Your example comparing the peaceful-psychology hypothesis and the violent-psychology hypothesis is effective, and it stands on its own. However, I donât think itâs the best way to represent Steven Pinkerâs argument, and I think representing that argument more accurately leads in some interesting new directions.
As I understand him, Pinker does not argue humans have a peaceful psychology. Rather, he acknowledges that there are many aspects of our psychology that predispose us to violence, and he attributes the historical decline in violence primarily to social developments, e.g., establishing trade networks, accumulating social norms, elevating womenâs power in society, etc. These changes in society have built stronger and stronger defenses against our violent instincts, which have remained relatively unchanged over the course of human history.
Stating the hypothesis this way raises the question of how far we expect this trend to continue. We would be much more interested in saving a world (âWorld 1â) where society continues to grow increasingly less violent and more compassionate, and substantially less interested in saving a world (âWorld 2âł) where that trend stops, or where it doesnât go far enough fast enough to prevent huge new sources of suffering.
Moral circle expansion is a strategy to make our world more like the first one and less like the second one. Unlike the strategies discussed in this post, it doesnât deal with affecting the likelihood of extinction scenarios. Rather, it tries to directly influence the speed and direction of the trends that determine the expected value of the long-term future (a.k.a. it tries to shift us to a world more worth saving). For what itâs worth, I think Sentience Institute is doing some really valuable research on this topic.
Just to be clear: my rough simplification of the âPinker hypothesisâ isnât that people have an all-around-peaceful psychology. It is, as you say, a hypothesis about how far we expect recent trends toward peace to continue. And in particular, itâs the hypothesis that thereâs no hard lower bound to the âviolence levelâ we can reach, so that, as we make technological and social progress, we will ultimately approach a state of being perfectly peaceful. The alternative hypothesis Iâm contrasting this with is a future in which can we can only ever get things down to, say, one world war per century. If the former hypothesis isnât actually Pinkerâs, then my sincere apologies! But I really just mean to outline two hypotheses one might be uncertain between, in order to illustrate the qualitative point about the conditional value of the future.
That said, I certainly agree that moral circle expansion seems like a good thing to do, for making the world better conditional on survival, without running the risk of âsaving a bad worldâ. And Iâm excited by Sentienceâs work on it. Also, I think it might have the benefit of lowering x-risk in the long run (if it really succeeds, weâll have fewer wars and such). And, come to think of it, it has the nice feature that, since it will only lower x-risk if it succeeds in other ways, it disproportionately saves âgood worldsâ in the end.
Great points, Trammell! Thank you for this post.
Your example comparing the peaceful-psychology hypothesis and the violent-psychology hypothesis is effective, and it stands on its own. However, I donât think itâs the best way to represent Steven Pinkerâs argument, and I think representing that argument more accurately leads in some interesting new directions.
As I understand him, Pinker does not argue humans have a peaceful psychology. Rather, he acknowledges that there are many aspects of our psychology that predispose us to violence, and he attributes the historical decline in violence primarily to social developments, e.g., establishing trade networks, accumulating social norms, elevating womenâs power in society, etc. These changes in society have built stronger and stronger defenses against our violent instincts, which have remained relatively unchanged over the course of human history.
Stating the hypothesis this way raises the question of how far we expect this trend to continue. We would be much more interested in saving a world (âWorld 1â) where society continues to grow increasingly less violent and more compassionate, and substantially less interested in saving a world (âWorld 2âł) where that trend stops, or where it doesnât go far enough fast enough to prevent huge new sources of suffering.
Moral circle expansion is a strategy to make our world more like the first one and less like the second one. Unlike the strategies discussed in this post, it doesnât deal with affecting the likelihood of extinction scenarios. Rather, it tries to directly influence the speed and direction of the trends that determine the expected value of the long-term future (a.k.a. it tries to shift us to a world more worth saving). For what itâs worth, I think Sentience Institute is doing some really valuable research on this topic.
Thanks!
Just to be clear: my rough simplification of the âPinker hypothesisâ isnât that people have an all-around-peaceful psychology. It is, as you say, a hypothesis about how far we expect recent trends toward peace to continue. And in particular, itâs the hypothesis that thereâs no hard lower bound to the âviolence levelâ we can reach, so that, as we make technological and social progress, we will ultimately approach a state of being perfectly peaceful. The alternative hypothesis Iâm contrasting this with is a future in which can we can only ever get things down to, say, one world war per century. If the former hypothesis isnât actually Pinkerâs, then my sincere apologies! But I really just mean to outline two hypotheses one might be uncertain between, in order to illustrate the qualitative point about the conditional value of the future.
That said, I certainly agree that moral circle expansion seems like a good thing to do, for making the world better conditional on survival, without running the risk of âsaving a bad worldâ. And Iâm excited by Sentienceâs work on it. Also, I think it might have the benefit of lowering x-risk in the long run (if it really succeeds, weâll have fewer wars and such). And, come to think of it, it has the nice feature that, since it will only lower x-risk if it succeeds in other ways, it disproportionately saves âgood worldsâ in the end.