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Dwarkesh Podcast / episode intelligence

Dominic Cummings - COVID, Brexit, & Fixing Western Governance

15 Nov 2023 32 published claims 2 attributable people
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Speakers in the public record

Dominic CummingsDwarkesh Patel

Claim mix

evaluation 12belief 12uncertainty 5prediction 2recommendation 1

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Claim ledger

The useful parts, with receipts.

32 published records

01 / evaluation

That a lot of things that obviously should have been solved elsewhere couldn’t be solved at any other part of the system. They all end up cascading upwards in these centralized bureaucracies, because ultimately only the president or only the Prime Minister can give certain kinds of orders.

“That a lot of things that obviously should have been solved elsewhere couldn’t be solved at any other part of the system. They all end up cascading upwards in these centralized bureaucracies, because ultimately only the president or only the Prime Minister can give certain kinds of orders.”
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

02 / evaluation

” And I said, we could do that, but if we do that, we’ll just be the same as every other government for the last 20 years, which is chasing the bullshit in the media all day. And 4 years will pass and we won’t actually have done anything.

“” And I said, we could do that, but if we do that, we’ll just be the same as every other government for the last 20 years, which is chasing the bullshit in the media all day. And 4 years will pass and we won’t actually have done anything.”
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

03 / evaluation

Still now, four years after we started this discussion, the Cabinet office and Number 10 are still fighting about Google Docs versus Teams, and have now recently resolved to hire some consultants for millions of pounds to spend a year doing a study on it.

“Still now, four years after we started this discussion, the Cabinet office and Number 10 are still fighting about Google Docs versus Teams, and have now recently resolved to hire some consultants for millions of pounds to spend a year doing a study on it.”
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

04 / prediction

” Of course, these people have no idea who he was. And his answer was that pretty much everything that everyone has said is impossible or will take ten years, I have personally done in the lab in the last two or three years.

“” Of course, these people have no idea who he was. And his answer was that pretty much everything that everyone has said is impossible or will take ten years, I have personally done in the lab in the last two or three years.”
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

05 / uncertainty

Yeah, but it seems like I don’t know how you train a John von Neumann, because then he also assisted the US in thinking about Cold War game theory and things like that.

“Yeah, but it seems like I don’t know how you train a John von Neumann, because then he also assisted the US in thinking about Cold War game theory and things like that.”
Speaker
Dwarkesh Patel
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

06 / belief

Lee Kuan Yew has created a system where I think the most important thing he’s created is a certain kind of culture amongst the leadership in Singapore, a genuinely meritocratic culture, a culture where people are actually trying to solve the problems.

“Lee Kuan Yew has created a system where I think the most important thing he’s created is a certain kind of culture amongst the leadership in Singapore, a genuinely meritocratic culture, a culture where people are actually trying to solve the problems.”
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

07 / belief

If I think about my own time in doing the referendum or Number 10, close to 100% of the reality of conversations and motivations and calculations is basically lost.

“If I think about my own time in doing the referendum or Number 10, close to 100% of the reality of conversations and motivations and calculations is basically lost.”
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

09 / belief

I think a lot of people look for a magic bullet of communication whereby we come up with some equivalent of take back control, but for planning, and then we persuade everyone and the public will shift and start cheering house building.

“I think a lot of people look for a magic bullet of communication whereby we come up with some equivalent of take back control, but for planning, and then we persuade everyone and the public will shift and start cheering house building.”
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

10 / belief

I’m not saying this is necessarily what I believe, all I’m saying is that a reasonable perspective is that the old system worked because the old aristocracy managed it.

“I’m not saying this is necessarily what I believe, all I’m saying is that a reasonable perspective is that the old system worked because the old aristocracy managed it.”
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

11 / uncertainty

I don’t know enough about LBJ to say. I mean, my impression is that for all his amazing skills, he didn’t manage to grip the Pentagon and the intelligence services and had all kinds of problems dealing with them.

“I don’t know enough about LBJ to say. I mean, my impression is that for all his amazing skills, he didn’t manage to grip the Pentagon and the intelligence services and had all kinds of problems dealing with them.”
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

13 / uncertainty

I don’t know, and I’m not an expert but it’s striking that the view of contemporaries was that lots of the best young people were killed, and that’s why now a lot of the senior echelons are not up to the job.

“I don’t know, and I’m not an expert but it’s striking that the view of contemporaries was that lots of the best young people were killed, and that’s why now a lot of the senior echelons are not up to the job.”
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

15 / uncertainty

Another analogy here is it set up all these things that nobody understands, these systems of alliances and relationships in Europe. And you can imagine, like an AI advisor, and you’re not sure what’s going on, but it’s making, I don’t know, maybe it’s like a hedge fund manager that’s AI and it’s like making a lot of money.

“Another analogy here is it set up all these things that nobody understands, these systems of alliances and relationships in Europe. And you can imagine, like an AI advisor, and you’re not sure what’s going on, but it’s making, I don’t know, maybe it’s like a hedge fund manager that’s AI and it’s like making a lot of money.”
Speaker
Dwarkesh Patel
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

17 / belief

For others of us looking at it, we think that that’s just a wonderful sign of the old system’s complete madness and inability to face the most obvious things.

“For others of us looking at it, we think that that’s just a wonderful sign of the old system’s complete madness and inability to face the most obvious things.”
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

22 / belief

The only way, I think, that there’s any chance of long term changes, you have to build into the system institutions and public acceptance and elite acceptance of a kind of constant reinvention and rejuvenation and closing and refounding of things.

“The only way, I think, that there’s any chance of long term changes, you have to build into the system institutions and public acceptance and elite acceptance of a kind of constant reinvention and rejuvenation and closing and refounding of things.”
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

24 / evaluation

The only person in the British state who has the legal and constitutional ability to say “This senior person in the Ministry of Defence or the Department of Education is clearly failing and they must be removed, and I order that they be removed” is the Prime Minister. That itself is problematic because the large part system will say, “Well, we can’t just dismiss them, or if we do dismiss them, then there’ll be legal repercussions.

“The only person in the British state who has the legal and constitutional ability to say “This senior person in the Ministry of Defence or the Department of Education is clearly failing and they must be removed, and I order that they be removed” is the Prime Minister. That itself is problematic because the large part system will say, “Well, we can’t just dismiss them, or if we do dismiss them, then there’ll be legal repercussions.”
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

25 / evaluation

We now have to actually do all of these things. And in order to do all of these object level things, it requires facing these multi-decade long term, some of them over a century, in terms of how the actual constitutional system works, how the civil service works and everything else, versus his view, which is that it all just sounds like a lot of hard work and making a lot of enemies and it doesn’t really seem necessary because the Labour Party is a joke and I want to be friends with London.

“We now have to actually do all of these things. And in order to do all of these object level things, it requires facing these multi-decade long term, some of them over a century, in terms of how the actual constitutional system works, how the civil service works and everything else, versus his view, which is that it all just sounds like a lot of hard work and making a lot of enemies and it doesn’t really seem necessary because the Labour Party is a joke and I want to be friends with London.”
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

26 / prediction

What happens is the young, excellent people get weeded out by self-selection, largely because they go in idealistic, they’re there for a few years, but then they look at what the process is to be promoted, and they look at their bosses, and the best of them look at it and go, “I don’t want to be like that.

“What happens is the young, excellent people get weeded out by self-selection, largely because they go in idealistic, they’re there for a few years, but then they look at what the process is to be promoted, and they look at their bosses, and the best of them look at it and go, “I don’t want to be like that.”
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

27 / evaluation

The system here, in a lots of ways, the Prime Minister has more powers than the president does and is less legally constrained than the president is, because in all kinds of gaps, in lacunae, in the system, there are kind of ancient assumptions that the PM is operating with the authority of the Crown and royal prerogative.

“The system here, in a lots of ways, the Prime Minister has more powers than the president does and is less legally constrained than the president is, because in all kinds of gaps, in lacunae, in the system, there are kind of ancient assumptions that the PM is operating with the authority of the Crown and royal prerogative.”
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

29 / recommendation

That’s left to much lower status jobs and none of the senior people will pay attention to it and they’re actually just formally separated. So one of the things that we did in 2020 was we said that one of the ways in which the Number 10 system should change is the policy people should be brought together and actually physically sit with the management people, which is completely revolutionary idea, because that way when you’re thinking up the ideas in the first place, you’re immediately from the beginning talking to the people whose job it is ask “Will this actually work?

“That’s left to much lower status jobs and none of the senior people will pay attention to it and they’re actually just formally separated. So one of the things that we did in 2020 was we said that one of the ways in which the Number 10 system should change is the policy people should be brought together and actually physically sit with the management people, which is completely revolutionary idea, because that way when you’re thinking up the ideas in the first place, you’re immediately from the beginning talking to the people whose job it is ask “Will this actually work?”
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

30 / evaluation

That’s actually the reality about how a lot of these jobs have evolved. So you have a person whose time is the single most precious asset, who, because of the dysfunctional bureaucracy, his decisions or her decisions, is the only thing that can actually break down the bureaucratic resistance and make sure something happens.

“That’s actually the reality about how a lot of these jobs have evolved. So you have a person whose time is the single most precious asset, who, because of the dysfunctional bureaucracy, his decisions or her decisions, is the only thing that can actually break down the bureaucratic resistance and make sure something happens.”
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

31 / evaluation

I think the fact that people inside the system know that I actually do have priorities and I do actually care about them and I don’t care what the media says, and I have an extremely high tolerance for everyone going crazy in order to actually get what I want definitely, obviously, has an effect, because people will think, “Well, maybe we should do a deal with him.

“I think the fact that people inside the system know that I actually do have priorities and I do actually care about them and I don’t care what the media says, and I have an extremely high tolerance for everyone going crazy in order to actually get what I want definitely, obviously, has an effect, because people will think, “Well, maybe we should do a deal with him.”
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

32 / evaluation

A lot of senior people who’ve talked a lot of shit about it obviously can’t admit any of these things publicly, but I think there is growing realization behind the scenes of what the reality is.

“A lot of senior people who’ve talked a lot of shit about it obviously can’t admit any of these things publicly, but I think there is growing realization behind the scenes of what the reality is.”
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast
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