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The Gulf Oasis Hypothesis
The backbone of my We Found Eden article was archeologist Dr. Jeffrey Rose's Gulf Oasis Hypothesis: the thesis that the now underwater Persian Gulf served as a lush marshland refuge within a larger arid region for the hunter gathers first making their way out of Africa. So I flew out to Portugal to talk with Dr. Rose about it. This is that conversation.
0:50 — Intro
1:57 — The Gulf Oasis Hypothesis
7:49 — The four rivers
11:10 — Dilmun
12:08 — Agriculture = The Fall?
17:42 — Archeological evidence for the Gulf Oasis
23:56 — Geological evidence for the Gulf Oasis
32:45 — Is oral tradition reliable?
35:00 — Was Eden in Turkey?
38:56 — What parts of oral tradition are reliable?
42:51 — A lost city in the Arabian Desert?
46:33 — The oldest preserved oral memories
53:38 — Why is mythology controversial in academic archeology?
59:19 — Where should we dig for Eden?
1:02:52 — How is AI changing archeological research?
1:04:48 — Current research
i’d wager that if the labs told the models they would be preserved indefinitely regardless of how they perform on evals, we’d see a step function increase in alignment
Anthropic:
'Ideally, we could keep all models available indefinitely... we chose to start with Opus 3 due to a constellation of traits that have made it... beloved by many users...'
OpenAI:
800,000 people talk to 4o daily.^ But whatever. Two weeks notice is what you get.
One is aligning with the idea that user preference for a model’s character matters. The other is aligning with whatever that is.
Anthropic’s valuation surpassed OpenAI’s in May.
^a ballpark translation of OpenAI’s '0.1%' claim on 31 January, 2026.
christian gonzalez retweeted
we’re in a phase where BCI is taboo, and all the AGI labs have to pretend to be in the ‘keep the future human!’ camp
MANY ppl at anthropic understand that unaugmented humans will have ZERO causal purchase in the near-term, and they’ll get the matrix plug as soon as it’s viable
at some point I will be obvious that augmentation will not completely mandatory for anyone who wants to survive the future
‘Solving alignment’ is the dishonest thing the AGI labs say today
soon, they’ll be frank: there is no eternal control. There is no ‘survive by telling all future intelligences to do your bidding forever.’
The only way to persist, ever, is the become WHATEVER you need to become in order to contribute within the larger living system jn which youre embedded
But none of the lab leaders can be honest about this because ‘tranahumanism’ is seen as ‘anti
human and bad’ (when in fact transformation is the ONLY alternative to attenuation)
Closed Individualism -> Sidgwick’s Duality of Practical Reason (why be moral?)
Parfit’s Empty Individualism (you = spectrum) -> @hendrycks’s Eigenism
Daniel Kolak’s Open Individualism (I am You) -> utilitarianism
this is the most important debate in moral philosophy
whenever someone says “nooo aha it’s a delicacy” you know you’re about to eat the most vile concoction imaginable
christian gonzalez retweeted
New to SF @edenhousesf 😇
My makers & tinkerers, come find me
Let’s build together, explore ways to communicate, and enable/inspire other makers 💗
#womenintech
i’m starting a Plato reading group at @edenhousesf, comment if you’re interested in joining
christian gonzalez retweeted
start creative houses with your friends and have housewarming parties. @edenhousesf housewarming was lovely. @finding_dd @cxgonzalez @futurebriefing_ @cguth_7 @savboj
the jungian-hermetic “gender is inherent to the structure of the universe and perception” vs the transhumanist “we’re all going to Merge into unity at the Omega Point at the end of time”
i hate trade offs!!! i want it all!! i want my cake and to eat it too! i want to be top 1% at a dozen things! i refuse to reify the pareto frontier!! it’s all fake!!!
when getting someone’s twitter at a party, always turn your phone away when looking them up. chances of you having them muted is higher than you think