[edit] having just read https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ as posted by /

[edit] having just read https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ as posted by /u/phreack, it turns out Scott Alexander has already written what I wrote below, point by point, much more eloquently than I ever could. Read that instead of this comment, if you have the time. The problem is that bad behaviour is incentivised. It's like the prisoner's dilemma - what you're wishing for is for everyone to cooperate, even though any given individual stands to benefit from betrayal - some individuals will betray, and in an iterated prisoner's dilemma others will see that "crime pays" so to speak and do the same. What we need to do as a society is to reshape the incentives, through systems engineering, so that the best incentives encourage cooperation. This is a herculean task, I have no idea whether it's even possible, and if it is, who would be in a position to enact such widespread societal changes. But as long as one can personally benefit from a collective harm (or even just reducing the collective benefit), collective harm will be done. I think some of these arguments are Marxist ones, to be honest - but so far, Marxist attempts to reorganise society have produced even worse societies. I think the only way forwards is incrementalism, tweaking our social structures little by little in the right direction, as total societal reinvention was clearly a catastrophe when attempted.