Just thinking out loud: it would be really nice if you could sort of “abandon the idiots to live in the hell that their irrationality creates”, and have a country that was just high-IQ types (speaking of which, my IQ is less than 130, and I think most here agree that I did, in fact, understand the sequences). Rationality correlates with IQ (though weakly), but society seems to be very much a nonlinear aggregator of individual traits. I don’t know how plausible it is to create a high-IQ high rationality country. You would want to start with a country that was already on that track, e.g. Japan, Israel, South Korea.
EDIT: this is probably an even more awful idea than the two presented in the post. I just wanted to open the floor to third alternatives.
The most plausible route (to the extent one is possible) to that conclusion would be to buy a couple of islands for a select elite, then expand from there.
I heard that the seasteading folk have looked into that already and apparently governments are loth to give up actual sovereignty, though of course they will happily take your $ in exchange for “ownership”, where “ownership” means that the island is still subject to their laws.
My “suggestion” isn’t really very good, I really just made it to make clear what kind of thing a third alternative would look like.
I know that- I said it was the most plausible. A government in severe financial trouble and willing to sell off a minor island is more likely than a sucessful revolt or persuading people to accept a rationalist government.
All of these options are assuming the need to be tied to land, where present governments and populations hold sway and pose difficulties. However, there is much open and unowned space at sea. Even if we ignore future projects for self-sustaining cities floating in the oceans and what-not, the basic idea of a community of people living on ships which spend most of their time in open water strikes me as a relatively plausible solution (i.e. on about the same level as the other proposals). It seems to me like The World is a useful proof of concept here. Now, if a bunch of ships could sail together with a population large enough that it might be considered a moving country...
The problem I have with this, and my objection to seasteading in general, is that living at sea is really difficult. So difficult that I think the disadvantage levied by seasteading will swamp the advantage(s) of whatever else you are trying to do, e.g. rationality, libertarianism, etc etc.
And if, at some stage, seasteading becomes manage-ably difficult, then everyone will quickly get in on it,and you could squeezed out of the game by existing nations who have big navies and want your sea-space.
If you think that existing nations wouldn’t stamp on you and take all the sea-space, then why do you think they are so loth to sell and give up sovereignty over even the worst and most useless pieces of land that they own?
...speaking of which, my IQ is less than 130, and I think most here agree that I did, in fact, understand the sequences...
Isn’t the only person able to judge this the person who wrote the sequences? Or at least someone who was told that he/she understands the sequences by the one who wrote them.
“abandon the idiots to live in the hell that their irrationality creates”
Humans have a tendency for self-inflicted malaise. Humans value the freedom to do what they want more than doing what they would want to do from a retrospective alternative point of view that values their extrapolated volition. But why would it be rational to choose the future over the present? Hell is that which you don’t want at present not what you might not want if you were a different person.
But why would it be rational to choose the future over the present?
It isn’t rational to choose the future over the present. It isn’t irrational either. Time discount is a free parameter to be chosen according to axiology. At least it would be nice if all the low-time discount people could get together in one place, and leave all the high-discount people together.
At the risk of causing this to devolve into a discussion of politics, I’m not clear on how Japan, Israel, or South Korea are supposed to look like good startup points in this regard.
These qualities don’t seem to have allowed any of them to run their countries exceptionally well. If you want to construct a high rationality country, I don’t think that any of these three would be particularly good starting points.
Japan at least manages to rank highly on many societal health indices, but their educational system tends to emphasize rote memorization and prestigious affiliation over original thinking and personal achievement.
Between countries, differences in mean intelligence are almost certainly going to be trivial in comparison with differences in social values. You’d want to look, not at which countries tend to have smarter people, but which promote more rationalist-friendly values.
My off the cuff answer is that you might want to try looking at various Scandinavian countries, but since I don’t think the basic idea is particularly plausible, it’s not something I’ve invested a great deal of consideration in.
Just thinking out loud: it would be really nice if you could sort of “abandon the idiots to live in the hell that their irrationality creates”, and have a country that was just high-IQ types (speaking of which, my IQ is less than 130, and I think most here agree that I did, in fact, understand the sequences). Rationality correlates with IQ (though weakly), but society seems to be very much a nonlinear aggregator of individual traits. I don’t know how plausible it is to create a high-IQ high rationality country. You would want to start with a country that was already on that track, e.g. Japan, Israel, South Korea.
EDIT: this is probably an even more awful idea than the two presented in the post. I just wanted to open the floor to third alternatives.
The most plausible route (to the extent one is possible) to that conclusion would be to buy a couple of islands for a select elite, then expand from there.
I heard that the seasteading folk have looked into that already and apparently governments are loth to give up actual sovereignty, though of course they will happily take your $ in exchange for “ownership”, where “ownership” means that the island is still subject to their laws.
My “suggestion” isn’t really very good, I really just made it to make clear what kind of thing a third alternative would look like.
I know that- I said it was the most plausible. A government in severe financial trouble and willing to sell off a minor island is more likely than a sucessful revolt or persuading people to accept a rationalist government.
All of these options are assuming the need to be tied to land, where present governments and populations hold sway and pose difficulties. However, there is much open and unowned space at sea. Even if we ignore future projects for self-sustaining cities floating in the oceans and what-not, the basic idea of a community of people living on ships which spend most of their time in open water strikes me as a relatively plausible solution (i.e. on about the same level as the other proposals). It seems to me like The World is a useful proof of concept here. Now, if a bunch of ships could sail together with a population large enough that it might be considered a moving country...
The problem I have with this, and my objection to seasteading in general, is that living at sea is really difficult. So difficult that I think the disadvantage levied by seasteading will swamp the advantage(s) of whatever else you are trying to do, e.g. rationality, libertarianism, etc etc.
And if, at some stage, seasteading becomes manage-ably difficult, then everyone will quickly get in on it,and you could squeezed out of the game by existing nations who have big navies and want your sea-space.
If you think that existing nations wouldn’t stamp on you and take all the sea-space, then why do you think they are so loth to sell and give up sovereignty over even the worst and most useless pieces of land that they own?
Isn’t the only person able to judge this the person who wrote the sequences? Or at least someone who was told that he/she understands the sequences by the one who wrote them.
Humans have a tendency for self-inflicted malaise. Humans value the freedom to do what they want more than doing what they would want to do from a retrospective alternative point of view that values their extrapolated volition. But why would it be rational to choose the future over the present? Hell is that which you don’t want at present not what you might not want if you were a different person.
It isn’t rational to choose the future over the present. It isn’t irrational either. Time discount is a free parameter to be chosen according to axiology. At least it would be nice if all the low-time discount people could get together in one place, and leave all the high-discount people together.
At the risk of causing this to devolve into a discussion of politics, I’m not clear on how Japan, Israel, or South Korea are supposed to look like good startup points in this regard.
The idea was just that they are more than averagely interested in tech, and israel is also higher than average IQ because of the ashkenazi jews.
These qualities don’t seem to have allowed any of them to run their countries exceptionally well. If you want to construct a high rationality country, I don’t think that any of these three would be particularly good starting points.
Japan at least manages to rank highly on many societal health indices, but their educational system tends to emphasize rote memorization and prestigious affiliation over original thinking and personal achievement.
Between countries, differences in mean intelligence are almost certainly going to be trivial in comparison with differences in social values. You’d want to look, not at which countries tend to have smarter people, but which promote more rationalist-friendly values.
Any ideas for that?
My off the cuff answer is that you might want to try looking at various Scandinavian countries, but since I don’t think the basic idea is particularly plausible, it’s not something I’ve invested a great deal of consideration in.
Scandinavia has a problematic culture of humility: Jante Law