There is a question whether human morality is actually improving over centuries in some meaningful sense, or whether it is just a random walk that feels like improving to us (because we evaluate other people using the metric of “how similar is their morality to ours” which of course gives a 100% score to us and less to anyone else).
I think that an important thing to point out here is that our models of the world improve in general. And although some moral statements are made instinctively, other moral statements are made in form of implications—“I instinctively feel X. X implies Y. Therefore, Y.”—and those implications can be factually wrong. Importantly, this is not moral realism. (Technically, it is an implied judgment that logically coherent systems of morality are better than logically incoherent ones.)
“The only thing that matters are paperclips”—I guess we can only agree to disagree.
“2+2=5, therefore the only thing that matters are paperclips”—nope, you are wrong.
From this perspective, a part of the moral progress can be explained by humans having better models of humans and the world in general. (And when someone says “a difference in values”, we should distinguish between “a difference in instincts” and “shitty reasoning”.)
I like to think that there is a selection process going on.
Over long time scales, cultures that satisfy their people’s needs better have—other things being equal—higher chances of continuing to exist.
Moral systems are, to a large degree, about people’s well-being—at least according to people’s beliefs at that time. And that is partly about having a good model of people’s needs.
Robin says that we have less cultural diversity than in the past. I am not sure about that. In the past, we had geographically separated cultures, but within each culture, there wasn’t enough space for many subcultures. Today, the cultures are closer, but the subcultures can be larger. Hundred years ago, there would be no such thing as the rationalist community. (Even using the example from Robin’s article: it’s not like Amish are living on some distant island.)
I don’t understand the argument why colonizing the stars would not fix the problem (of cultural drift leading to low fertility). My worry would be the opposite—that the future will belong to those who replicate the fastest (and sacrifice everything else for that goal).
Today, the cultures are closer, but the subcultures can be larger. Hundred years ago, there would be no such thing as the rationalist community.
That seems like a stretch, whether you put the stress on the ‘community’ or the ‘rationalist’ part. Subcultures can be larger, of course, if only because the global population is like 5x larger, but niche subcultures like ‘the rationalist community’ could certainly have existed then. Nothing much has changed there.
A hundred years ago was 1925; in 1925 there were countless communes, cults, Chinatowns/ghettos (or perhaps a better example would be ‘Germantowns’), ‘scenes’, and other kinds of subcultures and notable small groups. Bay Area LW/rationalists have been analogized to, for example, the (much smaller) Bloomsbury Group, which was still active in 1925; and from whom, incidentally, we can directly trace some intellectual influence through economics, decision theory, libertarianism, and analytic philosophy, even if one rejects any connection with poly etc. We’ve been analogized to the Vienna Circle as well (and who we trace much more back to), which is in full swing in 1925. Or how about the Fabians before that? Or Technocracy after that? (And in an amusing coincidence, Paul Kurtz turns out to have been born in 1925.) Or things like Esperanto—even now, a century past its heyday, the number of native Esperanto speakers is shockingly comparable to active LW2 users… Then there’s fascinating subcultures like the amateur press that nurtured H. P. Lovecraft, who, as of 1925, has grown out of them and is about to start writing the speculative fiction stories that will make him famous.
(And as far as the Amish go, it’s worth recalling that they came to the distant large island of America to achieve distance from persecution in Europe—where the Amish no longer exist—and to minimize attrition & interference by ‘the English’, continue to live in as isolated communities as possible while still consistent with their needs for farmland etc.)
Spartans, Mongols, Vikings, and many others beg to disagree.
I’m with Viliam that we have better models of morality. The Mongols would be quite disappointed by our weakness. And at least they ruled the biggest empire ever. But their culture got selected out of the memepool too.
I’m very grateful that we are alive despite having nukes and that people and culture at this time are less violent and more collaborative is for sure one reason for that.
Vikings might still disagree from their perspective.
There is a question whether human morality is actually improving over centuries in some meaningful sense, or whether it is just a random walk that feels like improving to us (because we evaluate other people using the metric of “how similar is their morality to ours” which of course gives a 100% score to us and less to anyone else).
I think that an important thing to point out here is that our models of the world improve in general. And although some moral statements are made instinctively, other moral statements are made in form of implications—“I instinctively feel X. X implies Y. Therefore, Y.”—and those implications can be factually wrong. Importantly, this is not moral realism. (Technically, it is an implied judgment that logically coherent systems of morality are better than logically incoherent ones.)
“The only thing that matters are paperclips”—I guess we can only agree to disagree.
“2+2=5, therefore the only thing that matters are paperclips”—nope, you are wrong.
From this perspective, a part of the moral progress can be explained by humans having better models of humans and the world in general. (And when someone says “a difference in values”, we should distinguish between “a difference in instincts” and “shitty reasoning”.)
I like to think that there is a selection process going on.
Over long time scales, cultures that satisfy their people’s needs better have—other things being equal—higher chances of continuing to exist.
Moral systems are, to a large degree, about people’s well-being—at least according to people’s beliefs at that time. And that is partly about having a good model of people’s needs.
These two coevolve.
what do you think about Robin Hanson’s culture and value drift?
https://www.overcomingbias.com/p/how-fix-cultural-drift
Robin says that we have less cultural diversity than in the past. I am not sure about that. In the past, we had geographically separated cultures, but within each culture, there wasn’t enough space for many subcultures. Today, the cultures are closer, but the subcultures can be larger. Hundred years ago, there would be no such thing as the rationalist community. (Even using the example from Robin’s article: it’s not like Amish are living on some distant island.)
I don’t understand the argument why colonizing the stars would not fix the problem (of cultural drift leading to low fertility). My worry would be the opposite—that the future will belong to those who replicate the fastest (and sacrifice everything else for that goal).
That seems like a stretch, whether you put the stress on the ‘community’ or the ‘rationalist’ part. Subcultures can be larger, of course, if only because the global population is like 5x larger, but niche subcultures like ‘the rationalist community’ could certainly have existed then. Nothing much has changed there.
A hundred years ago was 1925; in 1925 there were countless communes, cults, Chinatowns/ghettos (or perhaps a better example would be ‘Germantowns’), ‘scenes’, and other kinds of subcultures and notable small groups. Bay Area LW/rationalists have been analogized to, for example, the (much smaller) Bloomsbury Group, which was still active in 1925; and from whom, incidentally, we can directly trace some intellectual influence through economics, decision theory, libertarianism, and analytic philosophy, even if one rejects any connection with poly etc. We’ve been analogized to the Vienna Circle as well (and who we trace much more back to), which is in full swing in 1925. Or how about the Fabians before that? Or Technocracy after that? (And in an amusing coincidence, Paul Kurtz turns out to have been born in 1925.) Or things like Esperanto—even now, a century past its heyday, the number of native Esperanto speakers is shockingly comparable to active LW2 users… Then there’s fascinating subcultures like the amateur press that nurtured H. P. Lovecraft, who, as of 1925, has grown out of them and is about to start writing the speculative fiction stories that will make him famous.
(And as far as the Amish go, it’s worth recalling that they came to the distant large island of America to achieve distance from persecution in Europe—where the Amish no longer exist—and to minimize attrition & interference by ‘the English’, continue to live in as isolated communities as possible while still consistent with their needs for farmland etc.)
One of dimensions where human morality is definitely improving is violence control.
Spartans, Mongols, Vikings, and many others beg to disagree.
I’m with Viliam that we have better models of morality. The Mongols would be quite disappointed by our weakness. And at least they ruled the biggest empire ever. But their culture got selected out of the memepool too.
We have nukes, we are still alive and we have one of the lowest violence victims counts per capita per year in history.
I’m very grateful that we are alive despite having nukes and that people and culture at this time are less violent and more collaborative is for sure one reason for that.
Vikings might still disagree from their perspective.