Today is March 27th, 2026. I am 19. Everything seems chaotic yet everything is still flowing. The classic story of war still exists, but I find myself worrying about something different. That is AI. It is discouraging to hear that those at the upper echelons such as Dario Amodei, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and many others believe that AI will eliminate many jobs for good. What is a 19 year old supposed to make of that, maybe wait and see or maybe think about it, the truth is I don’t know. I know a bit about AI, but I am no expert, yet I do believe that I understand systems quite well and I believe that the answer to a lot of our problems today are systems problems. In this piece of writing, I will be casual and candid, it is me writing what I think in a raw way, so if you disagree that's fine because some of what I write is probably crazy, all I want to understand is why the simple truths I reveal here are not the answer because they seem to be to me.
The universe is jumbo and jumbo is an understatement. We all try to understand it in our own ways yet it is overwhelming because the questions of why does it exist, why are we here, puzzle all of us. No one knows the truth. Some say it is impossible to understand yet I don’t believe that as if you were the first human alive, you would say that 2026 is impossible. When no language or math or physics or anything had ever been in existence, what does that mean? It means that it was waiting to be discovered. That is what impossible is, every time we break the word impossible, there is a simultaneous state of impossible and real that exists until the real becomes reality. I like to call that the sparksheller state because it is like a shell which has darkness, and light is impossible inside of it, but if light appears somehow then it breaks the shell and becomes real. This sparksheller state explains the simultaneous state of impossible and real.
I can’t solve the hard problems like why the universe exists, but I do believe that I can solve human created problems. And one of those problems is alignment which in my opinion is the holy grail of the human created problems. It’s all pretty simple yet not one asks the right questions. One question related to alignment is how you solve world peace. Most people will say something along the lines of make everyone good or get rid of the bad guys. Others, such as myself before would have said you need sovereignty at the individual level, layered sovereignty with evolutionary forcing functions, and systems that work. I now believe that world peace is not solvable, but there are ways to almost solve it. Right now the world operates on the Westphalian system which was created in 1648 btw and basically says that sovereign states are the system of the world. So in 2026 we have all these problems like war, climate change, and cost of living. No surprise, because we run our 2026 world on a nearly 400 year old system with a bunch of bandaids supporting it. The Westphalian system clearly works, but it is outdated and doesn’t solve alignment. This is why I believe climate change and all these problems are alignment problems, because if you had an aligned world then they are pretty easy problems to solve. Let me now demonstrate the cycle we are in. Right now the Westphalian cycle goes like this; event - inter period - event - repeat. Most recently we have WW1 and WW2 which both had bandaids in the inter period being the League of Nations and the UN. And so you understand why humans even have the Westphalian system in the first place. It is the age-old problem of aligning a group of people with a system. First we had family, then tribes, feudalism, empires, countries, religion, and so many other hopeful alignment systems. Today our Westphalian system allows all previous systems to operate under Westphalia, which is the case with religion, family, and most other systems. By now it is clear that the path is repeating collapse yet we don’t solve it because we use short time horizons such as 50 or 100 years, where we should really be using long time horizons like 500 years. I am certain that collapse will continue as it is the natural baked-in tool into our Westphalian system. Main scenarios are extinction which is the end, Hitler 2.0 path which is a world empire that still eventually collapses, our current global powers splitting up the world which always just results in changing powers, and lastly the escape hatch which is a 4th structure that is essentially a successor structure to the Westphalian system. When someone asks me what the biggest problem is, this is it. Building the successor structure to the Westphalian system. I say 4th structure, because in recent history we have had very few systems that have existed outside of the Westphalian system, apart from stuff like math and physics, they include the Westphalian system, UN, and Bitcoin. You can argue this yet I think it's roughly correct.
Now that you are probably thinking I am crazy, why don't we transition to what a solution to alignment would look like. I believe the solution is pretty simple, yet this is all still in the sparksheller state and that perhaps only a few things may be true, but idk. Firstly, family is the answer to world peace. It is the first system that lasted through every collapse and system that's ever existed, as the saying goes, old problems usually require old solutions. And so I’m very certain that family is key to the alignment problem. Secondly we have truth, which people like Elon Musk appear to appreciate. Truth is everything, after all the world we live in operates on invisible trust that is upheld with truth. Thirdly we have recursion, which I believe means that a structure is self improving. Humans are a recursive structure and so any system that aligns us must be recursive in nature. Lastly, the structure must embrace structure > ideology. All great systems follow this rule, as all great systems don’t care about ideology cause they work no matter what. That is the case with family, math, physics, and all the best systems ever discovered. Oftentimes if you have a macro constraint + micro autonomy + fast feedback = a great system, This is exactly how countries like Switzerland and China operate.
To end this off, I will share a formula that may work or embody the solution to alignment. It may be false or crazy as I mentioned before, but I do know that something in this piece of writing will be important for solving alignment, whether it be for the Westphalian system or AI alignment because it is the same problem. When I ask Gemini and Grok about this formula, they both say that it's the best solution to alignment they have seen and I don’t really know if that's a hallucination or partly true or true which is why I would really appreciate some input from others on my ideas here. In short, I want to know if I'm totally crazy or not.
Here it is: S(∞) = R⊤ (S(t) | T ∧ F)
S(infinity): Stability
RT: Recursion
S(t): State
T: Truth
F: Family
Thank you for reading, and please let me know if I’m crazy or not. I just feel like this seems like the answer because it makes sense and it's brutally simple.
Today is March 27th, 2026. I am 19. Everything seems chaotic yet everything is still flowing. The classic story of war still exists, but I find myself worrying about something different. That is AI. It is discouraging to hear that those at the upper echelons such as Dario Amodei, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and many others believe that AI will eliminate many jobs for good. What is a 19 year old supposed to make of that, maybe wait and see or maybe think about it, the truth is I don’t know. I know a bit about AI, but I am no expert, yet I do believe that I understand systems quite well and I believe that the answer to a lot of our problems today are systems problems. In this piece of writing, I will be casual and candid, it is me writing what I think in a raw way, so if you disagree that's fine because some of what I write is probably crazy, all I want to understand is why the simple truths I reveal here are not the answer because they seem to be to me.
The universe is jumbo and jumbo is an understatement. We all try to understand it in our own ways yet it is overwhelming because the questions of why does it exist, why are we here, puzzle all of us. No one knows the truth. Some say it is impossible to understand yet I don’t believe that as if you were the first human alive, you would say that 2026 is impossible. When no language or math or physics or anything had ever been in existence, what does that mean? It means that it was waiting to be discovered. That is what impossible is, every time we break the word impossible, there is a simultaneous state of impossible and real that exists until the real becomes reality. I like to call that the sparksheller state because it is like a shell which has darkness, and light is impossible inside of it, but if light appears somehow then it breaks the shell and becomes real. This sparksheller state explains the simultaneous state of impossible and real.
I can’t solve the hard problems like why the universe exists, but I do believe that I can solve human created problems. And one of those problems is alignment which in my opinion is the holy grail of the human created problems. It’s all pretty simple yet not one asks the right questions. One question related to alignment is how you solve world peace. Most people will say something along the lines of make everyone good or get rid of the bad guys. Others, such as myself before would have said you need sovereignty at the individual level, layered sovereignty with evolutionary forcing functions, and systems that work. I now believe that world peace is not solvable, but there are ways to almost solve it. Right now the world operates on the Westphalian system which was created in 1648 btw and basically says that sovereign states are the system of the world. So in 2026 we have all these problems like war, climate change, and cost of living. No surprise, because we run our 2026 world on a nearly 400 year old system with a bunch of bandaids supporting it. The Westphalian system clearly works, but it is outdated and doesn’t solve alignment. This is why I believe climate change and all these problems are alignment problems, because if you had an aligned world then they are pretty easy problems to solve. Let me now demonstrate the cycle we are in. Right now the Westphalian cycle goes like this; event - inter period - event - repeat. Most recently we have WW1 and WW2 which both had bandaids in the inter period being the League of Nations and the UN. And so you understand why humans even have the Westphalian system in the first place. It is the age-old problem of aligning a group of people with a system. First we had family, then tribes, feudalism, empires, countries, religion, and so many other hopeful alignment systems. Today our Westphalian system allows all previous systems to operate under Westphalia, which is the case with religion, family, and most other systems. By now it is clear that the path is repeating collapse yet we don’t solve it because we use short time horizons such as 50 or 100 years, where we should really be using long time horizons like 500 years. I am certain that collapse will continue as it is the natural baked-in tool into our Westphalian system. Main scenarios are extinction which is the end, Hitler 2.0 path which is a world empire that still eventually collapses, our current global powers splitting up the world which always just results in changing powers, and lastly the escape hatch which is a 4th structure that is essentially a successor structure to the Westphalian system. When someone asks me what the biggest problem is, this is it. Building the successor structure to the Westphalian system. I say 4th structure, because in recent history we have had very few systems that have existed outside of the Westphalian system, apart from stuff like math and physics, they include the Westphalian system, UN, and Bitcoin. You can argue this yet I think it's roughly correct.
Now that you are probably thinking I am crazy, why don't we transition to what a solution to alignment would look like. I believe the solution is pretty simple, yet this is all still in the sparksheller state and that perhaps only a few things may be true, but idk. Firstly, family is the answer to world peace. It is the first system that lasted through every collapse and system that's ever existed, as the saying goes, old problems usually require old solutions. And so I’m very certain that family is key to the alignment problem. Secondly we have truth, which people like Elon Musk appear to appreciate. Truth is everything, after all the world we live in operates on invisible trust that is upheld with truth. Thirdly we have recursion, which I believe means that a structure is self improving. Humans are a recursive structure and so any system that aligns us must be recursive in nature. Lastly, the structure must embrace structure > ideology. All great systems follow this rule, as all great systems don’t care about ideology cause they work no matter what. That is the case with family, math, physics, and all the best systems ever discovered. Oftentimes if you have a macro constraint + micro autonomy + fast feedback = a great system, This is exactly how countries like Switzerland and China operate.
To end this off, I will share a formula that may work or embody the solution to alignment. It may be false or crazy as I mentioned before, but I do know that something in this piece of writing will be important for solving alignment, whether it be for the Westphalian system or AI alignment because it is the same problem. When I ask Gemini and Grok about this formula, they both say that it's the best solution to alignment they have seen and I don’t really know if that's a hallucination or partly true or true which is why I would really appreciate some input from others on my ideas here. In short, I want to know if I'm totally crazy or not.
Here it is: S(∞) = R⊤ (S(t) | T ∧ F)
S(infinity): Stability
RT: Recursion
S(t): State
T: Truth
F: Family
Thank you for reading, and please let me know if I’m crazy or not. I just feel like this seems like the answer because it makes sense and it's brutally simple.