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I have wondered about the following question in roundabout ways, but this note has finally made the phrasing clear to me: if humanity finds a way to weed out th

I have wondered about the following question in roundabout ways, but this note has finally made the phrasing clear to me: if humanity finds a way to weed out the people who speak up for themselves and for others over a long-enough time scale, then what happens to humanity game-theoretically in that scale and on a longer scale? Please feel free to replace “humanity” with “a population” if it helps you think of an answer. Edit: replaced “in terms of game theory” with “game-theoretically”.

endymi0n 7y ago
My take on this is that it's not possible on a long enough time scale. If you try to curtail freedom of knowledge and trade, eventually you will get artifacts that will slow down the progress of your society (just look at the Github bans). Look at how hopelessly antiquated "parallel" societies like the ex-GDR, North Korea or Cuba have become. North Korea still holds out as they completely closed down their population. But if you try to have all the good parts of western society while still limiting intellectual freedom, I think all of this will come apart eventually. Travel from and to China is not severely limited, and eventually there will be an influx and a core cell of Chinese people wanting to have the same freedoms for their country. Fighting those minds will show the true faces of any authoritarian regime, which in turn will get more people upset. I think in these days of full technical mind control, it will be an interesting excercise in how long a government can keep this critical mass contained and intimidated. But once they can get some visibility and they hit a weak spot in the regime, it's usually over: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monday_demonstrations_in_East_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monday_demonstrations_in_East_... The human mind is meant to be free. Any dictatorship is actively working at destroying itself.

endymi0n 7y ago

My take on this is that it's not possible on a long enough time scale. If you try to curtail freedom of knowledge and trade, eventually you will get artifacts that will slow down the progress of your society (just look at the Github bans). Look at how hopelessly antiquated "parallel" societies like the ex-GDR, North Korea or Cuba have become. North Korea still holds out as they completely closed down their population. But if you try to have all the good parts of western society while still limiting intellectual freedom, I think all of this will come apart eventually. Travel from and to China is not severely limited, and eventually there will be an influx and a core cell of Chinese people wanting to have the same freedoms for their country. Fighting those minds will show the true faces of any authoritarian regime, which in turn will get more people upset. I think in these days of full technical mind control, it will be an interesting excercise in how long a government can keep this critical mass contained and intimidated. But once they can get some visibility and they hit a weak spot in the regime, it's usually over: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monday_demonstrations_in_East_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monday_demonstrations_in_East_... The human mind is meant to be free. Any dictatorship is actively working at destroying itself.