I think communist beliefs, violent or not, are on the rise largely due to young angry people being too young to remember the cold war. Some friends and acquaintances from multiple disconnected freindship groups are communists, and too many of these advocate violence, although I think that they are still a tiny minority overall. I think the situation is, as you put it, “this person is broken”.
I’m not at all worried about actually being the victim of politically-motivated physical violence or of riots/revolutions etc in the near future. What worries me is general political polarisation leading to a situation where blue and red tribes hate each other and cannot interact, where politics is reduced to seeing who can shout ‘racist’ or ‘cuck’ loudest. My political beliefs have become increasingly right-wing, in a classically liberal sense as opposed to fascist, and it alienates me when friends advocate burning someone’s house down because they hold beliefs which are actually similar, perhaps even left of, mine. I’m not worried about them actually burning my house down, it’s just alienating on principle, and for fear of social exclusion.
WRT historical periods of political instability, I agree that such periods are infrequent, and given that we have seen the results of both Nazism and communism, I think it unlikely that those ideologies will gain power. But OTOH we are going to see certain events that are totally unprecedented in history, largely because of technology. We are already seeing levels of migration that I think exceeds anything in the past (due to better transport), which is leading to a rise in nationalism, and soon it is possible that we will see far more disruptive technologies such as human genetic engineering, large numbers of jobs being automated away, mass automated surveillance, and finally FAI. If safely navigating the problems these technologies pose requires a partially political solution, then we need sane politics. And yet political discourse has sunk to the point where political candidates are debating the size of their ‘hands’ and whether frogs are racist. Obama’s advisor seemed to think that the danger of AGI is that it might be programmed by white male autists.
We do not have the level of political sanity necessary to deal with disruptive technologies and its getting worse. Nick Bostrom thinks that genetically engineered IQ boosts of 100 points+ in a single generation might be possible, and soon. Nazism and communism are unlikely now, but how would society react to human genetically engineering? Many would try to ban it. Some would try to tax it. Countries where it was illegal might suffer massively reduced economic growth compared to those where it was allowed. Inequality might skyrocket. I’m not trying to suggest that we will specifically end up with ‘Gattaca’ or ‘Deux Ex: Mankind divided’ or any of the other specific science fiction explorations of these possibilities, I’m saying that I don’t know what will happen and political extremism/violence is certainly a possibility and it doesn’t help if extremism is increasing anyway!
My political beliefs have become increasingly right-wing, in a classically liberal sense as opposed to fascist, and it alienates me when friends advocate burning someone’s house down because they hold beliefs which are actually similar, perhaps even left of, mine.
The impression I have—though of course I don’t know what your friends have been saying—is that the burn-their-houses-down brigade are much more upset about the kinda-fascist sort of right than the kinda-libertarian sort of right. Of course even if I’m right about that that doesn’t necessarily reduce the sense of alienation; your aliefs needn’t match your beliefs.
We do not have the level of political sanity necessary to deal with disruptive technologies and it’s getting worse.
Agree about first half; not fully convinced about second half. As you pointed out yourself, it’s not that long ago that we had actual Nazis and Stalinists in power in Europe, and bad though early-21st-century politics is it doesn’t seem like it’s got there just yet. People have said horrible things about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, but ten years ago they were saying similarly horrible things about George W Bush and, er, Hillary Clinton. But yeah, I can’t see our existing political institutions coping very well with immortality or super-effective genetic engineering or superintelligent AI, should those happen to come along.
The impression I have—though of course I don’t know what your friends have been saying—is that the burn-their-houses-down brigade are much more upset about the kinda-fascist sort of right than the kinda-libertarian sort of right. Of course even if I’m right about that that doesn’t necessarily reduce the sense of alienation; your aliefs needn’t match your beliefs.
Except that I don’t think libertarian is incompatible with boarder controls—indeed, libertarians are generally enthusiastic about property rights, and controlling immigration is no different to locking your front door and vetting potential housemates.
I’m not saying that the boarder controls should be based around skin colour, but the definition of ‘Nazi’ seems to have expanded to anyone who believes in any form of boarder control.
Agree about first half; not fully convinced about second half. As you pointed out yourself, it’s not that long ago that we had actual Nazis and Stalinists in power in Europe, and bad though early-21st-century politics is it doesn’t seem like it’s got there just yet.
I certainly agree that globally its not as bad as 1930-1990. Nevertheless, things seem to have got dramatically worse in the last decade—in my personal experience it used to be that people could agree to disagree, now most political opinions seem to be in lockstep, almost like a cult. More generally, I remember people criticising Bush, but now there are very intelligent people, even the head of CFAR, saying that Trump could be the end of democracy. Either they are correct, in which case that is obviously a cause for concern, or they are wrong and a lot of very smart people, inc rationalists, are utterly mindkilled.
the definition of ‘Nazi’ seems to have expanded to anyone who believes in any form of border control.
For what it’s worth, I haven’t seen the word used that way. But—the standard disclaimer—my left-leaning Facebook friends are not your left-leaning Facebook friends, unless there’s some purely coincidental overlap, and yours may be more Nazi-accusation-happier than mine.
Either they are correct, in which case that is obviously a cause for concern, or they are wrong and a lot of very smart people [...] are utterly mindkilled.
Or both, of course :-). More seriously, I think your observations are adequately explained by the hypothesis that (1) Trump and his administration are much more unusual than Bush and his administration, (2) they are in fact distinctly more likely than Bush was (though still not very likely) to do serious damage to the US’s democratic institutions, and (3) a lot of very smart people are somewhat mindkilled. I think #1 is obviously true, #2 is probably true, and #3 would be entirely unsurprising (much less surprising than all those people being utterly mindkilled).
Incidentally, I do remember some not-otherwise-obviously-crazy people speculating that Bush would simply refuse to leave office after 8 years and that somehow the Republican-controlled Congress would help make it so. So end-of-democracy hysteria isn’t so very new.
Er, FDR was elected for a third term before there were term limits for US presidents. The (stupid and not widespread) speculation was that GWB would cling to power by some means less legitimate than that.
I remember people criticising Bush, but now there are very intelligent people, even the head of CFAR, saying that Trump could be the end of democracy.
Trump is the end of democracy-as-we-know-it, and both sides of the political spectrum agree that this is the case, albeit for very different reasons. But the United States were never founded as a democracy in the first place; they’re supposed to be a federated republic, with plenty of checks-and-balances as an integral part of the overall arrangement. If our Constitution is worth more than the paper it’s printed on, we’ll find ourselves right back in what used to be the status quo.
I think communist beliefs, violent or not, are on the rise largely due to young angry people being too young to remember the cold war. Some friends and acquaintances from multiple disconnected freindship groups are communists, and too many of these advocate violence, although I think that they are still a tiny minority overall. I think the situation is, as you put it, “this person is broken”.
I’m not at all worried about actually being the victim of politically-motivated physical violence or of riots/revolutions etc in the near future. What worries me is general political polarisation leading to a situation where blue and red tribes hate each other and cannot interact, where politics is reduced to seeing who can shout ‘racist’ or ‘cuck’ loudest. My political beliefs have become increasingly right-wing, in a classically liberal sense as opposed to fascist, and it alienates me when friends advocate burning someone’s house down because they hold beliefs which are actually similar, perhaps even left of, mine. I’m not worried about them actually burning my house down, it’s just alienating on principle, and for fear of social exclusion.
WRT historical periods of political instability, I agree that such periods are infrequent, and given that we have seen the results of both Nazism and communism, I think it unlikely that those ideologies will gain power. But OTOH we are going to see certain events that are totally unprecedented in history, largely because of technology. We are already seeing levels of migration that I think exceeds anything in the past (due to better transport), which is leading to a rise in nationalism, and soon it is possible that we will see far more disruptive technologies such as human genetic engineering, large numbers of jobs being automated away, mass automated surveillance, and finally FAI. If safely navigating the problems these technologies pose requires a partially political solution, then we need sane politics. And yet political discourse has sunk to the point where political candidates are debating the size of their ‘hands’ and whether frogs are racist. Obama’s advisor seemed to think that the danger of AGI is that it might be programmed by white male autists.
We do not have the level of political sanity necessary to deal with disruptive technologies and its getting worse. Nick Bostrom thinks that genetically engineered IQ boosts of 100 points+ in a single generation might be possible, and soon. Nazism and communism are unlikely now, but how would society react to human genetically engineering? Many would try to ban it. Some would try to tax it. Countries where it was illegal might suffer massively reduced economic growth compared to those where it was allowed. Inequality might skyrocket. I’m not trying to suggest that we will specifically end up with ‘Gattaca’ or ‘Deux Ex: Mankind divided’ or any of the other specific science fiction explorations of these possibilities, I’m saying that I don’t know what will happen and political extremism/violence is certainly a possibility and it doesn’t help if extremism is increasing anyway!
We never had and yet we all are here.
Dat anthropic bias tho!
Good point.
The impression I have—though of course I don’t know what your friends have been saying—is that the burn-their-houses-down brigade are much more upset about the kinda-fascist sort of right than the kinda-libertarian sort of right. Of course even if I’m right about that that doesn’t necessarily reduce the sense of alienation; your aliefs needn’t match your beliefs.
Agree about first half; not fully convinced about second half. As you pointed out yourself, it’s not that long ago that we had actual Nazis and Stalinists in power in Europe, and bad though early-21st-century politics is it doesn’t seem like it’s got there just yet. People have said horrible things about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, but ten years ago they were saying similarly horrible things about George W Bush and, er, Hillary Clinton. But yeah, I can’t see our existing political institutions coping very well with immortality or super-effective genetic engineering or superintelligent AI, should those happen to come along.
Except that I don’t think libertarian is incompatible with boarder controls—indeed, libertarians are generally enthusiastic about property rights, and controlling immigration is no different to locking your front door and vetting potential housemates.
I’m not saying that the boarder controls should be based around skin colour, but the definition of ‘Nazi’ seems to have expanded to anyone who believes in any form of boarder control.
I certainly agree that globally its not as bad as 1930-1990. Nevertheless, things seem to have got dramatically worse in the last decade—in my personal experience it used to be that people could agree to disagree, now most political opinions seem to be in lockstep, almost like a cult. More generally, I remember people criticising Bush, but now there are very intelligent people, even the head of CFAR, saying that Trump could be the end of democracy. Either they are correct, in which case that is obviously a cause for concern, or they are wrong and a lot of very smart people, inc rationalists, are utterly mindkilled.
For what it’s worth, I haven’t seen the word used that way. But—the standard disclaimer—my left-leaning Facebook friends are not your left-leaning Facebook friends, unless there’s some purely coincidental overlap, and yours may be more Nazi-accusation-happier than mine.
Or both, of course :-). More seriously, I think your observations are adequately explained by the hypothesis that (1) Trump and his administration are much more unusual than Bush and his administration, (2) they are in fact distinctly more likely than Bush was (though still not very likely) to do serious damage to the US’s democratic institutions, and (3) a lot of very smart people are somewhat mindkilled. I think #1 is obviously true, #2 is probably true, and #3 would be entirely unsurprising (much less surprising than all those people being utterly mindkilled).
Incidentally, I do remember some not-otherwise-obviously-crazy people speculating that Bush would simply refuse to leave office after 8 years and that somehow the Republican-controlled Congress would help make it so. So end-of-democracy hysteria isn’t so very new.
You mean like FDR actually did? Except that he wasn’t a Republican.
Er, FDR was elected for a third term before there were term limits for US presidents. The (stupid and not widespread) speculation was that GWB would cling to power by some means less legitimate than that.
Putin’s a mindkiller.
Trump is the end of democracy-as-we-know-it, and both sides of the political spectrum agree that this is the case, albeit for very different reasons. But the United States were never founded as a democracy in the first place; they’re supposed to be a federated republic, with plenty of checks-and-balances as an integral part of the overall arrangement. If our Constitution is worth more than the paper it’s printed on, we’ll find ourselves right back in what used to be the status quo.