@Toby_Ord, thank you—I find this discussion interesting in theory, but I wonder if it’s actually tractable? There’s no metaphorical lever for affecting overall progress, to advance everything—“science, technology, the economy, population, culture, societal norms, moral norms, and so forth” all at the same pace. Moreover, any culture or effort that in principle seeks to advance all of these things at the same time is likely to leave some of them behind in practice (and I fear that those left behind would be the wrong ones!).
Rather, I think that the “different kind of intervention, which we could call differential progress” is in fact the only kind of intervention there is. That is to say, there are a whole bunch of tiny levers we might be able to pull that affect all sorts of bits of progress. Moreover, some of these levers are surprisingly powerful, while other levers don’t really seem to do much. I agree about “differentially boosting other kinds of progress, such as moral progress or institutional progress, and perhaps even for delaying technological, economic, and scientific progress.” And I might venture to say that our levers are more more powerful when it comes to the former set than the latter.
This paragraph was intended to speak to the relevance of this argument given that (as you say) we can’t easily advance all progress uniformly:
And it may have some uncomfortable consequences. If advancing all progress would turn out to be bad, but advancing some parts of it would be good, then it is likely that advancing the remaining parts would be even more bad. Since some kinds of progress are more plausibly linked to bringing about an earlier demise (e.g. nuclear weapons, climate change, and large-scale resource depletion only became possible because of technological, economic, and scientific progress) these parts may not fare so well in such an analysis. So it may really be an argument for differentially boosting other kinds of progress, such as moral progress or institutional progress, and perhaps even for delaying technological, economic, and scientific progress.
@Toby_Ord, thank you—I find this discussion interesting in theory, but I wonder if it’s actually tractable? There’s no metaphorical lever for affecting overall progress, to advance everything—“science, technology, the economy, population, culture, societal norms, moral norms, and so forth” all at the same pace. Moreover, any culture or effort that in principle seeks to advance all of these things at the same time is likely to leave some of them behind in practice (and I fear that those left behind would be the wrong ones!).
Rather, I think that the “different kind of intervention, which we could call differential progress” is in fact the only kind of intervention there is. That is to say, there are a whole bunch of tiny levers we might be able to pull that affect all sorts of bits of progress. Moreover, some of these levers are surprisingly powerful, while other levers don’t really seem to do much. I agree about “differentially boosting other kinds of progress, such as moral progress or institutional progress, and perhaps even for delaying technological, economic, and scientific progress.” And I might venture to say that our levers are more more powerful when it comes to the former set than the latter.
This paragraph was intended to speak to the relevance of this argument given that (as you say) we can’t easily advance all progress uniformly: