I don’t know how he feels about it currently, but in the past he did endorse Brennan’s world as a better way to organize society post-Singularity. It started as a thought experiment about how to fix the problem that most people take science for granted and don’t understand how important and powerful it is, and grew into a utopia he found extremely compelling. (To the point where he specifically did not explain the rest of the details because it is too inefficient to risk diverting effort towards. This was probably an overreaction.) He talks about this in
The linked article ends with this; I think this part of context is necessary. Emphasis mine:
Right now, we’ve got the worst of both worlds. Science isn’t really free, because the courses are expensive and the textbooks are expensive. But the public thinks that anyone is allowed to know, so it must not be important. Ideally, you would want to arrange things the other way around.
As I understand it, the Conspiracy world is a mental experiment with different advantages and disadvantages. And a tool used to illustrate some other concepts in a storytelling format (because this is what humans pay more attention to), such as resisting social pressure, actually updating on a difficult topic, and a fictional evidence that by more rational thinking we could be more awesome.
But it’s not an optimal (according to Eliezer, as I understand the part I quoted) world. That would be a world where the science is open (and financially available, etc.) to everyone and yet, somehow, people respect it. (The question is, how to achieve that, given human psychology.)
I don’t know how he feels about it currently, but in the past he did endorse Brennan’s world as a better way to organize society post-Singularity. It started as a thought experiment about how to fix the problem that most people take science for granted and don’t understand how important and powerful it is, and grew into a utopia he found extremely compelling. (To the point where he specifically did not explain the rest of the details because it is too inefficient to risk diverting effort towards. This was probably an overreaction.) He talks about this in
Eutopia is Scary
The linked article ends with this; I think this part of context is necessary. Emphasis mine:
As I understand it, the Conspiracy world is a mental experiment with different advantages and disadvantages. And a tool used to illustrate some other concepts in a storytelling format (because this is what humans pay more attention to), such as resisting social pressure, actually updating on a difficult topic, and a fictional evidence that by more rational thinking we could be more awesome.
But it’s not an optimal (according to Eliezer, as I understand the part I quoted) world. That would be a world where the science is open (and financially available, etc.) to everyone and yet, somehow, people respect it. (The question is, how to achieve that, given human psychology.)