It seems like we’re anchoring excessively on the question of sufficiency, when what matters is the net expected benefit. If we rephrase the question and ask “are there populations that are made worse off, on expectation, by more independent thought?”, the answer is clearly yes, which is I think the question that we should be asking (and that fits the point I’m making).
In order to research existential risk, and to actually survive, yes, we need more thought, although this is the kind of research I had in mind in my original comment.
Independent thought helps not just for x-risk, but for personal well-being things like not joining the army, not playing the slot machines, getting off Facebook. In other words, not just for accepting action requests culturally construed as exotic, but rejecting some normal action requests. “Stable sociopolitical/economic context” is actually a fairly strong requirement, given how much the current global narrative is based on exponential growth.
The question is, what do you mean by “independent thought”? If “independent thought” means “mistrust everyone” then clearly it can be a harmful heuristic. If “independent thought” means “use your own thinking faculties to process all evidence you have, including the evidence which consists of the expression of certain beliefs by certain other people” then it’s not clear to me there are significant populations that would be harmed by it. If there are, it means that the society in question has wise and benevolent leaders s.t. for large swaths of the population it is impossible to verify (given their cognitive abilities) that these leaders are indeed wise and benevolent. It seems to me that arriving at such a situation would require a lot of luck, given that the leadership of a society is ultimately determined by the society itself.
It seems like we’re anchoring excessively on the question of sufficiency, when what matters is the net expected benefit. If we rephrase the question and ask “are there populations that are made worse off, on expectation, by more independent thought?”, the answer is clearly yes, which is I think the question that we should be asking (and that fits the point I’m making).
In order to research existential risk, and to actually survive, yes, we need more thought, although this is the kind of research I had in mind in my original comment.
Independent thought helps not just for x-risk, but for personal well-being things like not joining the army, not playing the slot machines, getting off Facebook. In other words, not just for accepting action requests culturally construed as exotic, but rejecting some normal action requests. “Stable sociopolitical/economic context” is actually a fairly strong requirement, given how much the current global narrative is based on exponential growth.
The question is, what do you mean by “independent thought”? If “independent thought” means “mistrust everyone” then clearly it can be a harmful heuristic. If “independent thought” means “use your own thinking faculties to process all evidence you have, including the evidence which consists of the expression of certain beliefs by certain other people” then it’s not clear to me there are significant populations that would be harmed by it. If there are, it means that the society in question has wise and benevolent leaders s.t. for large swaths of the population it is impossible to verify (given their cognitive abilities) that these leaders are indeed wise and benevolent. It seems to me that arriving at such a situation would require a lot of luck, given that the leadership of a society is ultimately determined by the society itself.