Dune’s Darkest Idea Has Become Reality | 1.

00:00:00: Most of us spend over four hours a day on social media, watching TV playing games or watching porn and we see that as something positive.

00:00:08: Something We enjoy And something That adds to our lives.

00:00:13: But for many Of Us it's the very thing thats sabotaging Our Lives & Making Us miserable.

00:00:20: And Frank Herbert Explored This Idea in Dune especially the fourth book in this series, so if you want a different perspective on these addictions through The World of Dune even in the right place.

00:00:32: Dune is one my favorite book series and film site directed by my favorite director Dennis Vilnov.

00:00:38: Frank Herbert who wrote books was one most brilliant writer at least for a lot of DUNE fans and sci-fi lovers It's the Bible.

00:00:54: But personally, I think The Fourth Book God Emperor of Dune is where his genius really shows.

00:01:01: And if you're reading Dune or planning to just a heads up there's spoiler ahead.

00:01:06: Now If you've seen in first two films You'll know Paul Atreides who becomes kind of messiah.

00:01:13: In The fourth book we follow his son Leto II Who was born with an ability called Other Memory And he has access to memories of his ancestors and can experience them from inside, as though they were actually that person.

00:01:28: These are people who lived thousands or years before him... ...and there is an enormous number of them!

00:01:34: So when a ordinary person reads about some battle centuries ago They get historical account and use their imagination to fill in the gaps.. ..they never fully understand what it was like.

00:01:47: live at this time.

00:01:49: Leto can experience that battle through his ancestors' memories, the life of a soldier, a general's victory.

00:01:55: The pain of someone who has been wounded all within the full context for this person and the world I lived in.

00:02:01: Leto also see possible futures.

00:02:04: he sees humanity is heading towards its own destruction.

00:02:08: so he commits to something called golden path And you can think of it as an incredibly harsh, complicated plan to save humanity and break out of stagnation.

00:02:19: But it demands enormous sacrifice from him.

00:02:22: He has give up his humanity.

00:02:24: Long story short he begins a transformation into something resembling one the giant sandworms that inhabit Arrakis The planet of Dune By the fourth book.

00:02:37: Leto has been grueling humanity for about three-and-a-half thousand years And only his face and hands remain recognizably human.

00:02:45: The rest of its body has become worm-like, it's still growing.

00:02:50: He is almost immortal, physically almost indestructible... ...and he has absolute political power over humanity across the universe!

00:03:11: If you combine this together with his ability to see the future, that's how he knows.

00:03:17: humanity is heading for destruction.

00:03:20: And thats before we even consider everything hes experienced during his own three and a half thousand year long life.

00:03:28: Imagine a pharaoh taking power in ancient Egypt around fifteen hundred BC and still being in charge today.

00:03:35: That's an incredible thought.

00:03:37: Anyways The golden path requires him to become tyrant and as he puts it, humanity's ultimate predator.

00:03:45: He has to teach humanity a lesson you'll never forget however long it survives.

00:03:50: And by that he breaks the stagnation that leads to chaos.

00:03:54: So Herbert presents him As an almost godlike figure with intelligence and wisdom That nobody can match.

00:04:01: Letho comes across as a philosopher whose perspective is almost divine but whose ideas are still about us, and being a human.

00:04:11: And that gives them an incredible weight.

00:04:13: That's what makes it so compelling to read.

00:04:16: at least for me The book is ridiculously philosophical which exactly why I like it so much.

00:04:22: There's this one passage i really want to focus on because This Is Where Herbus Genius Really Comes True.

00:04:28: For Me the book came out in uh... nineteen eighty-one But some of its ideas feel even more relevant now than they did back then.

00:04:40: Let's go back to what I said at the beginning, To his ability Other Memory and What Leto says himself about it For a moment.

00:04:49: he can be soldier A king A lover Mother Murderer Or someone from completely different era.

00:04:56: He explains that all he has do is choose subject Say people who died by sword and every available life opens up for him to experience.

00:05:08: If he thinks about motherhood, he gets births baby smiling first steps an entire generations.

00:05:15: And by the way this did make me wonder how much you would find in there if he'd search for mallets anal probes or sixty nine position.

00:05:23: Well we'll probably never know but anyway He basically has a enormous spawn archive In his head where isn't just watching He's actually taking part, which is pretty amazing.

00:05:37: So he has the most complete form of escapees and imaginable a way to escape reality entirely.

00:05:43: And there's a passage that makes this especially clear.

00:05:46: There's this woman called Havinnori That throws him off his balance by awakening emotions... ...he hasn't felt for thousands years!

00:05:54: His response to those overwhelming feelings Is to retreat into himself and immerse himself in lives of his ancestors just as he done before.

00:06:04: I'm paraphrasing here, but... He describes how tempting it is to answer the siren's call To live entirely in the past and never come back.

00:06:15: That's how we describe The pleasure And the pull of its A siren's call that's incredibly difficult to resist.

00:06:22: When you look at our lives today We have a very similar Siren song Let us comes from inside his mind Ours comes from the world around us.

00:06:33: We have endless access to stories, experiences films books social media podcast streaming platforms porn and games.

00:06:43: we can spend our entire lives following others people's stories an experience fragments of their lives or simply distracting ourselves And it's incredibly tempting because it feels good It relieves boredom feels the time and can even take edge of our negative emotions.

00:07:01: It's a very effective way to regulate or suppress feelings we don't want to deal with, just as let it does.

00:07:09: All you have do is choose a subject And actually these days You dont' even need that.

00:07:13: The algorithm saves you Even the tiny effort Of thinking about what u like.

00:07:19: You read about productivity What someone travel Listened to podcasts About relationships Watch someone training for an Iron Man, watch a war documentary.

00:07:30: Watch a compilation of the best gangbanks of the month or read some and not necessarily in that order And each of those things give you the feeling that you've experienced something understood Something Or made progress.

00:07:44: You get this sense of satisfaction This feeling That your living a rich and varied life Because The content we consume doesn't just make us feel as though we're experiencing more.

00:07:56: It lets us have those experiences without taking any risks, commenting to anything or dealing with the consequences in our lives.

00:08:05: but in reality you could be standing still stagnating and doing absolutely nothing.

00:08:12: And Leto In The Book understands this trap.

00:08:15: having an experience isn't the same as taking action.

00:08:19: He can experience things without actually living his own life.

00:08:23: he could spend centuries living other people's lives and the golden path wouldn't move forward an inch.

00:08:30: We can also spent years going nowhere because we are consuming content every day unable to resist that sirens call And it is really hard to call them living, its more like just getting through days.

00:08:44: Yes there is this argument That anything you learn from a book any piece of information or content, education might be useful in some situations later on.

00:08:55: What if you are taking billions and barely doing anything with them?

00:09:01: What if it's just the same routine every day followed by years going nowhere?

00:09:06: Think about this way – we each have our own golden path!

00:09:10: Obviously I don't mean that in Leto Godlike sense of saving humanity I mean making something of the chance we've been given to be alive, actually living and enjoying it rather than just getting by and standing still.

00:09:25: Every life can get better however it looks at that moment And every live how ever good this is can get worse.

00:09:34: There's a golden path in here for each us.

00:09:37: For many of us enjoying life means experiencing these stories.

00:09:43: But what if we're spending so much time doing that, That there's barely any time left to actually leave?

00:09:49: And What If that constant stimulation of dopamine system leaves us with no motivation or desire To explore meet people create something Or make progress.

00:09:59: Or do things in the real world away from a screen that makes us feel alive.

00:10:05: Maybe consuming all content is way of suppressing uncomfortable emotion I mentioned earlier.

00:10:11: We keep pushing them away without learning how to process them and they build up.

00:10:16: And maybe over time we stop feeling the good, bad moments in our lives as intensely.

00:10:22: Everything just feels a bit flat because... ...we spend so long suppressing what we feel.. ..and that can get in way of our golden path too.

00:10:31: So whats the point of learning billions or things about something I never actually do?

00:10:36: What if i consume self-help content everyday but All I end up with is the information.

00:10:42: There's no time or motivation left to put any of it into practice, i don't know if that counts as living.

00:10:50: you tell me what?

00:10:52: If watching porn makes me less interested in going out and meeting someone when i'm single?

00:10:58: And what if watching other people lives on social media makes me feel like my own life is shit because It doesn't look anything like theirs on instagram?

00:11:08: so When we've seen and experienced everything on social media, our brain gets that sense of having experience something without us ever needing to act.

00:11:19: And thats dangerous for a golden path.

00:11:22: I'd even say it kills it.

00:11:24: Then there's the worst possibility which Leto also talks about in his book.

00:11:29: Leto is desperate to be surprised.

00:11:32: That why he is fascinated by warrior Duncan Idaho and always keeps him close?

00:11:38: Because Duncan represents something alive, imperfect, impulsive and potentially unpredictable.

00:11:44: And at one point Leto even mocks the idea that being a god must be amazing.

00:11:50: He suggests that even being God can get incredibly boring.

00:11:55: So Herbert draws connection here At least in my view.

00:12:00: Infinite experience knowledge and stimulation Don't necessarily lead to infinite fulfillment.

00:12:06: They can lead to Infinite boredom.

00:12:09: and maybe that's part of what we sing today.

00:12:11: when you've already seen everything And the content in consume is so interesting and constantly changing and dynamic almost Everything in your offline life seems boring by comparison a sunset, simple conversation with family or friends A run-or bike ride.

00:12:29: How is any of this supposed to compete with content that hijacks your dopamine system?

00:12:34: Why would I want stable, emotionally available partner without ANY drama when i'm craving something extreme.

00:12:41: Stable and ordinary life are boring in world where extremes making money.

00:12:47: A political party with stable policies no populist slogans No extreme proposals Unthinkable.

00:12:53: Don't even try something that boring.

00:12:55: So we end up needing extremes and losing the ability to enjoy ordinary things.

00:13:01: that makes life worth living.

00:13:03: That's our sirens call convincing us, that we're living thousands of incredible lives every day.

00:13:09: but truth is... We aren't living any of them And certainly are living our own.

00:13:15: It's so easy to get absorbed in an exciting fragment of someone else life when the alternative is chaos, uncertainty and boredom.

00:13:27: But dealing with those is a price.

00:13:30: following your golden path And you're own life can be far richer than any fragments of somebody elses Even if that fragment is porn.

00:13:40: because I already hear your objection.

00:13:43: Leto could experience an endless number of perfect lives without worrying about wasting his time.

00:13:49: He's practically immortal, he has got plenty to lose and enjoy them!

00:13:59: And yet the golden path only exists because he doesn't stay lost in those experiences & stories.

00:14:11: make decisions and act in the real world.

00:14:15: And then live with consequences.

00:14:17: Leto at one point talks about the past being for fools, but as I understand it is that those past lives are useful when they help him to act in present and change future.

00:14:31: That's exactly what i think content we consume can do us.

00:14:36: Help us turn something we've heard or seen into something.

00:14:41: Help us follow our golden path instead of blocking it and leaving our lives as empty a sand dune.

00:14:47: So for example your fifteen self-help book probably isn't going to sort out your anxiety in your chaotic life, but you could take one book and put one thing from it into practice.

00:14:58: Take something off the page or this screen and bring it into your life.

00:15:03: And with all that said There's this question What is YOUR Golden Path?

00:15:09: And do you feel like your resisting the siren's call and actually following it?