This might escalate to the government trying to arrest him, and outright conflict, but honestly if Superman isn’t skillful enough to defuse that kind of thing, given his influence, then he doesn’t have much business imposing political changes on the world anyway.
This seems like a weird set of claims to me.
First of all, yes, it seems very likely to escalate to conflict? Many nations would consider Superman’s property damage to their factories to be an act of war by a foreign power, and that he’s doing it in ways that technically circumvent existing laws is not going to make much of a difference. (That seems more annoying actually.)
He could try to negotiate for big, universal, changes to the food supply chain via diplomatic channels, backed by offers to trade various things he can provide, which generally seems like a better way to go about it. But if push comes to shove, I think he should back up his demands with effectively military intervention, if that could work. (Actually, my guess is that if he’s resorting to violence, he should mainly be relying on targeted assassinations.)
Also, the factory farming is not the only evil that our hypothetical superman should end. I think he should probably initiate regime changes in various authoritarian or dictatorial countries (eg North Korea, Eritrea, Afghanistan), or otherwise enable residents to leave the territory of those regimes. Again, he should attempt to negotiate for that diplomatically, first, but this is very clearly against the core interests of those regimes, and it seems very likely that he’s going to end up going to war with them.
Are you saying that if the diplomatic negotiations deteriorate to the point of military action, that means that our hypothetical superman has failed, and he would be better off retiring? Don’t existing legitimate countries go to war for far less noble reasons all the time?
I do think that having a superman around is extremely scary, and among other things, he should make the standards that he’s enforcing extremely clear and legible. He should make a point to never be capricious. He should write clear manifestos declaring the moral principles that he’s upholding and the logic behind them. And if his principles change for some reason, he should telegraph that very clearly. He should telegraph his actions with a lot of lead time, so that he’s a predictable agent to make plans around.
But ultimately he should declare:
Factory farms and oppressive regimes that people are not allowed to leave should not be allowed to exist. I am open to negotiations regarding the safest and stablest and overal best path toward ending those institutions. But that they are ending is not open to negotiation. After an offramp plan has been agreed to, or if the international community cannot reach a consensus on an offramp plan, I will oppose anyone maintaining these institutions, with superpowered military force.
If you don’t like that, tough noogies for you. Your national sovereignty is not more sacred than the sentient rights on which your actions are infringing.”
This is basically how I would want a hegemonic morally-motivated nation-state to behave.
What standard do you want to hold our superman / morally-motivated nation state to?
Are you saying that if the diplomatic negotiations deteriorate to the point of military action, that means that our hypothetical superman has failed, and he would be better off retiring? Don’t existing legitimate countries go to war for far less noble reasons all the time?
I indended this to refer to scenarios where the US itself (or other leading western powers) were taking military action against Superman. I care much less about whether he destabilizes North Korea or Eritrea or even countries similar to those but better-governed. But I care a lot about whether he destabilizes the countries I consider the best and most important ones.
Many nations would consider Superman’s property damage to their factories to be an act of war by a foreign power
Maybe. Or maybe they really wouldn’t want to pick a fight with Superman. Or maybe they would issue an angry press release then not do anything. In a setting where Superman holds basically all the cards in terms of physical force, most nations would try quite hard to defuse tensions with him (unless, as I discussed, he’s very unskilled).
I’m still not sure what standard you’re holding our hypothetical superman too. You just don’t want him to destabilize the countries that you consider most important?
If he overthrows the Communist Party of China, is he violating your standards?
If he forcibly institutes electoral reforms to make the US government more functional, is that violating your standards? Is the “forcibly” there a problem, and if it comes to using military force to push for electoral reform, he should hold off?
I claim that there are some people such that, if they were dictators of China, that would be much worse than the current situation. And there are some people such that, if they were dictators of China, that would be much better than the current situation. Which category a given person falls into depends a lot on their honesty, integrity, wisdom, ability to understand political dynamics, ability to resist manipulation, etc.
There are no particular limits I’d want to place on a sufficiently virtuous Superman. E.g. I want Superman to follow a policy that leads him to overthrow the government of China iff he is in the latter category. The big question is how Superman can gain justified confidence that he’s in the latter category, given that unvirtuous people are prone to a lot of self-deception. One way he can do it is by setting limits on his own behavior so that he can gain more evidence about what kind of person he is. E.g. maybe he thinks he’s really wise about politics—wise enough that him having control over US electoral policy is a good idea. If so, he should try to test that wisdom by implementing political change without using violence. If he starts telling you that he doesn’t need to pass such tests, because he’s already so confident that his plan is a good idea, then you should start getting worried.
In other words, when I think about a question like “should Superman forcibly institutes electoral reforms to make the US government more functional”, I expect that there are some ways to do this that are really good, and some ways to do this that are really bad. And the kinds of people who are capable of doing it in a really good way (given that they’re Superman) are also generally the kinds of people who wouldn’t need to use much force to make it happen (given that they’re Superman).
(Modulo, I have more uncertainty about how much force the wisest path entails when, one has hegemonic power. Certainly using military force to get your way has major costs, and so, taking those costs into account, I would expect the wiser courses of actions to be more peaceful, generally.)
Should I then summarize your criticism of ratfic protagonists as something like:
Trying to radically reform the world isn’t bad. The world does need reforming in many respects. But whether you are doing will do a good job at such a high stakes task depends on your personal virtue.
We can get evidence about how virtuous a person is by seeing how wisely and skillfully they comport themselves in lower-stakes situations where they don’t have all the power. Wise and virtuous people can generally make meaningful progress on their goals without needing ultimate power over everything, and without remaking the whole world in one shot.
Therefore, if a given person’s plan is to attain ultimate power, and only then use it to remake the world (instead of a more incremental process that doesn’t depend on centralizing power in their own hands) that’s a big red flag that even if they did end up with ultimate power, they wouldn’t be skilled or virtuous enough to use it well—they will likely make things much worse.
In general, ratfic protagonists tend to think that they already have all the virtue that they need to wield ultimate power, because they can see the inadequate equilibria in the world and can identify the better equilibria which could exist if only they had the power to make them so. They act as if most of the problem of wielding power is correctly identifying what to aim for, rather than procedural and personal questions of how to wield power well (so that you end up accomplishing your noble aims at all, and avoid causing a lot of harm along the way).
The more a person thinks that the thing that they need to make everything good is “more power”, the more concerned we should be that they are undercounting the importance of virtue and wisdom, and the more worried we should be if they actually ended up with ultimate power.
I’m also reminded of something that Val used to say: “power felt is power wasted”. Deploying a lot of force to make things go your way is very inefficient.
If you’re skilled, you should be able to get what you’re aiming for while deploying very little actual force (“speak softly and carry a big stick” for instance, but also using soft power and good leadership more generally). Someone with a little power and a lot of skill can often do as much (and with less collateral damage) as someone with a lot of power trying to muscle through.
Power is definitely useful, but the more you think that the thing you need to accomplish your aims, the more that indicates that you don’t have skill with using power efficiently.
I broadly agree with this comment too, though not as much as I agree with the other one.
Power felt can also be a kind of honesty—e.g. if a law is backed by force, then it’s often better for this to be unambiguous, so that people can track the actual landscape of power.
(Of course, being unambiguous about how much force backs up your laws can also be a kind of power move. I expect that there are ways to get the benefits of honesty without making it a power move, but I don’t have enough experience with this to be confident.)
In other words, I expect that the kind of inefficiency Val is talking about here is actually sometimes load-bearing for accountability.
This seems like a weird set of claims to me.
First of all, yes, it seems very likely to escalate to conflict? Many nations would consider Superman’s property damage to their factories to be an act of war by a foreign power, and that he’s doing it in ways that technically circumvent existing laws is not going to make much of a difference. (That seems more annoying actually.)
He could try to negotiate for big, universal, changes to the food supply chain via diplomatic channels, backed by offers to trade various things he can provide, which generally seems like a better way to go about it. But if push comes to shove, I think he should back up his demands with effectively military intervention, if that could work. (Actually, my guess is that if he’s resorting to violence, he should mainly be relying on targeted assassinations.)
Also, the factory farming is not the only evil that our hypothetical superman should end. I think he should probably initiate regime changes in various authoritarian or dictatorial countries (eg North Korea, Eritrea, Afghanistan), or otherwise enable residents to leave the territory of those regimes. Again, he should attempt to negotiate for that diplomatically, first, but this is very clearly against the core interests of those regimes, and it seems very likely that he’s going to end up going to war with them.
Are you saying that if the diplomatic negotiations deteriorate to the point of military action, that means that our hypothetical superman has failed, and he would be better off retiring? Don’t existing legitimate countries go to war for far less noble reasons all the time?
I do think that having a superman around is extremely scary, and among other things, he should make the standards that he’s enforcing extremely clear and legible. He should make a point to never be capricious. He should write clear manifestos declaring the moral principles that he’s upholding and the logic behind them. And if his principles change for some reason, he should telegraph that very clearly. He should telegraph his actions with a lot of lead time, so that he’s a predictable agent to make plans around.
But ultimately he should declare:
This is basically how I would want a hegemonic morally-motivated nation-state to behave.
What standard do you want to hold our superman / morally-motivated nation state to?
I indended this to refer to scenarios where the US itself (or other leading western powers) were taking military action against Superman. I care much less about whether he destabilizes North Korea or Eritrea or even countries similar to those but better-governed. But I care a lot about whether he destabilizes the countries I consider the best and most important ones.
Maybe. Or maybe they really wouldn’t want to pick a fight with Superman. Or maybe they would issue an angry press release then not do anything. In a setting where Superman holds basically all the cards in terms of physical force, most nations would try quite hard to defuse tensions with him (unless, as I discussed, he’s very unskilled).
I’m still not sure what standard you’re holding our hypothetical superman too. You just don’t want him to destabilize the countries that you consider most important?
If he overthrows the Communist Party of China, is he violating your standards?
If he forcibly institutes electoral reforms to make the US government more functional, is that violating your standards? Is the “forcibly” there a problem, and if it comes to using military force to push for electoral reform, he should hold off?
What’s the line that he shouldn’t cross?
I claim that there are some people such that, if they were dictators of China, that would be much worse than the current situation. And there are some people such that, if they were dictators of China, that would be much better than the current situation. Which category a given person falls into depends a lot on their honesty, integrity, wisdom, ability to understand political dynamics, ability to resist manipulation, etc.
There are no particular limits I’d want to place on a sufficiently virtuous Superman. E.g. I want Superman to follow a policy that leads him to overthrow the government of China iff he is in the latter category. The big question is how Superman can gain justified confidence that he’s in the latter category, given that unvirtuous people are prone to a lot of self-deception. One way he can do it is by setting limits on his own behavior so that he can gain more evidence about what kind of person he is. E.g. maybe he thinks he’s really wise about politics—wise enough that him having control over US electoral policy is a good idea. If so, he should try to test that wisdom by implementing political change without using violence. If he starts telling you that he doesn’t need to pass such tests, because he’s already so confident that his plan is a good idea, then you should start getting worried.
In other words, when I think about a question like “should Superman forcibly institutes electoral reforms to make the US government more functional”, I expect that there are some ways to do this that are really good, and some ways to do this that are really bad. And the kinds of people who are capable of doing it in a really good way (given that they’re Superman) are also generally the kinds of people who wouldn’t need to use much force to make it happen (given that they’re Superman).
Ok, I agree with all this!
(Modulo, I have more uncertainty about how much force the wisest path entails when, one has hegemonic power. Certainly using military force to get your way has major costs, and so, taking those costs into account, I would expect the wiser courses of actions to be more peaceful, generally.)
Should I then summarize your criticism of ratfic protagonists as something like:
Yes, great summary, I fully endorse it.
I’m also reminded of something that Val used to say: “power felt is power wasted”. Deploying a lot of force to make things go your way is very inefficient.
If you’re skilled, you should be able to get what you’re aiming for while deploying very little actual force (“speak softly and carry a big stick” for instance, but also using soft power and good leadership more generally). Someone with a little power and a lot of skill can often do as much (and with less collateral damage) as someone with a lot of power trying to muscle through.
Power is definitely useful, but the more you think that the thing you need to accomplish your aims, the more that indicates that you don’t have skill with using power efficiently.
I broadly agree with this comment too, though not as much as I agree with the other one.
Power felt can also be a kind of honesty—e.g. if a law is backed by force, then it’s often better for this to be unambiguous, so that people can track the actual landscape of power.
(Of course, being unambiguous about how much force backs up your laws can also be a kind of power move. I expect that there are ways to get the benefits of honesty without making it a power move, but I don’t have enough experience with this to be confident.)
In other words, I expect that the kind of inefficiency Val is talking about here is actually sometimes load-bearing for accountability.