4 ms·

Yours is a great point, because it brings to light the follow-on question; what system, or improvements to an existing one, would help people work towards longe

by mftb 4y ago

Yours is a great point, because it brings to light the follow-on question; what system, or improvements to an existing one, would help people work towards longer-term goals? I think it's a difficult ask, because even a responsible, civic-minded person, will honestly, almost always, choose to satisfy an immediate, personal, need over a concrete, community, ~500 year goal. (I'm not just speaking to climate, change here. I'm honestly interested in how groups might genuinely work toward such goals).

engineer_22 4y ago
I can only believe that organized Religion has that much staying power. Nothing else could last through 20 generations. I think religions are valuable because they give their adherents a common foundation on which to base their decisions. So if they live in a community with a fellow believer, they can be reasonably sure how they will behave over time - which has advantages to them. It's noteworthy that the thinking around climate change has some similarities with religion.
- jimmygrapes 4y ago
  I think the only thing missing from the climate change/religion similarity is that climate change has no savior or ultimate authority
- mftb 4y ago
  This is an interesting answer. There are some actual real-world examples to support it. I think someplace like Cologne Cathedral was planned and the plan executed to completion in ~600 years. I think it would also be fair to say, that there were other organizing factors in addition to religion, certainly civic, and economic.
- solveit 4y ago
  The academy has also done exceptionally well. Individual institutions like the University of Oxford have unbroken chains of governance going back centuries, and so do scholarly societies. And of course, the institution of (say) science as a whole could also be regarded as a common endeavour lasting centuries where the highest-status individuals routinely make decisions with the far future in mind (although you would usually say that they're doing it for their legacy).
  - biomcgary 4y ago
    Despite the history, it is clear that the academy is also failing in the current error. I was in academia (science) for a very long time and watched the collapse of the cultural norms that made it successful. I had mentors and friends that are a generation older than me who confirmed my observations of accelerating decline. The reproducibility crises in multiple fields are just the tip of the iceberg.
    - solveit 4y ago
      I don't think the academy is failing any more than is the historical norm. The collapsing cultural norms are not centuries old, they are a product of the academic boom of the latter half of the twentieth century, where the first world (and certainly America) was more or less peaceful, the population was sharply rising, and access to and demand for higher education was exploding. The academic norms of the 1980s would be unrecognisable to an academic of the 1920s, yet I claim that both academics are part of a longstanding lineage of people working towards a common endeavour. And the reproducibility crisis is not an example of decline. It's not like social science used to be reproducible then stopped. It's that for the first time in history, we've realised that things are bad, and now we're (slowly) starting to do good science. The reproducibility crisis is an example of improvement!
  - mftb 4y ago
    I like this answer, but it would be more compelling if a concrete case of planning and execution over a long time frame could be cited. The kind of concrete example I'm talking about is, "We set out to build x or reduce y, over 300 years and it took us 450, but it's done.".

by mftb 4y ago

engineer_22 4y ago

I can only believe that organized Religion has that much staying power. Nothing else could last through 20 generations. I think religions are valuable because they give their adherents a common foundation on which to base their decisions. So if they live in a community with a fellow believer, they can be reasonably sure how they will behave over time - which has advantages to them. It's noteworthy that the thinking around climate change has some similarities with religion.

jimmygrapes 4y ago
I think the only thing missing from the climate change/religion similarity is that climate change has no savior or ultimate authority
mftb 4y ago
This is an interesting answer. There are some actual real-world examples to support it. I think someplace like Cologne Cathedral was planned and the plan executed to completion in ~600 years. I think it would also be fair to say, that there were other organizing factors in addition to religion, certainly civic, and economic.
solveit 4y ago
The academy has also done exceptionally well. Individual institutions like the University of Oxford have unbroken chains of governance going back centuries, and so do scholarly societies. And of course, the institution of (say) science as a whole could also be regarded as a common endeavour lasting centuries where the highest-status individuals routinely make decisions with the far future in mind (although you would usually say that they're doing it for their legacy).
- biomcgary 4y ago
  Despite the history, it is clear that the academy is also failing in the current error. I was in academia (science) for a very long time and watched the collapse of the cultural norms that made it successful. I had mentors and friends that are a generation older than me who confirmed my observations of accelerating decline. The reproducibility crises in multiple fields are just the tip of the iceberg.
  - solveit 4y ago
    I don't think the academy is failing any more than is the historical norm. The collapsing cultural norms are not centuries old, they are a product of the academic boom of the latter half of the twentieth century, where the first world (and certainly America) was more or less peaceful, the population was sharply rising, and access to and demand for higher education was exploding. The academic norms of the 1980s would be unrecognisable to an academic of the 1920s, yet I claim that both academics are part of a longstanding lineage of people working towards a common endeavour. And the reproducibility crisis is not an example of decline. It's not like social science used to be reproducible then stopped. It's that for the first time in history, we've realised that things are bad, and now we're (slowly) starting to do good science. The reproducibility crisis is an example of improvement!
- mftb 4y ago
  I like this answer, but it would be more compelling if a concrete case of planning and execution over a long time frame could be cited. The kind of concrete example I'm talking about is, "We set out to build x or reduce y, over 300 years and it took us 450, but it's done.".