To answer your object-level question, I believe that something resembling the idea of “Replaceability of Social Change” would enter our minds eventually. For the last few months, there has been conversation in the Facebook group about the importance of, and how to assess, the history of social movements. Additionally, groups like the Open Philanthropy Project are pushing forward the idea of assessing political change. From our point of view, variable change will affect the probability that a certain idea will come to us for any given point in time. As we discussed other ideas factoring into this one, over time, it seems like we might eventually come across it.
Anyway, you’re trying to figure out what important social change we would want that would not happen, or fail, if we didn’t intervene. I agree with Robby Bensinger that all of history added up together is very fragile, with small changes to the initial state of any point possibly causing huge changes later. So, again, I believe this is difficult, and that we need to get more specific.
Thanks for asking these tough questions. I appreciate it.
To answer your object-level question, I believe that something resembling the idea of “Replaceability of Social Change” would enter our minds eventually. For the last few months, there has been conversation in the Facebook group about the importance of, and how to assess, the history of social movements. Additionally, groups like the Open Philanthropy Project are pushing forward the idea of assessing political change. From our point of view, variable change will affect the probability that a certain idea will come to us for any given point in time. As we discussed other ideas factoring into this one, over time, it seems like we might eventually come across it.
Anyway, you’re trying to figure out what important social change we would want that would not happen, or fail, if we didn’t intervene. I agree with Robby Bensinger that all of history added up together is very fragile, with small changes to the initial state of any point possibly causing huge changes later. So, again, I believe this is difficult, and that we need to get more specific.
Thanks for asking these tough questions. I appreciate it.