Kip, the colors of rationality are crystal, mirror, and glass.
Robin, fair enough; but conversely no amount of argument will convince someone in zettai daijobu da yo mode.
For the benefit of those who haven’t been following along with Overcoming Bias, I should note that I actually intend to fix the universe (or at least throw some padding atop my local region of it, as disclaimed above) - I’m not just complaining here.
Sorry, very late to this discussion. I just want to tell you this is exactly how people become conservatives, not in the US politics sense but in the works of Edmund Burke sense, and maybe there is something to learn from there. From about the Age of Enlightenment the Western world is in this optimistic socially experimentating moods, easily casting away old institutions like feudalism, aristocracy, monarchy or limited government, and all this optimism comes from the belief that history has a course, a given, pre-defined direction and Eric Voegelin pointed out it is the secularization of a theistic belief, “immanentizing the eschathon”. Burke and others have also pointed out this optimism comes from a belief that “human nature is good”. Also in an Enlightenment faith that acting rationally is kind of easy once you learn what your mistakes were. Ugh.
Lacking this optimism, many social changes of the last 300 years look kind of brash. In a hindsight it makes more sense that long-standing institutions like aristocratic nobility were better matches to human cognitive biases.
OTOH NRx also gets it wrong, because society had to change to cope with changing technology. The changing of military technology alone—gunpowder democratizing war—had to change things around, probably you cannot really have stuff like nobility when knightly armor is useless against muskets etc.
This puts us into the uncomfortable position that in the last 300 years both progressives and reactionaries were wrong. The progressives were way too optimistic, the reactionaries did not accept technological change requires social change.
So this is the answer I am trying to find out today. Suppose we are in 1700 somewhere in Europe. Unlike them, we do not believe history has a course making it hard for us to screw up social change, do not believe in Providence, do not believe in God wanting to liberate people or even giving them inalienable rights, do not believe human nature is inherently good, and do not think acting rationally is easy. However, we sure as hell don’t think we can keep having an essentially post-feudal social structure with all these cheap muskets around and artisans workshops slowly turning into manufactures and peasants becoming less illiterate and all that. What kind of social and political future we create?
For example, one thing I have noticed that earlier, feudal structures of power were more personal, there was a higher chance that people who exercise power and people whom it affects are in each others “monkeysphere”, have a close enough link that compassion and empathy can kick in. Back in the Enlightenment era optimistic people believed impersonal structures are good for limiting human caprice and arbitrariness. They believed human nature is good enough that people we don’t know aren’t just statistic for us, we really care for them. They did not think we need the power of personal contact to be compassionate and not dehumanize each other. I think today we know that our ethical instincts are not that reliable. What does that give?
Kip, the colors of rationality are crystal, mirror, and glass.
Robin, fair enough; but conversely no amount of argument will convince someone in zettai daijobu da yo mode.
For the benefit of those who haven’t been following along with Overcoming Bias, I should note that I actually intend to fix the universe (or at least throw some padding atop my local region of it, as disclaimed above) - I’m not just complaining here.
Hi Eliezer,
Sorry, very late to this discussion. I just want to tell you this is exactly how people become conservatives, not in the US politics sense but in the works of Edmund Burke sense, and maybe there is something to learn from there. From about the Age of Enlightenment the Western world is in this optimistic socially experimentating moods, easily casting away old institutions like feudalism, aristocracy, monarchy or limited government, and all this optimism comes from the belief that history has a course, a given, pre-defined direction and Eric Voegelin pointed out it is the secularization of a theistic belief, “immanentizing the eschathon”. Burke and others have also pointed out this optimism comes from a belief that “human nature is good”. Also in an Enlightenment faith that acting rationally is kind of easy once you learn what your mistakes were. Ugh.
Lacking this optimism, many social changes of the last 300 years look kind of brash. In a hindsight it makes more sense that long-standing institutions like aristocratic nobility were better matches to human cognitive biases.
OTOH NRx also gets it wrong, because society had to change to cope with changing technology. The changing of military technology alone—gunpowder democratizing war—had to change things around, probably you cannot really have stuff like nobility when knightly armor is useless against muskets etc.
This puts us into the uncomfortable position that in the last 300 years both progressives and reactionaries were wrong. The progressives were way too optimistic, the reactionaries did not accept technological change requires social change.
So this is the answer I am trying to find out today. Suppose we are in 1700 somewhere in Europe. Unlike them, we do not believe history has a course making it hard for us to screw up social change, do not believe in Providence, do not believe in God wanting to liberate people or even giving them inalienable rights, do not believe human nature is inherently good, and do not think acting rationally is easy. However, we sure as hell don’t think we can keep having an essentially post-feudal social structure with all these cheap muskets around and artisans workshops slowly turning into manufactures and peasants becoming less illiterate and all that. What kind of social and political future we create?
For example, one thing I have noticed that earlier, feudal structures of power were more personal, there was a higher chance that people who exercise power and people whom it affects are in each others “monkeysphere”, have a close enough link that compassion and empathy can kick in. Back in the Enlightenment era optimistic people believed impersonal structures are good for limiting human caprice and arbitrariness. They believed human nature is good enough that people we don’t know aren’t just statistic for us, we really care for them. They did not think we need the power of personal contact to be compassionate and not dehumanize each other. I think today we know that our ethical instincts are not that reliable. What does that give?
That doesn’t seerm relevant to EYs comment, and he doesn’t hang iout here much anymore, if you want to contact him try Facebook.