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.
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.