The very first premise of this post, “Things are getting better.” is flawed. Our life-support system, the biosphere, for example, has been gradually deteriorating over the past decades (centuries?) and is in danger of collapse. Currently, humanity has transgressed 6 of the 9 planetary boundaries. See:
Technological ‘progress’, on balance, is accelerating this potential collapse (e.g. the enormous energy resources consumed by AI). Ord should revise his position accordingly.
Please note that I have been a great fan of Ord’s work in the past (particularly The Precipice, which I donated to my school library also), along with his colleagues’ work on long-termism. Nevertheless, his latest work (both the blog post and the chapter in the forthcoming OUP book, Essays in Longtermism) feels like a philosophical version of Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook motto, Move fast and (risk) break(ing) things. It downplays uncertainty to an irresponsible degree, and its quantitative mathematical approach fails to sufficiently take into account advances in complex systems science, where the mathematics of dynamical systems and chaos hold sway.
I’d note that quoting that sentence without including the one immediately after it seems misleading, so here it is — it’s essentially a distillation of (for instance) Our World in Data’s main message:
Things are getting better. While there are substantial ups and downs, long-term progress in science, technology, and values have tended to make people’s lives longer, freer, and more prosperous.
The fact that people’s lives are longer, freer, and more prosperous now than a few centuries ago doesn’t contradict the fact that (as you rightly point out) the biosphere is degrading horrifically.
I’d also note that your depiction of Ord here
his latest work (both the blog post and the chapter in the forthcoming OUP book, Essays in Longtermism) feels like a philosophical version of Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook motto, Move fast and (risk) break(ing) things
seems strawmannish and unnecessarily provocative; it doesn’t engage with nuances like (quoting the OP)
I’m a natural optimist and an advocate for progress. I don’t want to see the case for advancing progress undermined. But when I tried to model it clearly to better understand its value, I found a substantial gap in the argument.
and right before that
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
which sounds like a serious consideration of the opposite of “move fast and risk breaking things”, for which I commend Ord given how this goes against his bias (separately from whether I agree with his takes or the overall vibe I get from his progress-related writings).
The very first premise of this post, “Things are getting better.” is flawed. Our life-support system, the biosphere, for example, has been gradually deteriorating over the past decades (centuries?) and is in danger of collapse. Currently, humanity has transgressed 6 of the 9 planetary boundaries. See:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2024/02/planetary-boundary-health-checks/
Technological ‘progress’, on balance, is accelerating this potential collapse (e.g. the enormous energy resources consumed by AI). Ord should revise his position accordingly.
Please note that I have been a great fan of Ord’s work in the past (particularly The Precipice, which I donated to my school library also), along with his colleagues’ work on long-termism. Nevertheless, his latest work (both the blog post and the chapter in the forthcoming OUP book, Essays in Longtermism) feels like a philosophical version of Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook motto, Move fast and (risk) break(ing) things. It downplays uncertainty to an irresponsible degree, and its quantitative mathematical approach fails to sufficiently take into account advances in complex systems science, where the mathematics of dynamical systems and chaos hold sway.
I’d note that quoting that sentence without including the one immediately after it seems misleading, so here it is — it’s essentially a distillation of (for instance) Our World in Data’s main message:
The fact that people’s lives are longer, freer, and more prosperous now than a few centuries ago doesn’t contradict the fact that (as you rightly point out) the biosphere is degrading horrifically.
I’d also note that your depiction of Ord here
seems strawmannish and unnecessarily provocative; it doesn’t engage with nuances like (quoting the OP)
and right before that
which sounds like a serious consideration of the opposite of “move fast and risk breaking things”, for which I commend Ord given how this goes against his bias (separately from whether I agree with his takes or the overall vibe I get from his progress-related writings).