Melissa Samworth's Shortform

honeybee

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In rationalist words: The meta-crisis needs to address problems at the meta-level, so what what are the meta-problems? In normal people words: There are a lot of problems right now, but trying to solve each problem individually is likely not going to work, as many of the same underlying patterns probably cause a lot of these problems. So what are these underlying patterns?

Rationalists talk about many of them. Incentive structures first, and memetics second, are the two I have probably heard the most around here. Here are some others:

We create problems, often (at mass) not realizing they will be problematic, and then spend a ton of time and energy reversing them. For instance, waterway pollution was a huge thing in the mid-1900s United States, and once our culture caught up to the problem, we really did reverse a lot of it. Whatever incentive structures exist had enough give for that (note: many humans are incentivized to note like bad health). We created plastic and rushed it out, and now we're finally like "Oops yeah no, this is bad", and I believe with enough time, humanity would correct course here too. But by that point, all the other humans out there "innovating" or in some way changing the landscape of things so quickly, and pushing forward without really evaluating, will have created so many new problems. With technology the new problems are created so much faster than the old ones can be fixed. Obviously people will think of AI here and, yeah. But I'm looking at meta-issues, not object-level. So people who hate plastic, or whatever existing catastrophe that came from going too fast without thinking, might instead want to invest more energy in what might it take to slow down and get super, super careful, sooner, about whatever is currently in the pipeline. If the incentive structures can give rise to reversing pollution to the extent they have, I imagine they can give rise to this.
The spiritual crisis. Although thinking more, this is super linked to memetics and maybe just is a meme. But it's a specific kind of memetic that I think is really important to address. People are operating under culturally-conditioned ideas about what will make them happy. And those ideas are just, wrong. Well, most of them. More correct ideas will make these people happier, and other beings on the planet will also be better off, at large. I think most or at least a lot of these false ideas about happiness fall under either wanting more materially or wanting more status. I know people here (in my opinion sometimes too much) love studies, so let's just point to the scientific consensus that over a super middle-class income happiness barely increases. First, imagine a world where no one ever pursued more than a middle class income. I mean, I don't want to fill in the details of this thought experiment because I think the people here are smart enough to do that themselves but this would be awesome. But also note that I don't much data at all points to material-induced happiness. A middle class income can keep us safe from constant financial worry, from super mundane or meaningless jobs, or from only being able to afford housing in terribly not-suited-for-apes places. Now consider how much data points to nature creating happiness, meaningful connection — with humans, companion animals, wild animals, nature, God or "something greater" — creating happiness. So why are people buying so many things they don't need? Why does anyone live in a house with more bedrooms than there are people? Why do most people want to buy things shiny and new when the world already has an abundant surplus of that exact item, but already used a bit by someone else, and otherwise headed to landfill? Why do people choose fancy cars over bikes rides under vast blue skies? Maybe I'm biased towards this particular memetic failure because I live in the United States, but the shopping addiction is just so unchecked.

There are more but I want to go eat dinner so, yeah, just some food for thought (no pun intended). Thank you to the potentially maybe 1 person who reads this.

Oh and note: none of this was written or informed by AI.

One meta-problem is: "When a problem resists being solved, there usually is someone who benefits from the problem existing, and that someone successfully undermines the efforts to solve the problem."

But this is too wide, and it does not distinguish between someone who directly benefits from the specific problem X, and someone who benefits from problems existing in general. (Yeah, the latter exist. Some people perceive everything as a zero-sum game, and derive satisfaction from harming random targets.)

Another problem with people who play zero-sum games is that not only they want to be at the top of the ladder, but they also want to prevent others from leaving the ladder. What is the point of winning, if you are the only person on the playground? So they will happily burn down alternative ladders. For example, the person who has the most expensive car may want to see all bikes destroyed, because that makes their car even more important.

We create problems, often (at mass) not realizing they will be problematic, and then spend a ton of time and energy reversing them. For instance, waterway pollution was a huge thing in the mid-1900s United States, and once our culture caught up to the problem, we really did reverse a lot of it. Whatever incentive structures exist had enough give for that (note: many humans are incentivized to note like bad health). We created plastic and rushed it out, and now we're finally like "Oops yeah no, this is bad", and I believe with enough time, humanity would correct course here too. But by that point, all the other humans out there "innovating" or in some way changing the landscape of things so quickly, and pushing forward without really evaluating, will have created so many new problems. With technology the new problems are created so much faster than the old ones can be fixed. Obviously people will think of AI here and, yeah. But I'm looking at meta-issues, not object-level. So people who hate plastic, or whatever existing catastrophe that came from going too fast without thinking, might instead want to invest more energy in what might it take to slow down and get super, super careful, sooner, about whatever is currently in the pipeline. If the incentive structures can give rise to reversing pollution to the extent they have, I imagine they can give rise to this.
The spiritual crisis. Although thinking more, this is super linked to memetics and maybe just is a meme. But it's a specific kind of memetic that I think is really important to address. People are operating under culturally-conditioned ideas about what will make them happy. And those ideas are just, wrong. Well, most of them. More correct ideas will make these people happier, and other beings on the planet will also be better off, at large. I think most or at least a lot of these false ideas about happiness fall under either wanting more materially or wanting more status. I know people here (in my opinion sometimes too much) love studies, so let's just point to the scientific consensus that over a super middle-class income happiness barely increases. First, imagine a world where no one ever pursued more than a middle class income. I mean, I don't want to fill in the details of this thought experiment because I think the people here are smart enough to do that themselves but this would be awesome. But also note that I don't much data at all points to material-induced happiness. A middle class income can keep us safe from constant financial worry, from super mundane or meaningless jobs, or from only being able to afford housing in terribly not-suited-for-apes places. Now consider how much data points to nature creating happiness, meaningful connection — with humans, companion animals, wild animals, nature, God or "something greater" — creating happiness. So why are people buying so many things they don't need? Why does anyone live in a house with more bedrooms than there are people? Why do most people want to buy things shiny and new when the world already has an abundant surplus of that exact item, but already used a bit by someone else, and otherwise headed to landfill? Why do people choose fancy cars over bikes rides under vast blue skies? Maybe I'm biased towards this particular memetic failure because I live in the United States, but the shopping addiction is just so unchecked.

One meta-problem is: "When a problem resists being solved, there usually is someone who benefits from the problem existing, and that someone successfully undermines the efforts to solve the problem."

Melissa Samworth's Shortform

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