This belief applied to effective altruism would suggest that the most effective method of improving all of human life would be to continue to increase our technology level so that there is an abundance of basic needs and no one has a need to become hostile.
Ozymandias, The Watchmen:
Now, it doesn’t take a political scientist to see that our Cold War with the Russians isn’t ideological—it’s based upon fear. Fear of not having enough. But if we make resources infinite… ah… we make war obsolete.
I don’t know the context of the quote, but even with infinite resources we could have a fear-based society. A society where if you break some rule, you will be denied the resources you need. And the rules themselves could make you suffer if you obey them. Or the rules could be contradictory or otherwise impossible to follow.
Well, I can’t give you an example of a society that literally had infinite resources, so all we have are extrapolations from societies with finite resources.
By the way, we should not talk about “infinity” literally. Literal infinity is probably technically impossible. This galaxy only contains a finite amount of matter and energy. So when we say “infinite resources”, we really mean something like “1 000 000 000 x more resources than we have today”. We do not mean literal infinity. I am emphasising this to prevent possible technical arguments using mathematical properties of the literal infinity (such as: however microscopically tiny nonzero fraction of the infinity is still infinite).
If we look at historical capitalist societies, we see huge differences in access to resources: several magnitudes of order, even among people living in the same country. It seems plausible that in the future it would remain essentially the same. If the society as a whole would have million times more resources, that does not mean that all members of the society would have million times more resources than they have today. It could also mean that the “top 1%” (or maybe top 0.0001%) would have million-plus-epsilon times more resources, while the rest would have just as much as they have today, or maybe ten times more.
On the other hand, if we look at historical communist societies (and for the sake of this debate let’s suppose the egalitarian division of resources is a fact, instead of merely a propaganda), there is one important scarce resource: power over people. (Let’s assume that the “resources” cannot be used to manufacture synthetic sapient people, because that would be yet another ethical problem.) In a communist society power over people is even more important than property. People can have their lives ruined, and the lives of their relatives ruined, because of things like criticizing the regime or its leaders. So even if resources are not a problem, “who is my boss, what will they make me do, and how will they punish me if I fail?” is a huge factor.
(And those are only the examples of real societies. If we use our imagination we could imagine also some kind of technologically advanced theocracy, where the church has infinite resources, but they are used e.g. to create as much suffering as possible, to bring people closer to Jesus. Also for better brainwashing and better detection and destruction of heresies, so the society is stable.)
I was just noting the similarity in theory. I don’t believe it myself.
In the particular case noted on the Cold War, Ozy is simply wrong, IMO. It was hugely ideological.
I don’t think the general case is true either. People fight for a great many things besides “having enough”. The resource they can’t get enough of is power over their neighbor. There’s no way to produce your way out of that.
Ozymandias, The Watchmen:
I don’t know the context of the quote, but even with infinite resources we could have a fear-based society. A society where if you break some rule, you will be denied the resources you need. And the rules themselves could make you suffer if you obey them. Or the rules could be contradictory or otherwise impossible to follow.
I agree that this is possible. I’m questioning whether or not it really is true though. This could even be our future if we’re not careful.
Do you have anything that says this is happening or has happened? Something other than “possibility”?
Well, I can’t give you an example of a society that literally had infinite resources, so all we have are extrapolations from societies with finite resources.
By the way, we should not talk about “infinity” literally. Literal infinity is probably technically impossible. This galaxy only contains a finite amount of matter and energy. So when we say “infinite resources”, we really mean something like “1 000 000 000 x more resources than we have today”. We do not mean literal infinity. I am emphasising this to prevent possible technical arguments using mathematical properties of the literal infinity (such as: however microscopically tiny nonzero fraction of the infinity is still infinite).
If we look at historical capitalist societies, we see huge differences in access to resources: several magnitudes of order, even among people living in the same country. It seems plausible that in the future it would remain essentially the same. If the society as a whole would have million times more resources, that does not mean that all members of the society would have million times more resources than they have today. It could also mean that the “top 1%” (or maybe top 0.0001%) would have million-plus-epsilon times more resources, while the rest would have just as much as they have today, or maybe ten times more.
On the other hand, if we look at historical communist societies (and for the sake of this debate let’s suppose the egalitarian division of resources is a fact, instead of merely a propaganda), there is one important scarce resource: power over people. (Let’s assume that the “resources” cannot be used to manufacture synthetic sapient people, because that would be yet another ethical problem.) In a communist society power over people is even more important than property. People can have their lives ruined, and the lives of their relatives ruined, because of things like criticizing the regime or its leaders. So even if resources are not a problem, “who is my boss, what will they make me do, and how will they punish me if I fail?” is a huge factor.
(And those are only the examples of real societies. If we use our imagination we could imagine also some kind of technologically advanced theocracy, where the church has infinite resources, but they are used e.g. to create as much suffering as possible, to bring people closer to Jesus. Also for better brainwashing and better detection and destruction of heresies, so the society is stable.)
I was just noting the similarity in theory. I don’t believe it myself.
In the particular case noted on the Cold War, Ozy is simply wrong, IMO. It was hugely ideological.
I don’t think the general case is true either. People fight for a great many things besides “having enough”. The resource they can’t get enough of is power over their neighbor. There’s no way to produce your way out of that.