[ not upvoted because it’s a little off-topic for LW. Not downvoted because even though it’s close to politics, it does a very good job of walking the line between overgeneralizing and being useless vs taking a specific position on a hot-button topic. ]
I pretty much agree with the premise here, and it does apply (horribly) to alignment in general: humans treat each other horribly, and there’s no reason to believe that powerful tools or even aligned powerful allies will fix that.
Humans treat each other horribly under conditions of scarcity. That is literally all we’ve ever seen. The most powerful humans yet to live still haven’t been able to protect themselves and their loved ones from horrible deaths from age and disease, if not betrayal. I have some vague hopes that real abundance will, over time, shift human nature toward the generosity we also see now in the better (or more privileged) of us.
Scarcity is elastic. There’s literally thousands of times the resources and only 20 or so times the population as 1000 years ago. Humans CREATE conditions of scarcity, and then treat each other horribly within those conditions.
Scarcity is literally all we’ve ever seen because it’s universal. It’s relative to imagined/preferred resources, and that imagination grows faster than actual resources.
That’s true, but not infinitely true. There’s a difference in the drive for getting shelter when you’re cold, and getting another hundred followers when you’re rich.
That’s why I mentioned death and sickness. We haven’t yet eased the scarcity of good years of life and living dying without pain by more than a fraction.
It’s an unproven hope, but I do think that the direction of less meanness with less material scarcity and danger is pretty certain. How much it changes, including cultural change over time, is to be seen.
Ok. Not sure if that’s true, but even if so, we’re a long long way from infinite. It’s quite possible there is no infinity.
There’s a difference in the drive for getting shelter when you’re cold, and getting another hundred followers when you’re rich.
Right, there’s lots of differences in scarcity of different things. However, for each thing, more of the thing is better than less. There may be declining marginal utility for many many things, and even declining close enough to zero for some things, but there will always be stuff for which marginal utility is positive for each and every distinct human.
[ not upvoted because it’s a little off-topic for LW. Not downvoted because even though it’s close to politics, it does a very good job of walking the line between overgeneralizing and being useless vs taking a specific position on a hot-button topic. ]
I pretty much agree with the premise here, and it does apply (horribly) to alignment in general: humans treat each other horribly, and there’s no reason to believe that powerful tools or even aligned powerful allies will fix that.
Humans treat each other horribly under conditions of scarcity. That is literally all we’ve ever seen. The most powerful humans yet to live still haven’t been able to protect themselves and their loved ones from horrible deaths from age and disease, if not betrayal. I have some vague hopes that real abundance will, over time, shift human nature toward the generosity we also see now in the better (or more privileged) of us.
Scarcity is elastic. There’s literally thousands of times the resources and only 20 or so times the population as 1000 years ago. Humans CREATE conditions of scarcity, and then treat each other horribly within those conditions.
Scarcity is literally all we’ve ever seen because it’s universal. It’s relative to imagined/preferred resources, and that imagination grows faster than actual resources.
That’s true, but not infinitely true. There’s a difference in the drive for getting shelter when you’re cold, and getting another hundred followers when you’re rich.
That’s why I mentioned death and sickness. We haven’t yet eased the scarcity of good years of life and living dying without pain by more than a fraction.
It’s an unproven hope, but I do think that the direction of less meanness with less material scarcity and danger is pretty certain. How much it changes, including cultural change over time, is to be seen.
Ok. Not sure if that’s true, but even if so, we’re a long long way from infinite. It’s quite possible there is no infinity.
Right, there’s lots of differences in scarcity of different things. However, for each thing, more of the thing is better than less. There may be declining marginal utility for many many things, and even declining close enough to zero for some things, but there will always be stuff for which marginal utility is positive for each and every distinct human.
Yeah, and an unlikely one IMO.