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I wrote:
Humans … slowly gain competence over a lifetime, usually reaching peak productivity in our forties and fifties. … When people get idealistic, they tend to forget this. … They want to know how to most help the world in the next few years, not over their lifetime. … Young folks … should expect to prepare and learn while young, and then have their biggest influence in their peak years.
Alex Waller disagrees:
When I’m 50 I don’t really want the world to be the way it is now. I don’t want to bide my time and merely learn and network idly for another decade or two while someone else is responsible for enacting positive change in the world.
News flash: you are just one of seven billion, so you aren’t going to personally make much difference. The world will have nearly as many problems worth solving then as now, with or without your help.
Let’s say I was the CEO of a small corporation that developed medical devices. … A sustainable revenue stream requires projects with a variety of timelines. Similarly, I shouldn’t only invest my company’s resources in a project with a huge payout that will take 15 years.
The world already has a big portfolio of idealistic projects. If you want your life to be one of those projects, you should accept that it has a natural timescale. There’s a best time to invest, and a best time to reap returns.
Hanson elicits skepticism in the idea that social changes enacted now will positively impact the future, without justification.
I’m not skeptical of future impacts, just of their typically growing in impact faster than financial investments.
However, I’d counter-argue that his position is just as weak: name someone who is making better-than-inflation on their investments in the last 11 years?
The last few years have been quite unusual in finance. Feasible long term financial rates of return are higher than economic growth rates.
If I am to put off charity for 20 years to compound interest, why not put it off 40 years to compound even more? Why not put it off for 100 years?
Why not indeed? If you think that your personal monitoring adds much value, you might want to spend before you die, so you can personally monitor your charities. Else you might instruct your charity fund to grow until it seems that worthy causes are about to run out, or that investments no longer grow.
Hanson totally misguides when he suggests that Young Idealism is sexually motivated.
I said “signal one’s attractiveness to potential associates.” I didn’t mention sex.
Then what explains extra altruism in the old?
I said “people tend more to form associations when young.” This implies only that old folks have a weaker need to signal, not that they have no need to signal.
Young Idealist Reply
Ok, i'll try.
Social reputation is functionally about shared memory systems - "social memory". Memory is about familiarity. Familiarity is about the feeling of safety - the familiar is perceived to be safe. See http://www.psychologytoday.... Safety was highly valued by our ancestors.
Anonymity implies unfamiliarity. Unfamiliarity generates fear and uncertainty. These states of mind can be exploited politically. Hence anonymity has power and status consequences. For example, in wars, enemy personal are portayed anonymously and their absence of individual identity not only creates fear but provides the justification for exempting them from normal social standards. This is well known, but it applies generally. Any reference to collectives - Jews, blacks, Capitalists, workers, classes, genders, to name a few - is an attempt to exploit the "power" of anonymity. I include Affirmative Action in this.
Anonymity also entails a lack of accountability. This means the ability to avoid social pressures, taboos, regulations and laws - an obvious "competitive advantage" for any one or group who can acheive this.
Anonymity is also stress relieving. Secret ballot elections allow us to avoid a feeling of responsibility regarding political outcomes. We can distance ourselves from the social backlash of unfavorable outcomes by voting anonymously, but conveniently still criticize governments and politicians to our hearts content.
Anonymity is also about privacy. Privacy is about defining domains of human action in which social surveillance is deemed out-of-bounds. Surveillance is a costly activity, so privacy is about minimizing social costs. Surveillance is not only costly in resource terms, but also in social harmony terms, in the sense that pinpointing recalcitrant individuals and imposing draconian punishments on them can create general fear and uncertainty - just the opposite of what eliminating anonymity is supposed to result in, and also likely to result in a backlash.
Privacy is also a source - perhaps the only source - for individual rights. Out-of-bounds activity can create multiple precedents for demonstrating that previously illegal activity is in fact socially benign in its outcome. Not sure about prehistoric man in this respect, but a modern example is the Puritans and their extremely harsh treatment of adulterers. I'm interested in knowing why the treatment suffered by people like Alan Turing would not occur today. We have self-righteous explanations about our superior morality compared to that of previous generations. I'm more inclined to see things less romantically. Alan Turing's private life would be largely ignored today because we keep learning new examples of why "it doesn't always pay to survey". Social surveillance requirements are perhaps also reduced by the capacity of individuals for greater self-awareness. Writing enhances self-awareness. So does photography and audio/video tech. So do high-quality mirrors.
Humans do grow exponentially over time but won't we inevitably hit a level of diminishing returns? What do you think about this whole solar awakening theory. I saw this on reddit and it looks like a really interesting take on the whole 2012 thing. http://www.youtube.com/watc...