I used to agree with your understanding but I am now more skeptical. For example, here’s a story that says the opposite:
The poorer humans are, the more vulnerable each human is to the group consensus. People who disagreed with groups could in the past easily be assaulted by mobs, or harassed in a way that led them to literally starvation-level wealth. Nowadays, though, even victims of extreme ‘cancel culture’ don’t face such risks, because society is wealthy enough that you can do things like move to a new city to avoid mobs, or get charities to feed and clothe you even if you lose your job.
Also it’s much harder to design parasitic egregores now than it used to be, because our science is much better and so we know many more facts, which makes it harder for egregores to lie.
I’m not saying my story is true, but it does highlight that the load-bearing question is actually something like “how does the offense-defense balance against parasitic egregores scale with wealth?” Why don’t we live in a world where wealth can buy a society defenses against such egregores?
Or maybe we do live in such a world, and we are just failing to buy those defenses. That seems like a really dumb situation to be in, but I think my post is broadly describing how it might arise.
Why don’t we live in a world where wealth can buy a society defenses against such egregores?
I would point to the non-experts can’t distinguish true from fake experts problem. That does seem to be a central phenomenon which most parasitic egregores exploit. More generally, as wealth becomes more abundant (and therefore lots of constraints become more slack), inability to get grounded feedback becomes a more taut constraint.
That said… do you remember any particular evidence or argument which led you toward the story at top of thread (as opposed to away from your previous understanding)?
I used to agree with your understanding but I am now more skeptical. For example, here’s a story that says the opposite:
I’m not saying my story is true, but it does highlight that the load-bearing question is actually something like “how does the offense-defense balance against parasitic egregores scale with wealth?” Why don’t we live in a world where wealth can buy a society defenses against such egregores?
Or maybe we do live in such a world, and we are just failing to buy those defenses. That seems like a really dumb situation to be in, but I think my post is broadly describing how it might arise.
I would point to the non-experts can’t distinguish true from fake experts problem. That does seem to be a central phenomenon which most parasitic egregores exploit. More generally, as wealth becomes more abundant (and therefore lots of constraints become more slack), inability to get grounded feedback becomes a more taut constraint.
That said… do you remember any particular evidence or argument which led you toward the story at top of thread (as opposed to away from your previous understanding)?