Contrarianism Is Imitation Too: AI Will Weaken Social Contagion
In an age of contagion, escape is not the cure. Burges bets that AI will actually weaken social contagion, and, drawing on Catholicism and on Cluny, argues that the real work is rebuilding intermediary institutions.
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A bigger tragedy may be what forces people to rebuild
Burges does not think pessimism and negative contagion can run forever. Societies have release valves that work something like the scapegoat mechanism, and sometimes they overcorrect; a trauma or tragedy even worse than the current war could be what pushes people into rebuilding. He admits this sounds contradictory, but optimism often grows out of tragedy. This is his mechanical answer to the question of how the world turns around.
— Luke BurgisWhat can be measured is rarely what matters most in life
Burges was invited to consult for Anthropic, which wanted Christian virtue ethics brought to bear on vetting Claude's constitution. After asking what it even means to make Claude good, he decided something was philosophically off, and he refused to frame participation as a moral obligation. He then criticizes effective altruism: it has not demonstrated that it achieves its goals, and it is fundamentally too materialist — the things that can be measured are often not the most important things in a life, such as the quality of your relationships, depth, and culture.
— Luke BurgisSilicon Valley contrarianism is itself a form of imitation
If Girard were alive, he would be embarrassed that mimetic theory itself has become so popular. And the Silicon Valley contrarian is a false rebel, because "going against the mainstream" long ago became a new mimetic identity in its own right. Burges stresses that "the one and the 99" is not an argument that everyone should become the one. It is a reminder that when all the attention lands on the one, the 99 need rethinking — along with how the self and the group shape each other.
— Luke BurgisPorn is too easy to reach, so friction has to be reintroduced
Asked what norm he would most like to change, Burges names getting young men to lose interest in pornography. He cites reporting in The Free Press about a 13-year-old girl who came across porn by accident, and says this has become a kind of rite of passage — not something sought out but something that simply arrives. His view is that access is too easy and friction has to be reintroduced. On the numbers: roughly 90% of the male students in his class are watching, and the share among the women is high as well.
— Luke BurgisWhether a parish is alive shows in the confession line
Italian Catholicism looks very different from the high liturgy revival in America: the old churches have no heating or air conditioning, the sound is bad, and people come and go the way they do in an Orthodox church. The first signal Burges reads in a parish is how often confession is offered. If it is several times a week, or daily, the line forms on its own; if it is by appointment only, or only on Saturdays, the parish is in decline. It works like church politics, he says — one signal predicts ten other things.
— Luke BurgisThe best evangelism shows people beauty instead of arguing for truth
In his second year at seminary in Rome, Burges saw a poster on the street for a talk by the Pixar story artist Matthew Luhn, skipped class to attend, and was completely lit up — he realized he wanted something creative and aesthetic. That one lecture, he says, ruined his theology for the year. He describes himself as a von Balthasar-style Catholic: truth can be reached through beauty, so the best evangelism is not arguing why Christianity is true but taking people to Rome to see beautiful things, drink good wine, and talk into the night.
— Luke BurgisToday people prefer the lost sheep that refuses to rejoin the flock
Tyler asks whether Burges feels any affinity for Shia Islam. Burges says he does not know it well enough, but that it shares certain elements with Catholicism: an enchanted world, hidden truth, the need for mediation. He then turns to Gnosticism. In the Gospel of Thomas version of the lost sheep parable, the sheep that wandered off is not a sinner but the smartest of the flock, and when Jesus finds it he does not carry it back — he praises it for not being like the other dumb sheep. Burges thinks people today are more easily drawn to that version.
— Luke BurgisThis talent network is meant to produce culture, not companies
The Cluny Institute that Burges founded is meant to be a talent network and an artists' workshop, gathering people who have a religious sensibility, are smart, care about serious ideas, and want to actually build things — working at the intersection of three places: Athens, Jerusalem, Silicon Valley. He takes his inspiration from the original Cluny, which was an entirely new institutional form, grew into a network of more than 1,200 monasteries, and became the center of European innovation for three hundred years. His hope is that in 10 or 20 years what comes out of this is culture, aesthetics, and forms of community — not companies.
— Luke BurgisIn their own words · checked verbatim
the discovery of it has become like a rite of passage for people.
Luke Burgis16:08
if you offer confession.Frequently, maybe a few times a week or daily.The lines just start to form.
Luke Burgis23:55
And I was so lit up by that class, that I realized that there was something in me.That craved this kind of like creative, artistic aesthetic thing.
Luke Burgis28:22
The one lost sheep.Was the smartest sheep.
Luke Burgis36:14
It formed a network of over 1200 Klunic monasteries.
Luke Burgis47:12
one should die before they die.Die a series of small deaths to our ego.
Luke Burgis48:59
Figures
| Share of the men in Burges's class watching pornography | about 90% | 16:08 |
| Age of the girl in the report who came across porn by accident | 13 | 16:08 |
| Men sharing the seminary residence in Rome | 250 | 26:11 |
| Size of the original Cluny's monastery network | more than 1,200 | 47:12 |
| How long the original Cluny remained the world's largest church | 300 years | 47:12 |
Glossary
- mimetic desire
- Desire is not spontaneous; it is copied from the desires of other people.
- scapegoat mechanism
- A group discharges its internal tension and restores order by blaming and expelling a single victim.
- achievement subject
- Byung-Chul Han's concept: modern people internalize the demand to keep achieving, turning it into self-exploitation.
- sprezzatura
- The Italian style of dressing with great care while appearing to have made no effort at all.
- via negativa
- Knowing something by what it is not; Burges uses it to describe how AI reveals human nature in reverse.
- memento mori
- A reminder that death is certain; monks meditate on death daily.
How to listen
Founders and investors who follow AI ethics, and anyone working on community, institutional design, or relations between men and women.
If you're short on time, the Wall Street and Michigan nostalgia from 40:22 to 44:41 can be skipped; start again at the Cluny section at 47:12.