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> This "pulling balls from an urn" analogy at the beginning is very misguided. Where is the agency in this analogy? If you build tools with the intention of the

> This "pulling balls from an urn" analogy at the beginning is very misguided. Where is the agency in this analogy? If you build tools with the intention of them directly being useful to people, they're likely to be useful. If you build tools to be parasitic (i.e. useful to people who are trying to benefit at the expense of others), they're likely to be parasitic. It's quite simple. I find this very naiive, as this at best only applies on a short timescale and for the immediate effect. History is full of inventions that were created to help people, that is then quickly turned into something harmful, and vice versa. Also, a lot of "progress" has come as side effects of pure curiosity, espcially within science. I don't think anyone would be able to build modern electronic computers, if it wasn't for some other people a few decades earlier doing basic research in fields such as electromagnetism, quantum physics or chemistry.

iroh2727 4y ago
I agree with your point about scientific breakthroughs coming via pure curiosity. I’m just saying that we can’t forget the human agency at play here. We didn’t have to build the atom bomb, and it wasn’t exactly simple to turn insights from physics into the atom bomb (it took a team of the best scientists and technologists many years). Also, we can influence the direction of how technology is used. Even setting up the atom bomb to be used involves a ton of decisions and implementation that can be questioned and molded by individual people. Essentially I believe that fear of powerful technology comes from an irrational distrust in people as incompetent or malicious. Same with desire for powerful technology to control or replace people (e.g. algocracy). It seems to reflect a lot of the rhetoric and motivations of the eugenics movement. But the problem is, it can perhaps be a self-fulfilling prophecy. People are capable of being incredibly competent if encouraged to do so. So I think we should go in that direction, of empowerment and freedom rather than control or replacement. And if our governing structures or institutions or culture are making it difficult to go in that direction, we should fight those.
- trashtester 4y ago
  The Manhatten project was started after Einstein (a pacifist) urged Roosevelt that Hitler could build it first. https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Events/1939-1942/einstein_letter.htm#:~:text=Einstein%20had%20written%20to%20inform,extremely%20powerful%20bombs%22%20was%20conceivable https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Event.... At the time Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed, about 50000 Chinese people died every week due to Japanese occupation. If the alternative were an invasion, those two bombs probably saved millions of lives. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/world-war-two-casualties-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/world-war... Von Neumann lobbied to make sure that USA/USSR would end up with a situation of Mutually Assured Destruction. He believed that would be the best way to avoid large wars between the Soviets and NATO. In all these cases the development/use/threat of nukes were done with, arguably, the best of intentions. In their minds, they were employing agency to help protect the world. I would argue that the eugenic movement was the same. There may have been some malice, but there was definitely many eugenicists that truely believed that eugenics was the only way to prevent dysgengics, followed by a malthusian collapse. One could even argue that Hitler saw himself as the hero of Germany, the one that would save Germany from enemy "tribes", foreign and domestic (jews). If so, he may have seen the Holocaust as a heoric and brave act, and it was certainly executed with extreme competency. Mao's cultural revolution, Pol Pot Cambodian genocide, and the Hutu's genocide vs the Tutsies were all very similar to the Holocaust, even if less known. In all cases, a group of Others were seen as a threat, and eliminated. In most of these cases, I think the perpetrators saw themselves as the heroes, almost like the heroes of Minas Tirith fighting the hordes of Mordor. It is extremely hard to come up with a way to live in the world that minimizes harm. And, I think, it is those who has the strongest conviction that they are the Good (TM) struggeling against Evil, that has the greatest tendency to cause harm, as they are convinced that the end justifies the means.
  - iroh2727 4y ago
    Yeah I agree that no one acts in a knowingly malicious way. But considering for example racists or eugenicists, it's important to note that no one is born a racist or eugenicist. Those mentalities are always either (1) something other people convince them is the right mentality or (2) a kind of coping mechanism, a way to maintain our belief that we are good or we are competent in the face of some negative signals that may say otherwise. Thus, given the fact that people do change (otherwise they wouldn't have changed to such an unnatural state to begin with), we should rely on the agency of people calling other people out and people being able to increase their self-awareness and learn from their mistakes. I mean, if you disagree with someone, you don't have to convince them, you just have to convince others to join your side. People with different beliefs standing up for them is what creates balance in the world. Of your above examples, I also agree with your point about it always being some group vs the 'others'. But again, none of those people were born with those desires to harm others. It was something developed and something unnatural, likely the response to some negative events. But I don't think we shouldn't distrust human agency altogether just because some people use theirs to cause harm. And we don't have to calculate precisely the total benefit or harm of our future actions in order to have permission to express our agency. I guess it's really about reaching a state of self-awareness to identify if we're acting in an authentic way. Coming back to technology, I'd say with people that want to automate away or control people, they should reflect on why they've come to distrust other people in general. I mean they certainly trust themselves to try to automate away or control other people. Why not trust others similarly? What events or people in their life led them to that mindset?

iroh2727 4y ago

I agree with your point about scientific breakthroughs coming via pure curiosity. I’m just saying that we can’t forget the human agency at play here. We didn’t have to build the atom bomb, and it wasn’t exactly simple to turn insights from physics into the atom bomb (it took a team of the best scientists and technologists many years). Also, we can influence the direction of how technology is used. Even setting up the atom bomb to be used involves a ton of decisions and implementation that can be questioned and molded by individual people. Essentially I believe that fear of powerful technology comes from an irrational distrust in people as incompetent or malicious. Same with desire for powerful technology to control or replace people (e.g. algocracy). It seems to reflect a lot of the rhetoric and motivations of the eugenics movement. But the problem is, it can perhaps be a self-fulfilling prophecy. People are capable of being incredibly competent if encouraged to do so. So I think we should go in that direction, of empowerment and freedom rather than control or replacement. And if our governing structures or institutions or culture are making it difficult to go in that direction, we should fight those.

trashtester 4y ago
The Manhatten project was started after Einstein (a pacifist) urged Roosevelt that Hitler could build it first. https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Events/1939-1942/einstein_letter.htm#:~:text=Einstein%20had%20written%20to%20inform,extremely%20powerful%20bombs%22%20was%20conceivable https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Event.... At the time Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed, about 50000 Chinese people died every week due to Japanese occupation. If the alternative were an invasion, those two bombs probably saved millions of lives. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/world-war-two-casualties-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/world-war... Von Neumann lobbied to make sure that USA/USSR would end up with a situation of Mutually Assured Destruction. He believed that would be the best way to avoid large wars between the Soviets and NATO. In all these cases the development/use/threat of nukes were done with, arguably, the best of intentions. In their minds, they were employing agency to help protect the world. I would argue that the eugenic movement was the same. There may have been some malice, but there was definitely many eugenicists that truely believed that eugenics was the only way to prevent dysgengics, followed by a malthusian collapse. One could even argue that Hitler saw himself as the hero of Germany, the one that would save Germany from enemy "tribes", foreign and domestic (jews). If so, he may have seen the Holocaust as a heoric and brave act, and it was certainly executed with extreme competency. Mao's cultural revolution, Pol Pot Cambodian genocide, and the Hutu's genocide vs the Tutsies were all very similar to the Holocaust, even if less known. In all cases, a group of Others were seen as a threat, and eliminated. In most of these cases, I think the perpetrators saw themselves as the heroes, almost like the heroes of Minas Tirith fighting the hordes of Mordor. It is extremely hard to come up with a way to live in the world that minimizes harm. And, I think, it is those who has the strongest conviction that they are the Good (TM) struggeling against Evil, that has the greatest tendency to cause harm, as they are convinced that the end justifies the means.
- iroh2727 4y ago
  Yeah I agree that no one acts in a knowingly malicious way. But considering for example racists or eugenicists, it's important to note that no one is born a racist or eugenicist. Those mentalities are always either (1) something other people convince them is the right mentality or (2) a kind of coping mechanism, a way to maintain our belief that we are good or we are competent in the face of some negative signals that may say otherwise. Thus, given the fact that people do change (otherwise they wouldn't have changed to such an unnatural state to begin with), we should rely on the agency of people calling other people out and people being able to increase their self-awareness and learn from their mistakes. I mean, if you disagree with someone, you don't have to convince them, you just have to convince others to join your side. People with different beliefs standing up for them is what creates balance in the world. Of your above examples, I also agree with your point about it always being some group vs the 'others'. But again, none of those people were born with those desires to harm others. It was something developed and something unnatural, likely the response to some negative events. But I don't think we shouldn't distrust human agency altogether just because some people use theirs to cause harm. And we don't have to calculate precisely the total benefit or harm of our future actions in order to have permission to express our agency. I guess it's really about reaching a state of self-awareness to identify if we're acting in an authentic way. Coming back to technology, I'd say with people that want to automate away or control people, they should reflect on why they've come to distrust other people in general. I mean they certainly trust themselves to try to automate away or control other people. Why not trust others similarly? What events or people in their life led them to that mindset?