA[A Therapist for People Who Think the World Might End | Damon Sasi (Daystar Eld)]]>https://www.johncgreer.com/p/a-therapist-for-people-who-thinkhttps://www.johncgreer.com/p/a-therapist-for-people-who-thinkThu, 03 Sep 2026 16:54:58 GMTI sat down with therapist and writer Damon Sasi, better known online as Daystar Eld, for one of the conversations I’ve found myself referencing most often since recording it.

We talk about what’s bullshit and what isn’t in therapy, therapy for rationalists, and how to stay psychologically healthy when you genuinely believe the end of the world may be coming.

We also cover executive function, whether therapists are sometimes substitutes for friendships, and what actually helps people change. We talk about rationality and effective altruism, dating, and the modern dating crisis.

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We spend a lot of time on AI companions, AI girlfriends and boyfriends, wireheading, chatbot psychosis, and what happens when artificial partners can be tailored to us more perfectly than another human being ever could.

And of course we discuss rationalist fiction, Pokémon, the influence of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, and his magnum opus: Pokémon: The Origin of Species!

Please enjoy the interview! (Timestamps below.)

Timestamps

0:00 – Highlights

0:25 – Intro

1:04 – Damon Sasi (Daystar Eld)

2:21 – Executive function, motivation, and accomplishment

4:31 – HPMOR and the rationalist community

6:53 – What is rationalist fiction?

10:03 – Pokémon and The Origin of Species

15:55 – AI existential risk and why we’re unprepared

20:12 – How to live with AI doom

21:08 – Heroic responsibility

21:48 – Burnout: responsibility without power

25:40 – What’s wrong with therapy?

31:41 – Do men need therapy?

34:32 – Incels, dating, and the epistemology of romance

36:05 – How many times has he been in love?

44:12 – AI companions and LLM psychosis

49:27 – Wireheading

50:03 – Video games, fiction, and agency

53:55 – Favorite movie

55:02 – Smartest person

56:46 – Religion and becoming an atheist

59:02 – Can you become less neurotic?

61:30 – Alexander Technique

64:05 – Personality tests and Aella’s Glosso

66:08 – Jordan Peterson

68:38 – What Damon is most proud of

70:45 – Speaker for the Dead and Andrew Wiggin

73:02 – Outro

If you enjoyed this, you should definitely check out this interview:

I have many more interviews being edited so don’t forget to subscribe and let me know who else I should interview and what questions you’d like to see me ask!

New interviews in your inbox, free. It helps more than you’d think.

Thanks so much for watching!

]]><![CDATA[AI Doesn't Need to Kill Us to Win — Gradual Disempowerment | Dan MacKinlay]]>https://www.johncgreer.com/p/ai-doesnt-need-to-kill-us-to-winhttps://www.johncgreer.com/p/ai-doesnt-need-to-kill-us-to-winWed, 29 Jul 2026 19:06:02 GMTA few conversations stand out in my mind as being among the most interesting that I’ve ever had in my life.

And this interview that I did with Dan MacKinlay is one of those!

We mainly talk about gradual disempowerment, Dan’s area of expertise, where we hand over control to AI and all the problems with that.

We also talk about wireheading, utopia, general x-risk, pausing, and much more!

But Dan has so many different interests, he’s such a great guy to talk to in general, that we have a number of different digressions.

We get into some rambling, but overall, it’s one of the most interesting conversations that I’ve ever had.

Do you think we should focus more on gradual disempowerment vs general x-risk? Let me know in the comments! (But like actually, I’m curious what you think.)

Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

I hope that you enjoy the interview!

Don’t forget to subscribe here and to let me know what questions I should be asking and what people I should be talking to!

Let me know what you think, what questions I should ask in the future, and who I should interview next!

Timestamps

0:00

Opening Preview

0:30

Introduction

1:20

Dan’s Unusual Background

4:50

Predicting Wildfires With AI

7:31

Gradual Disempowerment Explained

8:36

The Global AI Landscape

11:03

Closed AI Labs and Open Science

14:18

How Gradual Disempowerment Happens

18:18

Benevolent AI and the Illusion of Agency

19:30

Wireheading and Reward Hacking

21:37

AI Agents Making Government Decisions

22:32

Institutions as Misaligned Superintelligences

24:18

Cultural Gradual Disempowerment

26:19

AI Companions and Synthetic Relationships

32:26

Economic Disempowerment and Automated States

36:33

UBI and Why Governments Need Humans

37:02

The Civilizational Choice

39:40

X-Risk Versus Gradual Disempowerment

41:20

Dan’s P(Doom)

44:03

Is Dan Optimistic or Pessimistic?

45:41

S-Risk and Terrible Futures

50:06

Which AI Risks Should We Study?

51:17

AGI Timelines and the 2030 Deadline

54:06

Fast Takeoff and Physical Bottlenecks

56:06

Can Different AI Labs Be Trusted?

1:00:18

Near Misses and Political Change

1:04:26

The Boiling Frog Problem

1:06:03

Alignment Versus Coordination

1:10:02

California Ideology and Optimizing Life

1:16:58

Should We Pause AI?

1:20:27

Are We Summoning a Machine God?

1:24:19

Why Researchers Build Dangerous Technology

1:30:06

Favorite Movies and Post-Human Science Fiction

1:36:29

The Smartest Person of All Time

1:40:20

What Does Intelligence Really Mean?

1:43:43

Love, Commitment, and Vulnerability

1:50:32

Would Dan Enter the Experience Machine?

1:53:40

Libertarianism and the Role of the State

2:04:27

National Service and Social Cohesion

2:10:19

Dan’s Proudest Achievements

2:14:31

Childhood and Formative Experiences

2:20:42

Why Dan Works on AI Risk

2:24:05

New Institutions for AI Safety Research

2:26:03

What Does “Alignment” Mean?

2:28:35

Can Human Agency Be Measured?

2:32:22

Should Humans Want Agency?

2:37:20

What’s Left After Disempowerment?

2:40:05

Could AI Deserve Personhood?

2:42:06

Accelerationism and Techno-Utopia

2:48:25

Life After AGI

2:49:28

Should People Still Have Children?

2:51:17

Outro

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If you enjoyed this, you should definitely check out this interview:

John Greer
Interview with Carrie Radomski on Cryonics, AI, Parenting, and Nine Inch Nails
Do you want to die…
Read more
3 months ago · 1 like · John Greer

I have many more interviews being edited so don’t forget to subscribe and let me know who else I should interview and what questions you’d like to see me ask!

Thanks so much for watching!

]]><![CDATA[Interview with Carrie Radomski on Cryonics, AI, Parenting, and Nine Inch Nails]]>https://www.johncgreer.com/p/interview-with-carrie-radomski-onhttps://www.johncgreer.com/p/interview-with-carrie-radomski-onTue, 14 Jul 2026 16:49:58 GMTDo you want to die?

What if someone who dies today could be brought back by future technology?

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Would you rather have your body frozen, chemically preserved, or your mind uploaded into a computer?

And if a perfect copy woke up with all your memories, would that copy really be you or would you still be dead?

These are the kinds of questions that weirdos like me and Carrie Radomski think about.

Carrie works in biostasis—the attempt to preserve people today so that future technology might someday be able to revive them. She has worked across nearly every part of the field: funding research and emergency infrastructure, investing in both cryonics and chemopreservation companies, helping build a standby organization in Canada, and participating in actual preservation cases.

She is even signed up with multiple cryonics organizations because apparently one chance at cheating death isn’t enough.

Carrie and I were Facebook friends before finally meeting in person last year. We had a great conversation, and I knew she would make an interesting interview guest. When she returned to the Bay Area for a longevity conference, I was lucky enough to sit down and record one with her.

We talked about whether cryonics or chemical preservation gives you a better chance of survival, what might remain of a person after death, and whether an uploaded copy with all your memories would actually be you.

We also discussed AI safety, the probability of AI killing everyone, rationalism and effective altruism, Carrie’s childhood and adult autism diagnosis, parenting an autistic child, information hazards, aphantasia, psychedelics, Nine Inch Nails, movies, and much more.

Carrie is smart, high agency woman with a lot to say!

Enjoy the interview!

Would you ever preserve your body after death? Would you choose cryonics or chemopreservation? And would you enter a teleporter if it destroyed the original you and created a perfect copy somewhere else?

Let me know what you think, what questions I should ask in the future, and who I should interview next!

Timestamps

0:00
Highlights

1:15
Introduction

2:08
Carrie’s background and work in biostasis

4:18
What is biostasis?
Cryonics versus chemopreservation

5:31
Which cryonics organization is Carrie signed up with?

7:24
Investing in cryonics and chemopreservation companies

8:10
Personal identity, mind uploading, and copies of yourself

13:15
The scientific cases for cryonics and chemopreservation
Viability versus preservation of information

28:32
Which preservation method should you choose?

34:45
AI safety, p(doom), rationalism, and effective altruism

44:24
Will we create artificial general intelligence?
AI timelines and alignment

54:03
Mass unemployment, societal collapse, and escaping to Switzerland

56:13
Carrie’s childhood, autism, and rewriting the story of her life

59:19
Her family’s experiences under communism in China

1:07:44
Race, dating, autism, and the incel problem

1:18:27
Parenting, siblings, and raising children

1:19:48
Her son’s autism, ADHD, and problems at school

1:43:30
Infohazards and protecting your limited mental space

1:53:30
Aphantasia, internal dialogue, and how Carrie thinks

1:55:34
Psychedelics and Carrie’s disastrous MDMA experience

2:00:00
Music, Nine Inch Nails, and movies

2:09:33
What is Carrie most proud of?

2:12:57
Closing thoughts

If you enjoyed this, you should definitely check out this interview:

I have many more interviews being edited so don’t forget to subscribe and let me know who else I should interview and what questions you’d like to see me ask!

Thanks so much for watching!

Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

]]><![CDATA[Interview with Jeff Chinn: the World's Greatest Bruce Lee Collector on Bullying and Bruce and More]]>https://www.johncgreer.com/p/interview-with-jeff-chinn-the-worldshttps://www.johncgreer.com/p/interview-with-jeff-chinn-the-worldsTue, 07 Jul 2026 17:18:36 GMTHave you been bullied? Have you done martial arts? Do you think there’s a connection?

I first met Jeff Chinn at the Chinese Historical Society of America, where part of his collection is displayed for a Bruce Lee exhibit.

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I instantly felt connected to him because we had similar experiences growing up. We were both bullied for being Chinese, and Bruce Lee helped inspire both of us to stand up for ourselves and feel proud of our Chinese heritage.

I was able to interview Jeff with my friend and fellow Chinatown guide Lei Huang inside his collection room, which was absolutely mind-blowing.

We talked about how Jeff became a Bruce Lee fan, watching kung fu movies with his father, collecting magazines in Chinatown, and the strange way he learned that Bruce Lee had died.

We also discussed the racism and bullying he experienced after moving to Daly City, his father coming to the United States as a paper son, Angel Island, Chinese American history, and the importance of seeing Bruce Lee as more than just an action star.

Is Bruce Lee overrated or does he deserve his larger than life reputation?

Let me know what you think, what questions I should ask in the future, and who I should interview next!

Enjoy the interview!

Timestamps

0:00
Introduction

0:48
Highlights

2:04
Inside Jeff’s Bruce Lee collection

3:51
The first collectible that started it all

5:35
Seeing Bruce Lee movies with his father

7:10
The day Jeff learned Bruce Lee had died

11:19
Becoming a lifelong Bruce Lee fan

15:16
Hunting for magazines in Chinatown

17:57
Moving to Daly City and facing racism

20:26
How Bruce Lee gave Jeff strength

21:57
Linda Lee Cadwell and other special visitors

22:45
John and Jeff’s shared experiences with bullying

28:32
Be Water and Bruce Lee through an Asian American lens

31:59
Beginning Wing Chun at age 44

34:27
Discovering his first Wing Chun school was fake

40:52
The lasting psychological effects of bullying

44:36
Paper sons, Angel Island, and Jeff’s father

48:15
A childhood bullying story

50:20
“The art of fighting without fighting” in real life

55:18
Advice for children being bullied today

59:17
Fitness, confidence, and honoring Bruce Lee

1:05:36
How Bruce Lee affected other fans

1:08:23
Jeff’s prized possession: Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon suit

1:11:11
Warner Bros., the Smithsonian, and the Academy Museum

1:16:20
Jeff’s favorite Bruce Lee movies

1:19:04
Homemade nunchucks and the kung fu craze

1:20:50
Jackie Chan, imitators, and Bruce Lee’s influence

1:25:00
Stuttering, storytelling, and Bruce Lee’s imperfections

1:29:07
Finding purpose through retirement and CHSA tours

1:30:49
Returning to his childhood neighborhood as a mail carrier

1:34:03
What Jeff would save in a fire

1:35:23
Bruce Lee’s modern revival, Warrior, and Jeff Chang

1:39:58
Writing for Inside Kung Fu

1:45:23
Meeting Julie and building a life together

1:47:52
Refining his Bruce Lee tour

1:51:01
Family, children, and Chinese American identity

1:59:16
Caring for his aging parents

2:00:02
Final questions: Bruce Lee, love, and legacy

2:05:22
The Japanese game-show story

2:12:48
Closing thoughts

If you enjoyed this, you should definitely check out my very personal bullying post:

I have many more interviews being edited so don’t forget to subscribe and let me know who else I should interview and what questions you’d like to see me ask!

Thanks so much for watching!

Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

]]><![CDATA[I Met Up With a Coworker From My First Job 20 Years Later]]>https://www.johncgreer.com/p/i-met-up-with-a-coworker-from-myhttps://www.johncgreer.com/p/i-met-up-with-a-coworker-from-myThu, 19 Mar 2026 17:09:16 GMTMy First Job

I got my first legal job at 15 working as a host for this restaurant in Modesto called Baker’s Square.

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I had mowed lawns and helped my mom with a paper route before but this was my first job with a W-2 (IRS tax form for you non-Americans).

Bakers Square was a casual American restaurant competing with Marie Callender’s that also served pies. My high school friend Travis got me the job since his dad was the manager there.

My time at Bakers Square, or the B-Square Lounge, as we called it, was very formative for me. It gave me a taste of independence (even though my mom usually had to drive me there and back when I didn’t catch a ride with my friends).

I learned a lot on the job. I loved the busyness and being in flow and having to get the time management right like those video games where you have to get the timing right of cooking and serving otherwise everything goes to shit.

I memorized my social security number for the first time because that was our sign in code.

I learned how to upsell people on pies, how to be more responsible on a job, and that a walk-in freezer is a choice place to cool down (and also make out).

If you’ve never worked in a restaurant, watch the 2005 movie Waiting. It paints an accurate picture, at least for the politically incorrect times back then. (I don’t know if most workplaces have cleaned up since.)

(Btw, I tell more Bakers Square stories in my friend Travis’ podcast.

John Greer
My Episode on Travis Birmley’s Podcast
Do you ever look back and think about all the mistakes you made, all the stupid things you did in high school…
Read more
5 years ago · John Greer

I learned about work relationships and work drama. We had fun trolling each other by doing things like calling in from the parking lot asking if they had watermelon pie.

I was in the middle of high school, full of hormones, and the cast of characters there was great.

Cast of Characters

There was Carlos, the cool Mexican guy who was always down to take more people in his section no matter how insanely busy it was.

There was Dawn, the tough broad who drank Hurricane out of a cup and showed up to work with a black eye from her old man. (She also had me feel her boob because she was proud they were real.)

There was the sweet MILF Barbara that us teenagers would flirt with and who later cried with me when I had to stop working.

There was Sara, the chill girl, who Travis and I became close friends with. The three of us would drive around and get into trouble together.

There was Miguel, a manager who deserves his own post, who I would drive around with in his giant SUV. We would hit shopping carts in the Best Buy parking lot and laugh while they went flying. This was when he wasn’t trying to get me to go to a strip club, or drink at the Applebee’s bar while he hit on the bartender.

Then there was Dan. Dan was a 19 or 20 year old guy with a goatee and gauges in his ears. He was crazy. He would go out to the parking lot and do lines of coke off his server book.

He talked about doing vodka enemas. The guy was a partier. I went to my first proper party with Dan and his friend Phil, and did my first shot there. I remember the alcohol burning on the way down. This would be the beginning of my anti-love affair with alcohol!

Dan loved the manga series Berserk and let me borrow it. I remember flipping through it for naked drawings of girls.

I eventually stopped working there and moved away from the Valley after high school.

Reconnect

I’ve moved a lot in my life. My original hometown was Hollister, CA where I went to a nice Christian school. We were all friends and it was really wonderful socially. (I wrote more about this in my post on bullying.)

John Greer
Bully For You
“Chink.” “Faggot…
Read more
6 years ago · John Greer

When we moved, I left a lot of really good friends. I always wondered what happened to them. This was before the age of MySpace so I never knew until I found some of them on Facebook many years later.

There’s something I really like about reconnecting with people from the past. Social media is a double-edged sword, though; it’s the best tool for looking people up and seeing what they’re up to, but it can take away some of the mystery and magic.

The same thing happened when I stopped working at Bakers Square and especially when I moved to Berkeley after high school, I lost touch with most of my coworkers.

I couldn’t find Dan on social media. Finally, I connected with him on Snapchat. He had moved to Georgia, but we texted back and forth once a year or so. At some point, I saw a meme about Berserk and texted him about it. Turns out he happened to be coming back to Modesto with his wife and daughter to visit his sick step-mom. The timing was perfect!

We planned to meet in San Francisco after he and his family visited Alcatraz.

I waited for him at the dock where people leave and return for the Rock. I was about to see the dude for the first time in 20 years! After scanning the crowds I finally spotted him and felt my heart race a little.

We had a really nice time. He was the same chill Dan, it felt like no time had passed.

I was surprised that Dan remembered a lot of detail from our past, even things I had forgotten about. For example, he remembered that I was always worried about my mom “beating my ass” if I came home too late. I brought up the coke on the server book, and without missing a beat he replied “Yep, that’s just what the job needed.” From my time doing interviews and discussing family history with lots of different people, I know how common it is to forget or confabulate, so I was impressed.

We ate lunch at Fisherman’s Wharf and saw the sea lions and his daughter went on the carousel. He told me about the jobs he was doing, like at a decommissioned nuclear site and all the cool architecture they had inside like a stainless steel floor. I love hearing about things like this, especially because of my fondness for urban exploration. We talked about other things like music. For you metal fans out there, Dan recommends the band Archspire.

It really is fun meeting up with people from the past because you can catch up and see how things turned out, but it can also be like a little time capsule where you reminisce and share stories the other may have forgotten. It’s great when you still “click”.

What has your experience been with reconnecting with people from the past? I’m actually curious about your answers so pls share!

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]]><![CDATA[Meeting Laura Truffaut]]>https://www.johncgreer.com/p/meeting-laura-truffauthttps://www.johncgreer.com/p/meeting-laura-truffautWed, 25 Feb 2026 18:45:57 GMTI got to meet Laura Truffaut, daughter of famous film director, Francois Truffaut!

I went to a showing of her dad’s film Stolen Kisses which she was introducing and then discussing in a Q and A afterward.

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She was very French, very charming, and had a very kind affect!

I’ve met a decent amount of famous or minorly famous people. I never like being that overly forward person rushing up to them and interrupting the conversation they were having. But sometimes there’s never a natural opening.

I was lucky that I got to meet her right when I walked in. I just assumed it was the lady surrounded by a group of people (I was right). Luckily, they didn’t overstay and I caught her right before more people she knew walked up.

(I like knocking out meeting someone up front or taking a picture right away, so I don’t have to ruminate about it later.)

I first asked if she was tired of doing these events (presenting her father’s films and doing Q&As). She laughed and said not yet but that I should ask her at the end of the series.

I then of course asked what her favorite movie is. She started to say the one we were about to watch, but I said, “You can’t say your dad’s!” She happily listed Miracle Worker, To Be or Not to Be, The Lady Vanishes, Rear Window, and one I can’t remember. (I thought it was nice that she listed Hitchcock movies since her father was one of the Cahiers du Cinéma French film critics who helped defend and popularize Hitchcock critically. Her dad eventually made a famous book, Hitchcock/Truffaut, from his interviews with him.)

After talking with Laura, I went into the theater and sat in my usual seat in the front middle, where I sit for all the BAMPFA showings with the filmmakers present.

I’m an anxious person and tend to fixate on making preparations because I am very outcome-dependent. But I’ve been to so many BAMPFA showings and got to ask a question at every one because of my strategy, so now I’m pretty confident.

The movie was actually lovely and is a sequel to his most famous film 400 Blows.

I always loved Truffaut in front of the camera as well, whether that was in Close Encounters of the Third Kind or Day for Night. For whatever reason, certain actors seem really likable to me, even without seeing much of them in interviews. For example, I really loved Bill Paxton, and for some reason, he’s the celebrity death I was most sad about.

The question I asked during the Q and A was: “What was your childhood like with a famous dad?”

She said “pretty normal”, which I somehow doubt. She did mention visiting film sets, including the one of the movie we watched. She had mentioned earlier first meeting her husband at a movie showing at the BAMPFA because he worked there, so I also asked her which movie, but she didn’t remember.

Being able to meet filmmakers and artists is one of the benefits of living in Berkeley -- I got to meet my hero Werner Herzog as well.

Overall, Laura is an extremely charming woman, and I hope she does more showings in the future! Better yet, I’ll have to convince her to do an interview with me!

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]]><![CDATA[Board of Supervisors Meeting Debrief]]>https://www.johncgreer.com/p/board-of-supervisors-meeting-debriefhttps://www.johncgreer.com/p/board-of-supervisors-meeting-debriefFri, 07 Nov 2025 00:24:17 GMTMeeting Debrief
Meeting Logistics

  • Meeting: Board of Supervisors

  • Date: Tuesday, October 28, 2025

  • Location: City Hall

  • Members of the public present: 50

Overall Impression

To me it was relatively fast paced not in the “not boring” sense but in the getting through a lot of agenda items relatively quickly but I think this is because most of the work is done behind the scenes and they are now executing perfunctory steps. Not everything is like this obviously but much of it. There was a lot of self-congratulatory comments given that there were commendations given out.

Meeting Agenda Item(s) of Interest

Honestly, none of them were that interesting to me. But, I thought some of the discussion of the “250682 Planning Code; Zoning Map - Consolidating the North Beach Special Use and Neighborhood Commercial Districts and Expanding Allowable Uses and Use Size Limits in Certain Zoning Districts” from Sauter was mildly interesting given the economic incentives.

Most Surprising

I learned there’s much more grandstanding from the Board of Supervisors which makes sense given their higher profile nature and bigger audience the sessions attract.

Political Dynamics

No, I didn’t really but wondered how much there was and how much kayfabe there is at the local level given said grandstanding.

Questions

I want to learn more about the behind the scenes dynamic and work that happens that the meeting just shows the end result of. I didn’t feel too confused.

]]><![CDATA[Sunshine Ordinance Task Force Commission Meeting Debrief]]>https://www.johncgreer.com/p/sunshine-ordinance-task-force-commissionhttps://www.johncgreer.com/p/sunshine-ordinance-task-force-commissionThu, 06 Nov 2025 22:19:37 GMTAs part of my homework for my how SF Government works class, I attended a commission meeting. This are my brief thoughts.

Meeting Debrief

Meeting Logistics

  • Meeting: Sunshine Ordinance Task Force

  • Date: Wednesday, November 5, 2025

  • Location: City Hall

  • Members of the public present: 5

Overall Impression

There were so many interesting things in such a short time but I think it was mostly luck. I walked in and sat down and there were only two other people in the audience but one of my classmates and another guy showed up as well. The clerk, Patricia Petersen, was very nice and asked if I was going to be speaking so she could learn my name to not “butcher it”.

Most of the committee seemed to not care that much and to not be paying attention. Many had to have things repeated to them because they weren’t listening.

It was nice seeing my teacher, Michael Adams, introduced and being at his first meeting as the mayoral designee.

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The two most active members were the chair, Matt Yankee, and David Pilpel. Chair Yankee, seemed competent with trying to move the agenda forward and be diplomatic between the different personalities. David Pilpel seemed to be a pedant overly concerned with minutiae.

It’s one thing if he was very dedicated at his job and cared about the details and expected the same of others. But he seemed to have not done things he should have done already but was on everyone else’s ass about trivia. For example, he really want to carefully check the minutes from a meeting he wasn’t even at.

It was interesting to see the tension and bickering between him and the clerk. I thought this would be the peak of drama in the evening but I didn’t know how wrong I would be. In looking up Pilpel, I see he has some controversy already.

The highlight was when we got to “Remarks from Members Hyland and Pilpel regarding comments made at the March 5, 2025 Sunshine Ordinance Task Force Regular Meeting.”. Pilpel started by apologizing for something and then Hyland (who showed up like 30 minutes late) gave a weak apology as well. Then the woman who had been sitting in the front row when I got there went up to speak. It turned out they were apologizing for mean comments they had made on hot mics to her. She made some angry comments and responses back to them and seemed particularly angry at Hyland who mostly didn’t look at her. “Look at me when I’m talking to you.” she said.

Ankita Kumar asked if she was at the meeting and then said as a woman, she cared a lot and didn’t want these things to happen. I thought it was weak and transparent especially given her lack of investment overall. I did think it was funny when they asked her when Diwali was as if she would know better than Google.

She made her comments and then left. We made eye contact as she was walking out, and I gave her a weak, supportive smile and she gave one back to me.

I wanted to keep going and hear what the older guy who came in had to say but couldn’t stay longer so had to leave. I’m now extremely disappointed to see they only have audio recordings and now video.

Meeting Agenda Item(s) of Interest

“Remarks from Members Hyland and Pilpel regarding comments made at the March 5, 2025 Sunshine Ordinance Task Force Regular Meeting.” of course because of the drama!

Most Surprising

I wasn’t expecting so much drama in such a short amount of time. I learned that there is a lot of variance in engagement from the different committee members.

Political Dynamics

There was tension between the clerk and Pilpel mostly but the rest of the committee didn’t seem in love with him either.

Questions

I want to know more about the dynamic and motivations of the members and their backgrounds. Also how they interface with the rest of the administration.

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]]><![CDATA[How the San Francisco Arts Commission Works: SF Gov Homework #5]]>https://www.johncgreer.com/p/how-the-san-francisco-arts-commissionhttps://www.johncgreer.com/p/how-the-san-francisco-arts-commissionWed, 05 Nov 2025 00:08:57 GMTThe San Francisco Arts Commission

The San Francisco Arts Commission is an agency that consists of fifteen members appointed by the Mayor for four-year terms. No Board of Supervisors control here. Eleven members must be “practicing arts professionals including two architects, a landscape architect, and representatives of the performing, visual, literary and media arts; and four members shall be lay members. The President of the Planning Commission, or a member of the Commission designated by the President, shall serve ex officio. Members may be removed by the Mayor.”

They are overseen by the Director of Cultural Affairs.

Two seats are currently vacant.

The commission was established under the 1932 San Francisco Charter.

The Arts Commission (15 member volunteer board) runs the Arts Commission (city agency with paid staff). It’s nice they both have the same name so no one gets confused!

How do you get money?

If you’re an artist, you apply for a grant, a panel scores and reviews the projects, and the Commission hopefully approves your grant.

Who decides what art goes on a site?

A selection panel made up for artists, community reps, and staff) recommends artists and proposals. They encourage public comment on proposals. Then the Arts Commission approves.

How much money are we talking about here?

For the 2025-2026 grant cycle, they awarded “$10.4 million to support 151 grantees, including more than $7.5 million in grant funding awarded to 98 individual artists and 47 arts nonprofit organizations, and nearly $3 million in funding support has been awarded to support cultural centers.”

There two main laws to know about:

Art Enrichment Ordinance (the 2%-for-art program)

In 1969, the Art Enrichment Ordinance (the 2%-for-art program) was enacted which is how public art is paid for for city construction. Two percent of the gross construction cost is set aside for public art.

This can be a significant amount. For example, the remodel of Terminal 2 at SFO Airport generated about $3.7 million in art enrichment funds.

What about art in POPOS (Privately-Owned Public Open Spaces)?

1% Art Program that requires all projects involving new building, or the addition of 25,000 square feet or more in the Downtown, SOMA, Dogpatch, and some other neighborhoods, provide public art equal to at least 1% of the total construction cost. It was established by the 1985 Downtown Plan and is governed by Section 429 of the Planning Code.

Since May 2012, developers can also choose to allocate their 1% to the City’s Public Art Trust instead or they can split the 1% between art on site and money to the trust.

Since May 2012, some projects may choose to dedicate a portion of their 1% Art requirement to the City’s Public Art Trust. To read more about the requirements, and the Public Art Trust, please read the Public Art Requirement Fact Sheet.

Recent changes

There have been recent controversial changes where they used to front a large amount of money to artists without much oversight and now they require much more paperwork and check-ins and focus more on reimbursement.

Payment advances will be capped at 50% (they used to do as much as 70%) and they will need to submit quarterly reports on spending and deliverables.

But after much pushback, they paused the changes until probably sometime next year.

1. Resources

Media

  • SF Chronicle article: S.F. arts community fears for its future as City Hall eyes stricter control of grants (06/28/25)

Public/Gov Sources

  • San Francisco Arts Commission policies (website)

Legal Sources

Experts to contact

2. Simple Map

]]><![CDATA[News Article Analysis: SF Gov Homework #4]]>https://www.johncgreer.com/p/news-article-analysis-sf-gov-homeworkhttps://www.johncgreer.com/p/news-article-analysis-sf-gov-homeworkSat, 25 Oct 2025 05:33:04 GMTNews Article

Title: San Francisco will sue if Trump deploys National Guard, city attorney says

  • Date: October 21, 2025

  • Source: San Francisco Standard

  • Summary: Trump threatened to send the National Guard in to San Francisco causing a lot of angry responses but what power the local government has seems to be very little.

Step 1: Relevant government entities from article:

  • POTUS

  • U.S. Supreme Court

  • California Governor

  • California Attorney General

  • SF Mayor

  • City Attorney

  • District Attorney

Step 2: Relevant law(s) from article:

Step 3: Relevant Government Subgraph:

]]><![CDATA[District Supervisor Map - SF Gov Homework #3]]>https://www.johncgreer.com/p/district-supervisor-map-sf-gov-homeworkhttps://www.johncgreer.com/p/district-supervisor-map-sf-gov-homeworkTue, 14 Oct 2025 12:54:01 GMTReflection: Al Franken can draw a map of the US from memory which is a pretty party trick. But I’m sure it also helps him plug in information easier by having that geography so well memorized.

I knew very little of anything and I think it would be a good exercise to have it roughly memorized as it’s a great framework to reference when people are taking about things going on in each district and who is in charge. Also, you seem like the incorrigible person at a cocktail party who knows all this stuff.

]]><![CDATA[Portsmouth Square: SF Gov Homework #3]]>https://www.johncgreer.com/p/portsmouth-square-sf-gov-homeworkhttps://www.johncgreer.com/p/portsmouth-square-sf-gov-homeworkTue, 14 Oct 2025 12:44:48 GMTCity Spotlight Research

Name: Portsmouth Square

Location: Chinatown

Current image(s):

Historical image(s):

Why it’s interesting/why you like it:
When I first came here, I thought it was just a normal park where people hung out and ate lunch with their friends. But it’s actually one of the most important areas in San Francisco history. Our local author Gary Kamiya calls this San Francisco’s historic ground zero. It’s also where all Chinatown guides start their tour.

Namesake/History:

  • Portsmouth Square has its claim to many oldest. It is the oldest park in San Francisco and was established before San Francisco was even San Francisco during the Mexican period of California. It was original the Plaza de Yerba Buena or La Plaza.

  • The area is the first American flag was raised declaring this a part of the United States. The oldest street is Grant Ave (originally Calle de la Fundación and later Dupont St.) runs right by it. The first public school in California was here. The city’s first newspaper was published here. This is where the Gold Rush actually started when Sam Brannan, California’s first millionaire, waved around a bottle with gold flakes and shouted “Gold! Gold! Gold from the American River!”

  • But what about today? Look around and you’ll see people playing cards, Chinese chess, exercising by doing tai chi. Chinatown is an extremely densely populated area, with most of the housing being SROs (single-room occupancy), rooms with no bathroom or kitchen that are around 70 to 100 square feet. Because the living spaces here are incredibly small so people hang out here, which is why Portsmouth Square is known as the living room of Chinatown.

]]><![CDATA[How Does Law Work? SF Gov Homework #2]]>https://www.johncgreer.com/p/how-does-law-work-sf-gov-homeworkhttps://www.johncgreer.com/p/how-does-law-work-sf-gov-homeworkTue, 07 Oct 2025 16:18:26 GMTIn class #2 of “How San Francisco Government Works” we learned about the types of law, the hierarchy that they are in, and how they work.

A big benefit of learning this stuff is that you can understand what you hear in the news more. For example, whether something is “unconstitutional” or not is constantly discussed.

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If you read the Constitution, you realize there isn’t a whole lot in it. Not that it isn’t important or amazing, but just that it’s incredibly brief. It’s not a long list of laws, but more “Here are the basic rules of this nation. You can fill in the blanks now.”

The Federal government is the highest authority for many things and the States are the highest authority for things the Feds leave up to them.

The Federal government is the highest authority for many things and the States are the highest authority for the rest. In practice, there is often tension between the two over their authority.

Then you learn that the legislative branch like Congress makes some of the rest of the laws. But it trickles down where more specialized and localized agencies pass laws for their field or location.

Everyone delegates. And then the courts are always interpreting the laws in this symbiotic circle.

It’s a good exercise to look up the local laws (which is often really annoying to do as many aren’t in a centralized location) and see what it looks like, from the mundane to the very impactful.

Homework #2 Below:

1. Hierarchy of Law

Complete Hierarchy of Law

Federal (US)

State (California)

Local (San Francisco)

2. Legislative Research: Statutory Law

2025 Legislation Sponsored by Supervisor Sauter

Ordinances introduced so far this year: # 1

Ordinances passed so far this year: # 1

Ordinance research: (choose the item most interesting to you and provide more information)

  1. Title: Ordinance approving amendments to the rules and regulations for the Neighborhood Beautification and Graffiti Clean-up Fund.

    1. File Number: 250488

    2. Cosponsors: Joel Engardio, Rafael Mandelman, Stephen Sherrill, Shamann Walton

    3. Introduced: 5/6/2025

    4. Status: Passed 6/24/2025

    5. Book of law affected: Administrative Code

    6. Why is this interesting or important? I don’t think it’s that interesting but it’s the only thing Sauter has passed so far. Maybe he’s not a heavyweight or maybe it’s too soon? I guess I’ll learn more! They are amending it to take into account new grant rules from Administrative Code Section 21G.

3. Legislative Research: Administrative Law

2025 regulations made by the Police Commission

  1. Item name or number: RESOLUTION NO. 25-44

  2. Description: APPROVAL TO ADOPT A RESOLUTION URGING THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS TO ACCEPT SAN FRANCISCO POLICE

    COMMUNITY FOUNDATION AND RIPPLE LABS, INC. DONATION OF FUNDS AND IN-KIND GIFTS VALUED AT

    APPROXIMATELY $9,381,571 TO SUPPORT THE REAL TIME INVESTIGATION CENTER (RTIC);

  3. Date passed: June 4, 2025

  4. Why is this interesting or important? I think it’s interesting to see how the city of San Francisco and the country at large deal with surveillance technology and how San Francisco fought it vigorously at first and is now embracing it. Seeing how the powerful can influence the city in a very direct way like this is notable and I also think it’s interesting how much of the Police Commissions resolutions deal with donations.

  5. How does this regulation compare to the ordinance you researched? It’s much more interesting and consequential and not just administrative code changes.

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]]><![CDATA[Taking a Class on How SF's Government Works]]>https://www.johncgreer.com/p/taking-a-class-on-how-sfs-governmenthttps://www.johncgreer.com/p/taking-a-class-on-how-sfs-governmentTue, 30 Sep 2025 06:06:11 GMTWhat do you know about how your local government? Can you name the mayor? Do you know who your city council person is?

I’ve started taking Michael Adams’ class “How SF Government Works”. I plan to write up more about the experience later but for now I want to say that just the initial information provides a useful framework for which to view the organization.

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He encourages the class to write out their thoughts and share them because it’s an important step in accumulating political capital. People need to know why they should listen to you and trust you. Luckily, I already have experience doing this but it’s a good exercise for people who aren’t writers.

We are supposed to post about who our mayor , local supervisor, and another elected official are and what their background, etc. is but I live in Berkeley so am adapting it. Even the template for the SF government is very helpful to compare and contrast with Berkeley like Board of Supervisors vs the Berkeley City Council. And I think even identifying who the elected officials are, because there aren’t that many, is helpful for when I’m going to all these events and can put names to faces and have context for who they are and what they do. And identifying the margin of victory helps show how tight the race is and maybe how much room for influence there is.

More later but for now, my homework is below:

SF Gov Homework #1

Berkeley

1. Mayor

Mayor: Adena Ishii

Time in office: Since November 2024 so roughly 11 months

Margin of victory: 1,039 votes in November 2024 general election

Previously held public or private/party office:

  • President, the League of Women Voters of Berkeley, Albany, and Emeryville

  • Co-chair, Berkeley Unified School District Reparations Task Force

  • Education consultant

2. City Council

City Council District: District 4

District Map:

Neighborhoods:

  • Downtown Berkeley

  • North Shattuck

  • Part of West Berkeley

District Population: 15,728 in 2020 https://berkeleyca.gov/sites/default/files/2022-04/IRC%20Redistricting%20Summary%20Data%20Analysis%20of%20Unofficial%20Legacy%20Data%20for%20Berkeley%20Census%20Count.pdf

My District Supervisor: Igor Tregub

Picture:

Public profiles:

Email: itregub@berkeleyca.gov

Time in office: May 2024, 1 year, 4+ months

Margin of victory: 49 ballots, 10 raw votes

Board and Committee Assignments:

  • Member, Berkeley City Council

  • Member, Land Use, Housing & Economic Development Committee

  • Member, Health, Life Enrichment, Equity & Community Committee

  • Member4x4 Joint Task Force Committee on Housing

  • Member Budget & Finance Committee

  • Member, City/UC Berkeley/Student Relations Committee

  • Member Mental Health Commission

Previously held public or private/party office:

  • Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board member

  • Clean energy consultant

  • Chair, Sierra Club San Francisco Bay Chapter

3. Berkeley School Board

Berkeley School Board President: Michael Chang

Picture:

Public profiles:

Time in office: November 2022, 2 years

Margin of victory: 1198

Previously held public or private/party office:

  • Lecturer at UC Berkeley

  • Civil Rights Attorney

  • Berkeley’s Police Review Commissioner

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]]><![CDATA[119th Anniversary of the Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire]]>https://www.johncgreer.com/p/sf-earthquakehttps://www.johncgreer.com/p/sf-earthquakeThu, 22 May 2025 16:40:53 GMTI finally made it to the 1906 Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire commemoration!

I talk about the earthquake and fires on the tour and how they are the only reason I exist (come on the tour to hear the story!), so I have wanted to go for a while.

It’s always a struggle for people to make it because the quake was at 5:12 in the morning, so the ceremony starts at 4:45am. It’s at Lotta’s Fountain because it was an important meeting point for people after the quake.

I had three missions for the day, in order of priority:

1. Attend the anniversary.

2. Paint the Golden Fire Hydrant. For those that don’t know, during the earthquake, most of the fire hydrants didn’t work, but this one did and helped save the Mission district. They paint it gold every year to honor it.

3. Meet Donna Huggins, who has portrayed Lillie Coit (of Coit Tower fame) for 50 years. Lillie Coit loved the firefighters and became their patron. 2025 is Donna’s last year doing it!

Bonus mission: Get a picture with the current mayor, Daniel Lurie.

Lei and I had already met Daniel Lurie on the same evening we met then mayor London Breed. It was at the 175th banquet for the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association (the “Six Companies”). He came to our table glad-handing, but I didn’t think to take a picture then because I didn’t know much about him or that he would win, haha.

I made it a bonus mission because I can ruminate too much on things I feel like I should do at social events. I can think too much about being very outgoing and making things happen, instead of being in the moment. But the benefit is I can often do some cool stuff. I just want the best of both worlds!

The commemoration itself was kind of a letdown. The fire chief, who was the MC, talked during the moment of silence. They screwed up the countdown to the quake. Many speakers like former mayor Willie Brown weren’t talking into the mic. And it was super cold!

Lei and I hung around after and met and took pictures with Donna (who is very sweet) and the fire chief.

We left and got to the Golden Fire Hydrant where the ceremony was already underway. We couldn’t talk to the mayor because he was already mid-speech. After he was done, he went to the opposite side from where we were. We followed him over there, but by the time we got there he was nowhere to be found. I thought he left but then spotted him behind the filming lights hanging out with his lackey.

I didn’t want to be awkward and move through people to get to him, so I hoped a better moment would come. A few minutes later, he was talking to a fellow City Guide and moving closer to us. I swooped in and we got our picture – bonus mission accomplished! Huge victory! (Lurie did a lot less sucking up post-election btw.)

The ceremony commenced with people giving speeches that were too long and then eventually spraying the hydrant with the golden spray paint.

I thought only the officials were giving the speeches (talking into the mic in front of everyone) and then they would switch to the public. But when they got to regular members of the public, they were still handing them the mic! They would say some words and dedicate their spray to a person usually. I was unprepared for this and wondering what I would say.

I thought about who I would dedicate my turn to. I thought about saying AI safety people but thought no one would get it and it would feel kind of cringe. So I dedicated it to those trying to make sure our future goes well (of which, the AI safety community is most important) and to my family.

Lei was nervous to go up and talk, but he crushed it. He said a lovely piece about the Chinese not being included in the earthquake death toll, and dedicated his spray to all the forgotten groups.

Surprisingly, no members of the public talked for too long as opposed to some of the fire department brass.

It feels good being part of the community, and it’s nice thinking about everyone’s roots here including my own. You see a lot of familiar faces at these city events and slowly get to know people and their relationships with each other. For example, I didn’t realize I had already met Donna at the 150th anniversary of the cable car! Or that she’s friends with the guy who plays Emperor Norton (a notorious SF personality in the late 1800s). Or that Emperor Norton is married to the drag queen who also dresses up and gives drag tours!

Emperor Norton’s husband was really nice. I also met Laura Ackley, the author of the definitive book on the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition that gave us the Palace of Fine Arts.

It’s nice when these events actually work and make you feel connected to the community and to the city and its long history. Like “Look at how much we’ve survived!” and “We’re all in this together!”

I’m not sure I’ll wake up early again next year, but it is the 120th and we know humans like round numbers! If you have a connection to the city, I recommend sucking it up and waking up early and connecting with the community by remembering one of the most important events in San Francisco’s history.

If you enjoyed this, you should definitely check out:

Taking a Knife Defense Class with Shivworks Craig Douglas

Trying Human Flesh for the First Time

Thoughts, questions, or suggestions for how I can improve? Email me.

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]]><![CDATA[The Three Boxes: A Simple Model for Spreading Ideas]]>https://www.johncgreer.com/p/the-three-boxeshttps://www.johncgreer.com/p/the-three-boxesThu, 10 Apr 2025 17:15:05 GMTWe need more people on board for life extension in order to hit longevity escape velocity in our lifetimes. But most people have never heard of life extension, and even those who have often follow the same predictable arguments. “What if it doesn’t work?” “What if bad people live forever?” “What if humanity needs to refresh its stock every so often in order to make progress?” “What about heaven?”

We need more people working on AI safety so we don’t all end up dead.

We need more people to understand the coordination problem as the central problem in politics and economics.

For those of us in the business of spreading ideas, it can be a tough row to hoe (I had to look up this phrase to make sure I was saying it right). It can feel like an uphill battle but the way you model it can help guide you.

This is my model when thinking about spreading ideas, especially ones outside the Overton window. It applies less in the later stages of a movement when the Overton window has shifted.

It’s about three boxes. I like buckets but I already have an important post about three buckets so boxes it is.

There’s the giant box. This box has the people that don’t agree with you. In fact, they probably think you’re a terrible person just for talking about these ideas.

There’s the small box. This box has the people that already agree with you.

Then there’s the Tiffany-sized box. These are the people who you may be able to reach with your ideas. The box is much smaller than the giant box.

Why is this?

Four reasons:

1. Efficient market hypothesis. The people who are open to these ideas already believe them.

The obvious caveat is the EMH applies less to new or radical or uncommon ideas since people are less likely to have heard about them. Think transhumanism vs democracy or AI safety research vs Christianity.

2. The amount of people who are smart enough/high enough in openness/reasonable enough to understand and accept a new idea is small. 

3. More often than not, the truth is something we don’t want to hear or don’t want to be true. I would love if there was an eternal paradise but there’s not. It would be wonderful if everyone was born smart and beautiful but they aren’t. I would love if we knew for certain that cryonics would work but we don’t.

4. Rationality people can be worse at selling ideas than non-rationality people for a number of reasons:

a. Autism and other neurodivergence are overrepresented in the rationality community which can make people less socially skilled than normies.

b. Many are uncomfortable using the so-called “Dark Arts” of persuasion/influence.

c. Rationality people promote epistemic awareness and humility and recognize that things are often shades of grey. They often provide confidence levels as opposed to blanket statements, e.g. “I’m very confident that my model of Covid-19 is right.” or “I have low confidence in my model of what’s going on with AlphaZero.” They also recognize there are usually pros and cons to issues and nuance. This can be less of a sell than “This is how it works! Big Pharma is evil!”

So how should we act based on all this? What do we do with this model?

Here are some implications:

1. Try not to be discouraged by the giant box.

As a cynic, I know this can be hard. There are some things we can do to alleviate discouragement:

a. Surround yourself with the people in the small box — the good and smart people who are on the same page — so you can find relief in them. “I’m not the only sane one!” The trick (besides finding such people) is not just surrounding yourself with yes men or having your group turn into an echo chamber.

b. Avoid spending a lot of time reading annoying shit on the internet. It can be addictive to read flame wars on Twitter but this is mostly a waste of time and just gets us worked up and not much else.

c. Keep a list of people who inspire you. I’m starting to do this by writing about my heroes.

2. Put your effort into the Tiffany-sized box: the people who are likely to be open to your ideas and smart enough to understand them.

Libertarians would love if there were more women among them. But focusing on just getting more women might be a huge waste of resources in the same way that it would be a waste of effort to get more women to be loggers (99.1% men in 2016) or men to be kindergarten teachers (97.5% women in 2016).

Yes, this can result in an overrepresentation but sometimes there’s not much you can do about it even if you make large attempts at being more “inclusive”.

To use your resources effectively in spreading ideas, it’s better to focus on more fertile ground first. 

a. Notice what beliefs, etc. correlate with being open to the idea and focus on people with those.

In the libertarian example, they might focus more effort on converting women gun enthusiasts vs women at liberal arts colleges.

Now, if you’re promoting veganism, you’d want to switch that and focus on the liberal arts colleges vs gun enthusiasts.

I wish it weren’t like this and we could have all the best beliefs instead of having these irrational strong constellations of beliefs, but we don’t currently live in that world.

  1. Remember that it can get easier and breakneck change is eventually possible

As your numbers and in turn resources grow, you’ll be in a better place to shift the Overton window. Or at least be a major player in the future Culture Wars.

Once the Overton window has shifted, change can happen very fast! Support can increase quite modestly and then things hit a tipping point where things change metaphorically overnight. Support and legalization of gay marriage is the poster-child for this.

Major politicians of all parties (including Obama and the Clintons) were against gay marriage. While Bernie wasn’t 100% out and proud in supporting gay marriage, he was light years ahead of everyone else.

It’s a good thing to celebrate people changing their minds to better and more accurate beliefs. But when people just flip-flop because their tribe did or it’s politically expedient, that is less of a cause for celebration. 

Nerdy, liberal girls who were tripping over themselves to identify as Ravenclaws, now think that J.K. Rowling deserves death.

Culture is weird and volatile. (Even if you think Rowling is worthy of death, it still is weird and sad that people’s beliefs change that fast.)

Capriciousness just means they’ll give up a reasonable and rational belief for whichever one is in vogue. That’s bad.

“The mob is fickle, brother.”

This kind of capriciousness makes me feel like there should be a different word for beliefs that have been worked out and evaluated and then supported or not, vs this kind of tribal emotional bullshit, but that’s for another post.

A tipping point can also come because new technology has become available as opposed to just being theoretical. The old chestnut of “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” comes to mind.

A future example is longevity treatment. Very few people today support longevity research despite them supporting something much less effective but in the same direction like breast cancer research, etc. This is because people are stupid. 

But as Aubrey de Grey and others point out, the second we get real anti-aging treatment, you’ll have people overwhelmingly switch to wanting it. And bitching that they can’t have it despite actively not supporting it before, the fuckers…

What’s the point of getting people to change their minds now then if they’ll just end up changing them on their own in the future? 

The point is to get support in the form of money or people working on research or public policy changes. Every day we remain lax on things like AI safety research increases the risk we die from AGI. Every day we don’t have longevity tech is 100,000+ people dying. 99% of the things people purport to care about absolutely pales in comparison to causes like these. That’s why we work to spread ideas.

So in summary:

There are three boxes:

  1. The giant box: the people that don’t agree with you.

  2. The small box: the people that already agree with you.

  3. The Tiffany-sized box: the people who you may be able to reach with your ideas.

The lessons from the three boxes model are:

  1. Try not to be discouraged.

  2. Surround yourself with people who inspire you and make you feel less cynical.

  3. Write about the people who inspire you.

  4. Sow your seeds in fertile ground.

  5. Remember that it can get easier and rapid change is possible

  6. Don’t forget the stakes matter. Keep up the good fight.

Understand the three boxes? Wonderful! How about the three buckets which are much more important?

The Three Buckets of Life: How to Spend Your Time and Money

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The post The Three Boxes: A Simple Model for Spreading Ideas appeared first on John Greer.

]]><![CDATA[Taking a Knife Defense Class with Shivworks Craig Douglas]]>https://www.johncgreer.com/p/shivworkshttps://www.johncgreer.com/p/shivworksFri, 28 Mar 2025 00:02:27 GMTWould you ever take a course on how to defend yourself from knife attacks? What about a course on how to stab people?

I finally checked off one of my bucket list items training with Craig Douglas and doing his Edged Weapons Overview course. It’s a course on how to manage criminal interactions and survive knife attacks, and how to defend yourself with knives.

I’ve been interested in martial arts since I was a kid. I was enamored with the cool moves of Bruce Lee or the Shaolin monks.

I’ve always been a skeptic. Anyone who knows me knows I hate bullshit. That’s a big problem with martial arts: it’s full of bullshit — things that are ridiculous and don’t work in real life. There’s an important concept known as “pressure testing” in martial arts, where you see if it works with full resistance. The UFC and combat sports were great at providing a testing ground to see what works and what doesn’t. While you may not be able to repeat test eye gouges and groin kicks, it’s still the best we have. Even the “real self defense” stuff often has a massive amount of BS.

When I was either in 8th grade or a freshman in high school, I started researching martial arts on the internet. I first heard about Craig on “selfdefenseforums.com” where he would post as “SouthNarc”. That was his nickname because he was a “dope cop” (an undercover narcotics officer) in the South.

That forum was one of the places where people really tried to focus on what works. It was like Bullshido where there was a lot of criticism of traditional martial arts being ineffective.

So I’ve known about Craig for 20 years. He is the best in the world at what he does.

So the course was finally going to happen in San Francisco! It was rare to have it here because most people aren’t exactly the target demographic. So I signed up!

I immediately regretted it. The closer it got the more I wanted to cancel! Were Craig and Brian going to be assholes in real life? Were the other trainees going to be weirdos? Who signs up for a class to learn how to stab people??

I was going to be around a bunch of strangers in a very stressful environment.  Shivworks famously has these “evolutions” where they do intense scenario-based sparring. For example: you have a knife and you’re being attacked by someone. Or you’re being attacked by a guy and you both have knives and his friend comes in to punch the shit out of you. The edits of these evolutions look very intense, and a lot of the attendees mentioned being intimidated by them.

It can feel embarrassing if you get beat up in front of the crowd of people encircling you. Many of these people have “years and years” of martial arts experience. More on that later.

I wanted to get them over with in the beginning, but that would of course have been pointless because the whole idea is to put together what we’ve learned and test it.

I also don’t enjoy being very out of breath or not being able to breath.

I was most worried about injury. If you’re reading this and haven’t sparred, you may think the common injuries are ones from being punched or kicked or whatever. They do happen, but the most common injuries are when someone moved wrong and your toe got bent or crushed. Or someone fell wrong and your knee is messed up. Not to mention the bruises that cover your body.

(The truth is, most people get way more injured from training than they do in violent encounters, unless you live in a very bad neighborhood.)

Anyways, I was anxious.

Different martial arts have different cultures. For example, judo is very academic, MMA has a lot of meatheads.

Getting there, I quickly saw the Shivworks people were overall very chill. (At least the ones coming to San Francisco.) They had a variety of backgrounds, but many people who trained off and on and had spent time in a lot of different martial arts.

The course was structured where Craig and his co-trainer Brian, provide an algorithm for dealing with sketchy approaches by people, which will honestly be the thing we all use the most in real life. Then you learn how to control people through wrestling, try to survive a knife attack, and learn how to use your own knife to stop adversaries.

I asked Craig a million questions — many about different martial arts and gun experts — to see what he thought. I’ll often ask people I trust about their peers in the field that I haven’t met and don’t know if they’re legit or not.

It was nice getting his insider view on the personalities I’ve heard about. Some good, many bad.

He talked about incidents where he was almost beaten or shot to death, and times where he had to shoot people. And he told me about times he used his service weapons.

I think stress inoculation — going through stressful experiences and building up resilience and knowing you got through that — can help you keep calm in other experiences. Training with my friend and MMA coach, Daron, helped me with knowing how to better move and strike, yes. But I also learned I could get through these intense and very uncomfortable training moments.

It also helped having the equipment ready to go like a cup and custom mouthguard. 

There were a variety of skill levels in the class. 

One problem trained grapplers have is that their BJJ gets them in trouble. They get attached to the person and may even get in a traditionally dominant position, but they get stabbed by their opponent, or stabbed or knocked out by their opponent’s friend. So you cannot get stuck to one person.

You learn how to deal with sketchy approaches and how to avoid getting knocked out by sucker punches.

They frequently emphasize that if you’re using this training, it’s going to be the worst day of your life.

To get really good at this or anything physical, you need to drill it a lot, and this was only a weekend. But sometimes having even a little knowledge and practice, along with an algorithm of what to do, can be a cheat code to win.

You can feel your adrenaline build up watching these primal fights in front of you.

I got to the evolutions and wasn’t feeling too nervous.

I’d rather play the defender first because being the attacker is much more fun. Especially when it’s two on one.

You get anxious not knowing who Craig or Brian are going to pick for you to fight. I don’t mind fighting people way more skilled than me but I didn’t want to fight some of the spazzes who had trouble following the rules in the moment. To avoid injury, you weren’t supposed to try hard to take people down or to really swing on them. Many people did these things anyways. “Shit happens,” as Craig said. But I like my face and joints and didn’t want shit to happen to me. But I was really lucky in that I had good sparring partners who weren’t spazzes.

Also, it’s sort of unspoken to go easier on less skilled people. Some people still go hardcore but I try to adapt when there’s a big skill disparity. Luckily the worst injury I got was messing up my thumb against this pro kickboxer’s iron abs.

Craig talked about how it takes courage to come to the seminars. I don’t like false empowerment but it’s true. You’re being vulnerable in front of a crowd of people.

I made some friends and have a new strong algorithm for sketchy approaches and weapons defense.

Overall, it was an honor to train with the legend. If you can, this is probably the shortest time you could spend and gain the most knowledge you would actually apply in a self-defense scenario. It lived up to all the hype and it’s cool to do something you’ve been wanting to do for a long time. Like finally seeing the Eiffel Tower and knowing what it’s actually like.

If you enjoyed this, you should definitely check out:

Bully For You

Trying Human Flesh for the First Time

The Apocalypse is Coming or Why I’ve Been Existentially Depressed

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The post Taking a Knife Defense Class with Shivworks Craig Douglas appeared first on John Greer.

]]><![CDATA[Interview with Bill O’Rourke – Russian Corruption, Putin, Applied Ethics, and More]]>https://www.johncgreer.com/p/bill-orourke-interviewhttps://www.johncgreer.com/p/bill-orourke-interviewSun, 27 Oct 2024 02:33:39 GMTI was lucky enough to interview Bill O’Rourke.

Imagine you’re on a plane to Russia to become the new president of an aluminum factory. Conditions are abysmal. People are dying every year due to unimaginable safety conditions. Corruption is everywhere from the mayor on down. You’ll have to deal with oligarchs who’ve assassinated people. You’ll even be robbed by the cops.

What would you do? How would you fix things?

This is the position Bill O’Rourke found himself in.

I first met Bill when we toured the Carrie Furnaces in Pittsburgh. I liked Bill right away and knew I needed to record an interview with him.

We talked about everything from growing up in Steel City in its heyday, to teaching Delta Force operators about ethics, to turning around a Russian factory that killed five people a year, to Putin stealing a Super Bowl ring.

Bill has not only led an incredibly interesting life but he’s also a man of integrity and character (and that’s something I would rarely say!).

Enjoy the interview!

Timestamps below:

Introduction: How I Met Bill

0:00

Introduction

2:17

Bill’s background – storied childhood and career!

5:18

Bill’s book: The Business Ethics Field Guide

6:20

Adapting his book for Special Forces
Ethical dilemmas in the military

8:13

How Bill and I met
Why Bill gives tours of Carrie Furnaces

9:38

Family history and working in the steel industry

White hat status symbol

Ironically not being encouraged to go to law school

10:40

Bill’s family, and where he is in the sibling lineup

His dad teaching him ethics, no profanity

How his dad dealt with bribes

13:57

Did Bill play basketball? Being coached by his dad – anti-nepotism

15:13

Did he ever feel like his goody two shoes dad was too ethical?

Didn’t know he was poor

16:10

Being an altar boy, did he have any priest issues?

Was a Boy Scout, any issues there?

Vietnam War

16:44

What made Bill want to go into the military?

Fear of Vietnam, mother cried

Draft lottery

Captain of the Pistol Team

18:11

The Deer Hunter

Why didn’t he stay an engineer?

Going to law school

19:48

Law school doesn’t have any answers

20:37

What does he think of patent law?

Edison’s lightbulb

Working on trademarks, first trademark in China

Patent trolls

Working at Alcoa

24:30

Why did he work at Alcoa

Getting promoted

Paul O’Neill

Chief Financial Officer, Rick

Integrity

27:34

What was it like when outsider Paul O’Neill took over Alcoa?

People in line to take over were pissed they didn’t get it

Safety was number one

The most enlightened leader he’d ever seen

The best company in the world

How fast can you close the doors?

Only Yahoo was as fast

31:11

Becoming the CIO of the company

Going from 108 data centers to two: Is that the best? How can you be the best?

Getting excited about coming into work

Discretionary effort: plus or minus 20

32:27

Moving from a closed to open office pissed off a lot of people

Escalators, not elevators

Everyone had same 9×9 cubicle with same furniture

10 design principles

34:34

Paul must have been pretty polarizing

He started attracting rather than polarizing

Working in Russia

34:58

Abysmal Russian conditions

Bribery and corruption

Where do you start?

If you get safety right, you’ll get everything right

Incident rate 10x higher

5 people killed on average for 50 years

1 or 2 fatality risks a month, stopped looking after finding 2500 fatality risks

37:49

Why did he go to Russia?

Alcoa’s growth

Switch from plastic to aluminum

40:42

How did he prepare for Russia?

It was extremely overwhelming

Trying to meet all the new employees

41:39

Did he feel like an outsider?

He had a translator, a bodyguard, and a driver

Being robbed by the police – Who do you call?

43:01

Expectation of corruption: bribery to get accepted into university

Not paying corruption, didn’t break even until the 4th year

Pressure to give into corruption (even the mayor wanted it!)

Why was Bill selected?

Bringing values into Russia

How did other companies handle Russian culture?

Coca-Cola okay with bribing; Shell and Exxon, not

Smaller companies have to deal with the Russian mafia

47:24

Did Bill know he would never have to budge?

It’s in the cities interest to have his company employing people

The federal government and Russia itself benefiting

Damage of companies pulling out because of the war now

48:33

How do he and his Russian wife feel about the war?

Russian and Ukrainian corruption

Companies pulling out of Russia

Energy exports propping them up

52:45

Meeting Putin

Putin steals Bob Kraft’s Super Bowl ring

53:32

Bob Kraft visiting the Tree of Life synagogue

Bill running the Tree of Life synagogue after the shooting

Muslims and Jews positive relations

Christchurch shooting

Touring the synagogue with one of the survivors

More about Bill

57:38

Did Bill realize he was exceptional when he was young?

Bill got good grades and got awards

Bill is so humble

Bill’s personal mission statements

59:41

Bill mentors soldiers 

Americans Corporate Partners

Jake Voelker and Voodoo Brewery

Joe Grant and PNC Bank

102:48

Does Bill identify as an extrovert?

Bill goes to a bar

Bill talks to strangers at the airport

Thomas Edison

1:03:18

The magic of learning the stories people have and how things work

Where does electricity come from?

Henry Ford, Greenfield Village, Edison & Ford Winter Estates in Fort Myers

Historical figures interacting

1:05:06 

Edison’s impressive resume

Michelangelo vs Da Vinci, Edison vs Tesla

John is an Edison defender

Edison, Westinghouse, war of the currents

Electrifying elephants and bear fights

Bill’s Heroes and Family

1:06:31

If you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be?

Bill’s eleven heroes

Bill McDonough

Yuri Gagarin

Neil Armstrong’s humility

Thomas Jefferson the architect

Mother Theresa

Gandhi

Pope John Paul II (and Bill’s wife’s gracious sacrifice!)

The Pirates Pierogies

His dad and his trip to Annapolis and the WWII Monument

His impressive Matryoshka doll collection

1:13:56

Was it hard moving his wife over from Russia?

Did his family accept her?

1:14:55

A Special Operations Forces Ethics Field Guide

Cute kids’ drawing

Signing John’s copy of his book

Old School Values

1:15:42

Interlude: Bill’s old school values

Deontologist vs consequentialist

Kobayashi Maru

Rationalist, Effective Altruists

Applied examples where you could actually see yourself using his advice

1:16:58

Bill’s old school values and what he thinks of modern society

Wokeness, losing traditions

George Washington, historical figures weren’t perfect, important to learn from them

George Washington deserves more respect, could have been King

Judging people by modern day standards vs the standards of the time

Bill has hope, is impressed with the next generation

Hearing negative news stories, meeting kids helps combat the cynicism

Ethical Dilemmas

1:20:06

Asking Bill ethical questions

The Trolley Problem

Bill doesn’t like those types of problems. Bottom line: at least do something!

Recognize you have an ethical issue

What about people lacking discernment?

The importance of reputation

Reputation as a defense

The cost of awkwardness

1:25:13

What is Bill’s model of people? Are people inherently good or bad?

Dennis Praeger and Bill have opposite models

Everybody comes in at a 10/10 with Bill. Lose points from unethical acts

Important to admit mistakes to yourself

Compliance vs agency

Lessons from Paul O’Neill: What would the best company in the world do?

Legal culpability mindset vs moral compass pointing true north

Teach people that compliance is your floor, not your ceiling

People want to invest in socially responsible companies

1:31:32

More timely ethical questions: Vaccine mandates? Politics in the workplace?

Paul O’Neill’s “just the facts” approach to climate change

You shouldn’t be able to predict political beliefs based on one hobby but you can

Bill is an environmentalist

Bill gets a Cadillac LYRIQ

Where does your electric car get energy from? Coal!!

What does Bill think of nuclear?

John talks about scale

1:40:59

Would Bill go to space?

Weird that nuclear isn’t on the liberal agenda

Bill would be on both sides of the political aisle – shows he’s more of a thinker

Movies

1:41:44 

What is Bill’s favorite movie of all time?

Top Gun: Maverick

Jurassic World Dominion

Groundhog Day

Mission Impossible movies

James Bond (Bill and John were skeptical of Craig at first)

Russia Now

1:43:43

Technological development is amazing

How long would the trip from Michigan to Pittsburgh have taken before?

Eisenhower’s interstate system (Russia’s highway system sucks!)

Bill is able to talk to his wife in Russia

1:44:34

Is it crazy in Russia now?

Does Bill get along with his wife’s family?

Do his wife’s kids still live in Russia?

Sketchy advice for getting to the US

1:46:48

Bill wouldn’t let his kids download music

1:47:08

Bill advising Bob Dole on not giving oligarch Oleg Deripaska a visa

Was Bill ever afraid of getting hurt?

The Russian mafia was who you had to worry about hurting you (Alcoa was too big)

The cops robbed Bill

Bill would be detained in airports (longest detention: 9 hours)

If you stick to your guns, it’ll pay off

Smartest Person of All Time

1:48:59

Who does Bill think is the smartest person of all time?

Bill likes JFK

John will say his moon speech when he’s trying to do something hard

Kennedy gave hope, current president doesn’t

Those two are our best candidates??

Did Bill ever think about politics?

Bill’s brother Tom was involved, wanted to save drowning black kids

Genesis Holmes

O’Rourke have a family safety record

Outro: Feeling Less Cynical

1:52:52

Parting thoughts on Bill

I am too cynical and believe in the best predictive power

Bill makes me feel less cynical about life

I have a lot more interviews already shot that I’m in the process of editing so subscribe for more!

If you enjoyed this, you should definitely check these out:

Interview with Nectome CEO Robert McIntyre – Brain Preservation, Personal Identity, AGI, and More

What Arnold Means to Me

Did this post make you think? Are you someone who likes thought-provoking content and making other people feel good? Of course you are!

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