4 ms·

I'd argue that for most of the "Big" problems (world peace, nuclear proliferation, pollution, climate change and providing food/education/healthcare to all) the

by WJW 5y ago

I'd argue that for most of the "Big" problems (world peace, nuclear proliferation, pollution, climate change and providing food/education/healthcare to all) the problem can be summarized as "lack of collective will to make the changes required". It is pretty clear what we would need to do to drastically reduce carbon emissions for example, but almost nobody is willing to make the economic sacrifices required.

prox 5y ago
I would also argue that ideological entrenchment because of stifling debate (or vice versa) is a big problem. Lots of problems have solutions but are ideologically entrenched.
TeMPOraL 5y ago
I think "collective will" is a red herring. Humans are what they have always been - gradient descent optimizers on a good day. Understanding of morality, a culture, the law - those are tricks we've developed over time to, sometimes, break us out of situations in which our natural behavior threatens our communities (and so is self-destructive on aggregate). No, I think the common aspect of all Big Problems is that available solutions don't create equilibria. They're not stable. And we know they're not stable - most people do, if only on an instinctive level (our "social sense" is good at navigating these things). That encompasses all the "lack of collective will" cases: people are aware that they're being asked to make an immediate and concrete sacrifice, in exchange for uncertain and abstract long-term gains - gains that won't accrue unless almost everyone makes that same sacrifice. Our gradient-descending minds rightfully figure there's no point. See [0] for a much longer discussion of this topic. The point I'm making is that we should stop thinking about this as a moral failure, in the sense of "if only we had the collective will", as if almost everyone was lazy or heartless or stupid. On the contrary - the Big Problems persist because we know of no solution for them that can be implemented in context of our civilization - societies, cultures and laws[1]. The way I see it, we have following ways forward: - Figure out different solutions, ones that form stable equilibria within our current social framework. This is the part where technology plays critical role - new technologies are a way to create new options. - Transform our social framework into a one in which existing unstable solutions are stable. This is slow and hard work, involving changing laws and ultimately cultural norms. It ultimately means fighting our biology - not all social frameworks can be implemented on top of humans, and even for those that can be, there may not be a possible path from "here" to "there". -- [0] - https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ [1] - A good thought exercise to get a feel for it: imagine that we somehow found the "collective will" to solve one of the Big Problems. What mechanisms are there that protect people from being exploited at scale using the same collective-will-generating circumstances?
- WJW 5y ago
  I mean sure, the root cause of "lack of collective will" is human nature. I was pointing out the cause, not bringing up a solution. I also don't blame people for being the way they are so I don't think a judgment about "moral failure" is in order.
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
    I didn't mean to pass judgement on you, I apologize if it came across like this. I just keep seeing laments about "lack of collective will" in many discussions about important problems, and those mentions tend to be thought-terminating in the sense they feel like discharging responsibility. And my point is - we'll never have "collective will". The big problems, the persisting problems, are such because their very nature prevents spontaneous coordination. If we could just find the will to tackle them, we would have already. So there's no point in even talking about "collective will" - we need to focus on solutions that don't need it. (Or, we can just give up, enjoy what little time we have, and then watch the fireworks. They'll at least be interesting. I'm pretty sure many people think like that[0]. I myself thought like that in a darker period of my life, when I was deprogramming myself from the thought patterns instilled in me by an apocalyptic religion I grew up in - so I'm familiar both with how to blame the world's problems on "those masses of imperfect people" and how to protect your mind from going haywire over the belief that the world is in deep shit and you likely won't make it to the other end.) -- [0] - If we only had the collective will to work on solutions not requiring collective will...

by WJW 5y ago

prox 5y ago

I would also argue that ideological entrenchment because of stifling debate (or vice versa) is a big problem. Lots of problems have solutions but are ideologically entrenched.

TeMPOraL 5y ago

I think "collective will" is a red herring. Humans are what they have always been - gradient descent optimizers on a good day. Understanding of morality, a culture, the law - those are tricks we've developed over time to, sometimes, break us out of situations in which our natural behavior threatens our communities (and so is self-destructive on aggregate). No, I think the common aspect of all Big Problems is that available solutions don't create equilibria. They're not stable. And we know they're not stable - most people do, if only on an instinctive level (our "social sense" is good at navigating these things). That encompasses all the "lack of collective will" cases: people are aware that they're being asked to make an immediate and concrete sacrifice, in exchange for uncertain and abstract long-term gains - gains that won't accrue unless almost everyone makes that same sacrifice. Our gradient-descending minds rightfully figure there's no point. See [0] for a much longer discussion of this topic. The point I'm making is that we should stop thinking about this as a moral failure, in the sense of "if only we had the collective will", as if almost everyone was lazy or heartless or stupid. On the contrary - the Big Problems persist because we know of no solution for them that can be implemented in context of our civilization - societies, cultures and laws[1]. The way I see it, we have following ways forward: - Figure out different solutions, ones that form stable equilibria within our current social framework. This is the part where technology plays critical role - new technologies are a way to create new options. - Transform our social framework into a one in which existing unstable solutions are stable. This is slow and hard work, involving changing laws and ultimately cultural norms. It ultimately means fighting our biology - not all social frameworks can be implemented on top of humans, and even for those that can be, there may not be a possible path from "here" to "there". -- [0] - https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ [1] - A good thought exercise to get a feel for it: imagine that we somehow found the "collective will" to solve one of the Big Problems. What mechanisms are there that protect people from being exploited at scale using the same collective-will-generating circumstances?

WJW 5y ago
I mean sure, the root cause of "lack of collective will" is human nature. I was pointing out the cause, not bringing up a solution. I also don't blame people for being the way they are so I don't think a judgment about "moral failure" is in order.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  I didn't mean to pass judgement on you, I apologize if it came across like this. I just keep seeing laments about "lack of collective will" in many discussions about important problems, and those mentions tend to be thought-terminating in the sense they feel like discharging responsibility. And my point is - we'll never have "collective will". The big problems, the persisting problems, are such because their very nature prevents spontaneous coordination. If we could just find the will to tackle them, we would have already. So there's no point in even talking about "collective will" - we need to focus on solutions that don't need it. (Or, we can just give up, enjoy what little time we have, and then watch the fireworks. They'll at least be interesting. I'm pretty sure many people think like that[0]. I myself thought like that in a darker period of my life, when I was deprogramming myself from the thought patterns instilled in me by an apocalyptic religion I grew up in - so I'm familiar both with how to blame the world's problems on "those masses of imperfect people" and how to protect your mind from going haywire over the belief that the world is in deep shit and you likely won't make it to the other end.) -- [0] - If we only had the collective will to work on solutions not requiring collective will...