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Peter Gerdes's avatar

I'd like to add that even if we don't actually implement something like this kind of futurarchy I think it presents a very compelling framework for eliciting what socialists actually want to achieve and exposing internal tensions within their views.

My sense is that most socialists do not really want individuals to have a large degree of influence over society. Rather, what's going on is a strong paternalist impulse plus the deep conviction that surely other people will agree with me about what's the best society once they see it so they'll feel a huge degree of control since what they want will obtain (if everyone wants the same outcome we can all get what we want). Disregarding the fact that the very things which make them feel they lack control (large corporations who set terms without consultation etc..) are the very things that might give those who are talented in business etc.. a sense of control and ability to have an impact. However, these issues are too easily glossed over in the usual conversations.

However, your suggestion of cashing out success in terms of a very operational metric is a great way to elicit more clarity and bring out internal tensions even if it's just a thought experiment. For instance, I hadn't thought about the tradeoff between ensuring that each person can have large effects on the overall system (your xor trees) and the ability of large majorities to target particular outcomes and ensure they attain before you phrased it in these terms. More generally, I think asking people to opine on specific measures of socialist goodness/quality is a great way to reveal internal tensions in their views. For instance, if they identify a metric that maximizes the influence an individual can have on society that makes it far easier to point out that one of most effective ways you can have an impact is to simply go out and use weapons to kill people so that metric might favor a gun totting anarchist society.

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Peter Gerdes's avatar

Maybe I didn't understand the proposal correctly but I guess I don't understand the big xor trees objection.

I mean sure, if you select a random individual and task them with simply producing *some* large change in society then sure that makes sense. But I presume that the idea is to demand they try and achieve a particular outcome and big xor trees would actually be antithetical to that right?

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