"Why You Don’t Believe in Xhosa Prophecies" by Jan_Kulveit

Based on a talk at the Post-AGI Workshop. Also on Boundedly Rational

Does anyone reading this believe in Xhosa cattle-killing prophecies?

My claim is that it's overdetermined that you don’t. I want to explain why — and why cultural evolution running on AI substrate is an existential risk.
But first, a detour.

Crosses on Mountains

When I go climbing in the Alps, I sometimes notice large crosses on mountain tops. You climb something three kilometers high, and there's this cross.

This is difficult to explain by human biology. We have preferences that come from biology—we like nice food, comfortable temperatures—but it's unclear why we would have a biological need for crosses on mountain tops. Economic thinking doesn’t typically aspire to explain this either.

I think it's very hard to explain without some notion of culture.

In our paper on gradual disempowerment, we discussed misaligned economies and misaligned states. People increasingly get why those are problems. But misaligned culture is somehow harder to grasp. I’ll offer some speculation why later, but let me start with the basics.

What Makes Black Forest Cake Fit?

The conditions for evolution are simple: variation, differential fitness, transmission. Following Boyd and Richerson, or Dawkins [...]



---

Outline:

(00:33) Crosses on Mountains

(04:21) The Xhosa

(05:33) Virulence

(07:36) Preferences All the Way Down

---

First published:
February 13th, 2026

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tz5AmWbEcMBQpiEjY/why-you-don-t-believe-in-xhosa-prophecies

---



Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---