Yeah, we should improve our institutions and foster democratic values… but when all is said and done, I’m still surprised people often tolerate, or even embrace, displays of dark traits in their leaders—even though they’d hardly accept similar behaviour from their peers.
I don’t see any current effective way to protect ourselves against this sort of Big Man politics. Political scientists and philosophers sort of hope to constrain it with mechanism design, but I don’t think this can work without people in power consciously willing to resist would-be tyrants; there should be ways to finish them in their political cradle.
I find particularly sad that it looks like we’re not so much better than Athenians in the Peloponnesian war trying to resist Alcibiades, or Romans trying to resist Caesar.
(even more depressing: I think faster than light travel is more frequent in sci-fi than political institutions that are robust against autocrats)
I wonder whether this is related to the authority dimension of Moral Foundations Theory? If so, it doesn’t seem to be universal – just very common. Makes me tentatively a bit hopeful.
I would really like to see more on Reducing long-term risks from malevolent actors
Yeah, we should improve our institutions and foster democratic values… but when all is said and done, I’m still surprised people often tolerate, or even embrace, displays of dark traits in their leaders—even though they’d hardly accept similar behaviour from their peers.
I don’t see any current effective way to protect ourselves against this sort of Big Man politics. Political scientists and philosophers sort of hope to constrain it with mechanism design, but I don’t think this can work without people in power consciously willing to resist would-be tyrants; there should be ways to finish them in their political cradle.
I find particularly sad that it looks like we’re not so much better than Athenians in the Peloponnesian war trying to resist Alcibiades, or Romans trying to resist Caesar.
(even more depressing: I think faster than light travel is more frequent in sci-fi than political institutions that are robust against autocrats)
I wonder whether this is related to the authority dimension of Moral Foundations Theory? If so, it doesn’t seem to be universal – just very common. Makes me tentatively a bit hopeful.