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Given the great success of trickle down economics, benevolent dictators etc. throughout history, I call this out as the bad rhetorical technique of "no, but thi

Given the great success of trickle down economics, benevolent dictators etc. throughout history, I call this out as the bad rhetorical technique of "no, but this time it is different". The very framing of dividing "civilizations" into "tiers" where one is clearly superior to the other shows some implicit assumptions that not everyone might share, as well as the idea that there will be or should be a "ruling class". If people reject this, we do not get to thinly veil "just accept your technological superior you luddite" like some 1920s robber baron. That's been done, and they got pushed back, and we have no obligation to enable the fabulous wealth and power of some elite to last forever without provable commitments that this will benefit all of us

adamisom 4y ago
> I call this out as the bad rhetorical technique of "no, but this time it is different". A lot of things are going to be different if longevity tech is successful.
archibaldJ 4y ago
> ...the idea that there will be or should be a "ruling class". There will always be a "ruling class" the same way that there will always be dependency hierarchy in the cost structure of things (eg from compiler design to the way a solar system works). > ... and we have no obligation to enable the fabulous wealth and power of some elite ... Indeed. But let's be pragmatic for a second. What can an individual (or a collective of people) do to not enable (ie disable) existing wealth and power (ie the status quo)? Unfortunately the answer is by gaining wealth and power themselves. (eg in the cultural-economic form or socio-politically or militarily, etc). To change the dynamics of the system. Anything else is just ignoring reality and encouraging hypernormalization [1]. The world is in a huge mess now because many highly capable people chose not to make the hard decisions. (eg with the current RU & China situations) ... and the world will only become a better place (eg in the sense of reducing suffering, and for the pursuit of universal human & animal rights, etc) when hard decisions are made and executed to bring forth a paradigm shift (that which can be measured game-theoretically e.g. compare modern day France to 18th century France) > ... without provable commitments that this will benefit all of us Proof is useful but it is not enough in the same way the map is useful but it is not the territory. In some sense I've just elaborated your points above but from the angle that the world is going to collapse soon if we don't reach Tier 1 as a cilivisation fast enough. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperNormalisation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperNormalisation
- igorkraw 4y ago
  First I would like to thank you for actually engaging in a non-defensive way. Second, I would like to point out some flaws I see in your argumentations: On ruling class/"dependency hierarchy":no, there does not always need to be one. For a semantic example, it is perfectly possible to have no "dependency" in software systems (except the one to the underlying system, but this is not a power relationship). Closer to the subject, it is possible to structure systems such that there is no power concentration, "soft power" is effectively diffused and true consent (not necessarily concensus, just consent) is required to get anything done. Such systems still enable decision making to be delegated, but when push comes to shove, power is distributed and recalled easily. We see it in associations, we see it in anarchist social experiments, we see it in well designed teams and companies where employees have real leverage - such systems are often not as scalable yet, but they do generally perform better in terms of welfare and resilient - see the german company-union relationships which tend to be more resilient to economic downturns for example and generally treat their employees much better. To blindly reassert "there is no other way" is to adopt as an axiom that is at best uncertain and at worst empirically wrong. 3rd, on pragmatism and the french, sure, pragmatically we can play that game while it exists, but the glory of the french revolution was not in it's pragmatic achieval of its goals (they failed after all, napoleon the post-metternich era reinstuted defacto monarchy) and but that it completely and radically did away with pragmatism and destroyed the old social order. So I'm surprised you would use it as an argument in a discussion about the inevitably of hierachy, if anything I would use it as an argument for the great good that can come from taking away power from old decision making structures. 4th, on game theory, I do my best to study game theory nowadays, and you can only prove what your assumptions allow you, so in this discussion it's out of bounds without a formal specification (I'm happy for references though if you can recommend good formalisations and studies of current political and economic systems). 5th, on the world collapsing, it is collapsing because our elite has so far not cared to save it despite the scientists warning them for decades, and its the populace and idealists (extinction rebellion et al) who are pushing for the radical solutions to save them - so again, I don't see why we should buy the argument of "oh no, actually, the elites need to be more powerful so they can save us". Scaling and Growth at all costs without distributed power to alleviate the distributed ills has brought us here. So why should we not ask for solid proof before we give more power to a centralised few? Why should we assume a ruling class will survive the coming shifts? Why should we assume having a ruling class is inevitable when previous generations were told only the kings and royals had the divine grace to rule, that the plebs could never handle reading, women could never handle equality, colored would never be able to vote rationally?

adamisom 4y ago

> I call this out as the bad rhetorical technique of "no, but this time it is different". A lot of things are going to be different if longevity tech is successful.

archibaldJ 4y ago

> ...the idea that there will be or should be a "ruling class". There will always be a "ruling class" the same way that there will always be dependency hierarchy in the cost structure of things (eg from compiler design to the way a solar system works). > ... and we have no obligation to enable the fabulous wealth and power of some elite ... Indeed. But let's be pragmatic for a second. What can an individual (or a collective of people) do to not enable (ie disable) existing wealth and power (ie the status quo)? Unfortunately the answer is by gaining wealth and power themselves. (eg in the cultural-economic form or socio-politically or militarily, etc). To change the dynamics of the system. Anything else is just ignoring reality and encouraging hypernormalization [1]. The world is in a huge mess now because many highly capable people chose not to make the hard decisions. (eg with the current RU & China situations) ... and the world will only become a better place (eg in the sense of reducing suffering, and for the pursuit of universal human & animal rights, etc) when hard decisions are made and executed to bring forth a paradigm shift (that which can be measured game-theoretically e.g. compare modern day France to 18th century France) > ... without provable commitments that this will benefit all of us Proof is useful but it is not enough in the same way the map is useful but it is not the territory. In some sense I've just elaborated your points above but from the angle that the world is going to collapse soon if we don't reach Tier 1 as a cilivisation fast enough. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperNormalisation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperNormalisation

igorkraw 4y ago
First I would like to thank you for actually engaging in a non-defensive way. Second, I would like to point out some flaws I see in your argumentations: On ruling class/"dependency hierarchy":no, there does not always need to be one. For a semantic example, it is perfectly possible to have no "dependency" in software systems (except the one to the underlying system, but this is not a power relationship). Closer to the subject, it is possible to structure systems such that there is no power concentration, "soft power" is effectively diffused and true consent (not necessarily concensus, just consent) is required to get anything done. Such systems still enable decision making to be delegated, but when push comes to shove, power is distributed and recalled easily. We see it in associations, we see it in anarchist social experiments, we see it in well designed teams and companies where employees have real leverage - such systems are often not as scalable yet, but they do generally perform better in terms of welfare and resilient - see the german company-union relationships which tend to be more resilient to economic downturns for example and generally treat their employees much better. To blindly reassert "there is no other way" is to adopt as an axiom that is at best uncertain and at worst empirically wrong. 3rd, on pragmatism and the french, sure, pragmatically we can play that game while it exists, but the glory of the french revolution was not in it's pragmatic achieval of its goals (they failed after all, napoleon the post-metternich era reinstuted defacto monarchy) and but that it completely and radically did away with pragmatism and destroyed the old social order. So I'm surprised you would use it as an argument in a discussion about the inevitably of hierachy, if anything I would use it as an argument for the great good that can come from taking away power from old decision making structures. 4th, on game theory, I do my best to study game theory nowadays, and you can only prove what your assumptions allow you, so in this discussion it's out of bounds without a formal specification (I'm happy for references though if you can recommend good formalisations and studies of current political and economic systems). 5th, on the world collapsing, it is collapsing because our elite has so far not cared to save it despite the scientists warning them for decades, and its the populace and idealists (extinction rebellion et al) who are pushing for the radical solutions to save them - so again, I don't see why we should buy the argument of "oh no, actually, the elites need to be more powerful so they can save us". Scaling and Growth at all costs without distributed power to alleviate the distributed ills has brought us here. So why should we not ask for solid proof before we give more power to a centralised few? Why should we assume a ruling class will survive the coming shifts? Why should we assume having a ruling class is inevitable when previous generations were told only the kings and royals had the divine grace to rule, that the plebs could never handle reading, women could never handle equality, colored would never be able to vote rationally?