I’m surprised this comment was downvoted so much. It doesn’t seem very nuanced, but here’s obviously a lot going wrong with modern capitalism. While free markets have historically been a key driver of the decline of global poverty (see e.g. this and this), I don’t think it’s wrong to say that longtermists should be thinking about large scale economic transition (though should most likely still involve free markets).
It packs powerful claims that really need to be unpacked (“unsustainable...massive suffering”), with a backhand against the community (“actually care...claim to”) with extraordinary, vague demands (“large economic transition”), all in a single sentence.
It’s hard to be generous, since it’s so vague. If you tried to riff some “steelman” off it, you could work in almost any argument critical of capitalism or even EA in general, which isn’t a good sign.
The forum guidelines suggest I downvote comments when I dislike the effect they have on a conversation. One of the examples the guidelines give is when a comment contains an error or bad reasoning. While I think the reasoning in Ruth’s comment is fine, I think the claim that capitalism is unsustainable and causes “massive suffering” is an error. Nor is the claim backed up by any links to supporting evidence that might change my mind. The most likely effect of ruth_schlenker’s comment is to distract from Halstead’s original comment and inflame the discussion, i.e. have a negative effect on the conversation.
Capitalism could be worse than some alternative due to factory farming, climate change or various other global catastrophic risks, although we really need to consider specific alternatives. So far, I think it’s pretty clear that what we’ve been doing has been unsustainable, but that doesn’t mean replacing capitalism is better than reforming or regulating it, and technology does often address problems.
I think it’s pretty clear that what we’ve been doing has been unsustainable
I don’t understand this claim/intuitively disagree with it as presented but don’t think I understand what you mean well enough to be sure I actually disagree.
I’m surprised this comment was downvoted so much. It doesn’t seem very nuanced, but here’s obviously a lot going wrong with modern capitalism. While free markets have historically been a key driver of the decline of global poverty (see e.g. this and this), I don’t think it’s wrong to say that longtermists should be thinking about large scale economic transition (though should most likely still involve free markets).
I think a downvoters view is that:
It packs powerful claims that really need to be unpacked (“unsustainable...massive suffering”), with a backhand against the community (“actually care...claim to”) with extraordinary, vague demands (“large economic transition”), all in a single sentence.
It’s hard to be generous, since it’s so vague. If you tried to riff some “steelman” off it, you could work in almost any argument critical of capitalism or even EA in general, which isn’t a good sign.
The forum guidelines suggest I downvote comments when I dislike the effect they have on a conversation. One of the examples the guidelines give is when a comment contains an error or bad reasoning. While I think the reasoning in Ruth’s comment is fine, I think the claim that capitalism is unsustainable and causes “massive suffering” is an error. Nor is the claim backed up by any links to supporting evidence that might change my mind. The most likely effect of ruth_schlenker’s comment is to distract from Halstead’s original comment and inflame the discussion, i.e. have a negative effect on the conversation.
Capitalism could be worse than some alternative due to factory farming, climate change or various other global catastrophic risks, although we really need to consider specific alternatives. So far, I think it’s pretty clear that what we’ve been doing has been unsustainable, but that doesn’t mean replacing capitalism is better than reforming or regulating it, and technology does often address problems.
I don’t understand this claim/intuitively disagree with it as presented but don’t think I understand what you mean well enough to be sure I actually disagree.
I have in mind climate change and land use. If we kept consuming at current rates, wouldn’t we likely end up with catastrophic climate change?
If you include consumption trends, things look even worse, but we also have clean tech and government policy coming.