They are irrational. … Structurally, we’re talking about a cartel, or a mob. Mob in both the “mafia” and the “riot” sense. Collusion to keep unmerited privilege
It is not irrational to want to hang on to power/privilege. A very basic property of a rational agent is to want to increase or at least not decrease its level of capability in the world. Fair competition, when you would lose, is irrational. In fact the very notion of “fair” is hard to define in a general way, but winning is less hard to define.
Similarly, it is not irrational to want to form a cartel or political ingroup. Quite the opposite. It’s like the concept of economic moat, but for humans.
all the millions of mental motions involved in trying to understand things accurately. The person who is wrong on purpose wants to just stop all of that motion, forever.
The most important thing for an agent to understand is to preserve itself and its utility function. Perhaps Satre’s antisemites, though lacking in IQ, understood this better than we do.
Similarly, it is not irrational to want to form a cartel or political ingroup. Quite the opposite. It’s like the concept of economic moat, but for humans.
And so you get the patriarchy and the reaction to it feminism. This leads to the culture wars that we have to day. So it is locally optimal but leads to problems in the greater system.
It is not irrational to want to hang on to power/privilege. A very basic property of a rational agent is to want to increase or at least not decrease its level of capability in the world. Fair competition, when you would lose, is irrational. In fact the very notion of “fair” is hard to define in a general way, but winning is less hard to define.
Similarly, it is not irrational to want to form a cartel or political ingroup. Quite the opposite. It’s like the concept of economic moat, but for humans.
The most important thing for an agent to understand is to preserve itself and its utility function. Perhaps Satre’s antisemites, though lacking in IQ, understood this better than we do.
And so you get the patriarchy and the reaction to it feminism. This leads to the culture wars that we have to day. So it is locally optimal but leads to problems in the greater system.
How do we escape this kind of trap?