It’s really difficult to find effective organizations that don’t experience this kind of mission drift. For example I used to work for the ACLU and used to be proud of my affiliation, but I barely recognize the org anymore.
This is a real, and mostly unspoken, possibility.
Perhaps circa 2023 ACLU already is the nicest and most competent possible organization of its kind in the environment of 2023, within the confines of available technology and resources, with reasonable prospects of doing something vaguely similar to its mission, and not disintegrating meanwhile.
Perhaps circa 2023 United States already is the nicest possible human society of roughly 330 million, within the confines of available technology, resources, and geography, with reasonable prospects of keeping them all alive and not disintegrating meanwhile .
Perhaps circa 2023 China/India already is the nicest possible human society of roughly 1.4 billion, within the confines of available technology, resources, and geography, with reasonable prospects of keeping them all alive and not disintegrating meanwhile.
Is there a reason to believe this is likely? Outside of a strong optimization pressure for niceness (of which there is definitely some, but relative to other optimization pressures it’s relatively weak) I’d expect these organizations to be of roughly average possible niceness for their situation.
I mean, “This is the best of all possible X” is by definition a fairly conservative position. Anyone who’s a progressive must be because they believe there generally are margins for improvement.
This is a real, and mostly unspoken, possibility.
Perhaps circa 2023 ACLU already is the nicest and most competent possible organization of its kind in the environment of 2023, within the confines of available technology and resources, with reasonable prospects of doing something vaguely similar to its mission, and not disintegrating meanwhile.
Perhaps circa 2023 United States already is the nicest possible human society of roughly 330 million, within the confines of available technology, resources, and geography, with reasonable prospects of keeping them all alive and not disintegrating meanwhile .
Perhaps circa 2023 China/India already is the nicest possible human society of roughly 1.4 billion, within the confines of available technology, resources, and geography, with reasonable prospects of keeping them all alive and not disintegrating meanwhile.
Is there a reason to believe this is likely? Outside of a strong optimization pressure for niceness (of which there is definitely some, but relative to other optimization pressures it’s relatively weak) I’d expect these organizations to be of roughly average possible niceness for their situation.
I mean, “This is the best of all possible X” is by definition a fairly conservative position. Anyone who’s a progressive must be because they believe there generally are margins for improvement.