3 Levels of Culture Fixes

I see three levels at which we could try to fix cultural drift: specific cultural trends, cultural evolution process parameters, and meta mechanism/institutions.

First, we could try to (A) identify specific cultural trends over the last few centuries that seem plausibly maladaptive, and then try to advocate for their reversals. Second, we could try to (B) identify ways in which the cultural evolution process today has bad parameters and then try to advocate for changes that would improve those parameters. Third, we could try to (C) assign the whole problem to governance mechanisms that we find or make that seem competent enough to actually solve it. Poll popularity of these options: A 28%, B 20%, C 31%, none or not work solving 21%.

Of course all the higher level approaches must include the lower levels in some ways. The issue is whether those of us trying to solve this problem should try to directly attack those lower levels, by discussing them and coming to a consensus on them and then pushing for that consensus, or if we should discuss, agree on, and push for higher level choices, and then let the lower level outcomes fall where they may.

Re the highest level approach, I’ve previously talked about handing the problem over to futarchy, a governance mechanism that is plausibly far more competent that existing ones. This would require a big community to assign to futarchy a goal inconsistent with civ collapse, and treat that goal sacred so they are proud to sacrifice for it and ashamed to abandon it. Here are the top six goals found in two sets of polls:

Alas, as futarchy is only now, after 25 years, undergoing small trials, it is a big ask for this mechanism to be proven, widely adopted, and then applied to this key problem.

On the mid level approach, trying to fix parameters of the cultural evolution process, it is estimates of these parameters today, compared to centuries ago, that is our primary evidence that we might have a big problem. The 4 key params are: (A) selection pressures, (B) variety, (C) environment change rates, and (D) internal cultural change rates. That suggests 8 possible mid level fixes:

• (A1) Poverty Return - return to premodern rates of poverty, famine, disease.

• (A2) War Return - return to premodern rates of war death & destruction

• (A3) All Capitalism - let capitalism run all cultural choice, like marriage, kids, law, government

• (A4) Malthusian AI - AI or ems reach human level, strong competition drops wages to subsistence, free to evolve own cultures

• (B) Fragment World - world splits into dozens+ of diverse insular cultures, big cut rates of travel, talk, & other cultural contact, but keep other world trade

• (C) Slower Change - Low rates tech change & econ growth, from x2 in 20yrs to 200yr, probably leads to malthusian wages

• (D1) Shame Activism - cultural activists now seen as villains, all see existing culture as sacred, not to be changed

• (D2) Culture RETVRN - Return key cultural norms & values wholesale to those of then successful pre-1700 cultures

Re these options, the following table shows poll priorities for desire: how desirable is each solution, help: how much it would help the cultural drift problem, easy: how easy they would be to achieve, actual: how likely each is to actually happen, and a sum of these four priorities. All sorted by that the sum of these priorities, which gives the same ranking as sorting by their product, and also as by help priority.

The three lowest fixes are all the least desired, and have the same relative rankings of all but actual, with Malthusian AI the clear worst fix overall. This is somewhat surprising to me as I often get people saying why worry as AI will fix everything.

Respondents like Culture RETVRN and Shame Activism, except that they think them crazy hard to make happen. War Return is quite undesired, but is seen as pretty likely and easy to achieve. The top two fixes, All Capitalism and Fragment World are seen as quite desirable and feasible, so maybe we should focus our efforts there.

On the most specific approach, re cultural trends, I collected this list of 32 trends:

• Abolish Slavery - from accept to abolish slavery, serfdom

• Capstone Marriage - marriage from early when unsure, plastic to later when formed, secure

• Cosmopolitan - from suspicion to celebration of cities, travel, foreigners, foreign culture

• Cut Classism - Laws, norms from prefer to prevent class/family discrimination

• Cut Racism - Laws, norms from prefer to prevent race/ethnic discrimination

• Cut Sexism - Laws, norms from prefer to prevent gender discrimination

• Govt Protection - Less to more protection, insurance, regulation by government

• Honor to Happiness - common goals from honor, duty, glory to happiness, not suffering

• Intensive Parenting - parenting norms, laws from low to high attention, effort

• Less Enchantment - from world seems magical, enchanted to seems dead matter

• Less Religion - religion from community authority to tolerated private choice Less

• Respect Elderly - from more to less deference to and respect for elderly More

• Complex Law - from low to high levels of law rules, procedures, complexity

• More Democracy - Governance from monarchy to mass democracy

• More Fiction Music - expected, approved # week hrs on fiction, music from low to high

• More Innovator Status - from less to more prestige to inventors, innovators

• More Leisure - work from near max possible lifetime hrs to ~40hr/wk only in midlife

• More Medicine - from low to high actual, expected, required medical spending

• More Pacifist - militarism, patriotism, wars, from high to low status

• More Privacy - from low to high expected, enforced privacy levels

• More Promiscuous - norms, laws from suppress to tolerate divorce, affairs, pre-marital sex

• More School - from less to more status for and expected years of schooling

• More Variety - from low to high status, prevalence of variety of products, services

• More Work Meaning - work goals from survival, social role to meaning, realize potential

• Personal Marriage - marriage from arranged co-makers of home/kids to self-chosen romantic co-consumers

• Respect Nature - attitudes toward nature from fully use to preserve, protect

• Sex Tolerance - sex rules, preferences from community shared to tolerated private choice

• Tolerate Mental Problems - from low to higher tolerance of mental instability, problems

• Tradition to Reason - authority from rulers, religion, tradition to data, experiment, & reason

• Tweens Stop Working - Tweens from workers to banned from employment

• Weaker Kin - from strong to weak kin support & obligations re kids, housing, jobs

• Wider Info Sharing - freer speech, wider sharing of opinions, specialized knowledge

I then did polls asking re likely maladaptiveness, and ease of reversing, here sorted by the product of these two:

Many of these results surprise me. I had no idea people thought complex law and tolerance of mental problems were such big problems. Or that they’d think reversing mental issues, and too much school and democracy, were so doable. And after all my writings on too much medicine, few see that as maladaptive.