The Trap of Smart People: Why Vitalik Wants Us to Stick to the 'Dumb Rules'

Original Title: The Trap of Smart People: Why Vitalik Wants Us to Stick to the “Dumb Rules”

Original Author: Zhixiong Pan

Source:

Reprint: Mars Finance

The article “Galaxy Brain Resistance” published by Vitalik a few weeks ago is quite obscure and difficult to understand, and I haven't seen any good interpretations, so let me give it a try.

After all, I see that the creator of the term Vibe Coding, Karpathy, also read this article and took notes, so there must be something special about it.

First, let's talk about what the terms Galaxy Brain and Resistance mean in the title. Once you understand this title, you'll have a rough idea of what this article is about.

1. The Chinese translation of Galaxy Brain is “银河大脑”, but it actually comes from an internet meme, similar to an image that merges (galaxy and brain) together, which you have definitely seen.

At first, this was certainly a positive expression, used to praise someone's idea as brilliant, meaning clever. But later, as its usage became widespread, it gradually turned into a kind of sarcasm, roughly meaning “overthinking, logic is too convoluted.”

Here, Vitalik mentions Galaxy Brain, specifically referring to the behavior of “using high intelligence for mental gymnastics to insist that unreasonable things have great reasoning.” For example:

• Clearly it's to save money and lay off a large number of employees, yet they insist on saying it's “to deliver high-quality talent to society.”

• Clearly just a scam to exploit investors with worthless tokens, yet claims to be “empowering the global economy through decentralized governance.”

All can be considered as “galactic brain” thinking.

2. So what does Resistance mean? This concept can easily be confusing; in popular terms, it can be likened to the “ability to avoid being led astray” or the “ability to avoid being misled.”

So Galaxy Brain Resistance should be Resistance to [becoming] Galaxy Brain, which means: “the ability to resist (evolving into) galaxy brain (nonsense).”

Or, more accurately, it is about how easy it is to misuse a certain style of thinking/argumentation to “prove any conclusion you want.”

So this “resistance” can be against a certain “theory”, for example,

• The theory of Low Resistance: With just a little scrutiny, it can evolve into the extremely absurd logic of the “Galactic Brain”.

• The theory of High Resistance: No matter how you analyze it, it remains the same and is difficult to evolve into absurd logic.

For example, Vitalik said that the ideal social law should have a red line: it can only be prohibited when it can be clearly explained how a certain behavior causes harm or risk to specific victims. This standard is very resistant to Galaxy Brain, as it does not accept vague or infinitely stretchable reasons like “I subjectively dislike it” or “it is immoral.”

3. Vitalik also provided many examples in the article, even citing theories we often hear about, such as “long-termism” and “inevitability.”

“Long-termism” finds it difficult to resist the erosion of Galaxy Brain thinking, as its resistance is extremely low, almost like a “blank check.” This is because the “future” is too distant and too vague.

• High resistance statement: “This tree can grow 5 meters tall in 10 years.” This is verifiable and not easy to bluff.

• Low-resistance “long-termism”: “Although I am about to do something extremely unethical (such as eliminating a portion of people or waging war), it is for the sake of enabling humanity to live in a utopian state 500 years from now. According to my calculations, the total happiness in the future is infinite, so the sacrifices made now are negligible.”

You see, as long as you stretch the time long enough, you can justify any wrongdoing in the present. As Vitalik said: “If your argument can justify anything, then your argument proves nothing.”

However, Vitalik also acknowledged that “long-term is important.” He criticized the use of “overly vague and unverifiable future benefits to cover up the clear harm in the present.”

Another disaster area is “inevitabilism”.

This is also the self-defense technique most loved by Silicon Valley and the tech circle.

The script goes like this: “AI replacing human jobs is an inevitable historical trend. Even if I don’t do it, others will. So I am now aggressively developing AI not to make money, but to align with the historical trend.”

Where is the low resistance? It perfectly dissolves a person's sense of responsibility. Since it is “inevitable,” I don't need to be responsible for the damage I cause.

This is also a typical galactic brain: packaging the personal desires of “I want to make money / I want to hold power” as “I am executing the task of history.”

4. So what should we do in the face of these “Satoshi traps”?

Vitalik's remedy is unexpectedly simple, even a bit “dumb.” He believes that the smarter a person is, the more they need high-resilience rules to constrain themselves and prevent their mental acrobatics from going awry.

First, adhere to “Deontological Ethics”, which is the moral iron law at the kindergarten level.

Don't bother calculating complex math problems like “for the future of all humanity”; return to the most rigid principles:

• Do not steal

• Do not kill innocent people

• Do not scam

• Respect the freedom of others

These rules are highly resistant. Because they are black and white, there is no room for negotiation. When you try to explain why you need to misappropriate user funds with the grand theory of 'long-termism', the rigid rule of 'do not steal' will slap you in the face: stealing is stealing, don't talk about it being for the great financial revolution.

Second, hold the correct “position”, including even the physical location.

As the saying goes, the butt determines the brain. If you spend every day in that echo chamber of the San Francisco Bay Area, surrounded by people who are into AI accelerationism, it's hard to stay clear-headed. Vitalik even gave a high-resistance suggestion on a physical level: don't live in the San Francisco Bay Area.

5. Summary

Vitalik's article is actually a warning to those exceptionally smart elites: just because you have a high IQ, don't think you can bypass the simple moral baseline.

The theories of the “galactic brain” that seem to explain everything are often the most dangerous universal excuses. On the contrary, those “high-resilience” rules that sound rigid and dogmatic are the last line of defense against self-deception.