The demarcation of distinct “capita” for purposes of “per capita” wealth offers a lot of room for flexibility. If we assess wealth on a per-cell basis (in energy, food, etc), then human wealth is comparable to bacterial wealth within a couple orders of magnitude by some metrics. But if we assess at the level of an ‘organism’ human wealth is astronomically greater.
Future intelligences may demarcate identity in such a way that the members of the ‘proletariat’ are just components of ‘capita,’ without independent desires. Or labor might be done by independent systems that we would not classify as capita for other reasons, e.g. the workforce of Bostrom’s “uninhabited society” in his Future of Human Evolution paper.
Future intelligences may demarcate identity in such a way that the members of the ‘proletariat’ are just components of ‘capita,’ without independent desires.
So in this scenario, a “capita” would be like a hive mind? Interesting, but what prevents such “individuals” from being driven to a subsistence standard of living by Malthusian dynamics operating at this higher level of organization?
Or labor might be done by independent systems that we would not classify as capita for other reasons, e.g. the workforce of Bostrom’s “uninhabited society” in his Future of Human Evolution paper.
This one seems to be covered by the “Non-Human Capital” scenario.
So in this scenario, a “capita” would be like a hive mind? Interesting, but what prevents such “individuals” from being driven to a subsistence standard of living by Malthusian dynamics operating at this higher level of organization?
This is not exactly an answer rather than a comment: Malthusian dynamics implies reproduction of approximately fixed-size (where size includes needs and abilities) individuals.
A hive mind differs from those premises in that one doesn’t necessarily need to reproduce, just grow. It’s not immediately obvious that a mind housed in the equivalent of 1 billion human bodies applies the same kind of arithmetic to resources, happiness, etc.
I don’t have a theory to propose, as we don’t really know that much about non-human minds, but, for instance: If I “added” to myself another (mindless) body, over which I had unusual control (e.g., I could choose whether or not I feel pain from it), and it was worse (say) fed than I am, I don’t feel my “average well-being” would decrease. However, for two individuals it would.
As a closer-to-reality example, if I were to add some cells to my body that are closer to “subsistence” level (e.g., by eating the same but starting body-building), from a cell point of view the median & average “wealth” decreases, but from mine it may raise (if, e.g., chicks dig me more).
The point being that it appears that the resources-per-replicator may decrease yet resources-per-individual increase. Aggregating replicators in individuals at least complicates the math enough that I’m not convinced that’s very improbable.
(Sorry for the long comment, but I got another point of view:)
Even though Malthusian dynamics work somewhat at the level of cells, I don’t give a damn about my individual cells themselves. It just doesn’t enter the calculation. A “hive-mind” aggregating all humans might be the same: a great discontinuity in how calculations are made. (Granted, the result is, in fact, a singleton.)
Operating at a higher level of organization means that the fitness hit for a given level of per capita wealth is less, so that selection will be less intense, so that, e.g. a less extreme military technology situation can sustain a high per capita wealth..
The demarcation of distinct “capita” for purposes of “per capita” wealth offers a lot of room for flexibility. If we assess wealth on a per-cell basis (in energy, food, etc), then human wealth is comparable to bacterial wealth within a couple orders of magnitude by some metrics. But if we assess at the level of an ‘organism’ human wealth is astronomically greater.
Future intelligences may demarcate identity in such a way that the members of the ‘proletariat’ are just components of ‘capita,’ without independent desires. Or labor might be done by independent systems that we would not classify as capita for other reasons, e.g. the workforce of Bostrom’s “uninhabited society” in his Future of Human Evolution paper.
So in this scenario, a “capita” would be like a hive mind? Interesting, but what prevents such “individuals” from being driven to a subsistence standard of living by Malthusian dynamics operating at this higher level of organization?
This one seems to be covered by the “Non-Human Capital” scenario.
This is not exactly an answer rather than a comment: Malthusian dynamics implies reproduction of approximately fixed-size (where size includes needs and abilities) individuals.
A hive mind differs from those premises in that one doesn’t necessarily need to reproduce, just grow. It’s not immediately obvious that a mind housed in the equivalent of 1 billion human bodies applies the same kind of arithmetic to resources, happiness, etc.
I don’t have a theory to propose, as we don’t really know that much about non-human minds, but, for instance: If I “added” to myself another (mindless) body, over which I had unusual control (e.g., I could choose whether or not I feel pain from it), and it was worse (say) fed than I am, I don’t feel my “average well-being” would decrease. However, for two individuals it would.
As a closer-to-reality example, if I were to add some cells to my body that are closer to “subsistence” level (e.g., by eating the same but starting body-building), from a cell point of view the median & average “wealth” decreases, but from mine it may raise (if, e.g., chicks dig me more).
The point being that it appears that the resources-per-replicator may decrease yet resources-per-individual increase. Aggregating replicators in individuals at least complicates the math enough that I’m not convinced that’s very improbable.
(Sorry for the long comment, but I got another point of view:)
Even though Malthusian dynamics work somewhat at the level of cells, I don’t give a damn about my individual cells themselves. It just doesn’t enter the calculation. A “hive-mind” aggregating all humans might be the same: a great discontinuity in how calculations are made. (Granted, the result is, in fact, a singleton.)
Operating at a higher level of organization means that the fitness hit for a given level of per capita wealth is less, so that selection will be less intense, so that, e.g. a less extreme military technology situation can sustain a high per capita wealth..