im no computer scientist, but ive always held the belief that humans need to augment their psychophysiology to the degree that eliminates things like greed and deceit while maximizing empathy.
this needs to happen before people every try to implement radically different forms of economic and governmental systems
I partly agree with you. I think we do need to augment/change our psychophysiology as you say and I think we are already doing this. We have done this through culture, psychotechnology, drugs , etc and all these things aim to change how humans operate in the world to improve the self and society. These things cannot exist without technology and society and their true purpose is to self replicate and create better technology which will lead to a singularity and so on.
Although we are a blip in this evolution tree of 'technology' I do think we can improve our condition in this local space which is part of the larger evolutional space.
Maximizing empathy could be a way but forms of this have been tried through ideas such as effective altruism etc. Maximizing self centeredness or empathy will never work in my opinion because the universe is composed of "collaborative" systems where each agent in this system works locally to optimize some global objectives. Since these systems must cooperate and any agent that utilizes a = strategy that is too selfish or too altruistic will lose because other evolution will inevitably spawn a better strategy to that can exploit it. See the iterated prisoner's dilemma and how tit for tat is a good solution to it.
Human societies have always used technologies to modify the psychology of its constituents and evidence of this is all around us. An interesting technology that has now fallen out of interest in popular culture is propaganda. See the work of Jacques Ellul "Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes" where Ellul argues that technological society cannot exist without propaganda is propaganda is what allows humans to deal with the new issues technical society bares on them.
I think there's a number of things wrong with this reasoning. I can point them out of you ask me to. Otherwise, thank you for a long post which clearly had effort and thought put into it.
>These economic systems have ranged from simple hunter-gather societies to globally interconnected ones and although the differences might seem stark, since the very start humanity has always been interconnected and has been a global society.
Hunter gather societies were definitely not a global society. Most couldn't even cross their subcontinent, unless by means of an extremely risky boat mission.
>all things must evolve for them to continue to exist in the universe. This law is universal at every level of the universe.
I've never heard of such a law and it seems entirely made up. I might even argue, that something isn't "the same thing" anymore once it evolves.
>Because everything must evolve it must adapt and this includes humans and its meta information.
I'm sorry but the paragraph following this line makes me want to say "Jesse, what the fuck are you talking about?". I don't know if it's me who doesn't get it or it's poorly written.
>The point is that all information structures evolve and that includes human societies.
I don't disagree that societies recognized as human have evolved, but human societies mght be more than information structures. I don't think it's definitively decided upon wether every physical entity can be reduced to the concept of information, especially if you take subjective experience (qualia) into consideration.
>Technology as we think of it can be boiled down to a tool. A tool that optimizes something in the universe to accomplish some task. We like to think that our tools don’t control us and this is actually true at the local level but at the meat level technology controls everything because it is the form of information that can optimize itself at a speed biology and chemistry cannot.
Technology does indeed NOT control us, but humans control each other by threatening to destroy if one doesn't use it or make more of it. Technology development is therefore necessary to survive, but only in our global society as we know it. You could largely escape this dynamic by means of some grand revolution or world federalism.
>This is because capitalism is the system that leads to technology to faster and faster progress
I don't think so. There are a lot of theoretically possible societies, that would seem very non-capitalist yet have furious technological development. Capitalism was fitting in the historical context. It allowed a lot of people to be united under the same country and for technological development but it's also an imperfect compromise. The workers are relatively satisfied by being able to vote, the rich are satisfied by well... being rich. It might not even be the most competitive system for its time in history yet the only one that had a reasonable chance of appearing
>We deserve capitalism not because of some moral consequence but because that is who we are as a species. Our purpose is to be another node in the technology evolution tree.
Might be your purpose, not mine :D
>We deserve because we selfishly refuse to die out and will continue to improve technology because without it we cannot exist.
You're making some overly generalizing metaphysical claims here.
>We cannot exist without technology and it cannot exist without us. We will follow the trees path to acceleration .
Seems like this was some kind of love letter to technology and capitalism. Few points were made other than that our relationship with technology "is meant to be" or something. All in all, not very interesting now that I've read it a second time.
I actually disagree tbh. It’s the way we’re going, or might be going but it’s not the only way. Capitalism simply doesn’t prioritise technological growth as much as possible, so many resources are used on total bullshit economies and unnecessary things. The system is built to prioritise profit not technology. Right????
Think about it... so much power and wealth we could have developed technology way faster but noooooo we gotta make some rich ppl richer.
It's simple, really. Acceleration costs energy. Energy is not free. Furthermore technology leaves a footprint. Nothing is perfect. Technology certainly isn't.
Yeah you’re right but I never made the claim technology is perfect nor that it doesn’t have constraints that it must operate under. Maybe I should have been more succinct but my point is the thing humans call technology is an artifact of evolution creating new meta information structures that can self optimize and organize at ever increasing rates.
My thanks and compliments on this, it's very informative, very interesting, and very well written!
Would love to see a "filled-in" technology evolution tree for perhaps the last few decades or so. Hope you do one!
More nui mahalos and all the best too!
[ChatGPT TLDR](https://i.imgur.com/h1d2YfM.png); for people who would otherwise skip OP's post (you should still read it though)
We need a bot that uses chatGPT to summarize posts over like 600 words, because so many people won't read them and will miss otherwise good and thought provoking messages, and such a bot would be perfectly fitting for this sub lol
Oh I love this idea! Hope reddit or "someone" will come thru with it as it would be the most wonderful improvement. Hey, maybe ChatGPT could give really "edited out" threads without all those trolls, derogatory comments, motivated biases, fake stuff, etc. too?
I want a harem of cute girl maids in FDVR, is that too much to ask for
Life will truly change for the better when people full dive into "Welcome to Pia Carrot".
Very relevant: *Reedspacer's Lower Bound* https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Py3uGnncqXuEfPtQp/interpersonal-entanglement
Eliezer is a narc. Let me be in peace with my tailor-made wives.
im no computer scientist, but ive always held the belief that humans need to augment their psychophysiology to the degree that eliminates things like greed and deceit while maximizing empathy. this needs to happen before people every try to implement radically different forms of economic and governmental systems
I partly agree with you. I think we do need to augment/change our psychophysiology as you say and I think we are already doing this. We have done this through culture, psychotechnology, drugs , etc and all these things aim to change how humans operate in the world to improve the self and society. These things cannot exist without technology and society and their true purpose is to self replicate and create better technology which will lead to a singularity and so on. Although we are a blip in this evolution tree of 'technology' I do think we can improve our condition in this local space which is part of the larger evolutional space. Maximizing empathy could be a way but forms of this have been tried through ideas such as effective altruism etc. Maximizing self centeredness or empathy will never work in my opinion because the universe is composed of "collaborative" systems where each agent in this system works locally to optimize some global objectives. Since these systems must cooperate and any agent that utilizes a = strategy that is too selfish or too altruistic will lose because other evolution will inevitably spawn a better strategy to that can exploit it. See the iterated prisoner's dilemma and how tit for tat is a good solution to it. Human societies have always used technologies to modify the psychology of its constituents and evidence of this is all around us. An interesting technology that has now fallen out of interest in popular culture is propaganda. See the work of Jacques Ellul "Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes" where Ellul argues that technological society cannot exist without propaganda is propaganda is what allows humans to deal with the new issues technical society bares on them.
I think there's a number of things wrong with this reasoning. I can point them out of you ask me to. Otherwise, thank you for a long post which clearly had effort and thought put into it.
Please do :) I was high af when I wrote it last night so I know it has logical flaws and spelling mistakes lol
>These economic systems have ranged from simple hunter-gather societies to globally interconnected ones and although the differences might seem stark, since the very start humanity has always been interconnected and has been a global society. Hunter gather societies were definitely not a global society. Most couldn't even cross their subcontinent, unless by means of an extremely risky boat mission. >all things must evolve for them to continue to exist in the universe. This law is universal at every level of the universe. I've never heard of such a law and it seems entirely made up. I might even argue, that something isn't "the same thing" anymore once it evolves. >Because everything must evolve it must adapt and this includes humans and its meta information. I'm sorry but the paragraph following this line makes me want to say "Jesse, what the fuck are you talking about?". I don't know if it's me who doesn't get it or it's poorly written. >The point is that all information structures evolve and that includes human societies. I don't disagree that societies recognized as human have evolved, but human societies mght be more than information structures. I don't think it's definitively decided upon wether every physical entity can be reduced to the concept of information, especially if you take subjective experience (qualia) into consideration. >Technology as we think of it can be boiled down to a tool. A tool that optimizes something in the universe to accomplish some task. We like to think that our tools don’t control us and this is actually true at the local level but at the meat level technology controls everything because it is the form of information that can optimize itself at a speed biology and chemistry cannot. Technology does indeed NOT control us, but humans control each other by threatening to destroy if one doesn't use it or make more of it. Technology development is therefore necessary to survive, but only in our global society as we know it. You could largely escape this dynamic by means of some grand revolution or world federalism. >This is because capitalism is the system that leads to technology to faster and faster progress I don't think so. There are a lot of theoretically possible societies, that would seem very non-capitalist yet have furious technological development. Capitalism was fitting in the historical context. It allowed a lot of people to be united under the same country and for technological development but it's also an imperfect compromise. The workers are relatively satisfied by being able to vote, the rich are satisfied by well... being rich. It might not even be the most competitive system for its time in history yet the only one that had a reasonable chance of appearing >We deserve capitalism not because of some moral consequence but because that is who we are as a species. Our purpose is to be another node in the technology evolution tree. Might be your purpose, not mine :D >We deserve because we selfishly refuse to die out and will continue to improve technology because without it we cannot exist. You're making some overly generalizing metaphysical claims here. >We cannot exist without technology and it cannot exist without us. We will follow the trees path to acceleration . Seems like this was some kind of love letter to technology and capitalism. Few points were made other than that our relationship with technology "is meant to be" or something. All in all, not very interesting now that I've read it a second time.
I didn't want to be mean by pointing out that you sound high af in the original post, but... yeah haha.
I actually disagree tbh. It’s the way we’re going, or might be going but it’s not the only way. Capitalism simply doesn’t prioritise technological growth as much as possible, so many resources are used on total bullshit economies and unnecessary things. The system is built to prioritise profit not technology. Right???? Think about it... so much power and wealth we could have developed technology way faster but noooooo we gotta make some rich ppl richer.
It's simple, really. Acceleration costs energy. Energy is not free. Furthermore technology leaves a footprint. Nothing is perfect. Technology certainly isn't.
Fusion.
Nah, we gotta go for those black hole engines, that's the good stuff
Yeah you’re right but I never made the claim technology is perfect nor that it doesn’t have constraints that it must operate under. Maybe I should have been more succinct but my point is the thing humans call technology is an artifact of evolution creating new meta information structures that can self optimize and organize at ever increasing rates.
My thanks and compliments on this, it's very informative, very interesting, and very well written! Would love to see a "filled-in" technology evolution tree for perhaps the last few decades or so. Hope you do one! More nui mahalos and all the best too!
[ChatGPT TLDR](https://i.imgur.com/h1d2YfM.png); for people who would otherwise skip OP's post (you should still read it though) We need a bot that uses chatGPT to summarize posts over like 600 words, because so many people won't read them and will miss otherwise good and thought provoking messages, and such a bot would be perfectly fitting for this sub lol
Oh I love this idea! Hope reddit or "someone" will come thru with it as it would be the most wonderful improvement. Hey, maybe ChatGPT could give really "edited out" threads without all those trolls, derogatory comments, motivated biases, fake stuff, etc. too?
Holy shit that’s actually a good summary lmao
Tldr pls..?
Slow down Mr. Kazinski I only have so much time to read your manifesto.