I find it very difficult to reason rigorously about this topic, and none of the below is rigorous. But in terms of sources of hypotheses or proto-models of what if anything is up here, some of my favorite books:
Atlas Shrugged (a fictional portrayal of societal decay that has been increasingly reminding me of current events, particularly since 2016 or 2020)
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (an argument that the West was, since ~Aristotle, built on an almost-coherent philosophy whose incoherence has been becoming more visible across time, and a theory of what the gap is. Pays some rent IMO).
Moral Mazes (similar content to Atlas Shrugged, and not as deep I think, but maybe easier to read because based in current observations instead of fiction)
The above are my favorites. Others that seem less good but still helpful to me:
Possibly Pink Floyd’s movie “The Wall”, which shows societal programming since WW1 as a set of increasingly out of sync software programs being echoed and richocheted by a bunch of overwhelmed/traumatized people and processes
The Tao Te Ching — it’s pretty abstract but it has a fair bit to say about what happens when Goodhart’s Law hits mass human behavior
Chapter 1 of Vol. 1 of Hayek’s book “Law, Legislation, and Liberty” (the introduction was too hard, and I didn’t make it much past the first chapter, but I got a lot from that chapter)
Possibly “Century of the Self” (a 4-hour propaganda film about the impact of marketing/psychology/self-help on the contemporary world; possibly a must for anyone as involved in trying to develop self-help or “rationality” techniques as you are), and/or the more recent movie sequence that I am partway through by the same person, “Can’t get you out of my head”. Both by Adam Curtis.
Possibly Vervaeke’s 50-hour history of Western Civilization called “Awakening from the meaning crisis”, on themes similar to Pirsig’s “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”
Possibly Eric Weinstein’s model of “embedded growth obligations”, as a theory of how society in general accidentally overpromised and then headed toward lies/unsustainability rather than rethink itself, kinda like a Ponzi scheme.
I find most relevant MichaelVassar, BenHoffman, JessicaTaylor, and Zvi on the same topics; I’d have listed them toward the top except that you (Eli) already know them, and I’m afraid of setting off peoples’ “politicized topic” detectors. I’d be pretty interested to try exploring why/how their writing sets this off in people, and what it indicates about them/us, if anyone wants to.
I find it very difficult to reason rigorously about this topic, and none of the below is rigorous. But in terms of sources of hypotheses or proto-models of what if anything is up here, some of my favorite books:
Atlas Shrugged (a fictional portrayal of societal decay that has been increasingly reminding me of current events, particularly since 2016 or 2020)
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (an argument that the West was, since ~Aristotle, built on an almost-coherent philosophy whose incoherence has been becoming more visible across time, and a theory of what the gap is. Pays some rent IMO).
Moral Mazes (similar content to Atlas Shrugged, and not as deep I think, but maybe easier to read because based in current observations instead of fiction)
The above are my favorites. Others that seem less good but still helpful to me:
Possibly Pink Floyd’s movie “The Wall”, which shows societal programming since WW1 as a set of increasingly out of sync software programs being echoed and richocheted by a bunch of overwhelmed/traumatized people and processes
Maybe Venkatesh Rao
The Tao Te Ching — it’s pretty abstract but it has a fair bit to say about what happens when Goodhart’s Law hits mass human behavior
Chapter 1 of Vol. 1 of Hayek’s book “Law, Legislation, and Liberty” (the introduction was too hard, and I didn’t make it much past the first chapter, but I got a lot from that chapter)
Possibly “Century of the Self” (a 4-hour propaganda film about the impact of marketing/psychology/self-help on the contemporary world; possibly a must for anyone as involved in trying to develop self-help or “rationality” techniques as you are), and/or the more recent movie sequence that I am partway through by the same person, “Can’t get you out of my head”. Both by Adam Curtis.
Possibly Vervaeke’s 50-hour history of Western Civilization called “Awakening from the meaning crisis”, on themes similar to Pirsig’s “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”
Possibly Eric Weinstein’s model of “embedded growth obligations”, as a theory of how society in general accidentally overpromised and then headed toward lies/unsustainability rather than rethink itself, kinda like a Ponzi scheme.
I find most relevant Michael Vassar, Ben Hoffman, Jessica Taylor, and Zvi on the same topics; I’d have listed them toward the top except that you (Eli) already know them, and I’m afraid of setting off peoples’ “politicized topic” detectors. I’d be pretty interested to try exploring why/how their writing sets this off in people, and what it indicates about them/us, if anyone wants to.