I appreciate both perspectives here, but I lean more towards kave’s view: I’m not sure how much overall success hinges on whether there’s an explicit Plan or overarching superstructure to coordinate around.
I think it’s plausible that if a few dedicated people / small groups manage to pull off some big enough wins in unrelated areas (e.g. geothermal permitting or prediction market adoption), those successes could snowball in lots of different directions pretty quickly, without much meta-level direction.
I have a sense that lots of people are not optimistic about the future or about their efforts improving the future, and so don’t give it a serious try.
I share this sense, but the good news is the incentives are mostly aligned here, I think? Whatever chances you assign to the future having any value whatsoever, things are usually nicer for you personally (and everyone around you) if you put some effort into trying to do something along the way.
Like, you shouldn’t work yourself ragged, but my guess is for most people, working on something meaningful (or at least difficult) is actually more fun and rewarding compared to the alternative of doing nothing or hedonism or whatever, even if you ultimately fail. (And on the off-chance you succeed, things can be a lot more fun.)
Like, you shouldn’t work yourself ragged, but my guess is for most people, working on something meaningful (or at least difficult) is actually more fun and rewarding compared to the alternative of doing nothing or hedonism or whatever, even if you ultimately fail. (And on the off-chance you succeed, things can be a lot more fun.)
I think one of the potential cruxes here is how many of the necessary things are fun or difficult in the right way. Like, sure, it sounds neat to work at a geothermal startup and solve problems, and that could plausibly be better than playing video games. But, does lobbying for permitting reform sound fun to you?
The secret of video games is that all of the difficulty is, in some deep sense, optional, and so can be selected to be interesting. (“What is drama, but life with the dull bits cut out?”) The thing that enlivens the dull bits of life is the bigger meaning, and it seems to me like the superstructure is what makes the bigger meaning more real and less hallucinatory.
those successes could snowball in lots of different directions pretty quickly, without much meta-level direction.
This seems possible to me, but I think most of the big successes that I’ve seen have looked more like there’s some amount of meta-level direction. Like, I think Elon Musk’s projects make more sense if your frame is “someone is deliberately trying to go to Mars and fill out the prerequisites for getting there”. Lots of historical eras have people doing some sort of meta-level direction like this.
But also we might just remember the meta-level direction that was ‘surfing the wave’ instead of pushing the ocean, and many grand plans have failed.
I came up with a similar kind of list here!
I appreciate both perspectives here, but I lean more towards kave’s view: I’m not sure how much overall success hinges on whether there’s an explicit Plan or overarching superstructure to coordinate around.
I think it’s plausible that if a few dedicated people / small groups manage to pull off some big enough wins in unrelated areas (e.g. geothermal permitting or prediction market adoption), those successes could snowball in lots of different directions pretty quickly, without much meta-level direction.
I share this sense, but the good news is the incentives are mostly aligned here, I think? Whatever chances you assign to the future having any value whatsoever, things are usually nicer for you personally (and everyone around you) if you put some effort into trying to do something along the way.
Like, you shouldn’t work yourself ragged, but my guess is for most people, working on something meaningful (or at least difficult) is actually more fun and rewarding compared to the alternative of doing nothing or hedonism or whatever, even if you ultimately fail. (And on the off-chance you succeed, things can be a lot more fun.)
I think one of the potential cruxes here is how many of the necessary things are fun or difficult in the right way. Like, sure, it sounds neat to work at a geothermal startup and solve problems, and that could plausibly be better than playing video games. But, does lobbying for permitting reform sound fun to you?
The secret of video games is that all of the difficulty is, in some deep sense, optional, and so can be selected to be interesting. (“What is drama, but life with the dull bits cut out?”) The thing that enlivens the dull bits of life is the bigger meaning, and it seems to me like the superstructure is what makes the bigger meaning more real and less hallucinatory.
This seems possible to me, but I think most of the big successes that I’ve seen have looked more like there’s some amount of meta-level direction. Like, I think Elon Musk’s projects make more sense if your frame is “someone is deliberately trying to go to Mars and fill out the prerequisites for getting there”. Lots of historical eras have people doing some sort of meta-level direction like this.
But also we might just remember the meta-level direction that was ‘surfing the wave’ instead of pushing the ocean, and many grand plans have failed.