This tension is one reason why I called this “wisdom and intelligence”, and tried to focus on that of “humanity”, as opposed to just “intelligence”, and in particular, ’individual intelligence”.
I think that “the wisdom and intelligence of humanity” is much safer to optimize than “the intelligence of a bunch of individuals in isolation”.
If it were the case that “people all know what to do, they just won’t do it”, then I would agree that wisdom and intelligence aren’t that important. However, I think these cases are highly unusual. From what I’ve seen, in most cases of “big coordination problems”, there are considerable amounts of confusion, deception, and stupidity.
This tension is one reason why I called this “wisdom and intelligence”, and tried to focus on that of “humanity”, as opposed to just “intelligence”, and in particular, ’individual intelligence”.
I think that “the wisdom and intelligence of humanity” is much safer to optimize than “the intelligence of a bunch of individuals in isolation”.
If it were the case that “people all know what to do, they just won’t do it”, then I would agree that wisdom and intelligence aren’t that important. However, I think these cases are highly unusual. From what I’ve seen, in most cases of “big coordination problems”, there are considerable amounts of confusion, deception, and stupidity.