Messengers Wanted
Experts are the people who know and do the most on particular valuable topics, while elites are the people of highest status … we … tend to accept many important actions only if they are taken by elites, who do it in a sufficiently elite style. For example, most are reluctant to consider proposals for innovations, reforms, or new research topics unless they come from sufficiently high elites. We disapprove of non-elites who try to complain, even about their own personal mistreatment, or who try to directly punish wrong-doers. (More)
Carter … discerned … America had a wounded heart. … suffered from a “crisis of the spirit.” The speech was among the most unusual in presidential history. The word that has clung to it, “malaise,” … didn’t even appear in the text. … best word to describe the speech would have been “pastoral.” A faithful Christian president applied the lessons he’d so plainly learned from years of Bible study and countless hours in church. Don’t look at the surface of a problem. Don’t be afraid to tell hard truths. Be humble, but also call the people to a higher purpose. The resulting address was heartfelt. It was eloquent. Yet it helped sink his presidency. (More)
I’ve spent much of my life trying to invent better institutions, and have been disappointed to see so little interest in such great ideas. Recently I spent a year finding a way to make sense of the sacred, and was also disappointed to see little interest in that. In contrast, I’ve had more success with my analyses of aliens, and of hidden motives. My interpretation here is: I have some creditability as an expert, which folks see as appropriate for aliens and psychology, but the world just doesn’t want to hear about the sacred, or big social innovation proposals, from experts. For that they want elites, and I’m not much of an elite.
Recently I’ve been trying to warn the world that we have a big problem with cultural drift, but on reflection I have to admit that I may also be poorly suited for that role. It’s not just that this is a topic where people prefer to hear from elites. On this topic, even ordinary elites are not enough, as Jimmy Carter discovered long ago.
Carter was the top leader of the most powerful nation on Earth. But he tried to take on the priestly role of criticizing US citizens on key values and attitudes. And they rejected him for that. I’m similarly at least implicitly criticizing the world about precious values and attachments. To reform, we must come to regret and distance ourselves from many of the things we have held most dear.
But suitable elites will never take on this role, if they don’t hear about it somehow. So maybe my best hope is to be a John the Baptist to someone else’s Christ, to show someone more able than I that a high calling awaits. And hope they somehow find the necessary inspiration to step up and fill this role.
In the talk/session you gave, you expressed frustration at the fact that it is difficult to get people interested in this issue. I think the key challenges you face are:
1) Cultural drift is abstract, and the more abstract something is, the less people are able to understand it, and therefore get interested in it.
2) There are already several causes competing for the slot of "this is the key issue of our time, which will ruin our society if neglected". Some of them have lots of inertia already, such as climate change, warfare (so-called "democracies vs autocracies" on top of all local conflicts), perhaps AI, etc. Most of these have the advantage of being very concrete and digestible, or being framed as such.
3) Cultural drift isn't easy to fit into an "us vs them" mold, which naturally attracts people to fight. Even climate change is mostly framed as "the people" fighting the (financial and political) elites or as the rich (who emit CO2) oppressing the poor (who end up paying most of the price).
4) Cultural drift as you've defined it is a very novel idea, which you yourself came upon only recently. Even climate activists took decades to build the inertia they have today.
IMHO 1) is right now the most important of these. You will have to frame it in very concrete terms. Even relatively concrete predictions such as "declining innovation and growth" don't resonate with most of the population. More like "your kids might starve, because ABC". This is what climate activists do, even when it isn't accurate. Not recommending exaggerating or being dishonest, but I'm confident that more will be needed.
You should try Elon Musk. He's obsessed with the Great Filter and should be interested in Grabby Aliens if you can convince him that's the updated/better theory. He already shares your concerns about fertility. You have mutual acquaintances: Eliezer and Lex Fridman. He is too unfocused to be expert and too prominent not to fall into the elite category instead.
If you can reframe his recent political efforts (especially the relatively successful one in Brazil) as efforts against cultural drift, he's theory-minded enough to be receptive to something that gives coherence to his political impulses.