re: Pascal's Mugging. There are thresholds. Would a guy hand over his wallet if he was about to die from starvation, and the wallet contained his only means to prevent this? A quadrillion doesn't matter if he is not alive to see it.
The difference is that the best information we have, indicates that no available "officially sanctioned" structural change is better than radical change, if the goal is the survival of the human species. Inequality (capitalism) killed democracy, because wealth is power. WE cannot vote using a democracy we do not have to get democracy back. We cannot vote to prevent an oligarchic class continuing to promote consumption and the poisoning of our world. Strong cultural bias, plus power, is genocidally dangerous. What ought people who see the systemic, structural, existential threat do, if all legal avenues for change are shut off?
re: game theory choice. Yes. We are all in a situation where we must decide if one socio-economic paradigm is worth fighting for over another. Historically wars are fought by the poor, for, the rich. The dominant preserve their hierarchical privilege through various means of convincing the subjugated that it is they who are under threat.
This would not matter nearly so much if we did not have evidence that our species' projected timeline is shrinking. There is a large body of evidence that humanity may wipe ourselves out in several different ways before the end of this century. This circumstance is systemically unacceptable. If we could all continue indefinitely, being brutal and torturous, over consuming, wasting, propagandising the lessers, and toxifying this blue marble... that would be less bad, than doing so knowing the likely result is near term extinction.
We know there is an existential threat from inaction. This means inaction is morally deficient.
There are high odds that the economic incentives and stratification (including sub-cultural influences on values - Lord Acton's letters from 1880s: "Power corrupts" etc), will override the ability of the powerful to rationally guide humanity out of the trap we have built for ourselves.
The wealthy are now sociologically obsolete, and the ideologies they use to rationalise their positions, are also the ones which prevent conservation and environmental preservation, peace, egalitarianism, positive health outcomes, and rational planning for our collective future. Self interest often opposes any notion of global planning to shield against shared threats.
Sorry for the ramble. I'm doing my best, and hopefully learning to do better.
re: Pascal's Mugging. There are thresholds.
Why are there thresholds (=discontinuities) and where do they come from?
What ought people who see the systemic, structural, existential threat do, if all legal avenues for change are shut off?
So tell us.
Historically wars are fought by the poor, for, the rich.
Not true. Ancient times' wars were fought for survival. The side which lost decisively was often just erased. The males were killed, the women were taken and sold off, the settlements were razed. See Carthage, for example.
Medieval times' wars were f... (read more)
(Thread A for January 2017 is here, this was created as a duplicate but it's too late to fix it now.)
Hi, do you read the LessWrong website, but haven't commented yet (or not very much)? Are you a bit scared of the harsh community, or do you feel that questions which are new and interesting for you could be old and boring for the older members?
This is the place for the new members to become courageous and ask what they wanted to ask. Or just to say hi.
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A list of some posts that are pretty awesome
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