So people in the Middle Ages believed that the best thing was to save more souls, but I don’t think that exactly failed. That is, if a man’s goal was to have more people believe in Christianity, and he went with sincerity in the Crusades or colonial missionary expeditions, he probably did help achieve that goal.
Likewise, for people in the 1700s, 1800s and early 1900s, when the dominant paradigm shifted to one of human progress, I think people could reliably find ways to improve long-term progress. New science and technology, liberal politics, etc all would have been straightforward and effective methods to get humanity further on the track of rising population, improved quality of life, and scientific advancement.
Point is, I think people have always tended to be significantly more right than wrong about how to change the world. It’s not too too hard to understand how one person’s actions might contribute to an overriding global goal. The problem is in the choice of such an overriding paradigm. The first paradigm was that the world was stagnant/repetitive/decaying and just a prelude to the afterlife. The second paradigm was that the world is progressing and things will only get steadily better via science and reason. Today we largely reject both these paradigms, and instead we have a view of precarity—that an incredibly good future is in sight but only if we proceed with caution, wisdom, good institutions and luck. And I think the deepest risk is not that we are unable to understand how to make our civilization more cautious and wise, but that this whole paradigm ends up being wrong.
I don’t mean to particularly agree or disagree with your original post, I just think this is a helpful clarification of the point.
Point is, I think people have always tended to be significantly more right than wrong about how to change the world. It’s not too too hard to understand how one person’s actions might contribute to an overriding global goal. The problem is in the choice of such an overriding paradigm. The first paradigm was that the world was stagnant/repetitive/decaying and just a prelude to the afterlife. The second paradigm was that the world is progressing and things will only get steadily better via science and reason. Today we largely reject both these paradigms, and instead we have a view of precarity—that an incredibly good future is in sight but only if we proceed with caution, wisdom, good institutions and luck. And I think the deepest risk is not that we are unable to understand how to make our civilization more cautious and wise, but that this whole paradigm ends up being wrong.
I like this description of your viewpoint a lot! The entire paradigm for “good outcomes” may be wrong. And we are unlikely to be aware of our paradigm due to “fish in water” perspective problems.
Some comments on “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”
This podcast is kind of relevant: Tom Moynihan on why prior generations missed some of the biggest priorities of all − 80,000 Hours (80000hours.org)
So people in the Middle Ages believed that the best thing was to save more souls, but I don’t think that exactly failed. That is, if a man’s goal was to have more people believe in Christianity, and he went with sincerity in the Crusades or colonial missionary expeditions, he probably did help achieve that goal.
Likewise, for people in the 1700s, 1800s and early 1900s, when the dominant paradigm shifted to one of human progress, I think people could reliably find ways to improve long-term progress. New science and technology, liberal politics, etc all would have been straightforward and effective methods to get humanity further on the track of rising population, improved quality of life, and scientific advancement.
Point is, I think people have always tended to be significantly more right than wrong about how to change the world. It’s not too too hard to understand how one person’s actions might contribute to an overriding global goal. The problem is in the choice of such an overriding paradigm. The first paradigm was that the world was stagnant/repetitive/decaying and just a prelude to the afterlife. The second paradigm was that the world is progressing and things will only get steadily better via science and reason. Today we largely reject both these paradigms, and instead we have a view of precarity—that an incredibly good future is in sight but only if we proceed with caution, wisdom, good institutions and luck. And I think the deepest risk is not that we are unable to understand how to make our civilization more cautious and wise, but that this whole paradigm ends up being wrong.
I don’t mean to particularly agree or disagree with your original post, I just think this is a helpful clarification of the point.
I like this description of your viewpoint a lot! The entire paradigm for “good outcomes” may be wrong. And we are unlikely to be aware of our paradigm due to “fish in water” perspective problems.