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I don't think I have missed the point. I think you're more versed in Land's thinking than I am, but I have been reading his blog for years, and I've had a good

I don't think I have missed the point. I think you're more versed in Land's thinking than I am, but I have been reading his blog for years, and I've had a good deal of mental anguish over the humanity-has-no-agency problem. I get it, capitalism is an alien AI and we're just the hardware, and if not capitalism substitute in something like sexual selection instead. And our coordination problems are such that we cut any tall reeds that try to stand against this. Moloch! Nightmare in Moloch! So, OK, "humanity" has no agency. But I think individuals do. At the very least, they can not make things worse. They can become the kind of people who, if dropped into a perfect society, wouldn't drag it down. And then they can (a harder task, in computation as well as effort!) become the kind that soften the blows of the elder gods, even while paying them proper respect. I tend to hold with Nyan, as quoted in Meditations on Moloch(http://web.archive.org/web/20140801022058/http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ http://web.archive.org/web/20140801022058/http://slatestarco...): And then there’s us. Man has his own telos, when he is allowed the security to act and the clarity to reason out the consequences of his actions. When unafflicted by coordination problems and unthreatened by superior forces, able to act as a gardener rather than just another subject of the law of the jungle, he tends to build and guide a wonderful world for himself. He tends to favor good things and avoid bad, to create secure civilizations with polished sidewalks, beautiful art, happy families, and glorious adventures...The project of civilization being for man to graduate from the metaphorical savage, subject to the law of the jungle, to the civilized gardener who, while theoretically still subject to the law of the jungle, is so dominant as to limit the usefulness of that model.

armitron 7y ago
Individuals may or may not have agency, but it doesn't amount to much. Climate change is but the tiniest and most benign of the forces Land is evoking. We're dealing with an emergent runaway overseer: globe-spanning positive feedback in all its doom and glory. Look at the multiplicity of hairless apes around you and subsequently the apes-in-charge of this shrewdness. Do we stand a chance? It is a joke even to joke.
- dropit_sphere 7y ago
  You're not wrong, but I place a lot of hope in "[not] much." One thing individuals can do is act so that groups do have agency. But I know what you're seeing. I wish I could shake your hand. Best wishes. I upvoted you.

armitron 7y ago

Individuals may or may not have agency, but it doesn't amount to much. Climate change is but the tiniest and most benign of the forces Land is evoking. We're dealing with an emergent runaway overseer: globe-spanning positive feedback in all its doom and glory. Look at the multiplicity of hairless apes around you and subsequently the apes-in-charge of this shrewdness. Do we stand a chance? It is a joke even to joke.

dropit_sphere 7y ago
You're not wrong, but I place a lot of hope in "[not] much." One thing individuals can do is act so that groups do have agency. But I know what you're seeing. I wish I could shake your hand. Best wishes. I upvoted you.