Viet Anh Vo

I upload this personal statement video as part of my application for the Graduate Studies Program 2013 of Singularity University. Generated transcript:

Hi, my name is Vo Viet Anh. I'm applying to the Singularity University, and going to become a writer entrepreneur. I aspire to write a science fiction using accurate scientific knowledge and a unique story to expand your mindset into what I would like to call a singularity mindset, which embodies critical mind tools and a high capacity to take perspectives. We need that in order to arrive at the technological singularity because it allows us to understand each other and coordinate coherently, like a realistic version of perfectly rational actors.

So what do I have with my own mindset to be able to change yours? Let me tell you about the 4 most important friends in my life. They often meet and I'm always learning from the interactions among them. They drew their own pictures here, complete with signatures.

My first friend was Shin Akamori. He was vacuum sucked by the head out of his mother's womb with a vile device called the ventouse that left him with mental disorders. It took him his whole childhood to develop full self-consciousness, to be able to realize his own limitations and talents. He wants to skip becoming just a normal person and set out to perfect himself.

The next one is Sen Helvetherèse, who is a little less self-centered. Or, excessively sociable and compassionate, if I must say. She loves her parents, her cousins, her neighbors, and anyone who has ever encouraged or supported her in the slightest. She appears at Conferences of the Parties to talk to anyone and propose systemic solutions for climate change. But don't get her wrong: she's perfectly rational. The moment she sees no more hope in something, she would be the first one to end it, even if it's humanity.

This is Sen's best friend, Dani Hemfeld, who used to care as much for humanity that he studied many disciplines of science to look for the best solutions for all the grand challenges. But he ended up falling in love with the knowledge itself and forgot his causes. He wants to go beyond unifying the four forces in physics, to unify all branches of science, and even science and religion.

My last friend is a bit socially aloof, as you can see. Gi Akamori. He was as prolific as Dani until he faced the reality of humanity. He doesn't want to live in a world where every meal is left over, and Justin Bieber got the most video views on the internet. He calls bullshit on his friends' mundane money talks because he knows that life on Earth is at an ever increasing risk of being wiped out by disasters and without a spaceship anything will amount to nothing. He wants to destroy everything and rebuild from scratch.

In fact, as you may guess, they are 4 distinct personas of mine over time, from my childhood, to my first 2 years in college, to the second half of my college life, through the immediate year after my father's death and my graduation. My mindset has evolved to include all 4 perspectives, so that I can revisit each of them to become self improving, altruistic, studious, or nihilistic.

In my fiction, I have these personas interact with each other to reveal their pros and cons, and improve each other to achieve the singularity mindset. You can follow the path of the one you relate to the most.

The fiction's name is God Bless War. War in war and peace. But don't get me wrong. I'm not a warmongering hawk. I just want to redefine war as "red-team exercises" as in the computer sciences and life sciences that enable rapid development of both defense and offense regarding disruptive technologies. I assume the naturalness of this kind of practice because humankind is in constant wars with nature and we never know what's coming at us so we need to plug in a positive feedback loop of defense and offense.

To sum up, I was not born with a gifted hardware, as most people are, so I have to install the best software here. I hope SU will teach me the intellectual languages to complete this software so that I share it to everyone and change the world in my own way. Thank you. Показати менше