Not sure why I didn’t notice before, but I’ve just realized that my key ask re cultural drift, namely let’s try to save cherished parts of our culture from being discarded by successor civs, violates key modern taboos!
In evolutionary terms, both mutation and selection are critical for fitness gain. You complain about "drift" (excessive mutation) and seek to preserve an older culture. Why so little talk about the selection side of the process? What reason is there to believe that current selection methods are maladaptive? (Or that selection methods in previous eras were beneficially adaptive?) Wouldn't it be best to address this issue instead of trying to lock in a culture adapted for a previous era?
My guess is that if you look at the whole picture, culture you consider adaptive is surging worldwide. Example, you'd plausibly agree that taboos on cousin marriage were a positive cultural feature in Western Europe. I'll bet cousin marriage is falling if you look worldwide. Similarly, literacy and vaccination have surged worldwide:
In general, recent improvements in global outcomes (see link above) seem incongruous with your idea that some type of terrible cultural drift is happening. I would argue the opposite: On net, developing countries are acquiring characteristics of developed countries, a beneficial form of "drift".
According to many global priorities researchers, the best things to do to prevent nearterm civ collapse are to co-ordinate to avoid extinction risks from new tech, and to promote rapid tech progress in other areas so we can reduce risks and expand. These goals seem at odds with splitting the world into many insular units (one of your 4 ideas listed above). How do you think about these tradeoffs?
I see global coordination issues as less important than many other issues. And that was just one out of four options in conflict with global coordination.
O ye of little faith! It may not be as quick or painless as you like, but like tectonic drift there is a grinding inexorability to biological evolution that gives me comfort. It has always worked in the past, no approval or coordination needed.
The next few hundred years will be interesting for life on Earth. The forward-looking predictability horizon seems to be getting shorter over time. It feels like we're 20% of the way through a major transition to *something else*, but what that eventual destination is is anyone's guess.
I would say your 4 options all share a common unifying theme of what I would call Constructive Competition.
The truth is that we don’t really know what institutions, norms and culture will be best going forward, and which will be dead ends or disasters. The key is to get these competing systems to compete with each other in constructive (as opposed to destructive) ways. Some paths will lead to more flourishing than others. There needs to be ways to select and preserve and double down on what works while tossing out the myriads of failure.
A unified culture/institutional arrangement is death. We must have the ability to select improvements from deteriorations.
I don’t want my culture to persist in a rigidly unchanging form. I want it to improve, change seems inevitable. The question then is, which direction? And by what standard should we judge the change? A culture can always improve by its own standards. If there is an objective standard we should use, how do we discover it?
Robin, I wonder if that creepy way of talking about our culture is designed to move us to the right.
I'm of European descent, have lots of friends from different backgrounds, and we all share bits of things from our particular cultures. I don't get the sense that anyone is negatively affected when it feels like an equal exchange of ideas.
All of our cultures have elements of resistance, for example the Welsh.
Moving to the right, imo, is supporting those in the Epstein files, those who support the genocide in Gaza and those who are making tons of money at the expense of the rest of us through privatization, deregulation, the continuation of fossil fuel development and endless war.
We can't let this foolish chatter push us into becoming more right wing. There's nothing left wing about identity politics.
I am not of the right either, but this seems like a pretty warped way to define conservatives. It would be like defining the left as baby killers who want to promote crime and encourage homeless encampments and juvenile sexual mutilation.
In other words not good for either the conversation or for the clarity of mind to wrestle with issues.
You didn’t notice it before because you didn’t notice the taboo before. Neither did I.
But I think the whole of what you have been calling ‘cultural drift’ is downstream of that taboo. Also, more importantly the taboo implies that the proclaimed goals of progressive activism must either be understood ironically, or implausibly, must constitute taboo breaking by progressives, precisely the group from whom people most fear taboo enforcement.
>>> 3 top LLMs agree that is now taboo to explicitly work to make your culture persist
Why do you think they are correct? Taboo to the average American? European? People under 30?
Or are you saying to is taboo to make your specific cultural beliefs persist?
I ask because it doesn't seem, in general, like a taboo to me. In fact, seems like most people I know what their culture to persist
In evolutionary terms, both mutation and selection are critical for fitness gain. You complain about "drift" (excessive mutation) and seek to preserve an older culture. Why so little talk about the selection side of the process? What reason is there to believe that current selection methods are maladaptive? (Or that selection methods in previous eras were beneficially adaptive?) Wouldn't it be best to address this issue instead of trying to lock in a culture adapted for a previous era?
My guess is that if you look at the whole picture, culture you consider adaptive is surging worldwide. Example, you'd plausibly agree that taboos on cousin marriage were a positive cultural feature in Western Europe. I'll bet cousin marriage is falling if you look worldwide. Similarly, literacy and vaccination have surged worldwide:
https://ourworldindata.org/a-history-of-global-living-conditions
In general, recent improvements in global outcomes (see link above) seem incongruous with your idea that some type of terrible cultural drift is happening. I would argue the opposite: On net, developing countries are acquiring characteristics of developed countries, a beneficial form of "drift".
According to many global priorities researchers, the best things to do to prevent nearterm civ collapse are to co-ordinate to avoid extinction risks from new tech, and to promote rapid tech progress in other areas so we can reduce risks and expand. These goals seem at odds with splitting the world into many insular units (one of your 4 ideas listed above). How do you think about these tradeoffs?
I see global coordination issues as less important than many other issues. And that was just one out of four options in conflict with global coordination.
Robin, did you try Grok?
> I doubt DNA evolve/mods will help much.
O ye of little faith! It may not be as quick or painless as you like, but like tectonic drift there is a grinding inexorability to biological evolution that gives me comfort. It has always worked in the past, no approval or coordination needed.
The next few hundred years will be interesting for life on Earth. The forward-looking predictability horizon seems to be getting shorter over time. It feels like we're 20% of the way through a major transition to *something else*, but what that eventual destination is is anyone's guess.
I would say your 4 options all share a common unifying theme of what I would call Constructive Competition.
The truth is that we don’t really know what institutions, norms and culture will be best going forward, and which will be dead ends or disasters. The key is to get these competing systems to compete with each other in constructive (as opposed to destructive) ways. Some paths will lead to more flourishing than others. There needs to be ways to select and preserve and double down on what works while tossing out the myriads of failure.
A unified culture/institutional arrangement is death. We must have the ability to select improvements from deteriorations.
I don’t want my culture to persist in a rigidly unchanging form. I want it to improve, change seems inevitable. The question then is, which direction? And by what standard should we judge the change? A culture can always improve by its own standards. If there is an objective standard we should use, how do we discover it?
Presumably, changes that lead to cultural collapse are bad by any reasonable standard, unless only “bad” cultures are vulnerable.
We compare the culture to alternatives, not timeless standards as nothing is timeless.
Robin, I wonder if that creepy way of talking about our culture is designed to move us to the right.
I'm of European descent, have lots of friends from different backgrounds, and we all share bits of things from our particular cultures. I don't get the sense that anyone is negatively affected when it feels like an equal exchange of ideas.
All of our cultures have elements of resistance, for example the Welsh.
Moving to the right, imo, is supporting those in the Epstein files, those who support the genocide in Gaza and those who are making tons of money at the expense of the rest of us through privatization, deregulation, the continuation of fossil fuel development and endless war.
We can't let this foolish chatter push us into becoming more right wing. There's nothing left wing about identity politics.
I am not of the right either, but this seems like a pretty warped way to define conservatives. It would be like defining the left as baby killers who want to promote crime and encourage homeless encampments and juvenile sexual mutilation.
In other words not good for either the conversation or for the clarity of mind to wrestle with issues.
You realize that what you're describing, at least baby killers and homelessness, are the result of conservative policies, don't you?
How would you define or describe conservatism? I tend to see these things in economic terms and the results they produce.
You are still doing it. Bye!
You didn’t notice it before because you didn’t notice the taboo before. Neither did I.
But I think the whole of what you have been calling ‘cultural drift’ is downstream of that taboo. Also, more importantly the taboo implies that the proclaimed goals of progressive activism must either be understood ironically, or implausibly, must constitute taboo breaking by progressives, precisely the group from whom people most fear taboo enforcement.
Adaptive futurist. The word "capitalism" has no clear meaning; it's rather like the word "God."