Huh. Is your model is that surpluses are all inevitably dissipated in some sort of waste/signaling cascade? This seems wrong to me but also like it’s onto something.
And I guess I should say, I have a more sun-oriented and less competition-oriented view. A surplus (e.g. in energy from the sun or negentropy from the night) has a natural “shape” (e.g. trees or solar panels) that the surplus dissipates into. There is some flexibility in this shape that leaves room for choice, but a lot less than rationalists usually assume.
Kind of. First, the big exception: If you manage to enforce global authoritarianism, you can stockpile surplus indefinitely, basically tiling the world with charged-up batteries. But what’s the point of that?
Secondly, “waste/signaling cascade” is kind of in the eye of the beholder. If a forest is standing in some region, is it wasting sunlight that could’ve been used on farming? Even in a very literal sense, you could say the answer is yes since the trees are competing in a zero-sum game for height. But without that competition, you wouldn’t have “trees” at all, so calling it a waste is a value judgement that trees are worthless. (Which of course you are entitled to make, but this is clearly a disagreement with the people who like solarpunk.)
But yeah, ultimately I’m kind of thinking of life as entropy maximization. The surplus has to be used for something, the question is what. If you’ve got nothing to use it for, then it makes sense for you to withdraw, but then it’s not clear why to worry that other people are fighting over it.
Huh. Is your model is that surpluses are all inevitably dissipated in some sort of waste/signaling cascade? This seems wrong to me but also like it’s onto something.
And I guess I should say, I have a more sun-oriented and less competition-oriented view. A surplus (e.g. in energy from the sun or negentropy from the night) has a natural “shape” (e.g. trees or solar panels) that the surplus dissipates into. There is some flexibility in this shape that leaves room for choice, but a lot less than rationalists usually assume.
Kind of. First, the big exception: If you manage to enforce global authoritarianism, you can stockpile surplus indefinitely, basically tiling the world with charged-up batteries. But what’s the point of that?
Secondly, “waste/signaling cascade” is kind of in the eye of the beholder. If a forest is standing in some region, is it wasting sunlight that could’ve been used on farming? Even in a very literal sense, you could say the answer is yes since the trees are competing in a zero-sum game for height. But without that competition, you wouldn’t have “trees” at all, so calling it a waste is a value judgement that trees are worthless. (Which of course you are entitled to make, but this is clearly a disagreement with the people who like solarpunk.)
But yeah, ultimately I’m kind of thinking of life as entropy maximization. The surplus has to be used for something, the question is what. If you’ve got nothing to use it for, then it makes sense for you to withdraw, but then it’s not clear why to worry that other people are fighting over it.