I think it’s widely accepted on the forum that current society is net QUALY/util negative. It’s also not entirely clear that this value will become net positive, and I think many of the methods for making society net-positive would also reduce existential risk (encouraging greater compassion, which also reduces the risk of wars/other dangerous competitive dynamics).
Tatu
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Also, note that, for however much psychological studies are worth, I think one of the more common theories in psychology right now explaining concern/lack thereof about animals is that human supremacy is an expression of social dominance theory towards animals, that is, it is just an application of general desires for hierarchy (social dominance orientation), not something really specifically targeted towards animals. Creating norms and attitudes against domination of animals will reduce this general desire to dominate, reducing one of the psychological bases for prejudice in general. Depending on how much influence you think institutions vs inherent psychological traits have on human behavior and the potential of both to be changed, this could either be pretty low flowthrough impact or very high impact.
Well...that’s true only if you assume other people have the same opportunity cost as you (linearity). For recycling, being a vegan, raising children, etc., your opportunity cost as an EA will be different, likely higher than for other people. A world where more people were spending resources raising children would be better than the current one where much is spent on consumption/leisure/other goods that don’t contribute to growth. But an EA wouldn’t draw from their EA budget to have children as the opportunity cost for the budget is donating to AI safety, global health, etc. This non-linearity seems to exist in most circumstances concerning use of time/money, so I’m not sure whether there are many cases where deontology will actually improve decision-making, other than giving a quick answer.
I feel like one of the problems EA has is that it is a community that largely rejects metaphysics in a society that is based on numerous metaphysical claims. EA doesn’t say there are “good people” and “bad people” who “deserve” certain outcomes, only delving into metaphysics briefly to claim that certain outcomes are “good.” So, as an apostate, I feel like I’m still sort of running on the “I’m inherently a sinner...unless” → “I deserve to suffer...unless” from my time as a Christian, and since EA doesn’t offer a strong alternative metaphysics due to rejecting the category, I’m just sort of stuck there, trying to tone down my earlier thoughts rather than having something else replace them. IDK, though. Maybe if I grew up in a society that didn’t tell me I was inherently worthless, I’d still need a source of positive self-worth, but probably not as badly as I do now.
I’m also a bit unsure whether claiming “I’m inherently valuable” even is against truth-seeking norms. After all, this may not be expressing something that even has a truth-value. It may be meaningless language, so you’re essentially just hugging yourself when you make that seeming claim (I’m not quite a logical positivist, so I think I disagree, but...).
I think more important than the Hayekian difficulties of planning is that, to my understanding of how the term progress is normally used, part of the reason why all these notions of economic-technological, values, and institutional progress have been linked together under the term “progress” is because they are mutually self-reinforcing. Economic growth and peace and egalitarian, non-hierarchical values/psychology → democracy → economic growth and peace and egalitarian values, a-la Kant’s perpetual peace. You can’t easily make one go faster than the others because they all come together in a virtuous circle.
Further, these notions of progress are associated with a very particular vision of society put forward by liberals (the notion of long-run general progress, not just a specific type of moral progress from this particular law, is an idea mostly reserved to liberals). Progress, then, isn’t moving forward on humanity’s timeline, but moving forward on the desired liberal timeline of history, with a set of self-reinforcing factors (economic growth, democratization, liberal values) that lock-in the triumph of liberalism to eventually usher in the end of history.
I think this understanding makes the notion of undifferentiated progress much more compelling. It is hard to separate the different factors of progress, so differentiating is unreasonable, but progress is also a specific political vision that can be countered, not some pre-determined inevitable timeline. We live at a time where it feels uncontestable (Fukuyama a couple decades ago), but it isn’t quite.
RE general strike—see Kapp Putsch in Weimar Germany, as Gene Sharp discusses in The Anti-Coup.
Regarding left wing ‘bark no bite,’ given the weakness of American unions and the decay in civil society, it may be hard to coordinate mass resistance for an extended period of time to actually thwart a coup attempt, but the Women´s March offers some hope.
Hi. Appreciate your work. I read through your recommendation of Freedom2Vote and am confused about the connection between increased voter turnout and countering authoritarianism. To my best understanding, some of the greatest supporters of Trump in the US have been low-turnout voters, who presumably are the same people targeted by this initiative.