I’m glad to see historical evidence being considered and also awareness of its limitations.
What do you consider to be the main strategic implications for the EA community?
Is it mainly to update slightly away from strategies which might lead to events similar to the hypothesised causes of decline of Mohism, and towards those which might lead to events similar to the hypothesised causes of the success of Confucianism? E.g. update towards being willing to “adapt doctrines to changing social and intellectual circumstances.”
Yes, those seem right to me. My impression is that most social movements will inevitably have to adapt if they are to survive for longer periods of time. Of course, there’s a trade-off here: to adapt one will likely have to compromise on some of the movement’s initial values. But at the moment I think that adapting too little is probably a more plausible failure mode than adapting too much.
I’m glad to see historical evidence being considered and also awareness of its limitations.
What do you consider to be the main strategic implications for the EA community?
Is it mainly to update slightly away from strategies which might lead to events similar to the hypothesised causes of decline of Mohism, and towards those which might lead to events similar to the hypothesised causes of the success of Confucianism? E.g. update towards being willing to “adapt doctrines to changing social and intellectual circumstances.”
Yes, those seem right to me. My impression is that most social movements will inevitably have to adapt if they are to survive for longer periods of time. Of course, there’s a trade-off here: to adapt one will likely have to compromise on some of the movement’s initial values. But at the moment I think that adapting too little is probably a more plausible failure mode than adapting too much.